Bev Editions 2016 Spring Catalogue

Bev Editions eBooks Catalogue

Great Women’s Fiction

Bev Editions publishes original e-books to introduce readers to talented authors of fiction and non-fiction. Some titles are new book-length works by published, award-winning writers. Some titles are old favorites, now out-of-print, and made available once more at all major e-retailers.

This is a challenging and exciting time in book publishing, and Bev Editions is an unabashed experiment to explore the new realm opened by e-books. Yet, there are two constants. Excellent writing is a pleasure. And, a literary culture depends on engaged readers.

For rights inquiries, please contact: Beverley@slopenagency.ca 416-964-9598

Mystery Series

Lara McClintoch Archaeological Mystery Series

Precious objects, exotic locales, and the charming sleuth Lara McClintoch make this series much loved by mystery fans. First published internationally beginning in 1997, the prose of the late Lyn Hamilton remains fresh, urgents and evocative.

Lara is a suspect when Mexico’s Mayan treasures are plundered and a murder is discovered. In this potent mix of danger and romance, Lara must unmask the killer.

Antiques dealer Lara McClintoch is duped by a client on the island of Malta who embroils her in a political assassination plot.

When a box of junk at Lara’s antiques shop attracts burglary, arson and murder, she follows its trail to the mountains of Peru.

“A smooth blend of history and murder.”

Publishers Weekly.

Penguin 1997

Penguin 1998

Penguin 1999

Steeped in Celtic and Irish lore, this will please puzzle enthusiasts. Adapted for a Murder She Wrote TV movie in 2003 starring Angela Lansbury.

A tour of ancient ruins in Carthage and Tunisia turns deadly when tourists begin dying and leads Lara on a harrowing race across the desert. “…a really good story, “Globe & Mail

Penguin 2000

Penguin 2001

Lara is engaged by a billionaire to secretly acquire an Etruscan sculpture but the owner turns up dead.

“Erudite and entertaining …as magical as the elusive chimera.” NYTBR Penguin 2002

Lara’s friend, a Bangkok antiques dealer, disappears and Lara follows a trail littered with corruption and danger to find him.

An exciting blend of history and the atmosphere of the Orient.

College roomates, a former lover, a 25,000 year-old statue found in Hungary, and danger are elements in this beguiling puzzle with its whiff of forbidden romance.

Lara and her friend Moira visit Easter Island and the famous Moai heads, where members of a strange group of scholars are being murdered.

Lara races the clock to stop the killing.

Penguin 2003

Penguin 2004

Penguin 2005

Lara is upset when a cabinet she thought was genuine is deemed a fake. When it sells for $1million, the dealer is murdered and the money is stolen. The trail leads her to Scotland’s Orkney Islands, once ruled by Vikings.

An antique silver box containing a formula for immortality is stolen from a Beijing auction house. Lara treads dangerous back alleys to find it, risking her life and lives of others.

Penguin 2006

Penguin 2007 Beverley Slopen Literary Agency

Mystery Series

Marc Edwards Historical Mystery Series

The 1830s in Canada are the years of unrest known as The Rebellions. Upper Canada and Lower Canada (modern-day Ontario and Quebec) are at odds, and the country is divided. Marc Edwards, Lieutenant-turned-Barrister, and his former police colleague, Constable Horatio Cobb, band together to solve crimes in Toronto.

Set against the backdrop of rising political tensions between Upper and Lower Canada, the fledgling country tries to secure its independence from British control, establish Canadian parliament, and install a responsible government.

Lurid gossip trails Dick Dougherty in his flight from New York to Toronto in 1838. But calumny mixes with politics, and a fiery sermon by Bishop John Strachan incites his murder. Dick is found dead with a note on his back bearing one word “Sodomite.” Marc Edwards, Dick’s dear friend, travels to New York to investigate. Even he is shocked by the depravity he uncovers.

In Toronto’s rough days of 1839, several elite citizens harbor dark secrets, offering rich compost for a sleazy blackmailer. Caught in the muck is the gallant young Brodie Langford who is desperate to protect his sweetheart from disgrace.

When Brodie is arrested for the extortionist’s murder, Marc Edwards, now a barrister, struggles to save him from the gallows and to reunite the couple.

