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Crocuses Hatch from Snow
Shortlisted for the 2020 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
Shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award
Ada falls for a body piercer named Pan. Her grandmother, Mattie, says she looks like a caught trout with all those hooks in her mouth. But Mattie is caught too. It isn’t her Alzheimer’s, or the secret vibrator Ada’s mother Joan is convinced she has stashed in her room. Mattie is in love with a ghost.
When Joan buys a house in Halifax's north end, the three generations move in next door to Ken, the man at the reins of the machine that tore down their old one. Ken and his family aren’t thrilled about their new neighbours, who are driving up the rent and helping history to repeat itself.
While Ada’s obsession with Pan is written on her body, the story of Mattie’s love for Edith, a Mi’kmaw survivor of the Shubenacadie Residential School, unfurls. Next door, Ken grieves his late wife Leona, a powerful Black community organizer, and tries to inspire his disillusioned young son. Meanwhile, his daughter Kiah works to live up to her mother’s magic.
A story of luminous love, the frustrations of family, violence mapped onto land and skin, and slender stems that grow thick enough to hatch from snow.
Shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award
Ada falls for a body piercer named Pan. Her grandmother, Mattie, says she looks like a caught trout with all those hooks in her mouth. But Mattie is caught too. It isn’t her Alzheimer’s, or the secret vibrator Ada’s mother Joan is convinced she has stashed in her room. Mattie is in love with a ghost.
When Joan buys a house in Halifax's north end, the three generations move in next door to Ken, the man at the reins of the machine that tore down their old one. Ken and his family aren’t thrilled about their new neighbours, who are driving up the rent and helping history to repeat itself.
While Ada’s obsession with Pan is written on her body, the story of Mattie’s love for Edith, a Mi’kmaw survivor of the Shubenacadie Residential School, unfurls. Next door, Ken grieves his late wife Leona, a powerful Black community organizer, and tries to inspire his disillusioned young son. Meanwhile, his daughter Kiah works to live up to her mother’s magic.
A story of luminous love, the frustrations of family, violence mapped onto land and skin, and slender stems that grow thick enough to hatch from snow.
256 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2019
5 people are currently reading
1350 people want to read
About the author
Jaime Burnet
2 books59 followersJaime Burnet's first novel, Crocuses Hatch From Snow, was published by Vagrant Press in 2019. Crocuses was shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the ReLit Award.
Her second novel, milktooth, was published by Vagrant in April 2025.
Jaime lives with her family in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Mi’kma'ki/Nova Scotia, where she writes, makes music, and practices labour, employment, and human rights law.
Her second novel, milktooth, was published by Vagrant in April 2025.
Jaime lives with her family in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Mi’kma'ki/Nova Scotia, where she writes, makes music, and practices labour, employment, and human rights law.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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July 14, 2021I've been working on this story on and off for the past 12 years or so, about queer love and all-consuming crushes, death and loss, racism and gentrification, learning and resilience. About the place where I live.
Here are selected bits from the author's note that appears at the end:
"The easiest place to start is by writing a fictional version of yourself. Write what you know. You don’t have to do any research and it doesn’t get any more authentic. So the young, queer, white woman in this novel is loosely based on me at that age, because these are some of the things I know best: falling in love, feeling insecure, navigating family relationships, and starting to learn about systemic oppression and my own privilege.
This story is about many things: love, family, community, death, sex, age. It is also an attempt to contribute to the growing body of media that draws critical attention to racist, colonial histories, and that encourages white people to acknowledge our role in racist and colonial oppression historically and currently, take responsibility for our unearned privilege, and begin to learn how to act in solidarity with Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of colour.
...
I wanted to write a story that, among other things, includes a white character who is starting to learn and think about race, racism, and white privilege.
It would be difficult to write about these issues in a story solely populated by white people. And when the setting is a real place where Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of colour live, writing a book that only features white people would feel to me like a racist erasure. But I also know it can be problematic, offensive, and culturally appropriative for white authors to write Black characters, Indigenous characters, and other characters of colour.
In writing characters who are oppressed in ways that I am privileged, I’ve tried to be responsible and accountable by doing research and soliciting criticism. ... African Nova Scotian, Mi’kmaw, and South Asian friends, and African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw sensitivity readers engaged by Vagrant Press read the manuscript and shared insightful feedback and invaluable knowledge about cultural accuracy and respectful characterization. My most sincere thanks go to everyone who has spent time and energy reading this book.
...
Of course, this does not mean I got it right. Any issues remaining in the text are due to my own failing. And while I understand that as a white author, it is vital to consult with people who share the identities of Indigenous and Black characters and other characters of colour in your stories, and compensate them for this work, I also know it’s not possible to consult with everyone who shares these identities. The reviews of the people who read this story do not function as an unofficial or official approval, and cannot represent the views of the entire identity-based communities the reviewers are part of. Communities are complex and heterogeneous. As a member of “the queer community,” I know how vastly different the politics, values, and opinions held by people in a community can be. I’ve considered these things and attempted a respectful process, and I will continue to listen and learn."
