Fiction

DAUGHTERS OF THE DEER

 

Many thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their works-in-progress writers grant. Please continue to support fellow Northern voices and stories.

 
 

Debut Adult Novel - March 2022 - Random House Canada

 

National Bestseller

 

Critical Praise

“Danielle Daniel renders the stories of her ancestors vividly, poetically and with deep love and respect. Daughters of the Deer gives long overdue voices to the Indigenous women who came before. A subtle, moving demonstration of how colonization attempted to strip Indigenous women of their power and place, and a testament to the enduring strength and wisdom that no colonial power could extinguish.” —Jessica McDiarmid, author of Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls


“This stunning adult debut from Daniel, who has already won awards for her children’s books, has threads of what makes great kid lit: simple but powerful language, harnessing complicated ideas into strikingly distilled images. Drawing from her own Algonquin, Scottish and French heritage, Daniel weaves together the stories of Marie, a healer from the Deer Clan forced to marry a French soldier, and Jeanne, her daughter, whose sexuality makes her a target for condemnation and violence in her father’s New France. A beautiful book, this is urgent reading for anyone seeking to understand more about the myriad ways European colonization in the 1600s still reverberates today, to devastating effect.” The Globe and Mail

From Random House Canada:

In this haunting and groundbreaking historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of women in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family’s ancestral link to a young girl who was murdered by French settlers.


1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride.


1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown. Among her mother’s people, Jeanne would have been considered blessed, her two-spirited nature a sign of special wisdom. To the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful—a woman to be shunned, beaten, and much worse.


With the poignant, unforgettable story of Marie and Jeanne, Danielle Daniel reaches back through the centuries to touch the very origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent disruption of First Nations cultures.

Nonfiction

 
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"Candid and powerful new book ...
Brutally honest. The raw emotion is undeniable."    

Lainey Lui, Co-Host, The Social CTV

THE DEPENDENT

The Dependent is a true story written by a military wife married to a paratrooper who served in the Canadian Armed Forces for fourteen years before his army career came to a crashing halt—a freak accident near Armed Forces Base Trenton left him paraplegic and their future in shards. Danielle, a fiercely independent university student, meets Steve, an ambitious infantry private. Much of the first years of their marriage are spent apart, as Steve’s infantry unit is sent overseas for duty in Croatia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. With each tour of duty, the emotional distance between them intensifies. After four tours, Steve finally comes home to stay, but little changes: their marriage remains a difficult ménage-à-trois made up of a man, a woman, and the military.


In this deeply candid depiction of their marriage before and after a life-altering trauma, each chapter unveils an intimate portrait of marriage—one in which Danielle and Steve must navigate shifting roles and learn to co-exist in a space where the collateral damage of military service is absolute. The Dependent is a brave and modern love story revealing immeasurable loss and grief and the journey to lasting hope and forgiveness.

 
 
 
 
 
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Shortlisted for the
Louise de Kiriline Lawrence AWARD

 

SELECTIVE INTERVIEWS

Listen to my CBC interview here.
Listen to my interview with Radio Canada here.
Read an interview with the Canadian Military Family Magazine here.
Read an interview here and here
Our Crater interview

MOST ANTICIPATED: OUR FALL 2016 NON-FICTION PREVIEW, 49th Shelf


"...The Dependent is not told in chronological order, but instead weaves in and out of time. The playing with time and story, the giving and withholding of detail, is stunningly accomplished, which is only underlined by the book’s incredible, miraculous and beautiful ending, which is also its beginning, a fantastic, complicated and beautiful love story…"  Kerry Clare, reader, reviewer, writer and editor at 49th Shelf (Read FULL review here. Warning: Spoilers)

"With candour and honesty, Danielle Daniel shares her painful journey as she discovers that marrying a soldier means also marrying the military, and that she is outranked at every turn. Her struggle to' soldier on', made only harder by the tragedy of her husband's accident, is heartbreaking, yet her determination and ultimately, her transformation-is inspiring."  Shannon Moroney, author, Through the Glass (National Bestseller)   

"...an act of heroism.."  Caroline Adderson, author, Sitting Practice and Ellen in Pieces

"The Dependent is a story about the push and pull of marriage and relationship. It’s a story about the military, about survival and about overcoming odds. But ultimately, it’s a story about love."  Alexis Kienlen, Daily Herald Tribune in Grande Prairie, AB. (Read FULL review here. Warning: Spoilers.)

 
 

OTHER SELECTED WRITING & PUBLICATIONS

 
 
"Operation Release" Shortlisted for the 2015 CNF Writing Contest. Published in Issue 45.2.

"Operation Release" Shortlisted for the 2015 CNF Writing Contest. Published in Issue 45.2.

 
“Free Fall” CNF Short Story, June 2015. Published in issue 38.2

“Free Fall” CNF Short Story, June 2015. Published in issue 38.2

I’m honoured to have a story published in the 40th Anniversary Room Anthology called “Free Fall”

I’m honoured to have a story published in the 40th Anniversary Room Anthology called “Free Fall”