Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is a story of love and longing – but like all love stories, it’s complicated…
Four working-class Vancouver sisters, still reeling from the impact of World War I and the pandemic that stole their only brother, are scraping by but attempting to make the most of the 1920s.
Morag is pregnant; she loves her husband. Georgina can’t bear hers and dreams of getting an education. Harriet-Jean, still at home with her opium-addicted mother, is in love with a woman. Isla’s pregnant too – and in love with her sister’s husband.
Only one other soul knows about Isla’s pregnancy and it isn’t the father. When Isla resorts to a back-alley abortion and nearly dies, Llewellyn becomes hellbent on revenge, but against whom and to what end? What will it change for Isla and her sisters? For women? And where can revenge lead for a man like Llew, a police detective tangled up in running rum to Prohibition America?
Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is immersed in the complex political and social realities of the 1920s and, not so ironically, of the 2020s: love, sex, desire, police corruption, abortion, addiction, and women wanting more. Much more.
Both elegant and witty, with a compelling cast of characters, this novel is a tender account of love that cannot be acknowledged, of loss and regret, risk and defiance, abiding friendship, and the powerful bonds of chosen family.
Advance praise for Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue
In her latest book, award-winning author Christine Higdon looks to the 1920s for her achingly beautiful story of sisterhood―those bound by blood and those bound by their shared predicament of living and loving in the absence of agency. Ever a consummate wordsmith, Higdon’s elegant dispatch from the front lines of the battle for gender equality tells a tale as relevant and essential today as it was a century ago. Endlessly evocative and gorgeously rendered, an exquisite novel destined to be called a classic.
― Bobbi French, author of The Good Women of Safe Harbour
Christine Higdon is a brilliant storyteller. Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is a joy and a privilege to read; undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve read in years.
― Donna Morrissey, author of the bestselling memoir Pluck
I would read anything Christine Higdon writes, but Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is a particular gem. Set in Vancouver in the 1920s during Prohibition, this gripping novel implicates the reader in the lives of four very different sisters, each with their secrets and passions. It is impossible not to root for the McKenzie sisters as they fight for justice and forge their own identities, demanding the right to love and learn freely, despite the subjugation under which they live. It’s also impossible not to appreciate the craft and beauty with which Higdon conjures Vancouver of a century ago, a city and a natural landscape both eerily familiar and utterly different than that of Vancouver today. And finally, it’s impossible not to be struck by the parallels with our own time, where women are once again (and still, and relentlessly) grappling with laws that limit choice and human agency.
― Rachel Rose, author of The Octopus Has Three Hearts
'Why are women so angry?' asks the unloved husband of one of the remarkable McKenzie sisters. Christine Higdon answers this essential question with a tale both brutal and beautiful, delving deep into the mysteries of sisterhood, loneliness and love. This novel had me, heart and mind, from the opening line to the last.
― Alissa York, author of Far Cry
On bookshelves September 2023
Available for pre-order now at your local independent bookstore, the publisher (ECW), and the usual online suspects...