Flicker
University of Calgary Press Brave & Brilliant Series, 2023
Selected for the 2023 CBC Books Fall Fiction List!
Cass Reisender doesn’t enjoy her psychic abilities. They appeared after her parents were killed in a tragic accident and led her to Madame Freyja, a travelling fortune teller and all-round terrible person. Swearing to leave both her psychic sensitivity and Madame Freyja behind, Cass starts again in Calgary, Alberta, a city with nothing supernatural about it at all. Then Cass touches a strange antique device and her new life is blown apart.
Transported to West Orange, New Jersey, in the year 1900, Cass meets the dashing Erik Thorvaldsen in Thomas Edison’s – that Thomas Edison’s – laboratory. As she and Erik grow closer, Cass finally accepts herself as she finds love in a life lived across centuries. Yet Madame Freyja lurks in the shadows, hungry for the power of the time travel device. When Madame Freyja strikes, Cass must face both her fears and her past or lose her connection to Erik forever.
Flicker is a playful, fast-paced romp through the golden age of invention, mythology, and the supernatural. This is a novel for everyone who believes in the power of scientific curiosity and the strength of the human heart.
- Meet the Author -
Lori Hahnel
Writer
Lori Hahnel’s latest novel, Flicker, has just been published by University of Calgary Press. Her last book, Vermin: Stories, won an Alberta Literary Award, and was a finalist for a High Plains Book Award, the CAA Fred Kerner Award and the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts Glengarry Book Award. Her previous books are the novels Love Minus Zero and After You’ve Gone, and the story collection, Nothing Sacred. Her work has been broadcast on the CBC Radio, and has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Joyland, The Saturday Evening Post and many other journals and anthologies. She is currently at work on a novel based on the life of pianist and composer Clara Schumann.
Lori was Calgary Public Library’s Author-in-Residence in 2020 and has taught creative writing at Alexandra Writers’ Centre and Mount Royal University. She has also acted as a mentor through the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Writers’ Guild of Alberta and AWCS.
- Praise for Flicker -
"Lori Hahnel seduces the reader with a magical, charming tale of a woman's foray into the past. Flicker is a delightfully compelling read."
—Jerry Levy, author of The Quantum Theory of Love and Madness
"Mysticism and science combine to power Hahnel's time-travel tale and give it a delightful twist. She brings alive a unique time and place, and creates an obsessed heroine you can't help but root for."
—Karen Bass, author of the time-travel adventure Two Times a Traitor
"A riveting time-travel tale with a feminist twist, Flicker explores love, loss, science and the supernatural with curiosity and conviction... Seductive, wistful, electric."
—Ali Bryan, author of Coq and The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships
- Coming Events -
30 May 2024
Wild Prose Reading Series, Victoria BC