The first novel by an acclaimed short story writer tells the poignant, comic and redemptive story of Morgan Hazzard, caught late in life between a dying husband and the opinions of her rebellious children. Forty years of marriage to a hard, prairie-bred man have frozen Morgan into the semblance of a steadfast wife. But when a stroke silences William Hazzard, Morgan’s feelings and memories begin to thaw. What she learns in the sudden peace and quiet of her own house and in the somewhat rusty and surprising sound of her own voice is her strength and capacity for joy and change.

Praise for The Wife Tree

“Sometimes you pick up a book and you just cannot put it down. The words leap off the page, seemingly written just for you, or even more spookily, written about you. That’s how I felt when I read Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners… I experienced that same thrill of recognition with The Wife Tree… Dorothy Speak has earned a berth in the CanLit hall of fame, right alongside Laurence.” New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal

“Speak stands alongside Margaret Laurence and Constance Beresford-How in portraying indelible older women.” Kitchener-Waterloo Record

“Rooted firmly in the tradition of the Ontario Gothic, the story of Hazzard delivers literary pleasures of the highest order. Weaving together recollection, dreams and letters never sent, the narrative moves with a fluid power through the four seasons, reaching its climax in the depth of winter, and concluding on a triumphant, summery note… Speak is also blessed with a gift for black humour and hardnosed empathy, which resists easy reduction to the maudlin or sentimental.” Ottawa X Press

“The Wife Tree is a powerful novel, well worth reading for Speak’s ability to slice through to the ugliness in the human heart.” Victoria Times Colonist

“There’s something fascinating and frightening in reading a writer who is willing to take risks. Because we’re conscious of the dangers lurking at the turn of a page, it’s particularly exhilarating when, as in this first novel, the writer succeeds so brilliantly. With The Wife Tree, Dorothy Speak moves firmly into the first rank of Canadian writers.” Ottawa Citizen

“Dorothy Speak is someone to sit up and take note of… Like Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence, she writes about real, believable people, and makes compelling stories out of the mundane elements of their lives. The writing is deliberate and lyrical, lavish and full of pictures; the sense of character is intimate… Speak’s splendid first novel fills us with sumptuous detail.” Hamilton Spectator

This collection of short fiction is about modern women in love and the choices they must make when they find themselves loving what they cannot have. Linked by themes of desire and betrayal, these compelling narratives are set in small towns and communities and describe the disappointments and reconciliations of women whose lives have been torn apart by the pain of adultery. These are stories in which the aches and fissures of love break and transform the heart and charge the soul with the balm of epiphanous release and recovery. There is a rare quality to these tales of deception and delusion: they display a clarity of voice and an exceptional use of language and description. Most important, they are completely absorbing and an utter joy to read. A highly original conjurer of the human heart, Dorothy Speak is a writer of most subtle and rare ability.

Praise for Object of Your Love

“Dorothy Speak’s Object of Your Love is a very accomplished book of short stories. They’re straight-from-the-shoulder tales about passion gone wildly astray.” Margaret Atwood

“It is Dorothy Speak’s great talent that each and every one of these stories grabs your attention and doesn’t let go until the last word.” Timothy Findley

“This is one of the finest story collections I have read in years. Dorothy Speak can run with the best storytellers: Alice Munro, Ellen Gilchrist, Alice Adams, Joyce Carol Oates, Jayne Anne Phillips.” W. P. Kinsella

“The smallness in people, the meanness, the coldness, the banality of their sins makes the plots containing these stories burst at their steely seams.” L.A. Times

“Dorothy Speak skillfully wields old-fashioned favourites like death, jealousy and illicit sex to create powerful, indelible tales.” Time Out New York

“Speak’s characters are willful and original; her prose is spare, sharp and intense.” Redbook

“Speak is a gifted analyst of the stark realities of life. In this outstanding collection, she explores the intricate terrain of women’s hearts in eloquent and witty prose.” Publishers Weekly

“Strong, memorable stories that add scarred, exhausted flesh and blood to the sad statistics of the heart. Alice Munro would surely approve.” Kirkus Reviews

“Not for the faint of heart or for readers in search of fairy-tale endings, Object of Your Love is nonetheless relentlessly fascinating. In showing us just how dark that dark can be, Dorothy Speak’s voice is lean and eloquent, hard-edged as the facets of a diamond and just as brilliant.” Hour

“One of the most readable and compelling works of fiction published this year.” Toronto Star

“We are enjoying the greatest flowering of CanLit we have ever had – Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Katherine Govier, Douglas Coupland, Michael Ondaatje and Carol Shields. Welcome to the gang, Dorothy Speak.” Heather Mallick

“Dorothy Speak works by turning up the volume on what is normally unsaid.” Joan Thomas

“The mature work of an imaginative and insightful writer at the top of her form. Don’t miss it.” The Canadian Forum

This first collection of stories creates a community of familiar characters who are at once cynical and loveable, selfish and pathetic. In exploring small-town life, Speak exposes the simple but sinister stratagems that bind together families, neighbours, lovers and friends. The heroism of older brothers, the corruption of grandmothers, the treachery of sisters, the fond antipathy between mothers and daughters come to startling three-dimensional life here. In so doing, Speak illuminates the alliances and betrayals, and the competition for love in all our lives. The diverse characters in these stories are all bound together by a desire to rise above the mundane realities of their own existence – to win a singing contest; to leave behind a dreary hometown for the glamour of a larger city; to succeed as a writer far away from home. Ironically, within each character there also exists a desire, be it large or small, to maintain the security of a known life, or to return to a simpler time. Gentle, warm and bittersweet, this collection of stories marks the debut of a strong new voice in Canadian fiction.

Praise for The Counsel of the Moon

“Speak probes into uncomfortable places and lays bare ambivalences in relationships that, in polite company, are not normally dissected and scrutinized with anything like this author’s degree of candor. The Counsel of the Moon has a sort of cathartic quality – one reads it, in places, with the guilty feeling that it might be a diary meant for the writer’s eyes only.” Globe and Mail

“What pleasure to encounter the urbane, polished prose of Dorothy Speak. This first collection is humorous, gentle, and insightful and made a delight to read by the controlled, sophisticated writing that would not be out of place in the New Yorker… Dorothy Speak’s entrance into the world of Canadian literature is as auspicious as was that of Alice Munro.” Calgary Herald

“The power in Speak’s portrayal of characters rests in the snatches of vivid detail, the ear for the precise word, the narrator’s deft irony, and the almost compassionate sensibility which informs the individual pieces. This collection heralds a short story writer of enormous talent and promise.” Canadian Literature

“Speak’s graceful style, piquant wit, and the leisurely naturalness of her narratives make The Counsel of the Moon an immensely readable volume, one for which the phrase plaisir du texte seems coined.” Books in Canada

“A stellar debut.” Edmonton Journal