All royalties from WEAVING WATER will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund Canada, the International Otter Survival Fund, and the River Otter Ecology Project.

Weaving Water (Creative Book Publishing 2016) is a novel about otters, healing a human heart, and finding hope for an Earth imperiled by environmental destruction.

Ecologist Beth Meyer has lost hope for the future of Earth’s wild places and the wild creatures that call them home. Still she yearns to do something that matters.

Just days after she ventures into the Newfoundland wilderness to study river otters, Beth meets her contrary neighbour, Mattie MacKenzie, a weaver and woodcarver who has lived on the pond for eighty years. Living in a world filled with secrets and magic, Mattie confounds Beth’s scientific understanding at every turn. Nothing is what it seems.

Beth is sceptical of Mattie’s other ways of knowing … until she finds an old rosary with animals carved of bone and begins to have strange, vivid dreams of Mattie’s long-dead twin, the creator of the rosary.

Available from: Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, and  Chapters Indigo,

Happenstance Books & Yarns, Lakefield, ON (705-652-7535)

and Book World, Minocqua, WI (715-356-7071)

 

Excerpts from reviews of Weaving Water:

“With Weaving Water, Ms. Beckel has cleverly composed a vastly intriguing tapestry of themes: lost friends, solitude, and self-discovery in what is one of the best novels I have read this year. As such, I have put it on my longlist for the ‘Very Best’ award for fiction. I also gave it 5/5 stars on Goodreads.”

James A. Fisher, The Miramichi Reader

“Weaving Water is a wonderful story. The narrative and development of characters flows easily from beginning to end … What compels the reader to keep reading, however, is the mystery that is woven into the main narrative …The novel is replete with symbolic clues and dreams that motivate Beth to search for answers … Weaving Water is a yarn woven delicately by Annamarie Beckel into a fabric that is very human … This is a great holiday read.”

Barry Mutter, The Lakefield Herald

“Beckel delivers compelling, sure-footed fourth novel … Weaving Water quickly establishes itself as an intriguing and engaging mix of wildlife biology, animal myth, and murder mystery. This is Beckel’s fourth novel, and her best yet. Realistic, even as it leans towards the stuff of dreams, the prose is descriptive, sure-footed, and nicely underwritten.”

Joan Sullivan, The Telegram

“[Weaving Water] is a quiet and lovely new book by Annamarie Beckel, whose writing I greatly admire … [It] is a story about midlife, despair, hope and also otters … How do we find hope when we question the value of our own efforts? And can we learn any life lessons from otters? These are just two questions this gentle and thoughtful novel addresses.”

Trudy Morgan Cole, Compulsive Overreader

“Beckel joins a long tradition of Canadian women authors writing about women returning to the bush to sort out some sort of crisis in their lives, and she’s a worthy addition to their ranks. Weaving Water is a quiet and introspective book that leaves the reader both satisfied with the story and glad to have been allowed to share Beth’s journey to hope.”

  Denise Flint, Downhome

“Weaving Water caught my attention in a flash. Its cover image of a long, sleek otter diving downward reminded me immediately of the playful pair of river otters who regularly amuse visitors at the Peterborough Zoo … Mattie is an intriguing character … Indeed, her mysteries and her witchery both disturb and fascinate Beth [the protagonist] … A question posed early on by Mattie reverberates throughout the book. ‘We all live in stories,’ she tells Beth. What is most ‘important is to know which one you are in.’ “

Michael Peterman, Peterborough Examiner