fiction

Set against the backdrop of WWII and the awe-inspiring majesty of the Canadian Rockies. This coming-of-age story follows a young girl named Georgie, who lives above a grocery store.

The war is over. Georgie Andrews’s mother collapses from exhaustion on the floor of the family Grocery and Hardware Store. Georgie must now take charge. Tin can pyramids, aisles of boxed rice, shelved bags of flour, barrels of potatoes, crated fruit, vacuum bags to washing machines. Stacks and stacks of LIFE magazines and national Georgraphics. Surrounded.

She wonders why no one else sees the chaos? Angry, constantly planning an escape, packing, sorting, bundling. Leaving.

But it's her grandfather, Andrew Andrews, who gives her a precious gift that changes everything - arriving, from England, on a war bride boat. Steadfast and organized. He gives her a camera, a precious, old A3 Kodak with a pullout bevel. Magnificent.

The store closes. The family moves to a new house. Spacious. But Georgie’s father, never around, always has something more important to do, so Georgie and her Kodak begin to follow him. Capturing, recording, sorting and filing. Through her lens, she discovers the thrill of photographing the world around her.

A girl with a covert darkroom, her photographs of the people in her life hang in the basement. Friends, Schuler, with a coat made from a Hudson’s Bay blanket, Will, a beady-eyed introvert, and Frank, a boy with nice blue eyes, sisters Haze and May, Mr. Hardy at the camera shop, Mrs. Pinkham the neighbour, Rosemary, the hired help, and Georgie’s father Hamp Andrews. Truths and half-truths intertwine on clothes-pinned lines or hide in old biscuit tins.

Find couture on Instagram @yvettecoutureauthour where they share lots of great imagery and LIFE magazine covers from the era.

Couture can also be found at yvettecouture.com.