EUPHORIA, by Connie Gault.

In real estate, the three most important things are commonly acknowledged to be "location, location and location." By the same token, the three most important things in quality fiction, at least to my mind, have always been "character, character and character."

Connie Gault demonstrated this beyond a doubt with the creation of ginger-haired orphan Gladdie McConnell, the heroine of her debut novel, EUPHORIA. We learn of Gladdie's hardscrabble life in stages, as Gault's narrative opens in 1891 with the birth of a baby girl at the mean Toronto boarding house where a teenage Gladdie is employed. The story then takes a leap forward to 1912, to Regina, Saskatchewan, just ravaged by a killer tornado. Gladdie is summoned to a hospital there by Orillia Cooper, a young woman seriously injured in the storm. (The Regina Cyclone of 1912 was a real event, the worst and most deadly storm ever to hit Canada, leaving 28 people dead and thousands homeless.)

Gladdie, along with Hilda Wutherspoon, an old friend from Toronto, takes Orillia into their boarding house while she recuperates, along with Susan, a small, mute girl apparently orphaned by the storm. From this point on Gladdie's story unfolds in artfully revealed layers, from her uncertain orphan origins forward. We are privy to her earliest memories of being cared for by a kind woman known only as Margaret, followed by a spell with the Tuppers, where she learns 'evil' things which she needs to do to survive. Escaping that, at nine she finds work at Mrs. Riley's rooming house in Toronto, where her 'education' continues apace, when, Mr. Riley, a ne'er-do-well but kindly tippler, explains to Gladdie that she mustn't do that 'touching' she learned at the Tuppers. Mr. Riley also writes down a piece of advice that Gladdie adopts and which serves her well: "Werk hard and be cherful."

I know I said that character is paramount to good fiction, and I stand by that; but Gault knows too how to spin a story, and Euphoria is a humdinger of a tale, with orphans and misfits and comical and grotesque characters galore. It's no wonder that Gault has been called a "Canadian Dickens." A look at the cast bears this out - the aforementioned nefarious Tuppers, an intimidating Mr. Best, the sly Wilbur Twigg, the dandy ladies' man Johnnie Dabb, the overweight, overbearing and itchy Mrs. Riley, the ill-fated unwed mother, "Jessie Dole," the furiously knitting Miss Avis, Perchance Parchman, the cellar-dwelling "Mushroom" Mainwaring and more. Yes, definitely Dickensian, no question. Orphans, bad people, good people, etc. Dickens, and now Gault.

I don't want to give anything else away here, so let me just say I loved this book. Connie Gault is a master storyteller, and she knows character. And this is very high quality fiction. My highest recommendation. ( )