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WORK TITLE: When the Flood Falls
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Jayne Barnard
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.jaynebarnard.ca
CITY: Calgary
STATE: AB
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; children: three.
EDUCATION:Graduated from University of Regina.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist, short-story writer, scriptwriter, and documentary producer. Writer and producer of docu-drama Daddy Is Not Like Grandpa.
MEMBER:Crime Writers of Canada (former vice president), Calgary Crime Writers (cofounder), Sisters in Crime.
AWARDS:Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award, 1990; Bony Pete Award, 2011; Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished first crime novel, 2016, for When the Flood Falls.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
J.E. Barnard, who has also written as Jayne Barnard, is a Canadian mystery and suspense writer based in Calgary. “Her childhood of camping, boating and fishing fostered a love for the wilderness and a passionate respect for the environment. Her happiest times were either out in the woods or holed up in a library,” commented a writer on Barnard’s website. She has been active in social service and domestic violence organizations, including Transition House and the Canadian Mental Health Association. She is also the writer and producer of a docu-drama, Daddy Is Not Like Grandpa, which is about intergenerational domestic violence.
In her role as a writer and writer’s advocate, Barnard has served as the vice president of the Crime Writers of Canada. She was one of the founders of Calgary CrimeWriters and is an active member of Sisters in Crime.
While a student in college, Barnard was afflicted with the illness myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). This incurable condition is still largely a mystery to medical professionals, and causes extreme fatigue, abnormal sleep, physical pain, and other symptoms made worse by either physical or mental exertion. Despite this disabling condition, Barnard finished her college degree, raised three children, and became a novelist.
When the Flood Falls, published in 2018, is a mystery set in a small town in rural Calgary. “Beneath the many mysteries of Barnard’s character-driven debut are enduring questions about the complexities of life and the choices people make,” observed a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Protagonist Lacey McCrae is a former officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She has left her job behind, along with a husband she believes tried to kill her, and is living in Bragg Creek, a small town near Calgary. She has teamed with up another former Mountie to establish security for a local museum. She is invited by Dee Phillips, her former college roommate and president of the museum’s building committee, to stay in Dee’s secluded home in the nearby foothills.
Dee confides in Lacey about problems she has been having, including being involved in a nearly fatal hit-and-run accident and finding evidence of a prowler in her house. Troubles with a group of wealthy but reckless hockey fans who live nearby convince Lacey that they are a danger, especially when she herself is injured by a careless driver. As the mystery of Dee’s stalker deepens, more mysteries unfold involving the hockey fans and their involvement in the case. When the Flood Falls “boasts vividly drawn characters and a strikingly evoked sense of place,” commented David Pitt, writing in Booklist.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2018, David Pitt, review of When the Flood Falls, p. 22.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2018, review of When the Flood Falls.
ONLINE
J.E. Barnard website, http://www.jaynebarnard.ca (October 16, 2018).
J.E. (Jayne) Barnard
J.E. (Jayne) Barnard of Calgary writes award-winning short fiction
and the Prix-Aurora nominated YA novellas, the Maddie Hatter Adventures. Her 2018 new release, When the Flood Falls, won the 2016 Unhanged Arthur and debuts The Falls Mysteries, a new psychological suspense series from Dundurn Press.
Her work has won the 2016 Dundurn Unhanged Arthur, the 2011 Bony Pete, and the 1990 Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award, and been shortlisted for the Prix Aurora, the Debut Dagger, the Book Publishing in Alberta Award, and numerous short fiction prizes.
A graduate of the University of Regina, Jayne attended high school first on a NATO base in Germany and then in Kapuskasing, Ontario, where her Air Force father was posted next. Her childhood of camping, boating and fishing fostered a love for the wilderness and a passionate respect for the environment. Her happiest times were either out in the woods or holed up in a library. She performed in church musicals and community theatre before beginning her theatrical studies at university. She volunteered with Transition House, worked for the Mental Health Association, created cultural awareness programs and delivered them in playgrounds, and wrote a docu-drama about intergenerational domestic violence (Daddy Is Not Like Grandpa) which she filmed at the Moose Jaw community television station with student actors.
