Susan Sanford Blades
My debut novel, Fake It So Real, won the 2021 ReLit Award in the novel category and was a finalist for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
Fake It So Real takes on the fallout from a punk-rock lifestyle—the future of “no future”—and its effect on the subsequent generations of one family.
“A gritty, breathtaking portrait of parenthood and the ghosts in every family.” —ALA Booklist
“It’s such a pleasure to submit to a book that’s so well constructed. … a story of love and family that is achingly real.” —Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This
“The stories feel inhabited, the people recognizably flawed and struggling. [Sanford Blades] is refreshingly frank and unsentimental in her execution. Her language is full of verve and humour.”
—Steven Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag
What People Are Saying About Fake It So Real
“Oh wow. This book reached into my throat just to tear out my heart and play hacky sack with it. Bravo!”
— Paige, Goodreads
“Susan Sanford Blades is a discovery. … She spanks out line after quotable line as if she speaks in aphorisms. … Sentences carved out of the ether but anchored in an incredibly convincing, grubby, and hilariously inept reality.”
“I fell in love with each of these broken and breaking women, so skillfully, artfully, deliciously rendered—so real. Fake It So Real is a must-must-must read. You’ll want to recommend it to everyone. You’ll wear it like an aura for days afterwards”
— Kyeren Regehr, author of Cult Life
“My favourite love stories are impossible love stories and Fake It So Real is rich with all varieties of them. … It’s some rich, intergenerational exploration and it is so, so good.”
— @carlyisreading, Instagram