» Governor General's Literary Award Finalist

» Winner of the Danuta Gleed Award and a B.C. Book Prize

» A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book

» An Amazon Best-of-2005 Pick

From the inside flap:

Ladykiller is the debut collection of seven smart stories from an exciting new voice in Canadian literature. In these tales of escape, self-sabotage and the power of unconscious desire, Charlotte Gill crafts outrageous scenes from everyday urban life, transporting us into the minds of characters who succumb to the allure of trouble, who find it infinitely more satisfying to ruin than to create.

These are richly textured worlds, slyly funny and sumptuous with engaging detail. A couple plots against a crying baby in the apartment below as their dysfunctional relationship veers off course. A down-at-the-heels scuba instructor hurls himself down the road to ruination by falling for a modern-day Lolita. Twin sisters on a competitive quest for romance travel to exotic lands as a means of rescuing themselves from their tempestuous bond. A lonely woman reconnects with the son of her father’s mistress and together they begin a strange and tortuous obsession with the past.

Charlotte Gill navigates this complex emotional terrain with gentle satire, empathy and wit. She reveals the paradoxical wisdom of our darkest impulses, how they point like compass needles to our deepest fears. We emerge from these stories, as Gill’s characters do, with the magnificent feeling that we’ve narrowly escaped disaster, breathless, electric, and alive.

First Chapter

What could happen next besides gravity, besides the falling?

The windshield smashed. Glass shattered, grains of glass hung suspended in confused air. Seconds elongated. Their guts compressed as if they were submerging in fluid, a cold miasma of uncertainty. The airbags inflated in great slamming puffs against their chests. They gulped the sudden rush of cold air. Life ripped open, as by a sharp metal hook, and suddenly all things became possible . . .

» Continue reading "You Drive."

» Read the full text of the Journey Prize nominated story, "Hush."

Selected Praise

"Every story in Ladykiller sings in its own way. Nothing should have been done better in Ladykiller. Charlotte Gill’s voice is on every page, her sure eye for contemporary detail, her originality and unsentimental wit, her ability to deliver us to endings with a sense of having read tellingly about our own world. About ourselves, even. That is Charlotte Gill’s authority. And that’s also why, when finishing Ladykiller, I wished I had something else written by Gill to open immediately. I wanted back in."

» The Globe and Mail

"Gill's prose is scalpel sharp and peppered with wickedly entertaining humour. Dozens of mordant, hyperbolic figures of speech act like a zesty seasoning sprinkled over the intentionally austere plots . . . Ladykiller lives up to the vigorous praise it has garnered. This is an impressive -- I'm tempted to say smashing -- start for a talented new voice on the Canadian fiction scene."

» National Post

"Perhaps chief among Gill’s numerous, enviable talents is her mix of intensity and brevity. Psychologically and emotionally Gill is both fast and accurate, combining a miniaturist’s capacity for immediate characterization with a mature depth of character. This combination of density and accuracy, along with Gill’s unstoppable wit, compare her to the best young contemporary short story writers."

» Edmonton Journal

"Ladykiller . . . takes Canadian fiction into edgy new territory . . . Gill’s stories smack of intelligence and demand to be noticed . . . her language connects with the reader in a fresh and immediate way. It’s a relief to read prose that’s so steely-sharp. By using superbly wrought language, Gill pulls us in. This is a courageous collection."

» Vancouver Sun

Full-Text Reviews

The Globe and Mail, "A killer debut," April 16, 2005*

The Vancouver Sun, "Seven strong stories about the young and the bleak," April 16, 2005*

NOW Magazine, "Deadly dyads," April 14 - 20, 2005

The Georgia Straight, "Ladykiller," April 21 - 27, 2005

National Post, "A smashing start for a new literary voice," April 23, 2005*

Toronto Star, "A walk on the dark side," May 1, 2005*

London Free Press, "Seven snappy stories you won't want to miss," June 4, 2005

Edmonton Journal, "Compelling tales involve intense relationships," July 24, 2005*

*Subscription required. Full-text online access to these newspapers and gazillions of other periodicals is often available (for free!) with your library card. For the Vancouver Public Library's electronic database page, click here.