A locked mansion mystery set near Toronto in 1839 where the fate of Canada depends on finding the killer. Marc and Robert Baldwin, working for responsible government, are secretly meeting with with Quebec leaders. But a murder interferes and all are suspects. Marc and Cobb have three days to solve it before political enemies of democracy learn their plans and sink their progress.

In Toronto 1839, an abortion goes tragically wrong, killing a 15-year-old maid in the household of the distinguished Baldwin family, enveloping them in a scandal that has political implications for the union of two British colonies, Ontario and Quebec. Accused of raping a minor and causing her death is a beloved Baldwin uncle. Marc Edwards has the challenge of his career in finding the truth.

Someone is killing women in 1841 Toronto. One victim is a singer in a bordello frequented by three prominent men.

Another is a man dressed as a woman.

The only evidence are a glove and a set of footprints in the snow. Cobb is on the case. Meanwhile, his former comrade Marc Edwards is in Kingston trying to forge an alliance between Upper and Lower Canada for the opening of Parliament. The goal: greater democratic forms. The murder of a workman threatens to destabilize the alliance.

The political elite attends a charity ball at the residence of the wealthy Humphrey Cardiff. His widowed daughter, Delores Cardiff-Jones, flirts with all the men, enraging their wives. Amidst the political plotting of Marc Edwards and his associates, Delores is found impaled on an iron fence, with one of her suitors standing over the body. Marc controversially decides to defend him, while Cobb races to find the truth behind the beautiful young woman’s untimely death

Beverley Slopen Literary Agency

Women’s Fiction

Blanche Howard

Blanche Howard

The Ice Maiden

Dreaming in a Digital World

When celebrated novelist Connie Brewster, her handsome husband and her two grown, charming children are caught in a hail of bullets just after she wins the Booker Prize, the impact causes ripples beyond physical injuries. This is a witty, sly tale of fractures in a marriage, the death of illusion, and reversal of values told by a master.

Blanche Howard Penelope’s Way

Penelope, age 70, searches for the meaning of life in the accreted layers of love, lust, guilt, family, pot luck suppers, and time and chaos theory. Her efforts may be destined to fail, but the journey is joyous. “This book is a great read: a compact narrative and a wide-ranging story… it ended far too soon,” wrote the Globe and Mail.

Gen Varley, a PhD in computer science has big ambitions for work and love. Virginal in the ways of office politics and the human heart, Gen must contend with her boss’s deceit, her seemingly boring boyfriend’s secret life, and an affair with a married co-worker that reduces her to subtle stalker. Allies include a mentor who turns fairy godmother with surprising consequences. A delightful romp from the writer of Penelope’s Way and The Celibate Season (with Carol Shields).

Fiction

Morley Torgov

Morley Torgov

A Good Place to Come From

Stickler and Me

A warm and clever memoir of growing up motherless and raised by an irascible immigrant father in a small northern Canadian town. It is here that a young man, yearning for a larger life, develops the wit and comic sensibilities that he will use to become one of his country’s greatest humorists. It has been adapted into a TV mini-series and three stage plays by Israel Horvitz that toured American cities. It was awarded the prestigious Leacock Medal For Humor.

Ben Marshall, 13, faces a summer of unpalatable choices: He can shuffle between his newly divorced parents, too distracted to notice him; or he can visit his grandfather Ira, a cranky, small-town lawyer, who is a stickler for rules. When Ira’s wealthy client, Mrs. O’Hearn dies, instructing him in her will to “put down” her beloved dog, Ira rebels. With Ben as his accomplice, they go on the run with the dog and embark on an adventure that brings Ben closser to his grandfather and adulthood.

Morley Torgov

Morley Torgov

The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick

St. Farb’s Day

Winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour Adapted for an award winning feature film and a TV series.

Max Glick, a small-town teenager with doting grandparents and helicopter parents, dreams of a career as a concert pianist.

But his elders favor sensible professions like medicine, law or science. Help comes from his music teacher and a rabbi with ambitions to be a stand-up comic. A warm, funny and unforgettable portrait of a boy who is poised on the brink of adulthood and about to take the biggest risk of his life.

