Sarah Louise Butler is a novelist based in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia. Her debut novel The Wild Heavens (Douglas & McIntyre) is a love story, a family drama and an exploration of the nature and trajectory of belief, all within the rugged Interior of BC. The French translation Toutes Les Créatures (Editions Phébus) was recently featured at the Étonnants-Voyageurs literary festival on the west coast of France.
In her second novel Rufous and Calliope (Douglas & McIntyre), a cartographer with a novel form of dementia attempts to cross a perilous mountain pass, seeking the treehouse hideaway where he spent one memorable childhood summer on the run with his three older siblings and his twin sister, Calliope. Coming September 2025, available for pre-order now. French edition forthcoming in early 2026.
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“ The Wild Heavens is wonderfully crafted —each page is a catch of the breath, each chapter a crush of unfolding magic.”
–Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed
“An elegiac love letter to our fragile natural world and to the family bonds that shape us. Rufous and Calliope takes us on a riveting odyssey to recover time past and one’s fractured sense of self.”
–Julia Zarankin, author of Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder
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“Drawing from elements of the archetypal quest, the romance, the mystery, and the coming-of-age story, this novel is above all a testament to the interdependence of the human and the more-than-human —and a timely reminder that, if there is a dominant power, it is not us.”
–The British Columbia Review of Books, reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy
“Her writing is like a lush and melancholy birdsong…Here are the heavens, not a kingdom beyond the clouds, but the terrestrial wonderland around us…in which anything can happen.”
–The Ottawa Review of Books, reviewed by J.R.McConvey