Showing results by author "Rod Raglin" in All Categories

Canada is collapsing. Economic and social pressures spawned by climate change have made the federation untenable. British Columbia has seceded from Canada, and Cascadia stretches from The Rockies to the Pacific, Alaska to the 49th parallel. Though a sanctuary amid global chaos, Cascadia is not safe. Internal divisions fueled by disparity and ethnicity have spawned violent protests. The beaches and borders are besieged with waves of desperate migrants and external powers conspire to obtain their natural resources on a planet all but depleted of them. The pressures and threats from without ...

Meet Mattie Saunders, an independent, determined, outspoken young woman with a social conscience and a bad attitude. Mattie loves birds and has devoted her short life to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of exotic ones people buy as pets and then abandon.The end of the relationship with rock star partner, Bodine, has left Mattie feeling unsettled and the death of a close friend has heightened her vulnerability. She hopes her fieldwork studying hummingbirds in The Rockies will allow her the peace to heal, but a #MeToo episode with her college professor forces her to flee into the ...

Risking it all. Miriam is forty and frustrated. In an attempt to enhance her living-just-to-breathe life she joins some neighbours protesting a highway bypass that will destroy Eagleridge Bluffs. Not only are the Bluffs her special sanctuary, but they’re also the beautiful home of rare and endangered plants and animals.The protest gains the support of environmental organizations including the attention of a group of eco-radicals lead by an enigmatic young man named Zaahir. Miriam is mesmerized by this charismatic leader and sees him as someone that can save her as well as the Bluffs. But ...

Matthew and Raminder are young, idealistic and in love. As soon as they can they plan to leave behind the small town and small minds of Pitt Landing. They will embrace life and experience the world, maybe even change it. Man plans, God laughs. Raminder’s father has a stroke and her commitment to her family means she must postpone her plans and stay in Pitt Lake. It’s just the opposite for Matt. A family tragedy leaves irreconcilable differences between him and his father and forces him to leave. They promise to reunite, but life happens. Twelve years later, Matt is an acclaimed war ...

The first time Dieter Schmidt meets Mad Maggie is at a blockade on a logging road. He’s there to threaten the local First Nations band with court action if they don’t allow his client’s heavy equipment access to Deadman’s Island. Maggie emerges from the forest, but rather than chastise the lawyer for his part in trying to replace this unique ecosystem of magnificent old-growth trees with a housing development, she gives him an ultimatum. She will cure his yet-to-be-diagnosed terminal cancer if he saves the trees. Dieter dismisses Maggie's prediction as the delusions of someone ...

East Vancouver in the '50s and '60s was a low income, blue-collar neighbourhood. Kids grew up with minimum supervision. They left home in the morning, showed up for dinner, and were gone again until "the gun" sounded at 9 p.m.During the time away adventures were undertaken, friendships were forged, and character was created. East Van Rules was not only meant as a challenge, but also a code to live by.These four short stories and novella highlight coming of age events; a ten-year-old playing for the elementary school softball championship, a teenage tough strutting his stuff at the local ...

Meet Mattie Saunders, an independent, determined, outspoken young woman with a social conscience and a bad attitude. Mattie loves birds and has devoted her short life to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of exotic ones people buy as pets and then abandon. The Saunders Exotic Bird Sanctuary is out of money and in an effort to raise some so her birds won't be homeless yet again, Mattie reaches out to Bodine, the lead guitarist of the bad-boy rock band Seditious. She's learned he has a macaw as a pet and since it's obvious he's wealthy she hopes he'll be sympathetic and use some of the ...

What Price Success? Kimberley James is hoping her new assignment will jumpstart her stalled career with a New York corporate relations firm. Her client wants to develop a mega ski resort in northern Canada. Her job is to convince the current owners of the land to sell. With millions of dollars to be made, it seems like a done deal. Until she runs up against Jonah Baker. Baker is part owner of a lodge on the land and an ardent environmentalist. He’s not about to permit a development that threatens ancient rainforests and the habitat of the rare and endangered Spirit Bear for any price. Kim...

Do you believe everything you read in the newspapers? Jim Mitchell doesn't. He's a journalist and the publisher and editor of a community newspaper, The Sentinel. He gave up a career with big media because he couldn't justify their choice of what to cover, couldn't tolerate the way they edited his stories and would not be implicit in misleading the public to benefit some hidden corporate agenda. When he bought The Sentinel, he thought all that would end. Being an owner of "the local rag," he could select the stories, edit the copy and make sure the interests of the community were served. He...

Can you love someone whose worldview is different from yours? Who is committed to a cause that excludes you because of your race? Simon is an Indigenous person dedicated to the struggle for justice for First Nations people. Mattie loves him but is love enough? Birds are dying. At the Saunders Bird Rescue and Sanctuary where rescued parrots abandoned by their owners are rehabilitated and re-homed, a deadly virus has them dying in Mattie's hands. In the midst of this outbreak, she's called to investigate a mortality event where dozens of starlings fly into the pavement as if committing ...

At twenty-seven years-old, George Fairweather is “the voice of his generation”, a poet whose talent has garnered him accolades from the literary establishment and homage from the disenfranchised “hippie” youth of the late 1960’s.George is the embodiment of the times with his long hair, rebellious attitude and regular use of mind-expanding psychedelic drugs.Then the sudden and tragic death of Fallon, his friend, his muse and his lover shatters his world, his sanity and nearly ends his life.Katherine is the one person who stands between George and destruction. A hanger-on, a groupie...

Young, talented, ambitious, Freyja Brynjarrson’s a photographer struggling to crash the art establishment, the challenges presented by her family, and still keep true to her uncompromising ethic. Fate places her on the front line of a political demonstration where soldiers open fire on civilians. She photographs death for the first time and likes it. Because of the sensitive nature of her pictures the current government, facing an imminent election, tries to suppress them. But someone far more unscrupulous than government spin-doctors also wants those images destroyed. Gunnar Brynjarrson,...

Cold-blooded (Adjective): without emotion or pity, deliberately cruel or callous. Meet Mattie Saunders, an independent, determined, outspoken young woman with a social conscience and a bad attitude, who loves birds. She's devoted her short life to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of exotic ones people buy as pets and then abandon. It was a strange call. An old friend from high school asking Mattie if it's possible to temporarily board some reptiles at Saunders Bird Sanctuary? The Reptile Refuge where Liz volunteers has been closed by police while they investigate a suspicious death ...

Rewilding the Blue and Gold Macaw, her companion for twenty years and the last of the exotic birds she’d rescued, rehabilitated and rehomed has left Mattie with a big hole in her life. Being brought up in foster care, she’s never had a family and isn’t even convinced it’s good or even necessary, but there have been moments when she’s felt its power–and her need. Maybe that’s what’s missing. Birds band together for safety, socialization–for a better chance of survival. It’s called a flock. Mattie wants to bring people together for the same reasons. She’s getting little ...

Matthew Bennett, a freelance investigative reporter, is caught in the middle of the growing political and cultural polarity of our society with deadly consequences. Until recently, his beat has been political extremists, specifically white supremacists embedded in the Canadian military. With the help of an anonymous source, he’s written award-winning articles that have prompted a Parliamentary investigation. He’s anticipating more revelations when his source goes dark. Having an abundance of research and unverifiable information, he decides to turn it into a manuscript for a novel. ...