why you’ll love it: Brown’s book is a
modern, compulsively readable twist
on the classic Gothic novel. For Alice
and Nellie, the drafty old house is a
suffocating stand-in for the traditional
demands of domesticity: motherhood,
marriage, cleaning, cooking and the
pressure to maintain a placid façade.
Like Mr. Rochester’s wife and other
Gothic heroines, Alice finds herself
going a little crazy as she chafes against
her restraints. The novel is also a grip-
ping mystery, as Alice strips away the
layers of Nellie’s story—and the secrets
of the house—to discover the truth
about her tragic, troubled marriage.
Kitsch-loving foodies take note: the
novel doubles as a cookbook, filled
with fully functional recipes for such
1950s-era delicacies as baked Alaska,
tuna casserole, chicken à la king and
all things jellied.
who wrote it: Karma Brown, who
lives just outside Toronto, originally
planned to work in TV news. After
surviving cancer more than a decade
ago, she reconsidered her priorities
and realized her true love was writing.
In the meantime, she’s written for sev-
eral magazines and her debut novel,
Come Away With Me (2015), was a
critical hit and bestseller. Brown has
published an astonishing four more
novels in as many years. Her first non-
fiction book—about how you can
reclaim your time—is scheduled for
publication in 2021.
DO YOUR HOME WORK
Nearly three quarters of households
are dual income according Statistics
Canada. But just because women are
taking on more work outside the home,
this doesn’t mean that men have been
taking on more within it. Here’s a look at
how household tasks are split between
men and women in Canada today:✦In 2014, 16 per cent of couples with
children had a stay-at-home mother
while only two per cent had a stay-at-
home dad.✦Men are doing an average of 2.4
hours of domestic work a day—but it’s
still 50 per cent less than the 3.6 daily
hours done by women on average.✦Mothers who work long hours are
more likely to do extra housework than
men in the same position. Eighty-six
per cent of mothers who worked eight
or more hours a day did chores at home
compared to only 65 per cent of men
who did the same amount of paid work.✦One place fathers have picked up the
slack? Meal prep. The proportion of
dads who help out in the kitchen has
almost doubled in the past 30 years.JOIN THE CONVERSATION
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