07/21/2025
The Best of Summer Reads
by Janet Davies
These books by local authors bring you history, mystery, memories and more, for your summer reading pleasure.
DIALED IN: Do Your Best When It Matters Most
By Dr. Dana Sinclair. Simon & Schuster Canada.
As how-to books go, Dialed In: Do Your Best When It Matters Most is a winner. Dr. Dana Sinclair is a performance psychologist and coach, best known for her work with elite athletes, but also business people, actors and doctors. What do a major league baseball catcher struggling with pop-ups and a doctor feeling tense before surgery have in common? They’re very good at what they do, but are not achieving excellence. That’s where Dr. Sinclair comes in. She works with the best of the best to improve their performance, but all of us have to perform in some way, and this book brings her methods to everyone. They are simple, smart and effective, and the book is a good read, whether you have challenges to overcome or just want to do your best.
“Talent doesn’t ensure success, it’s about mindset, too,” she says. “If your mind is cluttered and turbulent, you won’t get to your best.” Her book combines science, encouragement and practical strategies for focusing and unleashing potential, and she’s a myth buster, too. She takes aim at the current fixation on confidence. “It’s overrated,” she says calmly. “Confidence is thrown at us all the time: How to feel it; how to get it. But really that puts the focus on what you feel, when what is more important is what you do.” Dr. Sinclair poses the question: Why do very talented people not succeed when frankly mediocre people do? Her answer is: It’s not about their confidence; it’s about what they actually do. Her book aims to help you have more control over what you do and how to do your best. It contains a wealth of practical advice, including how to “get calm and stay there …” a practice that professional athlete clients have called a lifesaver. One reviewer declared that Dialed In “… should be taught in schools.”
Dr. Sinclair is a registered psychologist with doctorates from University of Cambridge and University of Ottawa. After living and working in Vancouver and Toronto, she and her husband now live on a farm in Burnley, Northumberland.
THE GHOST OF ANNIE MINNES:
Tales of the Royal Hotel & Prince Edward County
By Tanya M. Cooper. Boomerang Publishing.
Tanya Cooper’s father and grandfather were commercial fishermen in Prince Edward County, her grandmother lived in Picton for 90 years, and their stories inspire her historical fiction. “I also feel I can provide a voice for those who didn’t really have one,” she says, “especially in the past century.” She does just that with The Ghost of Annie Minnes.
Her latest book, Doll in the Woodpile, is about the British Home Children taken, not always willingly, from the streets of London to start a new life in Canada. But we chose Annie Minnes because it has a little less heartache and a little more sass for good summer reading.
It’s a richly imagined story of a woman abandoned as a baby at the True Blue Orphanage and it reads like a diary, painting a vivid picture of working class life from 1900 to 1941.
Annie works at the Royal Hotel. The story begins with her being struck and killed by a drunk driver on Main Street, but don’t let that put you off.
A co-worker rescues Annie’s journals before they are tossed into a burn barrel behind the hotel, thinking it’s not right for a life to be so easily discarded. The journals reveal a surprising life of grand adventures, secrets and romantic trysts, and even accounts of murder. At a time when women were not even considered citizens, Annie and her friend Gertie break all the rules of convention, studying Indigenous medicines, following astrology, flirting with séances and more. She survives a tumultuous childhood, the Great War and a global pandemic, only to realize the greatest threat is closer to home. Annie must decide if learning the secrets of the past is worth risking the future she really thought she had.
Tanya Cooper has written thirteen books and has spoken internationally about social injustice. Her stories are about overcoming hardship and daring to live a fulfilling life.
https://watershedmagazine.com/features/the-best-reads-of-summer/
