The Secret of the Spring

Dark deeds at the Spa Springs Hotel in Nova Scotia in the 1880s echo down the decades, bringing out the worst and the best in people high and low.




Mr. Leeson allows he wanted "to have blurred the line be-tween fact and fiction", and he's done so wonderfully. There are characters to care for living vivid lives in a wholly believable historic Annapolis Valley. The local drama and colour are set credibly against a broader and changing world. I thoroughly enjoyed this time between the lines.

Don Connolly, former host, CBC Information Morning




Anyone who thinks Nova Scotia history is boring should read The Secret of the Spring. Sometimes touching, some-times violent, this family saga demonstrates the full spectrum of human nature. Garry Leeson brings a colourful past to life.

Wendy Elliott, Valley Journal Advertiser columnist




The Secret of the Spring reveals the extraordinary secrets hidden in ordinary lives-fragile, then lost and forgotten in a generational blink of an eye.

Blurring fact and fiction and capturing the quirks and cadence of a vanishing rural Nova Scotia, Garry Leeson has spun an intricate tale which rings clearly and resonates long after the book's been finished.

Mike Bienstock, Rural Delivery