Storm recalls that initial meeting with Janeen with amusement, although at the time he found the encounter to be anything but amusing. It was before he and Ali began cohabitating. One night he was at Ali’s cramped basement apartment in Swansea when Janeen unexpectedly dropped in. Rather, she entered the scene, Stage Right as it were, found her mark in what served as the living room, stood directly beside Storm, who had risen to introduce himself, and grasped his right hand between her hands. The hair. Good god, it was all Storm could do to rally his thoughts to rise above the hair. Flaming orange, untamed and piled high, as if it had been randomly styled by near lethal jolts of electricity.

“For Andy Juniper’s followers, be forewarned – his latest literary offering isn’t what you’d expect.

The well-known lifestyle humour columnist – who’s provided plenty of amusement in two previous novels – now takes a dramatic departure from those light-hearted roots with Angels in the Architecture.

Told through flashbacks and present day storytelling, his third novel – following Sweet Grass and The Sunforth Chronicles – follows central character Daniel (Storm) Davis, who struggles to overcome the traumatic loss of his wife Ali.”

Setting the scene: On an unusually warm day in mid-October in Toronto, Storm Baker is walking through High Park, taking in the sights: tennis players rushing the nets in their summer whites; sun worshipers stretching out on park benches; and at the park's zoo, a small boy eager to toss a rock at a peacock to make it fly, learns from his patient mother that rock tossing at zoo creatures is not allowed. Ever. It's on this golden afternoon that Storm first lays eyes on the woman who will become the love of his life...

Side entrance of a quaint century home centrally located in Old Oakville, a pleasant stroll to restaurants sampled over the years, coffee shops dropped in on for brainstorms, social interactions and a welcome rush of sugar and a jolt of caffeine and walking trails that hug the picturesque shoreline of Lake Ontario. Trails we’ve biked, briskly hiked on our own, and ambled along with curious kids and nosey hound(s) in tow.

"A teenage symphony to God."

The enigmatic words mumble down from his perch atop a rattan barstool and crash land below. He's at his regular place, in his regular pose. Slouched over a half-empty glass at the bar in the beach-front Sunset Grill, situated beside the Paradise Hotel just outside of Long Beach, California. In daylight hours, the bar overlooks a magnificent stretch of the Pacific Ocean; at night, the view is lost in an infinite sea of India ink. 

For our first fifteen-plus years living in the country we were burdened with and hampered by what was arguably the worst Internet in the country, if not the entire planet. Consider: Matt and Ashley, our eldest and his wife, returned from a 2007 Tanzanian adventure during which they spent a few nights as guests of the Maasai tribe, pastoralist herders, who – they swear – had a better internet connection in their compound in the East African desert than we had in Moffat.

Noise happens. Beautiful, ugly. In uplifting splendor, or dispiriting splatter. It happens. And like Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates, you never really know what you’re going to get. September 10, 2007. We were in Toronto, front row at a Damien Rice concert at what was then known as the Sony Centre, ‘Canada’s largest soft-seat venue.’ We knew little about Damien beyond the earworm that was The Blower’s Daughter, the first single off O, his debut solo album.

Kel had a dream. To quit city life. To buy a country home, avec acreage. To raise our city kids as country kids. To have a hound or two and a horse or two -- maybe even some chickens -- right on the property... To kick-start the search for a country home, we investigated a handful of Old Farmhouses.

Andy Juniper was born and raised in Woodstock, Ontario, third child of Dennis and Doreen Juniper, brother to Denny and Guy. He attended Huron Park Secondary School where he met Maureen Kelly, his future wife: tender teens locking eyes across a crowded Grade 10 science class. You could say, and you wouldn’t be wrong: they had chemistry together.

I was introduced to yoga at a young age. My mother wavered between being a passionate practitioner and a happy hobbyist. She yoga-d in fits and starts as interest, time, and mood dictated. I remember coming home from high school one fateful day to find her on the kitchen floor, madly twisted on her mat like the plot of a Dickens’ novel. Not to make this all about me, but… what I really remember is having to awkwardly step over her to reach the cookies. 

Late afternoon, mid-week, in the period our progeny has taken to calling The Pandemic Times. Kel and I are at home, perched on stools at the island in the kitchen on a video call with a Trust and Estate lawyer.