Dread Comes at Daybreak

Lena Nylander joins Ottawa's Civil Service in 1958, expecting parties and glamour, but finds dullness instead. A leaked document about a proposed atomic test in Alberta raises her fears about the arms race and draws her into a local protest group. The stakes are high - if word gets out, there will be outrage from the Soviet Union, and the moratorium between the global nuclear powers will be in jeopardy.
Lena volunteers to organize a protest at the test site, convincing her estranged birthfather to come with her. Tagging along with them is her new boyfriend, a policeman on his own secret mission. When Lena discovers the protest leader in Ottawa wants her to stop the test, she has to decide if this is the right choice, and if she has the courage to pull it off despite the odds stacked against her and the certainty of a prison sentence as her reward for success.
This novel was inspired by a historical reference to disarmers across the globe who took heart with the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty by existing and potential nuclear powers in 1963. The fictional events in this novel attempt to show efforts by disarmers who made that treaty possible.

After finishing a Bachelor of Journalism degree at Carleton University, Sue worked on a weekly newspaper in Renfrew and then went on to complete a Master of Library and Information at Western University. She was a librarian in Ottawa for many years, working in departmental libraries with the federal government. Her interest in short stories began in the mid-1990s when she took workshops with Ottawa writer Richard Taylor. She attended a summer week-long workshop at the Humber School for Writers. She recently began taking writing courses in the Creative Writing certificate program at the University of Toronto. Sue has had three short stories published."Highway 28 Revisited" in Capital Writers; an anthology. Ottawa: Ottawa Independent Writers, 2012"Night Art" in BlazeVox online journal Spring 2020"Skinny Jeans" in BlazeVox online journal Fall 2021In the summer of 2021, Sue began writing her current work. Dread Comes at Daybreak is her debut novel. She lives in Ottawa with her husband, adult son, and one cat. She has spent time in Cobourg, as her parents retired from Ottawa to a house in the heritage district in the mid 1980s. Sue is descended from Davidsons who settled in Hamilton Township. She has fond memories of family gatherings at the homestead.