Like author Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit, Unbroken), Jayne was struck down in university by a crippling neuro-immune illness, ME/CFS. In the space of two months she went from being an active jogger, hiker, bicyclist, and cross-country skier to near bed-bound, from considering -20 degrees a good cross-country skiing day to huddling under heated blankets most of the year. Between relapses she completed degrees in Psychology and Theatre, raised three children, and wrote. Her worst relapse, striking halfway through the first draft of Whenthe Flood Falls, left her struggling to swallow a smoothie or compose a two-line email. Over the next five years she gradually taught herself to eat again, then to write again, and then to walk again.
Eventually, as a means to revisit the wilderness areas she loves from the recliner where she passes most of her days, Jayne finished writing When the Flood Falls, the novel that won the Unhanged in 2016. Flood is launching in July 2018 from Dundurn Press of Toronto. Two more in The Falls Mysteries are in development, each rooted in the society, politics, and geography of Alberta’s Eastern Slopes.
Jayne is a past VP of Crime Writers of Canada, a founder of Calgary CrimeWriters, and a member of Sisters In Crime. She is represented by Olga Filina of The Rights Factory.
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Print Marked Items
Barnard, J.E.: WHEN THE FLOOD
FALLS
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Barnard, J.E. WHEN THE FLOOD FALLS Dundurn (Adult Fiction) $19.99 8, 7 ISBN: 978-1-4597-4121-8
A former Royal Canadian Mounted Police corporal tackles a mystery that may help her gather together the
remnants of her shattered life.
Now that she's quit her job and the husband she thinks tried to kill her, Lacey McCrae works as a gofer for
another former Mountie who's setting up security for a new museum near Bragg Creek, a small town close
to Calgary. Nearly broke, she gets lucky when her former college roommate, realtor Dee Phillips, president
of the museum's building committee, invites her to stay in her home nestled in the wooded foothills of the
Rocky Mountains, a stone's throw from mansions owned by wealthy hockey fans. Ever since Dee was
nearly run down and one of her dogs killed by a hockey player driving carelessly, she's been slow to recover
and thinks she's being stalked. Projecting her own problems onto her friend, Lacey wonders if the stalker is
Dee's ex-husband, Neil. Then Dee's nearly run down again by three hockey players driving a car belonging
to her neighbor, much-married millionaire Jake Wyman, and Lacey's almost crushed to death by a
malfunctioning picture rack in the museum's vault. Lacey gets off on the wrong foot with Dee's closest
neighbors, Terry and Jan, when she assumes that Jan is a drug addict only to learn that she has an unusual
disease which often leaves her unable to function. When Dee is run down once more and this time badly
hurt, Jan and Rob, the museum manager, offer Lacey help in the search for Dee's stalker. Jarrad Fitch, who
originally ran Dee into a ditch, is the protege of former hockey great Mick Hardy, whose wife he's been
romantically linked with. He's only one of the people who might have it in for Dee, but he moves to the top
of the list when he vanishes.
Beneath the many mysteries of Barnard's character-driven debut are enduring questions about the
complexities of life and the choices people make.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Barnard, J.E.: WHEN THE FLOOD FALLS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540723301/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5c48247c.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540723301
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When the Flood Falls
David Pitt
Booklist.
114.17 (May 1, 2018): p22.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
When the Flood Falls.
By J. E. Barnard.
Aug. 2018. 424p. Dundurn, paper, $19.99 (9781459741218); e-book, $6.99 (9781459741232).
Barnard's debut novel won the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished crime novel, and it's easy to
see why it's no longer unpublished. It has a gripping story: former RCMP officer Lacey McCrae is visiting
with her friend Dee, who is still recovering from a hit-and-run that nearly killed her, and who says she hears
a stranger moving around the house. Lacey must decide whether to get Dee to safety while she can, or hole
up and deal with whatever happens. The novel also boasts vividly drawn characters and a strikingly evoked
sense of place, rural Calgary. A fine debut, one hopes the first of many Lacey McCrae novels to come.--
David Pitt
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Pitt, David. "When the Flood Falls." Booklist, 1 May 2018, p. 22. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539647198/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8b19d468.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539647198