“Love at Last Sight spills with witty, intelligent stories that sneakily uncover the secret rococo in the everyday. Bowering’s gift makes her version of the familiar frightening but still desirable, unexpected and funny. Every story in this collection is a jewel.”
~ Suzette Mayr, author of Monoceros and Venous Hum

“This stellar debut collection of stories—mercurial, polished, philosophical, funny—is a series of histoires d’amour set in the bars and streets of urban Edmonton, written with multiple ironic voices. Thea Bowering has a knack for locating the instabilities of the literary present in these gifted, lively tales about memory and perception, love and conduct.”
~ Sharon Thesen, author of The Good Bacteria and A Pair of Scissors

“Thea Bowering’s comprehension and skill with the short story is extremely enticing. Love at Last Sight is a wonderful display of a finely balanced poetic intelligence applied to this narrative form. The stories are full of books and authors, mythological, and personal echoes; Roland Barthes, Robert Kroetsch, her own upbringing in the midst of an intense literary household, frame a vibrant pastiche of biofiction. Her craft with the paragraph, that hard nut to crack in writing prose, is one of the best I’ve seen in Canadian fiction. Bowering’s project here is to use the story as an innovative witness to the range and magnetism of her own moment.”
~ Fred Wah, author of Diamond Grill and Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate

“A remarkable voice, Bowering is a welcome addition to the Canadian literary scene.”
~ Publishers Weekly

“[L]eads the reader through an urban minefield of literary references, from Deadmonton to Denmark as love's shrapnel embeds itself into the characters, none of them sure if they are living out novels or their own lives.”
~ Caitlynn Cummings, Alberta Views

“Bowering is an inventive and original writer, unafraid to be playful and take unexpected turns.”
~ Zoe Whittall, Quill and Quire

“It's a complete inversion of how women, particularly young women, are 'supposed' to walk the streets.”
~ Jay Smith, Eighteen Bridges

“Inventive and playful, hyper-literate and allusive — Love At Last Sight by Thea Bowering reclaims and expands the archetype of the flâneur with a fresh, brash, bold new literary voice in Canadian literature.”
~ Mark McCawley, Urban Graffiti

“Bowering’s literary turf is urban and gritty, with thoroughly modern and often angsty stories about young men and women.”
~ Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star

“This is essential Edmonton reading, right up there with the best we have to offer.”
~ Tom Murray, Edmonton Journal