Gail Anderson-Dargatz  

Gail's Novels

The Spawning Grounds was a national bestseller, #1 on the Loanstars list, #1 on the Huffington Post Best Fall Books list, and is on the Chatelaine list of Best Fall Books, CBC Fall Preview, and Zoomer's Literary Loves: 12 Must Read Fall Releases.

"With her long-awaited new novel The Spawning Grounds, writer and teacher Gail Anderson-Dargatz returns to her beloved Shuswap. It’s a region that the author has, over her body of work, brought to vivid, magical life, similar to Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Michael Crummey’s Newfoundland outports in Galore and Sweetland.

Those might seem like outsize comparisons, but Anderson-Dargatz has earned the praise, with novels like The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees receiving critical acclaim, prize recognition, and international attention. Anderson-Dargatz has set the bar dauntingly high for every new work; it’s a measure that The Spawning Grounds more than meets ...

The Spawning Grounds is a powerful, complex mélange of story forms and approaches, including magic realism, domestic drama, historical fiction, and stories about coming of age and coming to the end of life, leavened with elements of romance and considerable humour and understanding. Anderson-Dargatz writes with a direct, often subversive appeal to narrative, powerful storytelling, and skilfully drawn characters carrying complex social, political, cultural, and spiritual conflicts with an unobtrusive ease."

-- The Georgia Straight

Writing as fluid as the river that runs through the story ... A master storyteller, Anderson-Dargatz sets out with a tale of the familiar and seamlessly takes the reader where they never imagined they could go."

-- The Toronto Star

"The Canadian novelist writes what's sure to be classic literature ..."

-- The Huffington Post

"Sharp imagery and spare dialogue are put to good use in Gail Anderson-Dargatz's ghost tale of a mysterious force intent on destroying a family in rural British Colubmia."

-- The Globe and Mail.

"Beginning with the most stunning opening chapter I’ve read in years, The Spawning Grounds envelops us in its electric currents: the mysteries of a troubled family, a damaged nation, a defiled river, and the great rich spirit of the sockeye salmon—climaxing in a storm of lives struggling to renew themselves and the spirit of a magical place."

Brian Brett, award-winning author of Trauma Farm and Tuco: The Parrot, the Others and the Scattershot World.

 “You must read The Spawning Grounds, a stunning tour de force about the conflict between cultures, generations, nature and man. Magical yet profoundly down to earth, Gail Anderson-Dargatz tells stories within stories, shifting back and forth through time, to create a kaleidoscopic tapestry, unified by the frightening presence of a spirit seeking to right wrongs. I was so deeply moved by this beautifully written, spellbinding novel I read it twice.”

Sandra Gulland, author of the internationally bestselling Josephine B. Trilogy

Check out Goodreads for more rave reviews.

Gail's Hi-Lo Books

About Gail

Gail's novels have been national and international bestsellers and two have been short-listed for the Giller Prize, among other awards. She works with writers from around the world on her online teaching forums.