Here are selected bits from the author's note that appears at the end:
"The easiest place to start is by writing a fictional version of yourself. Write what you know. You don’t have to do any research and it doesn’t get any more authentic. So the young, queer, white woman in this novel is loosely based on me at that age, because these are some of the things I know best: falling in love, feeling insecure, navigating family relationships, and starting to learn about systemic oppression and my own privilege.
This story is about many things: love, family, community, death, sex, age. It is also an attempt to contribute to the growing body of media that draws critical attention to racist, colonial histories, and that encourages white people to acknowledge our role in racist and colonial oppression historically and currently, take responsibility for our unearned privilege, and begin to learn how to act in solidarity with Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of colour.
...
I wanted to write a story that, among other things, includes a white character who is starting to learn and think about race, racism, and white privilege.
It would be difficult to write about these issues in a story solely populated by white people. And when the setting is a real place where Indigenous people, Black people, and other people of colour live, writing a book that only features white people would feel to me like a racist erasure. But I also know it can be problematic, offensive, and culturally appropriative for white authors to write Black characters, Indigenous characters, and other characters of colour.
In writing characters who are oppressed in ways that I am privileged, I’ve tried to be responsible and accountable by doing research and soliciting criticism. ... African Nova Scotian, Mi’kmaw, and South Asian friends, and African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw sensitivity readers engaged by Vagrant Press read the manuscript and shared insightful feedback and invaluable knowledge about cultural accuracy and respectful characterization. My most sincere thanks go to everyone who has spent time and energy reading this book.
...
Of course, this does not mean I got it right. Any issues remaining in the text are due to my own failing. And while I understand that as a white author, it is vital to consult with people who share the identities of Indigenous and Black characters and other characters of colour in your stories, and compensate them for this work, I also know it’s not possible to consult with everyone who shares these identities. The reviews of the people who read this story do not function as an unofficial or official approval, and cannot represent the views of the entire identity-based communities the reviewers are part of. Communities are complex and heterogeneous. As a member of “the queer community,” I know how vastly different the politics, values, and opinions held by people in a community can be. I’ve considered these things and attempted a respectful process, and I will continue to listen and learn."
March 16, 2020
I appreciate this book. As an Aboriginal Woman from N.S. I am happy to see the author did a lot of research for this and as a non-aborigibal person she didn't just write this book without any feedback from First Nations people. I will recommend this book to others!
July 15, 2021
Really enjoyed this book. Definitely recommend reading especially if you ever have lived around Halifax north end, ever think about living in Halifax north end, or visit it lots. Bonus lots of queer sex
January 14, 2020
A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I enjoyed this story very much and felt like I knew each character personally due to the description of them. I enjoyed the storyline. This is not my usual genre but in this instance I am extremely pleased and grateful for opening up my mind to something totally different. Thanks again.
December 28, 2025
I think this book was too full of perspectives. I really didn't like Ada's perspective, and Ken's family perspective needed to be either cut or used more.
This book needed a focus, it was way too over the place. It needed a point to focus on. Her next book is much better and I would suggest reading that instead.
This book needed a focus, it was way too over the place. It needed a point to focus on. Her next book is much better and I would suggest reading that instead.
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February 15, 2020The prose was frequently beautiful, but it was a little too plot-less for me. However I did really like the characters of Edith and Kiah.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc.
November 15, 2021
A titillating tale of passion and unrequited love. The raging hormones of young Ada lead her also to self destructive practises as well as a desire for loving commitment. But that is not the whole story. These are families squeezed out of home and community in North end Halifax by developers and real estate agents. An issue very much relevant everywhere that communities are changed by condos and housing developments that raise the costs to residents in long established communities.
I did not really enjoy this book but I read it to the end to attempt a greater appreciation for the characters and I am glad I did as it is full of heart. Good people struggling with dreadful challenges.
I did not really enjoy this book but I read it to the end to attempt a greater appreciation for the characters and I am glad I did as it is full of heart. Good people struggling with dreadful challenges.
December 27, 2020
Feisty and fiery!
Thorns: Wondered about the author mentioning an Indigenous sensitivity reader but not a Black one. Also a bit "tidy" in cleaning up loose ends of story lines. The studious Black girl busting out of her intellectual hideout felt compelling but then lacked detail. Wanted to spend more time with the grandmother and with Ken. Didn't see the connection with the title.
Compliments: the lust, the lust! Swell/ing teenage messy moments. The sadness of neighbourhoods being lost to gentrification. Mattie's current ghost lover situation and her girlhood stories with Edith, and Edith's life in Toronto. Incredible turns of phrase that ask you to be savoured.
Thorns: Wondered about the author mentioning an Indigenous sensitivity reader but not a Black one. Also a bit "tidy" in cleaning up loose ends of story lines. The studious Black girl busting out of her intellectual hideout felt compelling but then lacked detail. Wanted to spend more time with the grandmother and with Ken. Didn't see the connection with the title.
