Locksmith

A Felix Taylor Adventure #1

by Nicholas Maes

Susan Ouriou's first novel explores a season in the life of three women, two sisters - on an artist, the other a codemaker - and their mother. The women have made their separate ways from Montreal to Mexico, the land of their father and husband gone missing ten years ago. Their reunion is a grudging one and their love often aching, uncertain, and flawed.

The women's family resembles that of the damselfish, a family of dear enemies where each member jealously guards its own patch of coral reef yet unites with the others to stave off incursions from the outside. A valiant, yet too often futile effort, since, like the damselfish, these women are without defences or camouflage.

Genres: Young Adult

240 pages, ebook

First published July 21, 2008

About the author

When younger, I thought I was going to be 1) an archeologist 2) a zookeeper, 3) an alchemist and 4) a time traveller. I wound up delivering on all these ambitions (sort of). While I never dug up any ancient cities, I did study Greek and Latin. And while alchemy has always eluded me, I did become a high-school teacher, a job that involves daily transformations. No zoo ever wanted to hire me, but I have three children and a wife: to judge by the noise level in our house, you would swear I lived in a zoo at times (one without cages of course). Finally, I haven't yet managed the trick of time travel but at least I get to write about it.

My idea of a life well spent (excluding work and being useful): hiking with my family; long conversations over endless cups of coffee (some table pounding is permitted); an endless countr.y road and a bike; books and a comfortable armchair; and writing, writing, writing.

And there you have it, Me in a nutshell