Farb hates Fridays. But this Friday is especially ominous, as he awaits the “Sinister Sisters” (his least favourite but most lucrative clients). A lawyer who guards his reputation and his backside, Farb is about to be plunged into an ethical sewer over a deal. On top of that, his ex-wife wants her property settlement finalized. Danger looms when Farb is a by-stander in an armed robbery. Farb, an ordinary, honest man is a secular saint for our times.

Women’s Fiction

Rangeley Wallace Things Are Going to Slide

In this compelling page-turner, heroine Marilee’s life quickly begins to spin out of control when her husband leaves her, her first love steals a promotion from under her nose, and her legal clinic must defend a teenager accused of killing her newborn. “Rangeley Wallace has beautifully rendered the texture of Southern life in this gripping tale of love, betrayal, and the strength of family,” says Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump.

Rangeley Wallace No Defense

Library Journal describes this romantic mystery as a “powerful first novel.” At her father’s behest, and over her husband’s objections, LuAnn moves her husband and children home to Alabama. There she inadvertently spurs the investigation that leads to her father’s indictment. Family secrets, a taut story line, and a surprising ending combine to create a riveting drama.

Fiction

William Rowe Clapp’s Rock

At 24, Neil Godwin, newly hatched from Oxford, is back home in Newfoundland and ready to govern. But Premier Percy Clapp, cunning, pernicious and charming who brought him into the political fold to destroy him puts him through his paces in corruption, cruelty and betrayal. But the dirtiest trick of all is stripping Neil of his idealism. Raw and bawdy, this cunning satire is a classic primer.

William Weibtraub Why Rock the Boat

Harry Barnes, a young reporter joins the Daily Witness where the managing editor, Philip Butcher fires journalists with aplomb while ignoring or hiding the real news. To amuse himself Harry writes hilarious stories about his boss, which inexplicably appear in the Witness. When he falls for Julia, a reporter who is hot for rebellion, Harry is tempted to rock the boat all the way. “Weintraub is a really first-rate farceur,” exclaimed the New York Times. An award winning feature film was produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

David Onley

Don Gutteridge

Shuttle

Lily’s Story

Edwards Air Force Base: the giant Hypersonic Jet Yorktown with the Shuttle Columbia clasped to her back, climbs to the sky. Their pioneering mission: to launch the Shuttle into space from the edge of the atmosphere. Neither craft will reach its destination. One will never return. With the shattered craft locked in fatal orbit, their crew running a desperate race against time, Mission Control mounts a last ditch effort that must not fail.

Lily’s Story tells the tale of a remarkable pioneer woman, born in the backwoods of Ontario in 1840. Lily’s struggle to survive and grow and discover her place in the scheme of things is complicated by the travail of frontier living, and the impact of historical events themselves, the railway rivalries, the grand tour of the Prince of Wales in 1860, the Underground Railroad, the Riel Rebellions, the Great War and the influenza pandemic that followed it.

Fiction

Jaron Summers

Jaron Summers

The Failed Life of a Mormon Missionary

The Adjal of Jimmy Temple

A young man’s hilarious quest for sex and God. In 1962, Jerry Wonder, a 19-year-old Mormon missionary, leaves South Dakota to save souls in New Zealand. But Elder Wonder is flawed. He is a compulsive masturbator, or in Mormon parlance, a “self-pollinator.” Elder Wonder’s path is fraught with challenge. He misses his girlfriend Susan who tried valiantly to seduce him before he left, but to his regret he remained strong for both of them. A comic novel about the many ways older men stifle and control young men.

Jimmy Temple is a private detective in Los Angeles. He is approached by Wanda Kincaid to solve the gruesome murder of her wealthy father Jack. In trying to solve the case, Jimmy enters a strange, macabre world. Wanda confides that the secret of Jack’s fortune reaches back to his family’s decaying funeral home. There, in a bedroom above the embalming room, Kincaid could supposedly tap into psychic powers and foresee the precise moments of other people’s deaths. Skeptical, Jimmy spends the night, only to catch a glimpse of his own adjal (the moment of his death). If his newfound psychic ability is reliable, Jimmy has only two days to avert his own death.

