I read The House on Selkirk Avenue at a sitting and enjoyed it hugely … brilliant opening chapters and wonderful ending. I loved the way Kate skirts around the idea of meeting Guillaume throughout the whole book … Very clever, the way the photography comes into its own. Congratulations!

A fascinating, subtle and very timely novel … Karafilly has a painter’s eye and a great talent for description, and her central character, a woman photographer with an eye for beauty in both people and places, leaves you thoroughly convinced that Montreal is the most exciting city in North America.

Kate Thuringer, about to turn fifty, finds herself ‘reluctant to surrender to the prose of life.’ Set against a vividly rendered Montreal, the collision of Kate’s past and present sends out sparks in all directions, threatening Kate’s future while at the same time illuminating the dilemma that faces many of us as we age. A terrific read.

A complex and compelling story, written with great skill. The author has brought her city as well as her main character to vivid life, so that the reader can share her internal struggle while enjoying the melancholy splendors of a Montreal autumn. Karafilly has woven her story into the October Crisis of 1970, giving a new perspective to those events. I am sure that the book, when it appears, will attract much praise and many readers.

The House on Selkirk Avenue evokes the political fervour and sizzling eroticism of Montreal during the War Measures Act. Playing with the Romeo-Juliet trope, Karafilly situates her Anglo/Franco lovers in the hothouse atmosphere of Quebec politics as the FLQ crisis unfolds. Thirty years later, her nostalgic heroine must reconcile the conflicting realities of her youthful past and her melancholy present. A rich, memorable read.

The House on Selkirk Avenue finds its heroine looking back three decades to the unresolved end of a relationship with an aspiring musician.

What Karafilly has done is to give us a window on the emotional turmoil that questioning brings.