In December 2013, an ice storm echoing one that took place seventy years earlier buries the city where realtor Laura Keys is preparing to sell a semi-detached house for the comatose homeowner. Hanging around the house and wanting inside is a teenage girl with a Scottish terrier tucked into her coat.

As Laura prepares the house for showing and sale, she uncovers more about its owner, Eddie (Edna Ferguson), and Eddie's ill-fated relationship with her boss's daughter in 1944. Meanwhile, Laura is also navigating the fate of her own relationship with her wife Catalina (Cat) which has been buckling under the weight of Laura's infertility. Can Laura piece together the teen's connection to the house and save her marriage at the same time? Or will everything change?

Across two paralyzing winter storms, set nearly seventy years apart and connected by a house and a murder, Semi-Detached contends with living after loss, love, and the meaning of home. (From Cormorant Books)

Elizabeth Ruth is an author, poet and professor living in Toronto. She is the author of the novels Ten Good Seconds of Silence, Smoke and Matadora. Her debut poetry collection, This Report Is Strictly Confidential, is forthcoming in 2024.