Book Reviews

https://books2read.com/West-to-the-Bay-Yarmey

Review: A delving into history and the Hudson Bay Company. Tells the story of one young man Thomas and his experiences after leaving his home to travel to the New World. Full of adventure and history. I enjoyed the book and the ease of reading.

Review: I have visited Churchill on the Hudson Bay and this book took me back 300 years to what it was like? A good read cannot put it down

 

https://books2read.com/West-to-Grande-Portage-V2

Review: This book was exactly what I needed to read. It took me away to a completely different world in another time. I followed along, very intrigued by the detail Ms. Donaldson provided about Quebec and the voyageurs of the 1700s all the while creating a very compelling story. I loved this book so much that I immediately began West to the Bay after I finished it. I look forward to reading more and more of Ms. Donaldson's stories.

 

Book Reviews

Book reviews are very important for writers especially in today’s flooded book world. In the past there were traditional publishers, and a few writers who self-published, who send their new releases to book reviewers working on the newspapers. The reviewers would then read them and write reviews for the public. Or the publisher sent the manuscripts (ARCs) to other authors before the book was published and would get a review to add to the front of the book.

But things have changed drastically. While the big five publishers still do a lot of the publicizing and marketing, the smaller publishers are now requiring their authors to take over that job. With the Internet making self-publishing cheap and easy, there are a lot more books on the market. So this is why reviews are so important—authors need readers to tell others why they should read that particular book. And most of that is done on Amazon. The algorithms on Amazon don’t care how long or what was said in the reviews, they just look at the number of reviews. The more reviews, the higher up the book is placed.

Unfortunately, many readers seem reluctant to leave a review. And there are many reasons for that. They think they have to write a long one giving some of the storyline. But that’s not necessary. All they have to say is that they liked the book and hoped the author was writing another. Some get busy and forget or they don’t think their opinion is important. Also, if they didn’t like the book or it wasn’t what they expected, they feel a little uncomfortable leaving a three star or less review. But, just because one person didn’t like the subject of the book, that doesn’t mean the next person will think the same way. Liking or disliking a book is subjective. And, hopefully, readers realize that when they look at the reviews of a book they are interested in.

So, it has become necessary for authors to actively ask for reviews. Publishers and self-published authors now add a note at the end of the book reminding the reader to leave a review. Also, writers who send out newsletters prompt readers to go into their book’s Internet site and write a quick assessment of the story.

Even though this way of getting reviews is all free it does seem like a lot of work and seldom pays off. In the end, some authors opt for another way to get reviews, and that is to pay for them. There are businesses that accept books for review and authors can submit their work to them. But it costs and some charge up to $450.00. The questions I have about this are: Is this ethical; does it mean that the more you pay the better the review; does this give the reader a true, objective opinion of the story and of the writing?

The thing is that it is easy for readers to leave a review of my, or any author’s, books on Amazon. And you don’t have had to purchase it through Amazon. Just go to the book’s Amazon page, scroll down to review this product, select the number of stars you give it, and click on the write a customer review button. You can write as many or as few words as you wish.

Just a note: if you are a friend of the author on any social media, Amazon may reject your review and may even delete previous reviews left by other readers.

Paranormal Sightings

Coming June 2026

Paranormal Sightings

In the past, my publisher, Books We Love, has brought out the Canadian Historical Brides Series and the Canadian Historical Mystery Series. There are twelve books in each series, each one set in a province to territory of Canada. Starting this year and continuing into 2026 and 2027, Books We Love is publishing the Canadian Historical Paranormal Series.

I chose the Yukon for each series and wrote Romancing the Klondike for the first series and Sleuthing the Klondike for the second. I am now researching and writing Haunting the Klondike for the third series.

As far as I know, I have never seen a ghost. However, I did live in a haunted house, although without my knowledge. When my husband and I and my brother and sister-in-law first moved to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island we bought a house that had been converted into a duplex. My sister-in-law told me that she was continually seeing a man coming and going from their side. I saw no one on our side.

When I returned to Alberta to visit family and friends I described where our place was to a friend. She began asking questions about it and said that a friend of hers had lived in that house years earlier. She also asked me if I had seen the ghost who occasionally wandered through the house there. I said no, but my sister-in-law had.

My friend said a man had died in that house and her friend had seen his ghost often while living there. I wondered if that was the same man who my sister-in-law was seeing.