Martyn Burke

Martyn Burke

The Commissar’s Report

Ivory Joe

In this Cold War satire, Dimitri, a young Kremlin spy is secretly smitten by the sirens of capitalism. He is thrilled when he is assigned to work in the Soviet Consulate in New York City. But his talent for making money on Wall Street creates problems with the Kremlin, and his boyhood friend is now a CIA agent stalking him. Originally published by Houghton Mifflin, The Commissar’s Report is lauded as “a wonder of intense, cinematic storytelling” by the Wall Street Journal.

A rollicking love story of Leo and Tina Klein set in 1950s New York, Havana, and the deep south. Leo is a charming rogue with ties to the mob. Tina is a leftist activist and manager of “Ivory Joe” Coulter, a talented musician and former boxer. Ivory Joe weaves a deft plot involving the attempted theft of one of Joe’s songs, to give us a joyous tale of energy and soul. “A real pleasure” says Meg Wolitzer in The New York Times.

Non-Fiction: History

Lita-Rose Betcherman

Lita-Rose Betcherman

Buckinghan’s Man: Balthazar Gerbier

The Swastika and the Maple Leaf

Balthazar Gerbier, an artist and architect, connoisseur and curator, secret agent and diplomat, a friend of Rubens and counsellor to kings, his life offers a window into dazzling 17th century England and Europe. Gerbier is perhaps most well-known for assembling the famous art collection for the Duke of Buckingham at London’s York House. Lita-Rose Betcherman has written the definitive and long-awaited biography of Gerbier.

Fascism was not a mass movement in Canada in the 1930s, but it threatened the country’s health. In his review, Mordecai Richler wrote, “Dr. Betcherman has written a lively, readable history, the stronger for being detached and allowing the embarrassing facts to speak for themselves….It is strong , evocative stuff, a necessary reminder of how things were. I recommend it highly.”

Lita-Rose Betcherman

Lita-Rose Betcherman

Reds Under the Bed

The Riviera Set:

An engaging account of a formative period in Canada’s political history, just as important as Senator McCarthy’s Red Scare was in the US. This is an unbiased account of midnight arrests, imprisonment without trial, and forced deportation faced by those whose only crimes were unpopular political opinions. This story is an important lesson in human rights, regardless of ideology.

From Queen Victoria to Princess Grace

From Picasso to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winston Churchill to sex kitten Brigitte Bardot. The glorious strip of Mediterranean beach stretching from Marseilles to Monaco still attracts writers, artists, film stars, and scoundrels. Betcherman’s rich account of the leisure life of history’s most glamorous figures in this iconic place will delight tourists and armchair travelers alike.

Non-Fiction: History

Marian Fowler

Harold Troper

Below the Peacock Fan:

The Rescuer:

First Ladies of the Raj

When the British ruled India, four Victorian women find themselves in a disturbing land, experiencing extremes of decadence amid crushing poverty. Emily Eden, Charlotte Canning, Edith Lytton and Mary Curzon followed husbands or a brother who were appointed Viceroys. In this compelling slice of colonial history we see how India marked them with its heat, mutinies and lascivious secrets.

“Witty, pungent and boldly irreverant and totally absorbing, it is a book to be savoured. It is a gem.”

–The London Free Press

Dennis Smith General Miranda’s War

Before Simon Bolivar, there was Francisco de Miranda who plotted to free Spain’s colonies in South America. Roaming the world, he cajoled funds from the powerful, including Britain’s William Pitt and Russia’s Catherine the Great. But Miranda’s invasion of New Spain in 1806 was a painful fiasco.

He died a prisoner in a Spanish dungeon, leaving the way clear for Bolivar’s eventual triumph.

The Amazing True Story of How One Woman Helped Savethe Jews of Syria

The true story of how one ordinary woman, Judy Feld Carr, entered a world of international intrigue and breached the walls of Syria’s totalitarian regime to help Jews escape tyranny.

Historian Harold Troper gives gripping accounts of Syrian Jews who made a daring escape from a life of extortion, imprisonment, and torture under dictator Hafez al-Assad in the 1970s. A history that reads like a thriller offers insight into a region plagued with conflict and human rights abuses.

Non-Fiction: True Crime

Peter Rehak Undercover Agent

Undercover Agent tells the story of North America’s biggest drug bust at the time, netting $238 million worth of contraband. The man behind it was a small-town businessman who fooled the Miami drug barons looking for a way into Canada. Leonard Mitchell worked undercover for the RCMP for 19 months because “it was the right thing to do.” He was successful but it earned him a lifetime on the run from the mob. An exciting and true account of what one man endured to do the right thing.

Tod Hoffman The Spy Within

Written with a novelist’s panache, this is the true story of the Chinese spy who penetrated the CIA, and for 30 years revealed America’s intelligence secrets to his masters in Beijing. Larry Chin, the CIA’s top Chinese linguist, was China’s top spy.

“A successful cloak-and-dagger reenactment of the FBI sting that exposed a Chinese-American double agent in 1985, “ said Kirkus.

Fascinating Shorts

Edward Shorter

Edward Shorter

Sex, Rock & History

Sadomasochism and Ardent Love

Rock’n’roll mirrors society’s changing attitudes about sex.

The women who fainted at the concerts of Little Richard, Elvis Presley’s provocative (for their time) pelvic thrusts, Sid and Nancy Vicious embodying the self-destructive nihilism of punk-rock with their troubled relationship, and the influential Riot Grrrl movement that transformed sexual mores. Historian Edward Shorter explores the connection between sex and the musical genre that defined 20th century culture in this funny, illuminating short ebook.

From the Marquis de Sade to E.L James, the idea of sadomasochism has shocked and titilated readers for 200 years. Shorter, a professor at the University of Toronto, is the author of Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire, finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. In this short e-book, he focuses solely on fetish sadomasochism, a fetish once thought of as deranged, but is now achieving mainstream acceptance.

Hilary Scharper

Howard Engel

Dream Dresses

The Whole Megillah

Dream Dresses is a short story collection about women’s dreams and the dresses they choose to express them.

Covering the life span of women from childhood to old age, these stories explore how the fabric of women’s dreams and aspirations become so entangled with attire that the dress and the dream become one and the same. Hilary Scahrper is an anthropologist and acclaimed author of the novel Perdita.

In this novella, Benny Cooperman, the most endearing private eye in literature, is sprung from small-town Grantham and working in Toronto. A dealer in rare books asks him to investigate the theft of an ancient Jewish manuscript. While Benny is immersed in the strange world of antique book collectors, his client turns up dead and the robbery isn’t all it seems. It’s all in a day’s work for “the great Canadian detective,” star of 13 critically acclaimed and bestselling novels.

Fascinating Shorts

David Pratt

David Pratt

JFK, Oswald, Cuba and the Mafia

For the Thinking Executive: 916 Quotations from Nobel Laureates

Who shot President Kennedy? Did Oswald act alone or as one of a group? Was he, as he claimed, a “patsy”? What was the role of organized crime? How did Jack Ruby manage the split-second timing that allowed him to kill Oswald?

How to explain the many witnesses who died sudden and violent deaths in the aftermath of the tragedy? David Pratt read every relevant document and questions the Warren Commission’s conclusions. He has crafted this timeline for readers to decide for themselves.

David Pratt scoured books, articles and speeches by 826 Nobel prize winners for distilled wisdom from the world’s acknowledged geniuses. Here, he has winnowed 916 quotations from his collection of 7500, for business executives to use in their own presentations.They range from scientists to literary giants: Einstein, Curie, Hemingway, Kissinger, Martin Luther King and more.

David Pratt

Tony Aspler

This Contintent Called Love

The Five Minute Wine Book

500 quotations on love in all its forms from Nobel Laureates.

Combining love with wisdom, it will delight readers of all ages. Perfect for speeches at weddings and anniversaries. Send it to sweethearts, mothers, brides, and even to your favorite cynics.

Tony Aspler says he is a wine evangelist, not a critic. Here he celebrates the pleasures of the grape and shares nuggets of wisdom. He offers tips for bluffing the best wine snobs, describes flying wine-serving Angels in Las Vegas, and can even use wine to fish. He recounts wine peccadillos of the powerful and shares details on the history and production of wine. Enjoy, glass in hand!