When Melony Barnett's mother commits a violent murder, Mel is left struggling with the loss of her parents and her future. For more than two years, she drifts around the continent, trying to carve out a life that has nothing to do with her past, before returning to her Northern Ontario home and adopting a rescue dog—a mastiff with a tragic history. As she struggles to help the dog heal and repair her relationship with her brother, Matt, she begins to uncover layers of secrets about her family —secrets that were the fuel for her mother's actions.This Has Nothing to Do With You is a compulsively readable novel that follows a dynamic cast of characters, revealing the complexity of the bonds that are formed through trauma and grief—with siblings, lovers, friends, and dogs.

A widow visits a spiritualist community to attempt to contact her late husband. A grieving teenager confronts the unfairness of his small-town world and the oncoming ecological disaster. A sexual assault survivor navigates her boyfriend's tricky family and her own confusing desires. A mother examines unresolved guilt while seeking her missing daughter in a city slum. A lover exploits his girlfriend's secrets for his own purposes. Whether in Ecuador or San Francisco, rural Ontario or northern Manitoba, the landscape in each of Carter's poignant short stories reflects each character's journey.Psychologically complex and astute, Places Like These plumbs the vast range of human reactions to those things which make us human—love, grief, friendship, betrayal, and the intertwined yet contrasting longing for connection and independence.

In a not-so-far-off future of diminished energy reserves and collapsing economies, thirty-seven-year-old Sandy Burch-Bailey lives a difficult existence. She survives by fishing, farming, and beekeeping in a small island community with her partner, Marvin, and their elderly and ill friend, Thompson. As they wait for an overdue supply ship to arrive with medicine for Thompson, vegetables go missing from their garden. A footprint in the soil leads Sandy to believe the thief is a homeless youngster. Childless and aching to be a mother, Sandy narrates her story to the child, reliving her life in a city plagued by power outages, unemployment, and violent protests. When the girl’s life is threatened, Sandy and Marvin must come together to protect both the child and their fragile community.Told in two storylines divided by geography and time, Swarm is a suspenseful and powerful debut novel about survival and coming to terms with life’s regrettable choices.From BooklistImbued with dark lyricism and a disturbingly credible view of the end of the world, Carter’s debut sifts through the lives of people existing on an isolated island, grappling just to survive a time of enormous social upheaval and change. Cassandra “Sandy” Burch-Bailey fled her crumbling city just before the power finally went out and plunged it into a mire of chaos and crime. Her practical, hard-eyed boyfriend, Marvin, and the elderly, ill Thomson are her only companions—until Sandy notices missing food and tiny footprints in the garden. Convinced a wild child is also on the island and stealing their food for sustenance, Sandy begins to narrate her story to what she envisions is a little girl while also putting out plates of their very meager food supply. Creating a quite convincing view of how our economic system and social conveniences might dissolve, the story is carried by strong, descriptive writing by poet Carter, further impelled by the sense of mystery around the feral girl and wonderment over what will become of the characters. A somberly melodic, literary foray into the current dystopian trend. --Julie Trevelyan About the AuthorLauren Carter has been published in several literary journals and has been nominated for the Journey Prize. Lichen Bright, her first collection of poetry, was long-listed for the ReLit Award. Her non-fiction articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including National Geographic Traveler, This Magazine, the Georgia Straight, First Nations Drum, The Writer, and Adbusters. A transplanted Ontarian, she currently lives in The Pas, Manitoba. Swarm is her first novel. More information can be found on her website laurencarter.ca.