Relative Happiness

	Welcome to www.lesleycrewe.com Look for Ava Comes Home, Relative Happiness and Shoot Me by Cape Breton author Lesley Crewe at Chapters.ca and Amazon.ca

	$19.95 Nimbus Publishing Paperback • 320 pages 9.25 x 6 inches 9781551096766 1551096765 Chatpers.ca Amazon.ca	Ava Comes Home Lesley Crewe From the author of Relative Happiness and Shoot Me comes a riveting story about one terrible secret-a secret kept in shame, buried deep for self-preservation, and exposed in a moment that changes forever the lives of everyone involved. Ava Harris is a famous actress living the life of the rich and fabulous in L.A. when a family crisis calls her home. It’s been ten years since she’s set foot in Glace Bay, Cape Breton—back when she was plain old Libby MacKinnon. Why she ran away, no one knows. Returning home, she must face her family, her friends, and her first love, Seamus O’Reilly, whose heart broke the day she left. Ava is a good little actress, determined that no one will know what happened. She will keep the truth buried at all costs-even if she has to run again. But secrets have a way of surfacing, especially in a small town, and love has a way of blasting through the toughest barriers. While Ava can never go home again, perhaps Libby finally can. Lesley Crewe is the author of Shoot Me (2006) and Relative Happiness (2005), which was shortlisted for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. Previously a freelance writer and columnist for Cape Bretoner Magazine, she currently writes a column for Cahoots online magazine. Born in Montreal, Lesley lives in Homeville, Nova Scotia.

	My first novel, Relative Happiness, released in September 2005, is published by Vagrant Press, the new fiction imprint launched by Nova Scotia’s leading publisher, Nimbus. It’s mainstream fiction and a darn good read, if I do say so myself. I've taken my second novel out of Cape Breton and placed it squarely in another part of the world I love very much....good old Halifax, Nova Scotia. This book was a lot of fun to write! "The South End Halifax house where Elsie Brooks and her big, complicated family live is bursting with secrets. Elsie's banished husband lives in the basement. Her lonely sister lives in the attic. Her twenty-something daughters come and go as they please. And when Aunt Hildy, a renegade ninety-one-year-old archaeologist, comes home to die, the poor place becomes impossibly full....of hidden meanings and hidden treasure, of murder and mystery."	*Shoot Me* is a story about family, fortune, and figuring out what you want. In this second novel, acclaimed author (publisher's jargon!) Lesley Crewe has created another mixed-up, frantic, ultimately lovable East Coast family. Discoveries are made, but it takes a lot of digging to get to them. It's like Aunt Hildy says: "Life is not something that needs to be tamed. It's messy. Always was, always will be." Thursday, September 21, 2006

	This story is in Crewe’s control By By Laura Jean Grant the Cape Breton Post SYDNEY — Elsie Brooks has a full-time career, runs a household consisting of two twenty-something daughters, her sister and, now, her 91-year-old aunt who’s come home to die. Oh yeah, and she’s separated from her husband who’s living in the basement. If it sounds like Elsie has a lot on her plate, that’s just how Cape Breton writer Lesley Crewe intended to portray the main character in her novel Shoot Me, which is being released through Nimbus Publishing and will be available on book store shelves today. “I think readers will relate to this,” said Crewe. “You can’t get rid of your relatives and I think everyone can relate to that — and being pulled in all directions.” Shoot Me is Crewe’s second novel — her first, Relative Happiness, was released a year ago and was a resounding success, gaining her many new fans and even making the shortlist for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. Her latest book tells the story of Elsie and her family, their relationships with each other and how they deal with work, love, family, life and death. The story is set in a southend Halifax home, something Crewe attributes to a curiosity which developed when she attended university in the city and used to regularly walk by big, older homes.	“I always wondered what went on inside those houses,” she said. Crewe describes the book as character-driven and one that “celebrates ordinary people’s lives.” “The characters just came into my head and it was a lot of fun to write,” she said. Crewe, a resident of Homeville, said she was thrilled with the response to her first book and acknowledges she’s a bit nervous about reaction to Shoot Me. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said. “It’s nerve-racking. Now I feel like a writer.” Crewe’s first stop in promoting her new book will be right here in Sydney tonight from 6–8 p.m. at Coles in the Mayflower Mall where she will be signing copies of the book. She will then travel to the Word on The Street festival in Halifax, Sunday. Shoot Me will be officially launched Oct. 12 in Halifax at the Spring Garden Public Library. ljgrant@cbpost.com