New 
Shades of Emily
Two narrators, a century apart, bound by one of Emily Carr’s paintings and a hidden dedication.
Read moreOfficial website of Leslie Howard
Stories of the history& people of British Columbia
Leslie Howard writes stories about the history and people of British Columbia, a truly unique part of the world with stunning landscape and a complicated past.
Explore the novels
Meet the author
A storytellerof the West Coast.
Leslie divides her time between Vancouver and a small heirloom cider-apple farm on the Naramata Bench in the Okanagan Valley, a stone’s throw from where she grew up.
More about Leslie
The work
History, reimagined.
The artist
Emily Carr
Shades of Emily reimagines the early life of Canada’s great painter, and the mystery of a love hidden inside her work.
Shades of Emily ›The place
A complicated land
Stunning landscape, a colonial past, and the people history left out. Stories told honestly.
The Celestial Wife ›The voyage
The brideships
In the 1860s, ships carried women from England to the colony of British Columbia. The Brideship Wife follows one of them across the world.
The Brideship Wife ›Praise
What readers are saying.
A wonderful debut…This well researched read marks the arrival of a new talent on the Canadian historical fiction scene.
Beautifully crafted and well-researched, this story melds biography, family dynamics and the world of art for an utterly absorbing experience that leaves you sighing for more.
Leslie Howard is a welcome new voice with a confident sense of story, place, and destiny in this engaging coming-of-age story.
Howard has a natural gift for time, place and setting, and her pacing and suspense are propulsive.
Book clubs
Bring Leslie to your next meeting.
Leslie visits book clubs in person, and joins by Zoom or FaceTime when travel isn’t possible.
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