Published in 2025
224 pages
Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Her most recent novel is The Capital of Dreams. Her previous works include When We Lost Our Heads, which was a #1 national bestseller and a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal; The Lonely Hearts Hotel, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads; and Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, and Daydreams of Angels, which were shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. O’Neill has also won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, she lives there today.
Arizona O’Neill is a Montreal-based author and illustrator. She is the author of Est-ce qu’un artiste peut être heureux?, a collection of graphic interviews, and the illustrator of Nelly Arcan’s L’enfant dans le miroir. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt, Exclaim!, the Montreal Gazette, and mRb. She has created animated videos for many outlets, including the CBC. A regular contributor to Radio-Canada’s Il restera toujours la culture, she is one half of the Bookstagram page @ONeillReads. She is currently working on a graphic memoir.
What is this book about?
A Montreal adventure comes to life when a lonely girl at the metro station convenience store spots her mysterious doppelganger, in this playful and surprising novel by the inimitable Heather O’Neill, beautifully illustrated by Arizona O’Neill
In the tradition of the serialized novels of Charles Dickens, Heather O’Neill brings us Valentine in Montreal. Originally published in weekly instalments in the Montreal Gazette, this is the unforgettable story of Valentine, a lonely orphan working in a depanneur at a Montreal metro station, who spots her look-alike. As Valentine follows this seeming twin onto the subway and out into the city, her world is changed—she meets gangsters, composers, ballet dancers, and a cricket playing a mournful tune, and she experiences the city in all its teeming energy.
Valentine in Montreal is the playful, moving, and surprising story of a young woman who finds connection and the courage to break free of what has been holding her back. It’s also a celebration of Montreal and its artistry and vibrancy, both above and below ground. Illustrations by graphic artist Arizona O’Neill run throughout.
