Frances Peck

Hi, and thanks for visiting my website! You may know me as an editor, ghostwriter, and instructor. This website is about me as a creative writer.

My debut novel, The Broken Places, came out with NeWest Press on April 1, 2022. To my delight (and relief), readers and reviewers have praised the book. The Globe and Mail even named it a best book of 2022. Now that The Broken Places is in stores and libraries, I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

If you’d like to share your thoughts, or invite me to your book club, writing group, or other event, please head to the Contact area and drop me a line.

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A red and white typewriter with a piece of paper coming out of the top

About

I’ve always been a writer. I was nine when I got my first typewriter. A red-and-white model designed for kids, it produced the same purple print as those school mimeographs from back in the 70s. It was cheap and lightweight, but it made my stories and poems look official. They looked like writing.

When the realities (and bills) of adulthood set in, I gave up creative writing. Not words, though. I’ve been slinging them ever since.

As a ghostwriter and editor, I’ve produced tons of copy for other people. As a workshop and university instructor, I’ve helped thousands of students get better at writing and editing. I’ve written a little under my own name: I was a co-author of the HyperGrammar website and wrote the collection Peck’s English Pointers. But mostly I’ve stayed behind the scenes.

Much as I’ve loved working with other people’s words, my own have been clamouring to get out. Some years ago, I tried writing fiction again to see what would happen. Like that, time folded back on itself, and I got caught up in creating all over again. 

The Broken Places is my first published novel. I’m thrilled to have a book that’s all mine—my characters, my ideas, my name on the cover. It’s scary too; there’s a lot to like about staying hidden. But you know what? Life is fraught with risk. Sometimes you need to rush straight at it to feel alive. That’s one of the things my fiction is about.

The Broken Places

Cover of The Broken Places, with green harbour waves in the foreground and the West Vancouver skyline in background, silhouetted against peach background. Globe 100 Best Books sticker on left-hand side.

Vancouver. A day like any other. Kyle, a successful cosmetic surgeon, is punishing himself with a sprint up a mountain. Charlotte, wife of a tech tycoon, is combing the farm belt for local cheese and a sense of purpose. Back in the city their families go about their business: landscaping, doing deals, skipping school. It’s a day like any other—until suddenly it’s not.

When the earthquake hits, the city erupts in chaos and fear. Kyle’s and Charlotte’s families, along with two passersby, are thrown together in an oceanfront mansion. The catastrophe and conflicts that beset these wildly different people expose the fault lines beneath their relationships, as they question everything in an effort to survive and reunite with their loved ones stranded outside the city.

“With masterful use of craft, Peck takes readers on a journey into how devastation draws us together while pulling us apart... Above all, Peck gives nuanced, stunning characters who show readers what it means to give ourselves up to our flaws and find love and beauty in the process.”
—Kelly S. Thompson, author of Girls Need Not Apply and Still, I Cannot Save You
“Frances Peck reveals herself a writer with seismic impact as she examines the before, during, and after of crumbling worlds and relationships. The Broken Places will scare the living daylights out of you while it yields harsh truths, heartbreak, and hope about the human condition.”
—Glen Huser, author of Burning the Night
“[A] propulsive, terrifying novel about the sudden catastrophic upending of day-to-day life. Hillsides slump, bridges give way, apartment buildings tilt and crumble—while love, desire, greed and devotion are tested, heightened or lost forever... Beautifully layered and compelling...”
—Libby Creelman, author of Split
“Frances Peck’s wonderfully sophisticated and razor-sharp novel takes dead aim at Vancouver’s tenuous decadent dreams against an ensemble of mesmerizing characters... Balzacian in its ambition and wit, raising ineluctable questions about family and wealth, love and lust, resignation and resilience... A well-crafted, affecting debut.”
—John Vigna, author of No Man’s Land
“[A] rare treat that combines high-tension narrative with true literary craft... Layer by layer, Peck reveals the motivations, fears and desires of her characters, doling out clues that culminate in an explosive and heartbreaking climax...”
—Ruth E. Walker, author of Living Underground
“...[A] cast of complex characters, each broken in their own way, and...a compelling story set against the backdrop of a catastrophic earthquake. It beautifully reminded me that none of us are ever on solid ground, especially when it comes to our human, and fragmented, hearts.”
—Brian Francis, author of Fruit and Missed Connections
“Frances Peck’s dazzling debut novel snatches a cast of vividly realized, multi-faceted characters out of their daily lives in Vancouver and gathers them closer and closer as the book builds toward a dramatic, disturbing macroseismic cataclysm... Peck’s prose is piercing with precision...”
—Claire Wilkshire, author of The Love Olympics and Maxine
“Peck deftly weds second- and third-person perspectives, flashbacks and flashforwards, epistolary interludes and enough literary amuse-bouches that the form of the novel is as compelling as the content.”
—Andrew Guilbert, Alberta Views magazine
“Peck excels at keeping readers taut with anticipation. The author showcases an aptitude for complex plotting and sure-footedness about character interaction. ...Not a soul emerges unscathed in this intense and absorbing drama.”
—Brett Josef Grubisic, Vancouver Sun
“It is the way that Peck focuses on the human suffering that no doubt will make the biggest impact on most Vancouverites reading the book... Peck digs deep. For pages at a time, she submerges us completely in the minds of one character before moving on to the next.”
—Theo Dombrowski, The British Columbia Review
Wow! What a thrill of a read from debut author Frances Peck (can you believe this is a debut novel?!)... As soon as I picked up this book, I was hooked. ...Peck’s writing style is absolutely gripping and electrifying... An excellent and compelling read, I would highly recommend this new voice in the Canadian literature landscape.
—Worn Pages and Ink book blog
“A beautifully written and terrifying story of how people react to chaos after a massive earthquake hits Vancouver. The central characters are wonderfully complex—rich, entitled people clash with hardworking, regular folks as they are thrown together in a struggle for survival.”
—Eve Lazarus, author of Cold Case BC, for the Globe and Mail
“The Broken Places is not really about an earthquake—it’s about humanity: how we live; how we interact; how we grow.”
—Naomi MacKinnon, The Miramichi Reader
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Praise for The Broken Places

Scrapbook

The cover of The Broken Places and a photo of Frances Peck, both in gilt frames that hang from the background, so as to suggest artworks. In front of the framed images is a chalkboard that contains details of the reading.

Nanaimo reading

Thank you, Vancouver Island University, for inviting me to read in Nanaimo on February 16, 2023, as part of the Portfolio Reading Series.

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February 7, 2023
Photo of (left) Cathalynn Labonté-Smith and her nonfiction book "Rescue Me," and (right) Frances Peck and her novel "The Broken Places."

Tales of disaster and rescue

On Saturday, January 28 (2:00–3:30 pm), I’ll be at the West Vancouver Memorial Library with author Cathalynn Labonté-Smith to discuss stories of disaster and rescue, both real and imagined.

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January 5, 2023
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Contact

Frances Peck stands outside wearing a sweater and a scarf

To drop me a line, or to invite me to your book club, writing group, or other event, email [email protected] or use the contact form. Or connect with me on Twitter: @FrancesLPeck.

For media and festival inquiries, please contact Carolina Ortiz: [email protected].

For information on rights, please contact CookeMcDermid: [email protected].

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