In Reckoning, A.S. Penne scrutinizes the all too human desire to be understood and known by others before first understanding and knowing oneself.

“Summer About to Happen” reveals a teenager’s first foray into the realm of desire, which ends in shock as she understands her fantasy love will never materialize. The father in “A Different Kind of Wanting” struggles to come to terms with the death of a son he never learned to accept. “Heat” explores the meaning of friendship when a woman takes stock of the expectations she has of her partner and of her friend. In “Threshold” the superstitions of a confirmed bachelor convince him that a woman he works for is his intended soul-mate.

The characters in Reckoning are adrift, reluctant to fully engage in their lives. Eventually, through a tumult of conflicting emotions, they come to a reckoning point and are forced to accept culpability for refusing to meet life and love head-on.

A born-and-bred West Coaster, A. S. Penne lives at the edge of the Strait of Georgia in Sechelt. British Columbia, where she writes and teaches. Her writing has won acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Ian St. James Awards in the U.K. (1994 and 1995) and the Writer’s Digest in The U.S. (1994). In Canada, she was a finalist in the prestigious Western Magazine Awards (2000) and was given honorable mention by the judges of the Norman Epstein Creative Writing Competition (1993). Old Stones is her first book. In 1999-2000, Penne spent several months reading archival material at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library and London’s Public Records Office, and she is now working with that material on a creative non-fiction work about early BC settlers. A collection of her short fiction is being compiled for future publication. Please visit www.aspenne.com.

A.S. Penne's profile page

[T]the seventeen stories in this well-balanced collection are about walking the rickety bridge forward from a difficult moment, about the dread and confusion, the indecision, the regret, the panic and anger in those careful steps. They are about the swirl and tumult of modern heartbreak.
-Michelle Bailat-Jones, Cerise Press

“The grammar of melancholy is transformed by the supple wit of A.S. Penne’s writing. Droll, clear-eyed, and compassionate, this first collection marks the emergence of a wickedly talented star in the Canadian firmament.”

—Eden Robinson, author of Blood Sports

A. S. Penne's engaging prose and her grasp of the complexities of the human heart lift her writing into the realm of quality literature.

-Marlene Dean, Lethbridge Herald, Herald Book Club