“Sylvie’s adventures are complex, funny, sharply observed, sometimes heartbreaking, and always beautifully written. I found myself rooting for her in all her mutually inconsistent incarnations . . . . Sexy, self-deprecating, prone to lousy choices, and full of spit and vinegar, Sylvie’s a character to grow with.”

— Susan Olding, author of Big Reader. See Susan’s further comments at “The New Quarterly”.

Leona Theis links [her stories] in the most unusual and intriguing way. Her If Sylvie Had Nine Lives is an astounding work that is both cognitively and emotionally compelling and that belongs among the year’s best. Thirteen stories flowing outward through nine separate streams from the first story about Sylvie, a woman who is congenitally unsatisfied no matter what life grants her. [Theis’s] work builds profoundly on human choice, freedom and responsibility.

— University of Toronto Quarterly, August 2022 (“Established Fiction,” by Reinhold Kramer, 174-75)

Leona Theis’ kaleidoscopic and finely-wrought If Sylvie Had Nine Lives provides readers with a tantalizing look at what might have been and what could still be over the course of its main character’s multiple incarnations. Theis’ masterly attention to detail and storytelling craft is evident in this novel-in-stories, as we follow Sylvie through her various lives, each different in subtle ways but consistent in having a fascinating, flawed protagonist at their core. Playful and full of earned pathos, Leona Theis’ novel is a worthy addition to the prairie canon.

— Jury, Saskatchewan Book Award, Fiction

“There is such pleasure in this literary puzzle and the writing is a joy …. The attention to details in each decade so beautifully done … all of it tightly woven through the story, not an ounce of what feels forced. … I am re-reading this novel-in-stories with immense pleasure; I’ll begin at the beginning but then read out of order. I love that there is no wrong way to do this (in life and in the book), so many ways to imagine the future, so many fabulous ways to get there.”

— Matilda Magtree’s “This Is Not a Review”. See the full “not-a-review”.

"Leona Theis’ If Sylvie Had Nine Lives reminds me of Bonnie Burnard and Louise Erdrich, Bronwen Wallace and Gloria Naylor. A prism of possibilities: a joy to read.”

Buried in Print. See the full review.

About every tenth book I read discourages me from even trying to write, simply because they are that good. Leona Theis’ short story collection, “If Sylvie Had Nine Lives,” rises to this level. Yet I must write about this short story collection, to encourage you to seek it out… The stories proceed chronologically within Sylvie’s life, but there the simplicity stops. After writer Theis thoroughly enchants readers with Sylvie’s charm and humanity, we learn again and again that she’s a petty thief and chronic adulterer. Don’t dismiss her, though.

Billings Gazette. See the full review.

“A sharp and vibrant novel-in-stories that delves with humour and humanity into the brimming possibilities of a flawed but appealing heroine. If Sylvie Had Nine Lives is a vivid exploration of the unexpected choices and chances that can make up a life – and a self.”

— Saleema Nawaz, author of Songs for the End of the World and Bone and Bread

“If Sylvie Had Nine Lives is an innovative novel told in stories, each of them a marvel, fresh and surprising.”

— Story Circle Network. See the full review.

“Sylvie, the engaging heart of this inventive novel-in-stories, is a woman who truly contains multitudes. With these tales of rash decisions, romance, mishaps and missteps, Leona Theis delves deeply into the layers that make up a life, many times over. Readers will be surprised and entertained as they get to know a new Sylvie in each chapter, every one a gem.”

— Julie Paul, author of The Pull of the Moon, and Meteorites

“If Sylvie Had Nine Lives is a remarkable book, a palimpsest of different versions of a life that gives us a haunting, thrilling glimpse of the slender choices our lives hang by and the tangled threads that make even the simplest of them infinite mysteries.”

— Nino Ricci, author of Lives of the Saints, Sleep, Testament, and The Origin of Species

“Extraordinary…. The writing is gorgeous, and funny in a dark way, and subtle …. It makes you think, ‘What if I’d made a different choice?’”

Alice Kuipers, Ali’s Book Club, CTV

“Sophisticated comedy”

Winnipeg Free Press

“If Sylvie Had Nine Lives folds and unfolds connections, choices, fates and futures. Sylvie’s possible lives are observed with an astonishing acuteness of vision that moves beyond the specific experience of Saskatchewan to the specific experience of the reader and shears the soul ….”

— jury citation, John V Hicks Award