I’m not sure if the reason I did not encountered that ghost nor any other ghosts in my life is because I don’t believe in them or because I have been lucky. So I have nothing personal on which to base my novel. I will have to do it all by research.

However, if a ghost is reading this, this is not an invitation to come to me and tell me your story or start moving things around to prove you are real.

Canada's Rainforest

https://books2read.com/Sleuthing-the-Klondike 

Canada’s Rainforest

I am a Canadian and all my mystery, historical, romance, and young adult novels are set in Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world and has almost twenty-five percent of the world’s temperate rainforest.

A rainforest is characterized by a dense, damp forest that receives up to 254cm (100inches) of moisture (rain, snow, drizzle, fog, or mist) each year. The trees are tall and form an overhead canopy.

There are two types of rainforest: temperate and tropical. A rainforest close to the equator is tropical; one between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic in the northern hemisphere or between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle in the southern hemisphere is called temperate. Therefore, Canada’s rainforests are temperate.

New Zealand, Chile, and Norway also have temperate rainforests. These forests all have much the same characteristics but may have different plants and animals. While most of the temperate rainforests in other parts of the world are a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, Canada’s rainforests are made up of coniferous trees such as pine, fir, and spruce.

Some of the similarities of rainforests are: trees that range from new saplings to tall, centuries-old growth; large logs lying on the forest floor; an abundance of bright green moss, ferns, and other vegetation hiding the forest floor; plants growing on other plants; and many layers of canopy overhead. Some of the dead logs will have seedlings to tall trees growing on them and are sometimes called a host or nurse log.

Canada’s rainforest ranges along the west coast of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. Their abundant rainfall comes from being close to the Pacific Ocean and coastal mountains. They are part of the Pacific Temperate Rainforest ecoregion which runs from Alaska to Northern California and is the world’s largest temperate rainforest.

Canada also has the world’s only temperate inland forest called the Interior Wet Belt. It runs from Fort George southeast to Revelstoke and further south to the United States border and owes its rain to weather systems that begin in the Pacific Ocean and flow west to rise over the Columbia Mountains.

The Great Bear Rainforest covers 32,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq miles.) along the central and northern coast of British Columbia. It is one of the largest remaining areas of unspoiled temperate rainforest in the world. Besides being home to grizzly bears, wolves, salmon, bald eagles and cougars, it is also home to the Kermode or Spirit Bear, which is a species of black bear. It is called the Spirit Bear because of its white-coloured coat caused by inheriting the genes of both parents. One in ten black bear cubs is born with this coat.

Rainforests cover less than ten percent of the world’s land surface but contribute to one-third of the world’s oxygen production.

Vikings in North America

 

The Vikings in North America

 

It has been long thought that the first European to step on the soil of North America was Christopher Columbus. But excavations done at a site in northwest Newfoundland, called L’Anse aux Meadows, in the 1960’s recovered artifacts like jewellery, a stone oil lamp, a bone knitting needle, and tools that were compared to ones used at Viking settlements in Greenland and Iceland around the year 1000. They have been carbon dated to between the years 990 and 1050, proof that the Vikings were in North America long before Columbus.

       Vikings were people from Scandinavia, present day Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, who were merchants as well as warriors. During the late eighth to eleventh century they raided, pillage, and conquered settlements in Scotland and throughout Europe. They also had settlements in Iceland and Greenland.

       Surnames ending in "-son" or "-sen" are considered to have Viking ancestry. My great-grandparents emigrated from Scotland. Plus, the little finger on my right hand does not lay flat when I set my palm down. My sister has the same condition but worse. Her little finger had a permanent bend to it. She went to her doctor and received a botox shot to relax it. When she went for physio she was told that a bent finger like that was a sign of being a Viking. I also have a friend of Norwegian ancestry with the same little finger.

       But, that bent little finger comes from my mother’s side who also had one. Her maiden name was Relf, which I learned was first found in the 1000s in Nairnit, a town in northern Scotland. So, with this ancestry on both sides I consider myself a Viking. In 2017, I visited L’Anse aux Meadows in northwest Newfloundland.

       From the parking lot I walked to the interpretive centre where I looked at the displays of what the settlement would have looked like during its occupation. There are replicas of the longships that the Vikings sailed in, artifacts unearthed during the excavations, write-ups about the Vikings, tools that were found, and maps showing the route the Vikings used to get to Newfoundland or Vinland, as they are thought to have named it. The Scandinavians of the medieval period were known as Norse and they were farmers and traders. When they began raiding other countries they became known as Vikings, the Norse word for raiders.

