Book Reviews

The Masthead News publishes reviews of books by local authors. If you have had a book published within the past couple of years, please email us at info@themastheadnews.ca if you would like us to review the book. A review copy must be supplied by the author or publisher.

Reviewed: 2 September 2025

The Golden Daughter
My Mother’s Secret Past as a Ukrainian Slave Worker in Nazi Germany

By: Halina St. James

The Golden Daughter is a rare, exhaustively researched book that took shape after author Halina St. James found a stash of 55 letters following her mother’s death. The correspondence, in Russian, revealed how her Ukrainian mother had been abducted by...

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Reviewed: 4 August 2025

LaHave Bakery
The Building, the Baker, and the Recipes that Revitalized a Community

By: Jane Morrigan and Susan Ivany

Anyone who knows LaHave knows its bakery. In fact, as this book notes, the bakery is often what brings people to LaHave.Most of the book is a detailed and fascinating oral history, with narrative from nine community members, including bakery...

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Reviewed:

Overextended Jurisdictions and Other Stories

By: P.A. Köller

Reading this collection of nine short essays, I came to two conclusions: first, that author P.A. Köller has led an interesting life, and second, that he has an interesting mind. His writing style is direct and engaging. It’s also elegant...

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Reviewed:

The Sugar Bowl Feud

By: Gina N. Brown

When their mother dies, the four adult children in The Sugar Bowl Feud must make decisions about who gets what. It shouldn’t be difficult—their mother, Babs, who lived in small-town Nova Scotia, didn’t have a large estate. Except…she told one...

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Reviewed: 7 April 2025

Break Through

By: Amanda Gurman and others

This book includes essays and reflections by 16 midlife women who write about finding confidence by opening themselves to taking a new path—despite the fear of change we can all experience—and learning to trust themselves. In fact, many of the...

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Reviewed: 1 April 2025

50: A Woman’s Guide to Living with Intent

By: Catherine Wall

Author Catherine Wall describes how, when she was 46, she planned to be in the best physical shape of her life by the time she was 50—and by the time she was 49, she realized she better get started on...

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Reviewed: 4 February 2025

Black Ice
The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes 1895-1925

By: George and Darril Fosty

For 30 years, there was a hockey league for Black players in the Canadian Maritimes that offered a level of speed and skill not found in other hockey leagues of the day, and which would inspire widespread changes in how...

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Reviewed: 3 February 2025

For the Love of My Sister
Paula Gallant’s Legacy

By: Lynn Gallant Blackburn

For the Love of My Sister: Paula Gallant’s Legacy, is a memoir of love, family, loss, tragedy, determination, endurance—and more love. It is the story of Paula Anne Gallant that has been waiting to be told for nearly 20 years....

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