The Chronicles of Paisley • Corners

    Cheryl's debut novel launched in 2023

Canadian nurse Kick Cavendish has always wanted to make a difference, and she's hoping her new post as Paisley • Corners’ new public health nurse will help her do just that. The rural Ontario hamlet instantly enamored Kick, who had also dreamed of living on an animal rescue farm. She soon discovers Paisley • Corners is as curious of a place as it is special. A community where the dot in its name is explicitly intentional, and its citizens are meddlesome and sometimes misunderstood but deeply caring despite their quirks and foibles.

In The Chronicles of Paisley • Corners, the author draws from her expertise as a public health nurse, a role she compares to the wind: rarely seen, yet a presence that’s felt. With gentle nods to social issues and research around real historical events, an array of stories that focus on the wants, wounds, and secrets of the village residents will have readers rooting out loud for their favourite character. Much of the book is seen through Kick’s observant eyes, from witnessing the trauma associated with being an outcast to discovering the lengths people will go to shroud a secret. The links she sees between her rescue barn and her nursing practice – like beauty from ugliness or hope from neglect – gives us pause to contemplate the true meaning of belonging.

​The comings and goings of this friendly and compassionate public health nurse provide a window into endearing rural characters who just want to matter.

We all have a story and a context.  We all crave connection.  We all come from somewhere.  And, in Paisley • Corners we can find “home”. van-Daalen-Smith creates a kaleidoscopic view of human connection in rural community life and public health nursing practice.  She impeccably knits a narrative of how and why history, context, and relationships matter.
 
The language in Paisley • Corners is so purposefully and powerfully chosen. The story line and character development are simply exquisite. Filled with eclectic characters, rich dialogue, and palpable settings, the story reads like soft paisley fabric, full of color, curves, and diverse patterns. The tone and tenor inspire the investments of kindness, empathy, and generous interpretations.
 
Paisley • Corners offers much comfort to any reader, but for nurses it is truly a special gem. The story is both relational and inspiring.  The author seamlessly threads nursing metaparadigm, ethics and values, and the competencies a nurse requires to work with people in the comfort or messiness of their life’s journey. Serving with grit and grace in equal measure, Nurse Kick models this beautifully.  Nurse Kick’s tailored approach is a testimony to the idea that nurses need be present, not perfect as we work with and for our clients. This book reminds us that within our client’s story exists the antidote of bias and recipe for socially just and self-determined agency.  For nurses, the story is a clear reminder of our why."
 
Patricia M. King RN, MN
Community Health Nursing Instructor, University of Saskatchewan.
Provincial Representative and Member of the Standards and Competencies Committee of The Community Health Nurses of Canada

Reviews

   The heart of             The Chronicles  Paisley •  Corners 
is its immense humanity, its respect for persons, which generates a quiet, Whitmanesque “thrum” that builds over the course of the book.  Given the idyllic setting of a Canadian rural town as well as both a protagonist and a narrator who initially might seem to be inhumanly patient, open and kind, this could result in something only romantic or simply twee.  However, in the tradition of Lucy Maud Montgomery on the one hand and Margaret Laurence on the other, acuity develops with profound results over the course of van Daalen-Smith’s book.  Her characters begin as recognisable but become real to readers as we come to understand their histories, the causes and drivers of their actions and reactions.  Completely befitting a public health nurse as protagonist and a narrative voice equally developmentally diagnostic, Chronicles moves patiently from symptoms to causes, from defence mechanisms to traumatic events buried in personal histories.  The results produce poignancy and love through a community of characters that endures. 
​
Dr. Thomas Loebel, Associate Professor, Dept of English, York University. (19th Century American Literature)

FICTION | Historical                Small Town & Rural, Canadiana     
162 pages | B & W
Paperback: 978-1-03-916289-1
Hardcover: 978-1-03-916290-7

FIND THE NOVEL

This gentle novel shines a spotlight on a Public Health Nurses' care for the people in a small rural community. The stories of the residents of Paisley •  Corners are told with humour, warmth, and empathy and remind us of heart-warming relationships experienced in our own small communities. 
M. Whitfield & B. Pratt -  The Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario. 

"van Daalen-Smith, an Ontario-based nurse, has crafted an engrossing narrative that conjures a world that combines the folksy appeal of Jan Karon’s Mitford books with the nursing perspective and advocacy found in Jenny Worth’s The Midwife   (2009), the basis of a PBS series. Van Daalen-Smith is particularly deft at capturing the angst of the tale’s older characters and the town’s political dynamics and moments of heartwarming charity. This astute novel could be a springboard for a series..."                — Kirkus Reviews