LEAVING EDITH CAVELL
Leaving Edith Cavell—a coming-of-age story set in the high-stakes, high-heat world of elite pastry chefs—a welcome departure from the heart-wrenching social justice themes that have defined my earlier work!
From a dish pit in the Canadian Rockies to the Culinary Olympics in Lyon, and finally to a storage locker in Quebec, Leaving Edith Cavell follows Rafael St. Ange and Mariana Renard—two young talents whose love for pastry is rivalled only by their complicated love for each other. Trained in the brutal kitchens of a luxury mountain hotel, they rise through the ranks of haute cuisine, pushing the limits of creativity, endurance, and personal sacrifice.
But in a world where a recipe can be perfected and plated, love remains unruly, untameable. Rafael learns too late that the pursuit of a Michelin star demands everything—and offers little when it becomes the only goal.
Told in elegant, propulsive prose, this novel explores the intoxicating mix of rivalry and romance, artistry and ambition, and asks: What are we willing to lose in the name of excellence? And is love ever safe for those who fear failure?
It’s rarely the taste we remember, but the company we kept—or the moment it sealed into memory. I will never again eat mashed potatoes as it was the main ingredient of my diet during my sixteen-month stem cell transplant “incarceration” whereas the taste of cornstarch pudding brings me straight to my grandmother’s side. Food—even that which is conceived and crafted over months or years—disappears in minutes, while love, in all its fragility, carries the ache and grace of the eternal.
Leaving Edith Cavell will appeal to readers drawn to the quiet vulnerability of The Bear, the cruel ambition of Whiplash, and the emotional stakes of David Chariandy’s Brother or Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals. Like my previous work, it is grounded in emotional authenticity, textured relationships, and a deep sense of place.
If there’s one thread I’ve carried through all my books, it’s the enduring value of human connection.