Amy Terrill’s debut novel illuminates suffrage-era Toronto

Amy Terrill, best known as a former CHEX Television personality and current non-profit leader, has jumped into another field with her first novel, No Secrets Among Sisters. The historical fiction is inspired by a family history and her great-aunt’s work in a Toronto munitions factory in the First World War.

The idea came to her ten years ago while she was working Toronto’s Liberty Village. “I was rereading a book written by my great-aunt Frankie, when I learned that she and her sister Mattie worked in a munitions factory at the corner of King and Dufferin Streets – right around the corner from my office,” said Terrill in a press release. “Through her vivid storytelling, I could imagine them 100 years earlier walking down the same sidewalks I had walked.”

With a background in communications and published public policy research under her belt, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try her hand at writing a book.

She wasn’t sure if writing fiction was something she could, but when the pandemic happened and every went into lockdown “my imagination sped up. As soon as the nugget of an idea formed, I found the practice of creative writing a pure joy. I reimagined Aunt Frankie as getting involved in the suffrage movement while working at the factory, and a present-day niece who tries to figure out why her aunt suddenly walked away from the campaign for the women’s vote.”

The result is a story set in Toronto during the First World War, and current day, that highlights women’s continuing struggle for equality, and representation and fair treatment in politics. No Secrets Among Sisters is a work of fiction but it contains references to life on the homefront during the war, the suffrage movement, and the fire that destroyed the Canadian Parliament buildings in 1916.

Frankie was the oldest daughter in a family of ten children who grew up in Irondale in Haliburton County. She was born in 1896, trained as a teacher including attending high school in Lindsay, before joining Mattie in the city to work in the munitions factory.

“As my first book, I have many people to thank,” says Terrill, “including my early readers, Kim Coulter, Carol Dunsmore and Murray Campbell, who gave me valuable feedback, my editor, Emily Ohanjanians, and my family who encouraged me every step of the way.”

The novel is published through Friesen Press and distributed through Ingram. It’s available on all the major online retailers, at Kent Bookstore in Lindsay, and directly through the author. There will be book launch events this fall in Lindsay and Ottawa. For more information, visit the author’s website at www.amyterrill.com.

A book launch will be held at Kindred Coffee Bar in Lindsay on Sept. 25 from 7-8:30 p.m. Terrill will be interviewed by Kim Coulter, former CHEX personality. There will also be a book reading, sales and signing, and tea, coffee and snacks.