Locked Rooms

Molly Beamish, 40, lives alone on her parents' deserted farm. Surrounded by the landscape of her childhood, the ancient hills and pines of the Waneva River Valley, she is haunted by her unlived life. All that she has denied moves like a shadow in her imagination, coming to life in her successful twin, Claire, who holds a mirror up to her every deficiency. Molly can feel Claire watching her as she wanders about the abandoned family home; in turn, she can imagine her sister's every memory, every mood.

A dialogue, a spiral dance of past and present, inner and outer realities, Molly Beamish's life is one woman's search to unlock the rooms of the self, to tell their stories, to become whole.

Waneva Books
Third Edition 2007
ISBN 978-0-9698211-5-1

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Praise for Locked Rooms

“I was very impressed by the richness of the texture and by the intricacy of the plotting, and by the evocation of place which is one of the novel’s main strengths.”
Sharon Butala, The Perfection of the Morning

“The pages of the book are woven out of the naked poetry of the unfinished self.”
David Helwig, Just Say the Words

“You can see even within the first few pages that Joyce has a terrific way with dialogue that makes the characters leap to life.”
Jack Hodgins, Broken Ground

“Every page has images that are perfectly wrought, not just the precise image but the inevitable one; you sink into the writing, luxuriously. And then, there are the striking insights.”
Jeannine Locke, CBC Producer, Chautacqua Girl

“Between us, we have told what the Gatineau did for our roots; the myths of our lives are born of that river and valley, and the power of your spirit will tell us something fresh and beautiful as a legend deep in that long ago land.”
Oonah McFee, Sandbars

“Locked Rooms, first in a proposed three-novel sequence, employs a vivid, impressionistic style.”
Books in Canada

“Locked Rooms explores the uncomfortable, prickly, but essentially loving relationship between twin sisters, Molly and Claire Beamish, and their efforts to come to terms with themselves and that close, often tempestuous affinity twins have for each other … The narrative is compelling, disturbing and sensitive to the private thoughts and jealousies that haunt the sisters in the decade following their father’s death.”
The Ottawa Citizen