Gwen’s storytelling influences include soul searching, an interest in bygone days, and life’s complexities. She is fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity and writes about women navigating the social restrictions of their era.
“If you are interested in Canadian history and fictional characters who reflect the social and cultural conflicts of a new world, this dynamic novel will keep your attention from beginning to end.”
JULIE KIRSH – Book Reviewer (Former Sun Media News Research Director)
Suzanne Moutis of Canadian Living Books included UNREST in the top “107 Great Reads for Summer 2024.“
“Brash, duplicitous women, murder and mayhem, and illicit love abound in this wild adventure for fans of Outlander and The Home for Unwanted Girls, announcing a major new talent in historical fiction.” Random House Canada
“Tuinman is also interested in how societies work — and in giving special attention here to the place of women in such an often unforgiving male-dominated culture, she comes through with sharply detailed portraits of feminine resilience. So, among other things, Unrest is an edgy adventure yarn about women’s freedom.”
The National Post
“Brash, duplicitous women, murder and mayhem, and illicit love abound in this wild adventure for fans of Outlander and The Home for Unwanted Girls, announcing a major new talent in historical fiction.” Random House Canada
About UNREST
“Bytown, 1836: The lawless cesspool that will become the city of Ottawa is beginning to reek of more than just swamp water. Rife with squalor, corruption, and organized crime, class injustice divides the town more starkly than the canal that bisects it, cutting off its Irish poor—who are ready to fight back.
A domestic drama is also reaching a fever pitch on a homestead in the woods near Bytown. Quiet, ungainly Mariah, her face scarred in a dog attack back home in Ireland, has been living on sufferance in her sister Biddy’s home since they sailed for a new life.”
“She’s treated as the spinster aunt, a farmhand working alongside Biddy’s husband, Seamus. But the three of them are keeping a bitter secret: Mariah, in love with Seamus, is the mother of Thomas, the family’s oldest child. And she’s about to burst under the strain of making herself small. While Mariah plots to claim her rightful place in the world, Thomas keeps secrets of his own. Eager to escape the roiling tensions at home, he apprenticed himself to a blacksmith in Bytown but soon fell into trouble too big for him to handle. To save himself, he’s made a deal with the one man colder than the devil—Peter Aylen, leader of a powerful Irish rebel gang. As danger mounts, both for Thomas and for the town, there’s only one way for Mariah to save her son: by becoming the hero of her own story, facing her deepest fears with a determination she never knew she had.” From the Bookcover Blurb.
Gwen Tuinman
Connect with Gwen on X @GwenTuinman – Gwen on Facebook
To Order UNREST on Amazon – Also available at Indigo-Chapters and Apple or your favorite indie book store.
About Gwen Tuinman
Gwen Tuinman is descended from Irish tenant farmers and English Quakers.
Her storytelling influences include soul searching, an interest in bygone days, and life’s complexities.
Fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity, she writes about women navigating the social restrictions of their era.
Gwen lives with her husband on a small rural homestead in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region.
Reviews
UNREST
Genevieve Graham
“Timid and broken, Mariah lives a half-life, beaten lower by every glance she is given. When tragedy turns her bleak world upside down, she seizes the opportunity to change everything and claim the missing half, though it will demand everything she has and more. Meticulously researched and exquisitely written, Unrest is unapologetic in its starkly vivid depiction of Upper Canada’s frozen wilderness and the people who survived within it. A marvellous adventure.”
Genevieve Graham is the USA TODAY and #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child (which has been optioned for TV), Letters Across the Sea, Tides of Honour, Promises to Keep, Come from Away, and At the Mountain’s Edge. Her latest novel, Bluebird, became a national instant bestseller upon its release in April 2022. She is passionate about breathing life back into Canadian history through tales of love and adventure. Her upcoming novel, The Secret Keeper, is available for pre-order now.
“Dark secrets seeded in Ireland burst into full and furious bloom in Gwen Tuinman’s Unrest. With sharply-seen details of 1830’s Ottawa, Unrest parallels personal and political peril in the gritty world of Bytown’s Irish poor.
Beth Powning, bestselling author of The Sister’s Tale
Tender, brutal, heartbreaking, and true, this is historical fiction at its best.”
Beth Powning lives in New Brunswick, Canada. She is the author of four novels and three books of literary non-fiction, as well as articles, essays, and blog posts. A full-time writer, she teaches workshops, sings in a chorus, serves on boards and committees, makes baskets, gardens, photographs, and keeps chickens.
Her latest novel, The Sister’s Tale, published May 2021, was an immediate Canadian bestseller, hitting #3 on both The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail bestsellers lists.