       There has been a lot of interest in the Vikings recently with televisions shows and documentaries about them and their raiding which began in the 790s and lasted until around 1050. With their longboats and advanced sailing and navigational skills the Viking men and women travelled from Scandinavia south through Europe to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and west to North America.

       I left the centre and followed a long, wooden boardwalk through grass and small bushes to the actual site. There I found a post fence around a yard with large mounds covered in grass. When the Vikings landed here there were forests from which they were able to get material for their boat and house building. The remains of eight buildings were found in the 1960s and they are believed to have been made of a wooden frame and covered with sod.

       The structures have been identified are a long house, an iron smithy, a carpentry shop, and smaller buildings that may have been for lower-status crewmembers or even slaves or for storage. There are three replicas of those sod buildings with their thick walls on the site. One is a long house which is equipped with clothes, beds and bedding, household utensils, tools, a fire pit and has a couple dressed in period clothing cooking a meal. The Vikings hunted caribou, bear, and smaller animals plus whale, walrus, and birds for food as well as fished.

       I wandered through the rooms divided by hand carved wooden plank walls. Light came from the fire and holes in the ceiling which are partially covered with upside down wooden boxes to keep the rain out.

       One of the other buildings is the smithy complete with anvil, forge, bellows, and various tools. I wandered the rest of the site and saw the outlines of other buildings that have not been reconstructed. It is estimated that between 30 and 160 people lived there over the years.

       The Vikings arrived in Newfoundland from Iceland via Greenland. According to historical records the site was inhabited by the brothers and sister of Leif Ericson plus a series of explorers. It is believed the settlement was there for seven or eight years before being abandoned. This is the only confirmed Viking site in North America and is the farthest west that Europeans sailed before Columbus.

       After viewing the buildings I followed a trail along the rocky shoreline and then turned inland to walk on a boardwalk over a bog back to the parking lot.

       One of the best things is that not only does the interpretive centre have the history of the Vikings, but there is also extensive displays showing the history of the aboriginal people who inhabited the area over thousands of years before any European arrived.

       In 2018 I visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. In the museum is a permanent exhibition of parts of five original Viking ships excavated nearby in 1962. A thousand years ago these ships were deliberately scuttled (filled with rocks and sunk) in a river to stop the enemy from invading the city by water. Over the decades since they were found, the pieces have been preserved and put together on a metal frame to show how the ships would have looked. Also at the site are replicas of the Viking ships and I became a Viking for an hour. A group of us sat on the seats and rowed the ship out of the harbour using the long oars. Once on the open water we hoisted the mast and set sail. After sailing for a while we headed back to the harbour. As we neared it I had the honour of pulling on the rope that lowered the mast and sail and we glided back to our dock.

       It would be fun, someday, to write a novel about my ancestors.

       

My Dream Job

https://books2read.com/West-to-the-Bay-Yarmey

 

https://books2read.com/West-to-Grande-Portage-V2

https://bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

My Dream Job

My desire to travel goes back to when I was in high school. There were so many places and things I wanted to see in the world but I had no idea what job would pay me enough to be able to travel around the world. Then I decided the only way I could see all the countries and their cities, historic sites and scenery was to become a stewardess. Just that name should tell you how many years ago that was.

     To help ensure that I would have a better stay in the places I visited, I studied French, German, and Russian so I would know some other languages for when I landed and maybe stayed over in another country. In my last year in high school a job show was held at my high school and I went to talk with the representative from an airline that had a booth there. She was dressed in her uniform and was very nice.

     I explained that I wanted to be a stewardess and asked for information. She told me that I had to be a certain height and weight, which I was. She said that all stewardesses had to wear a girdle even though their figures might be perfect. I was okay with that. Then she told me that anyone who wore glasses could not be a stewardess. I was devastated, since I needed prescription glasses but seldom wore them. I went to an optometrist to get contact lenses. This was when they were still made of hard material and my eyes could not adjust to them.

     So I gave up my dream of being a stewardess.

     I married after graduation and had wonderful children who have given me wonderful grandchildren. After taking some courses I became a writer, starting out with one article and then adding some historical and travel articles. I attended a course on finding a publisher and spoke with the publisher afterwards about an idea I had. He invited me to visit him at his office which I did and we decided I would write two travel books on the province of Alberta. I travelled extensively through Alberta and was amazed at the scenery, history, and sites in my home province. When those books were a success, I did the same in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. These I called my backroads series.

