A man of few words has produced a big story about a little place.

Forty years in the making, Roy Sinclair's Paper Trees (Caitlin $15.95) is the Grasmere logging boss's 373-page first novel about Rainy Mountain, a central Cariboo community, based on the once-thriving town of Penny, east of Prince George.

During the 1950s and 1960s Sinclair and 200 others owed their livelihoods to Penny's logging and sawmill operation. Then a new 'use or lose' forestry quota system, introduced by Social Credit, made it almost impossible for modest family operations to compete with giant forest companies. Paper Trees offers an historical view of a recently-vanished culture, but it's also a Victorian-styled romance. Logger Byron Smith is entangled in the owner's family in more ways than he'd like. He's caught in a love triangle and like everyone else in the town of Rainy Mountain he's a suspect when a local girl mysteriously disappears.

Desperation drove Byron to work at Rainy Mountain; love and loyalty keep him there. Paper Trees is proof that once upon a time the number one natural resource in this province was hardworking, honest people. 0-920576-78-8

[BCBW AUTUMN 1999]