Anna Porter: Author and Publisher

Gull Island is a haunting psychological suspense novel about a young woman who visits her remote family cottage seeking answers to a murky past.

“Full of atmosphere and things that go bump in the night, Gull Island is sure to leave you guessing about what is real and what is imagined until the very last page.” — Catherine McKenzie, USA Today bestselling author of Have You Seen Her and I’ll Never Tell

Published by Simon and Schuster on September 5, 2023.

Read an excerpt now — CBC Books, May 17, 2023

Deceptions is a savvy art world thriller with a strong, independent heroine and the follow-up to The Appraisal, finalist for the 2018 Staunch Prize.

Richly atmospheric, set in Strasbourg, Budapest, and Paris, this witty, sophisticated novel will satisfy readers of political thrillers by Alan Furst and Philip Kerr. Deceptions is a thinking-person’s thriller, a romp to the last satisfying page.

Published by ECW Press in April 2021.

In Other Words is a lively, charming, gossipy memoir of life in the publishing trenches and how one restlessly curious young woman sparked a creative awakening in a new country she chose to call home. Published by Simon & Schuster in September 2018.

“We need our own dreams.” — Anna Porter

Praise for In Other Words | Upcoming events
Anna talks to Steve Paiken on TVO’s The Agenda
Anna interviewed on The Biblio File
Anna featured on The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers
Anna discusses favourite Canadian books on Maritime Noon
Anna interviewed on The Commentary

The Appraisal, a new novel by Anna Porter, published by ECW Press in October 2017.

In the vein of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels comes this year’s smart new thriller with literary chops. When wealthy octogenarian Geza Marton hires art expert Helena Marsh to buy back his family’s Titian painting, Helena flies to Budapest to close what she expects will be a reasonably simple sale. But nothing is ever simple in this beautiful, flawed city where corruption abounds.

The Appraisal was shortlisted for the inaugural Staunch Prize in the UK.

Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy was published in March 2015 by Thomas Allen/Dundurn, Canada.

He has been called “the only private citizen with his own foreign policy,” and there is no doubt that George Soros plays a unique and unprecedented role: a billionaire social activist pursuing his own specific ideas for transforming the world into a more progressive and democratic society.

One of the country’s most distinguished writers and publishers returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Hapsburg lands. The Ghosts of Europe is a compelling exploration of power, nationalism, racism and denial in nations with a tumultuous history and an uncertain future. [more]

» Winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. See “Anna Porter wins Shaughnessy Cohen Prize,” Globe and Mail, February 16, 2011.

Kasztner’s Train is the true, heart-wrenching tale of Hungary’s own Oskar Schindler, a lawyer and journalist named Rezso Kasztner who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last chaotic days of World War II — and the ultimate price he paid. [more]

Winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award for History and the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize.

“It is Anna Porter’s consummate art as a storyteller that makes this true tale of how a group of Hungarian Jews escaped the Holocaust so compelling. This is a must read that must become a must-see movie.”
— Peter C. Newman, author and Holocaust escapee