In the tradition of Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!, a once-famous but now-abandoned aquarium-in-a-ship in Florida is the captivating backdrop for a fast-paced, rollicking read with a cast of unforgettable characters. Pebble & Dove is a novel of family secrets and dysfunction, and the ways in which it can sometimes take a 1,000-pound aquatic mammal named Pebble to remind us how to be human.

About Amy Jones

Amy Jones’ bestselling first novel, We’re All in This Together, won the Northern Lit Award, was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire. Her second novel, Every Little Piece of Me, was named a Best Book of Summer by the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and NOW Magazine. Her story collection, What Boys Like, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award. Her fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories. Originally from Halifax, she now lives in Hamilton.

Pebble & Dove (2023)

Lauren is anxious to escape a mountain of debt when she runs with her teenage daughter, Dove, to her late mother’s rundown trailer in Florida. As she untangles the truth about her estranged mother, a world-famous photographer, Dove is led by a mysterious photograph to an abandoned aquarium and to Pebble, a former star attraction and the world’s oldest manatee in captivity. Darkly funny and sharply observed, Pebble & Dove is a novel about the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters, and learning what’s worth saving and what needs to be let go.

Matthew Stepanic is a queer writer who lives and works on Treaty 6 territory in Edmonton. He is a co-author of Project Compass and the author of Relying on that Body. His work has appeared in Queer Little Nightmares, CV2,
and others.