- After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn, Tor Hardcover, 304 pages, $29.99
- Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay, McClelland Stewart, 304 pages, $29.99
AGAINST an evil that threatens to destroy the city, a single woman stand up to meet the enemy head on.
She is no superhero but her parents are and so she has plenty of knowledge about crime fighting.
Celia West is the normal offspring of two not so normal parents. Being the daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark has meant a lifetime of kidnappings as criminals try to get to the superheroes through her. But it is the accountant's determined research that leads her on the path to take on criminal masterminds who are bent on razing Commerce City.
Carrie Vaughn has taken a unique premise and spun it into an entertaining tale that brings the problems of real life and puts them on a collision course with the dual personality of the superhero.
. . .
THE deaths of two young girls connect an exploration of family history that largely revolves around a flamboyant aunt.
Connie Flood rebelled against her parents and found herself teaching grade school in a small prairie town in 1930. In that Saskatchewan schoolhouse she will come into contact with two men whose shadows will extend into her future.
Hay overlaps the story of three generations of women with jumps back and forth through the years. The struggles of a student to learn and the help that he receives from the young teacher is mirrored by the narrator's own challenges to find out more about those years and her aunt's later adventures.
An intricate story develops as we learn more about the conflicts within the family, while passion and guilt threaten to break apart relationships.