“Gwen Tuinman’s Unrest depicts a little known aspect of 19th century Canadian history. Her portrayal of the lives of Irish immigrants to Ottawa is expertly drawn in remarkable detail. Mariah, the story’s protagonist, affronts her beleaguered existence with remarkable courage. Other characters also show a determination to demand equality and a better life in their new country that echoes
Suzanne Desrochers, bestselling author of The Bride of New France
down to present-day Canada.
Tuinman has clearly given us an important story that opens a window on what it means to fight for your place here.”
Suzanne Desrochers grew up in the French-Canadian village of Lafontaine on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario. She currently lives in London, UK, with her husband and son. She is completing a PhD thesis at King’s College comparing the migration of women from Paris and London to colonial North America. She also wrote her MA thesis on the Filles du roi, combining Creative Writing and History, at York University in Toronto. Bride of New France is her first novel.
The Last Hoffman – Gwen Tuinman’s first novel is also a must-read!
An intriguing novel by Gwen Tuinman tells of the torture of family secrets. Every family has its secrets—some more heartwrenching than others. In her novel The Last Hoffman, Gwen Tuinman poignantly tells a tale of family tensions, a first love, contempt, and new beginnings.
Family secrets, no matter how hidden, always come out. Some do considerable damage; some go back into hiding as soon as someone finds out.
Set in a town during the 1980s, the environmental damage caused by a local paper mill is a silent killer; the story revolves around prejudice, desperation, and misunderstanding that stretches a family to the breaking point.
Secrets, lies, and circumstances weave together in a skillfully honed plot in The Last Hoffman.
The Last Hoffman will take you on a journey many can relate to, a journey of sadness and lost hope. Yet there is final redemption.
“How we respond under pressure tells the world who we are.
When a young mother’s mental health deteriorates, does her husband stand by her? If a wealthy woman’s privilege doesn’t buy the results she wants, how does she retaliate? And when a family rejects their expectant teenage daughter, how will she move forward?
These are questions asked and answered in my novel, The Last Hoffman.”
Gwen Tuinman
which printed one of her short stories.
Gwen Tuinman was featured in “Blank Spaces” Magazine in September 2022, where her essay, Waking Up, was published.
“Waking Up is about grasping the relevance of dream content as a mental health red flag. During the collective trauma of COVID-19, increasingly vivid and troubling dream narratives have a value that extends beyond water-cooler chitchat and points to our vulnerability. The piece includes my personal experience of dreams sparked by post-traumatic stress.”
Gwen Tuinman
Learn more about Gwen Tuinman on her website. or on Facebook
List of Books by Gwen Tuinman
- UNREST – Published by Random House Canada, is a work of historical fiction.
- The Last Hoffman is a poignant family drama featuring a multilayered cast of tightly woven characters in a fractured northern community. It’s a story of family secrets, misplaced loyalties, and second chances.”
- We Are Enough: A Story of Vanquishing Self-Doubt by Gwen Tuinman
- Portrait of an Escape: A Story of Fleeing Domestic Abuse by Gwen Tuinman
About Gwen Tuinman Novelist
Gwen Tuinman is descended from Irish tenant farmers and English Quakers. Her storytelling influences include soul searching, an interest in bygone days, and life’s complexities. Fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity, she writes about women navigating the social restrictions of their era. Gwen lives with her husband on a small rural homestead in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region.
Gwen is such a soft-spoken woman, and you would not realize that she has such a depth of understanding of the human condition. She is a country girl at heart.
Surrounded by the ‘feel’ of the country, Gwen enjoys peaceful moments of reflection and writing between the rows of vegetables and flowers at her farm garden.
Besides spending time on her writing, Gwen is active with volunteer work. The tragedy of domestic abuse that some women live with prompted Gwen to juxtapose fundraising for such women and promoting artists. She created a group called The Wild Nellies, a collective of women creatives. These ‘womxn,’ as they refer to themselves, participate in events organized by Gwen each year to raise funds for various charities helping those escaping from domestic violence.
Gwen Tuinman was recognized as a Woman of Courage for this work in 2019 by the ‘Denise House’ and the ‘Sedna Women’s Shelter and Support Services.’
Gwen is a member of The Writers’ Community of Durham Region and The Brooklin Poetry Society.
Gwen graduated from Trent University with a B.A. in Psychology and Brock University with a B.A. in Education. You can see in The Last Hoffman how she uses her Psychology Degree to delve into her characters’ innermost recesses of themselves. I like the concept she puts forth in The Last Hoffman, that although family secrets can traumatize and torture, there are second chances.
Gwen enjoys the quiet of her country home, which allows her the tranquility to write her manuscripts. In between writing, she takes time to harvest vegetables from her garden and preserve many of them in her kitchen. A skill she undoubtedly learned during her childhood summers visiting her grandmother.
Gwen Tuinman’s agent is Marilyn Biderman at Transatlantic Literary Agency.
Please note: The author of this post has received no financial remuneration for mentions of creative people, books, products, places, or businesses mentioned in this post.
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