Saint Andrews-born author creates magical world inspired by Stonehammer Geopark

Author Laura Keating lives in Nova Scotia, but she grew up in Saint Andrews and says her "heart still remains in New Brunswick."

Her horror novella Agony's Lodestone is part of this year's Books and Backroads series.

Readers in six small communities in rural areas of New Brunswick took part in book clubs in CBC's partnership with New Brunswick public libraries — reading books from all genres and all with a connection to New Brunswick.

Agony's Lodestone was read by a group of students at the Nackawic Public School Library.

It tells the story of Aggie, a woman who stumbles into a mysterious world while searching for her sister, who has been missing for decades. 

During the search, Aggie enters a haunted forest, where time and space are unstable and shift, which Keating said parallels the emotional state of the book's characters. 

Themes of guilt and grief

Keating said she wrote Agony's Lodestone at a time when a lot of grief horror was being written because of the pandemic. 

"I think a lot of the world was feeling a certain sense of guilt and grief," she said. "There's a lot of loss and a lot of huge life changes that happened during that time. I think that just sort of carried into my writing."

Novellas are common in horror, she said, because they are the perfect length for what the genre tries to achieve. 

"It's sort of like if you're watching a horror movie," Keating said. "A good 90-minute film seems perfect for ratcheting up that tension, getting the sense, getting the thrills and the chills and then tightly wrapping it up."

Agony's Lodestone is set in a fictionalized version of Saint John called Lancaster Falls. It also includes a fictionalized version of the Irving Nature Park called Cannon Park. 

Throughout the search in the story, Aggie feels guilt and responsibility for her sister's disappearance. As the search unfolds, unexpected video evidence emerges, casting even more confusion.

Young adult readers in Nackawic found that themes of guilt and grief coursed powerfully through the book. 

'Really cool' to highlight different types of fiction

Books and Backroads features books from all genres, and Keating was pleased to have hers on the list.

"In particular, genre fiction — things like horror and thrillers — don't always get as much of a spotlight in the Canadian literary body as our more traditional literature," she said.

"I kind of just let the characters speak for themselves as I thought they would develop in their own ways and feelings given the scenario."

Part of the story includes a theory, not considered scientific, known as the "stone tape theory." It holds that stones or rocks get charged with energy, causing reactions that can make people believe they have encountered ghosts or spirits.

Keating said New Brunswick's geological formations in the Stonehammer Geopark, combined with the Bay of Fundy tides, struck her as the perfect combination. 

"And I thought, 'Oh, it's like you needed something to charge a stone battery," she said. "What would be better than the highest tides in the world?'"

Students in the Nackawic book club felt the book was a great combination of folklore and psychological horror.

Keating said she's heard it described as "folk horror," a genre that uses isolated woodland settings. She's also heard from readers who call it "cosmic horror," which refers to works by authors like H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote with the idea that there is so much more to the world than we can ever know and that to even try "would actually drive the human mind insane."

When Keating heard that student Maggie Crabbe "was afraid to go to bed" after reading the book, her answer, like the best horror novella, was short and sharp: "Mission accomplished."