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Sabotage by Karen Autio (Sono Nis $10.95)
Karen autio wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth; she started writing with one.
A gift of a silver spoon as an heirloom from her grandmother led to talks about her Finnish heritage-and recollections of how relatives died in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914. That gift and conversation inspired Autio to tell the tale of 12-year-old Saara Môki, en route to Finland on the doomed steamship, for her first novel, Second Watch (Sono Nis Press, 2005).
About two-thirds of that ocean liner's 1,477 passengers and crew died when the Empress of Ireland collided with a Norwegian ship in the Saint Lawrence River in 1914. In Autio's second novel, Saara's Passage (Sono Nis 2008), Saara, as one of the 465 survivors, returns to northwestern Ontario only to learn her beloved Aunt Marja must move to a sanatorium in Toronto for treatment of tuberculosis.
Autio's Finnish-Canadian trilogy has been completed with Sabotage, which is based on an attempt to blow up the Nipigon River railway bridge near Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) during the First World War. As someone born in Thunder Bay, Autio had heard about the story but never believed it until she undertook research for her novels and learned the 1915 incident was true.
In Sabotage, 13-year-old heroine Saara at first refuses to listen to her pesky younger brother John when he talks about spies in Canada. She has more important things to worry about, such as her German friend being hauled off to live in a Canadian internment camp.
But so much of Canada's grain for Allied soldiers in Europe is being routed via Port Arthur that ultimately Saara must accept that her brother's fantasies are based on a real threat. Once more the Môki family is in jeopardy and her courage and wits will be put to the test. 978-1-55039-208-1
A gift of a silver spoon as an heirloom from her grandmother led to talks about her Finnish heritage-and recollections of how relatives died in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914. That gift and conversation inspired Autio to tell the tale of 12-year-old Saara Môki, en route to Finland on the doomed steamship, for her first novel, Second Watch (Sono Nis Press, 2005).
About two-thirds of that ocean liner's 1,477 passengers and crew died when the Empress of Ireland collided with a Norwegian ship in the Saint Lawrence River in 1914. In Autio's second novel, Saara's Passage (Sono Nis 2008), Saara, as one of the 465 survivors, returns to northwestern Ontario only to learn her beloved Aunt Marja must move to a sanatorium in Toronto for treatment of tuberculosis.
Autio's Finnish-Canadian trilogy has been completed with Sabotage, which is based on an attempt to blow up the Nipigon River railway bridge near Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) during the First World War. As someone born in Thunder Bay, Autio had heard about the story but never believed it until she undertook research for her novels and learned the 1915 incident was true.
In Sabotage, 13-year-old heroine Saara at first refuses to listen to her pesky younger brother John when he talks about spies in Canada. She has more important things to worry about, such as her German friend being hauled off to live in a Canadian internment camp.
But so much of Canada's grain for Allied soldiers in Europe is being routed via Port Arthur that ultimately Saara must accept that her brother's fantasies are based on a real threat. Once more the Môki family is in jeopardy and her courage and wits will be put to the test. 978-1-55039-208-1
Submitted on September 11, 2013 in By David.
