Almond Wine and Fertility, a lyrical and moving collection, showcases Licia Canton's ability to craft entire worlds out of just a few pages. The author takes us to places where the fabric of human relations is woven: a bar in Sicily graphically celebrating fertility, a park in east-end Montreal where cultural values clash, a river bank where the course of two young lives is altered, a suffocating sixth-floor apartment with little way out for its occupant… The stories in Almond Wine and Fertility, peopled with characters negotiating between languages and cultures, are imbued with sensitivity and optimism. Set in cities and in suburbia, in Canada and in Italy, these stories explore the subtleties, the humour and the complexity of modern life.