     I began my fiction writing career with mystery novels. I gave my main female character the parttime job of being a travel writer. She always gets involved in some sort of mystery when she is travelling and researching articles for magazines. I called the three novels The Travelling Detective Mystery Series. I hope to one day write a fourth in the series. 

     I belong to a dragon boat race team and I have taken part in international festivals in Caloundra, Queensland, Australia (spent four week visiting the sites of Queensland and New South Wales then a week in Fiji), Sarasota, Florida, USA, (my husband and I travelled through two provinces and nineteen states on our way there and back home) and Florence, Italy (I did two bus tours, one cruise, and rode trains and stayed in hostels while visiting twenty countries.) I’ve also been to Japan and China with my sister.

     So not realizing my desire to become a stewardess, or flight attendant as they are called today, has not stopped me from doing the travelling I dreamed of when I was younger.

Canadian authors-Ontario

 

 https://books2read.com/u/mKJxdd

https://books2read.com/u/mYgK6x 

https://bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

     I am a proud Canadian author of over twenty fiction and non-fiction books in my long writing career. But I am just one of thousands of published writers from this huge country. Canada has had a long and illustrious history of producing world renown authors and books going all the way back to the 18^th century.

     Frances Moore was born in England in 1724. She was a well-known poet and playwright in England before she and her husband, Reverend John Brooke moved to Quebec City in 1763, for John to take up the post of army chaplain. During her time there Frances wrote The History of Emily Montague, a love story set in the newly formed Quebec province.

     The story is told through the voices of her characters by way of personal letters between the two. This is known as epistolary (of letters) type of writing and it was popular during the1700s in Europe. The Brookes’ returned to England in 1768 and the novel was published in 1769 the London bookseller, James Dodsley. The History of Emily Montague was the first novel written in what is now Canada and the first with a Canadian setting. Frances died in 1789.

 Ontario

William Robertson Davies was born August 28, 1913 in Thamesville, Ontario (ON). He grew up surrounded by books and he participated in theatrical productions, developing a lifelong love of drama. He attended Upper Canada College then studied at Queen’s University at Kingston, ON. He moved to Oxford, England where he received a Bachelor Degree in Literature from Balliol College in 1938. His thesis, Shakespeare’s Boy Actors, was published in 1939 and he began acting in London.

     William married Brenda Mathews, an Australian who was working as a stage manager. They moved to Canada in 1940 and he began a career as literary editor at Saturday Night magazine. Their first child was born in December 1940. Two years later he accepted the position of editor of the Peterborough Examiner in Peterborough, ON. During this time he wrote humorous essays under the name Samuel Marchbanks and wrote and produced many stage plays.

     In 1947, several of his essays were published in The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, and The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks came out in 1949. Davies used his early upbringing to provide themes for his novels and his first novel Tempest Tost was published in 1951. His second, Leaven of Malice, came out in 1954. In 1955 he became publisher of the Peterborough Examiner and his third novel, A Mixture of Frailties was published in 1958.

     Besides novel and play writing, and being a newspaper publisher, Davies taught literature at Trinity College at the University of Toronto from 1960 until 1981. He left his post as publisher of the Peterborough Examiner in 1962 and became a Master of Massey College, the University of Toronto’s new graduate college, in 1963. Along with his father William Rupert Davies and his brother Arthur Davies, William bought the Kingston Whig-Standard newspaper, CHEX-AM and CKWS-AM radio stations, and CHEX-TV and CKWS-TV television stations. His third book of essays, Samuel Marchbanks’ Almanack was published in 1967.

     William Robertson Davies wrote a total of eighteen fiction and non-fiction books, plus fifteen plays. He won many awards for his writing including the Governor-General’s Literary Award and the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. He was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

     William Robertson Davies died on December 2, 1995, in Orangeville ON.

 

Josiah Henson was born on June 15, 1789, into slavery in Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland. When his family was separated by each being sold to different plantations, his mother pleaded with her new owner, Isaac Riley, to buy her youngest son so she would have him with her. Riley agreed and Josiah came to work for him. Josiah was twenty-two years-of-age when he married. He also became a Methodist Minister and was made the supervisor of his master's farm.

