“The Water of Life” by Daniel Marchildon – Author Distills a Captivating Tale of Scotch Whisky & Canada’s Sixth Great Lake – Whisky News
Georgian Bay author distills a captivating,
award-winning tale of Scotch whisky
and Canada’s Sixth Great Lake
Canadian author, Daniel Marchildon hopes to make readers fall in love with whisky and its history in his latest novel, The Water of Life (Uisge beatha). Driven by a mysterious voice, Elizabeth Legrand plunges headlong into an insane project: opening a distillery in her small, isolated Canadian community in Georgian Bay. Using ancient reserves of Glen Dubh, a mythical Scotch thought lost to the world, she hopes to create a single-malt whisky better than anything distilled in Scotland. However, the only thing that could prove worse than failing to revive the Glen Dubh is if she succeeds. The water of life, incarnated in the Fearmòr clan’s whisky for over five centuries, is tainted by the dramatic and sometimes fatal struggles of the distillers. It bends the will of those it touches: guiding them or condemning them to their fate.
This turbulent family saga spans two continents and several generations of three lineages, climaxing with the tragic arrival of the whisky in Lake Huron. The present-day descendants of the bloodlines are about to meet, and so will begin yet another tumultuous chapter in the odyssey of “the water of life”, mixing the captivating tale of Scotch whisky with the stories of the challenging Georgian Bay coastal life.
This novel, originally published in French, has been translated into English by Mārta Ziemelis. It was winner of the 2009 Émile-Ollivier literary prize, awarded by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française du Québec, and short-listed for both the Prix des lecteurs de Radio-Canada and The Ontario Trillium Award.
“This book is a remarkable literary expedition that keeps you breathless up until the very last page … a must read — with a glass in hand.”
— Yves Dubuc, radio-host, CBON FM, for the Radio-Canada web site: 100 Must read Canadian novels (April 2015).
“In all, The Water of Life is a superb novel. Upon reading the last sentence the reader is left feeling not only entertained and fulfilled, but with a vast knowledge of the history of something they may previously have known little or nothing about: Scotch whisky. The Water of Life lingers in the memory, a book to be savoured, like a dram of Glen Dubh.”
— Isobel Blackthorn, reviewer
See other comments at:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25961331-the-water-of-life
The Water of Life (Uisge beatha) by Daniel Marchildon published by Odyssey Books and available in paperback and ebook editions. 322 pp $ 24.95.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Marchildon was born and raised in Penetanguishene, (Ontario, Canada). In his thirty years as a freelance writer, he has published thirteen novels in French, as well as short stories, historical works, and the screenplay of the feature film, La Sacrée, (Holy Brew in the English subtitled version) produced in Canada in 2011. Marchildon is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including The Trillium Award for children’s literature.
