All Lit Up: The Brickworks by Lucy E.M. Black (Now or Never) Historical Fiction

ALL Lit Up: We’re highlighting Canadian authors and books right where they started—in hometowns across the country. Explore “Homegrown,” All Lit Up’s newest series for locally-produced reads!

Why it’s on our list: Based on the real-life Tay Bridge collapse in Scotland in 1879, Lucy E.M. Black’s historical novel The Brickworks centres the tragedy around the character of Brodie Smith, the young son of the train operator left destitute and guilty after his father’s death. While learning engineering in an attempt to reestablish his father’s good name, Brodie finds more opportunities and a fellow Scottish immigrant, Alistair, to help bring them to fruition. The novel is inspired in part by Black’s visit to the Cheltenham Brickworks in Caledon, and how it anchored a small community and its needs.

Now or Never Publishing is a boutique west coast publishing house that seeks out titles that accurately reflect its literary mandate: to publish a diverse range of contemporary literature that showcases the “fighting spirit” of Canadians in the face of adversity in all of its forms, and to present this body of work to readers both at home and abroad.