After retiring from the heady world of academia, Sidonie von Täler has returned to the small Okanagan Valley town she escaped in her youth for the lights of the big city. The family orchard has since gone to seed, and ever decades later Sidonie still finds herself living in the shadow of her deceased older sister Alice.

As she gets down to work sifting through the detritus of her family's legacy, Sidonie is haunted by memories of trauma and triumph in equal measure, and must reconcile past and present while reconnecting with the family members she has left.

Karen Hofmann's debut novel blends a poetic sensibility with issues of land stewardship, social stratification and colonialism, painting the geological and historical landscape of the Okanagan in vivid and varied colours.

Karen Hofmann grew up in the Okanagan Valley and taught creative writing at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, for many years. She now divides her time between Vancouver Island and the BC Interior. A first collection of poetry, Water Strider, was published by Frontenac House in 2008 and shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Prize. Her first novel, After Alice, was published by NeWest Press in 2014, and a second novel, What is Going to Happen Next, in 2017. Her short fiction has won the Okanagan Fiction Contest three times, and "The Burgess Shale" was shortlisted at the 2012 CBC Short Fiction Contest. Karen Hofmann is an avid walker, and her writing explores the landscapes, both rural and urban, of British Columbia as well as the personalities and social dynamics of the inhabitants. Her latest novel, A Brief View from the Coastal Suite, was released in spring 2021.

www.karenhofmann.com

Karen Hofmann's profile page

Praise for After Alice:
"For the beauty of its narrative descriptions, but also for many other reasons, After Alice deserves a place among the best of new Canadian literary fiction."
~ Julienne Isaacs, The Winnipeg Review
"I welcome Hofmann's refreshing voice with this wonderful book, one of the most interesting and exciting that I've encountered in ages."
~ Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This
"After Alice has the makings of a CanLit classic, with complex characters, heavy themes done with a light touch, and expert pacing. Did I mention that this is Karen Hofmann's first novel?"
~ Laura Frey, Reading in Bed
"This novel accomplishes so much . After Alice firmly places [Hofmann] as an exciting new voice on the CanLit scene."
~ Kat Main, Alberta Views