     In 1825, Mr. Riley fell on hard times and was sued by a brother-in-law. Henson guided eighteen of Riley’s slaves to Riley’s brother’s plantation in Kentucky. When he returned and asked to buy his freedom from Riley for $450.00 (350.00 cash and $100.00 IOU), Riley added an extra zero to the IOU. Cheated of his money, Henson returned to Kentucky. In 1830, he learned that he might be sold again so he, his wife, and their four children escaped to Kent County, in Upper Canada (now Ontario), which had been a refuge for slaves since 1793. That was the year Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe passed: An Act to prevent the further introduction of Slaves, and limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province. While the legislation did not immediately end slavery, it did prevent the importation of slaves and so any United States slave who entered the province was automatically free.

     Josiah Henson worked on farms in Upper Canada before moving with friends to Colchester to set up a Black settlement on rented land. He eventually was able to buy 200 acres in Dawn Township and made the community self-sufficient. The settlement reached a population of 500 at its height, earning money by exporting black walnut lumber to the United States and Britain. Henson purchased an adjoining 200 acres for his family to live on.

     Henson served in the Canadian Army as a military officer. He led a black militia unit in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-38. When slavery was abolished in the United States many residents of the Dawn Settlement returned to their original home. Josiah Henson and his wife had eight more children in Upper Canada and he remarried a widow from Boston when his first wife died. He continued to live in Dawn for the rest of his life and many of his descendants still live in the area.

     Henson wrote his autobiography The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as narrated by Himself. It was published in 1849 and many believe he inspired the main character in Harriet Beecher Stowes’ Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Henson then expanded his memoir and published it as Truth Stranger Than Fiction. Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life which came out in 1858. Since people were still interested in his life, in 1876 his story was updated and published as Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson.

     Josiah Henson died on May 5, 1883 at the age of ninety-four.

Facing Fears

 

https://books2read.com/The-Art-of-Growing-Older

https://bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Facing Fears

I have a fear of flying, a fear of heights, and a fear of falling from heights. My motto: I believe in terra firma. The more firma the less terra.

Because of those fears, it took years before I would fly and more years before I trusted the plane I was on not to crash. Even now I still worry each time I get on a plane. Recently, I was on vacation in Mazatlan with my son and daughter-in-law. Their timeshare is right on the beach so I would watch people parasailing out over the ocean and landing safely back on land. It is something I’ve watched before and thought I would like to try-someday. Well, that day arrived while I was there. I gathered up my courage and with my son at my side, went to talk with the men on the beach. I paid the money and was given a life jacket to put on. Then I was hooked up to the sail and a rope from the boat knotted to the equipment. I was told to sit and the boat started pulling me over the sand and soon I was rising up in the air.

My stomach clenched, I held on to the straps for dear life, and I started to hyperventilate. But I looked at the view and it was amazing: the ocean, the city, the mountains in the distance. However, each time the wind whipped at the sail and I went sideways I would gasp and may even have done some swearing. I had been told that once I was up in the air I could relax and let go of the straps. No %$&# way. I was taken in a loop over the water and eventually the boat slowed and I began to descend. I had a walkie talkie and was told to pull on the ropes of the sail to guide me towards the beach (I’d been given instructions how to do it) and I made a safe, stand-up landing. And I felt exhilarated. I had done it, faced my fears and had a new experience.

Fear is fear and many new writers face the fear of sitting down and writing the story they want to. Many don’t tell anyone about their writing aspirations. Part way through their manuscript they doubt their abilities as a writer and think about scraping the whole process. If they finish the manuscript, they worry that no one will like and are afraid to put their ‘baby’ out in the world where it risks rejection. If they do find someone to read it and get back some negative feedback, they are tempted to quit writing altogether. If they get far enough in the process where they think about trying to find an agent or publisher, all the worries surface again. Each of these is a big step in a writer’s life and fear and doubt rule them all. Even once a book is published the writer wonders how it will be received by the readers.

If I didn’t face my fears of flying and heights, I would never go beyond the oceans that surround Canada. As a writer, if I hadn’t overcome my fears of rejection I wouldn’t have over twenty books traditionally published.

Even if my first writing hadn’t been accepted, I would still consider myself a winner for I had been brave enough to try something new and different. Just like flying, and walking across bridges that span canyons and gorges, and parasailing, I have done something that scared me and won. So I advise every new writer to follow your dream and don't let fear stop you. Face it and overcome it and enjoy being a writer.

And never let age stop you from doing anything. I plan on skydiving when I am 90 years old. Gives me a few years to psych myself up.