Compliments: the lust, the lust! Swell/ing teenage messy moments. The sadness of neighbourhoods being lost to gentrification. Mattie's current ghost lover situation and her girlhood stories with Edith, and Edith's life in Toronto. Incredible turns of phrase that ask you to be savoured.
October 3, 2020
My low rating of this book is only based on my preferences in reading material. I bought the book because it was shortlisted for the 2020 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and published by my friends at Vagrant. I was therefore prepared to read something contemporary, but it just didn;t fit my tastes. I did read it through to be fair, expecting – well, hoping – to find some sort of redemptive climax. It just didn't arrive for me, but maybe that's just me.
August 1, 2023
This was a really beautiful narrative that spoke of intergenerational trauma, intersectionality, and multi-generational families. The characters were so well-rounded and touching. I also loved the references to Nova Scotia and its history. I felt these references were done in an historically accurate way, but also didn't feel shoe-horned in.
December 1, 2025
(Read as part of a book club)
Local author and story set in Halifax.
Story involves love, loss, death, sexuality, aging. Delves into discrimination, systemic and environmental racism, gentrification, residential schools, abuse, trauma, and loss of culture that are a part of the past and present of Nova Scotia. I enjoyed the multiple POVs and storylines in general. Could have done less with Ada’s, whose POV I enjoyed the least. It was heartbreaking, funny, awkward, and thought provoking.
Local author and story set in Halifax.
Story involves love, loss, death, sexuality, aging. Delves into discrimination, systemic and environmental racism, gentrification, residential schools, abuse, trauma, and loss of culture that are a part of the past and present of Nova Scotia. I enjoyed the multiple POVs and storylines in general. Could have done less with Ada’s, whose POV I enjoyed the least. It was heartbreaking, funny, awkward, and thought provoking.
August 21, 2025
I would have liked this more if I hadn't kind of hated Ada. The Mattie / Edith story would have been interesting to follow more.
February 27, 2025
Jaime Burnet’s novel tells an urgent, socially pertinent story firmly rooted in time and place. Crocuses Hatch From Snow is first and foremost a novel of Halifax, Nova Scotia, one that addresses the good, the bad and the ugly from the city’s, and the province’s, long history and recent past. The novel opens in October 2007 with three women watching as their house in the city’s south end—a structure that was home for three generations of the family—is being demolished to make room for a new development. The three are Mattie, elderly family matriarch, her daughter Joan, a journalist in her fifties, and Joan’s daughter Ada, a recent high school graduate. The family has just moved to Halifax’s north end. Coincidentally, their new neighbours include the man operating the excavator that’s taking their house down, whom we also meet in the opening chapter reflecting philosophically on his work and on property values that keep rising and forcing people to leave the neighbourhood where he lives. Ken is a widower, his wife Leona having recently died of cancer. He lives in the house next door to Joan’s family with his daughter Kiah, a university student, his son Shawn, and his mother Betty. Ken’s family is black. Joan’s family is white. This racial divide, though not necessarily a spark for narrative or dramatic tension because the two families hardly mix, is emblematic of one of the story’s main thrusts: that differences that are only skin deep will continue to be a root cause of innate bias, tragic injustice and flagrant inequity, and will continue to prevent us from moving forward as a society, until we discover ways to get past the differences to the more important commonalities that link us together as human beings. But Burnet’s novel, while explicitly addressing burning social issues surrounding race and ethnicity, does not end there. Crocuses Hatch From Snow is also a love story, one that takes emotional attachment as a starting point and dives headlong into physical longing and lust. Ada has fallen deeply and passionately for a black female body piercer named Pan. This relationship is at the core of the novel’s central drama, from which Ada emerges as the book’s main character. Pan is a few years older, and Ada, seduced by the other woman’s swaggering self-confidence, raw physicality, fiercely independent spirit, and passionately held beliefs, offers up her young, white body as a kind of sacrifice to Pan’s needle, and many of their scenes together are vividly erotic. Still another plot thread follows Mattie back to 1940s Schubenacadie, where as a teenager she meets Edith, a Mi’kmaw girl incarcerated at the local Indian Residential School. The two girls develop a fascination for each other that, without them even realizing what’s happening, grows ardent. But when they are discovered in the act of expressing their longing for each other, they are cruelly separated. Edith escapes to Toronto. Mattie is married off. Years later, long widowed and suffering from various ailments including Alzheimer’s Disease, Mattie takes up with an imaginary Edith, acting out long-suppressed desires. This attempt to summarize a complex, multi-layered novel probably creates the impression that the author takes a somewhat scattered or fragmented approach to storytelling. And while it is true that some characters are more fully realized than others and that not every one of the narrative threads is neatly tied off, this moving, inspiring, often achingly beautiful novel is ultimately satisfying; and, in addition, leaves the reader with a great deal to think about. In her debut novel, Jaime Burnet refuses to soft-sell or downplay her dedication to social justice. But though her message is clear, she never lectures us. Crocuses Hatch From Snow is an ambitious and deeply humane work of fiction, one that envisions and champions something that every level-headed, empathetic human being must surely want: a more equitable society for ourselves and all future generations.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews