“Stories of desire, chance, promise, brought from the down below. Against the rules of heaven, what hope is there?”

Ted tells stories. High on a cloud above Mount Washington, he peers down at the earth, listening to the memories of the mortal folk he watches. Lola, once a famous Hollywood bombshell, now a god, listens to his stories. Ted’s words capture her heart, just as she captured the hearts of her fans.

Down on Earth, three families experience joy, tragedy, hope, and loss. Milton and Theresa are activists, conservationists, parents, lovers, fighters. Johnnie Cochan is a self-styled ecological leader, haunted by sadness and fear. And Carney is a disaster recovery specialist who can quench an oil-platform fire but finds love hard to hold onto. Through their attractions and battles, their futures become bound, as Cochan’s vision for a new utopia, a massive construction project, threatens to rupture everything.

Whatever Lola Wants is story about stories—those we tell others, and those that fill us up. It is also about the stories we tell ourselves and the ways they make us who we are—admired artists, despised monsters, adored immortals.

A National Magazine Award recipient and winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for fiction, George Szanto is the author of several books of essays and half a dozen novels, including The Tartarus House on Crab. His recent memoir, Bog Tender: Coming Home to Nature and Memory, is a study of the relationship between writing and nature. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, George is also co-author of the Island Investigations International mystery series, which includes Never Sleep with a Suspect on Gabriola Island, Always Kiss the Corpse on Whidbey Island, and Never Hug a Mugger on Quadra Island. Please visit georgeszanto.com.

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"Szanto has created a fictional world of remarkable scope and depth, exploring family, science, poetry and the nature of storytelling itself. He casts a wide net, but his joy in the undertaking is palpable and infectious, making an epic journey feel like light lifting." —The Coastal Spectator

"Whatever Lola Wants is an unusual literary combination of family saga, futuristic fiction [and] mystery… and it typifies [Szanto's] talent for rendering characters we all recognize in real life... Like all good fiction writers, Szanto provides us with answers to real-life dilemmas by casting characters who are faced with traumatic incidents, haunting memories, and crippling loss." —Gabriola Sounder