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What readers and reviewers are saying about
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit...

​"This deeply resonant tale is one that will linger in the mind long after reading it. Layers of meaning abound in Dunsmore’s expressive writing in this striking tale. How much of what happens is reality, magic, Lily’s imagination, or a mix of all three? Readers can decide. 

A girl’s unusual journey to self-realization: disturbing, enchanting, and wise."
- Kirkus Reviews  [READ FULL REVIEW]
"Poetic prose and rich characterizations result in a magical, sometimes ominous, story. Once the sun sinks and ghosts rise, a foreboding backdrop has been well established for the dramatic scenes that linger in the memory.

Tragedies compete with triumphs in the spellbinding paranormal novel, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit."
- Foreword Clarion Review - 5/5 Stars  [READ FULL REVIEW]
​"The echoing repeat of this fascinating, nuanced title of Valerie Dunsmore’s hauntingly beautiful novel will resonate with readers in the same way as the elegant plot and sophisticated characters within. Both elegiac and engaging, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit is a story to be treasured and revisited for its exquisite rendering of a young girl struggling to hold onto those she loves while fighting to make sense of who they are.

There is much to praise in the layered, harrowing portrayal of Lily Nelson and her flawed family. Dunsmore adeptly reveals the dark history of heartbreaking grief and stomach-turning violence behind the contemporary failures of Lily’s father Henry Lavoie, a gripping villain and shadow figure. The glimpses of the past underscore and explain the disordered thinking of Lily’s beautifully devastated mother and intensely sympathetic aunt leading to a riveting, impossible to put down story. Dunsmore’s unflinching portrayal of mental illness through the eyes of a child is powerful, sensitively draw and ultimately gut-wrenching. As a reader, I was awed at the courage and the strength it took to write the spellbinding conclusion of the incredible story.  

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit is embedded with mesmerizing details of West Coast flora and fauna and gritty urban details as Lily and her family bounce between the seemingly safe haven of Nakusp and the threatening streets of Vancouver. By transporting readers through space and time, Dunsmore has threaded magic into the ordinary world and created an extraordinary story woven out of a tragic cloth. "
- Amber Cowie, Whistler Independent Book Awards
"In what is a very rare suggestion, I invite you to judge Valerie Dunsmore’s Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit by its cover. Exceptionally beautiful is the rabbit, inking its way onto the hardcover’s silken-soft book jacket. The art is fluid, and yet, there is a malevolent, perhaps wolf-like eye.

From there, the first line and lines offer a slipstream into the world of ten-year-old Lily Nelson. “Hating was power,” Dunsmore begins, and from there, the novel unfolds as evidence of how hatred is both protective and erosive of Lily’s battered spirit.

Growing up with parents, whose lives are bound together by secret events that incise and infect like a twist of barbed wire, Lily and her sister Rose live at the mercy of their mother’s depression and their father’s volatile temper. Their one haven is their aunt’s home on a forested acreage near Nakusp, British Columbia. There is magic in this story. Not only from Lily, who has inherited a gift from her maternal line, but a book of spells that comes to life when it’s needed. Magic is also present, however, in the writing, the characterizations and the settings that come alive with sound and colour and flavours from the forest, where bursting berries and medicinal herbs lend an aura of both the natural and supernatural.

... For its beauty, its emotional depth, its use of sensory detail to punctuate and paint this narrative into an explosion of life that runs deliciously countercurrent to the darker tones of the story itself, I must say that I was enchanted by this book. It cast a number of spells over me, and from there, I slipped willingly into its magic.
- Darcie Friesen Hossack, Whistler Independent Book Awards
"Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit is a novel I was easily immersed into. It is magical and spiritual. The main character Lily Nelson comes to life as she strives to improve her home life by dealing with family members coping with mental illness. It is beautifully written and very descriptive. I felt like I was in the forest and other settings described in the novel. It is a novel I look forward to reading again because there are many layers and take aways for the reader. A great read I highly recommend."
- Amazon Review
"Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit takes the reader on an exquisite journey. Beautifully written with an amazing attention to detail, I really felt immersed in Lily's life and her spiritual journey as I was reading it. I could picture Lily and each of her family members clearly as if I knew them, and all the places that she visited vividly came to life in my head. I finished this book in a few days - only because I could not put it down. At the end of every chapter as it got later and later at night, I bargained with myself whether to go to sleep or read "just one more chapter" - and to me that is the sign of a great novel! It is the type of book that you will want to re-read once you finish it. Absolutely loved it!"
- Amazon Review
"What a journey this story weaves for both Lily and the reader. Written with description that makes you untangle yourself from the forest when you close the book. The perspective and understanding that the reader gains on how the mind can weave is provoking and shines a light on the world of mental health. A wonderful read that will make you want to head to the woods and look for the magic."
- Amazon Review

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