At an open-air clinic, the enigmatic twist of Dr. Mahlon Locke sets events into motions that trickle down through time until they become a relentless flood:

An unrepentant dreamer with one short leg finds solace in beautiful shoes. A celebrated author points to a shelf of useless words and a loaded gun. A sharp-tongued scriptgirl clings to the scent of Easter lilies. Guided by ephemera, a young woman reconnects these spoiled lives in a sensuous bid to save herself.

Punctuated by unforgiving factoids and vintage postcards, Spoilers confronts the fleeting nature of fame, the human impact of progress, and the consequences of choosing art over love.

Mark Foss is an Ottawa-based writer whose journalism and short fiction have appeared in such publications as The Globe and Mail, The New Quarterly and Blood and Aphorisms. In 1997 he began work on his first book, a collection of linked stories entitled Kissing the Damned, which was published in 2005 and long-listed in 2006 for the ReLit awards. Kissing the Damned was praised by the Danforth Review, Embassy Magazine and Ottawa Life Magazine and was featured at your 10th anniversary Ottawa Writers Festival in the Fall of 2006. His short stories have also appeared in two anthologies, and a radio drama was aired on CBC New Voices. Spoilers is his first novel.

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