20 Award Honours, Including: 2019 Fiction Winner, Whistler Independent Book Award  Judged by The  Canadian Authors Association  2020 Winner, Ink & Cinema Showcase's The Crime List Award for Books. 2019 Hon. Mention  Writer's Digest  Self-Published  Ebook Awards,   for Mystery Fiction 2019 Bronze Medal   IPPY Awards,  for  Regional Fiction:  Canada East 2018 Finalist, Sarton Woman's Book Awards for Historical Fiction  2017 Finalist, Arthur Ellis Award for manuscripts  Judged by Crime Writers Of  Canada  ----------------------------------------------------- 1868 Ottawa  Father of Canadian Confederation T. D'Arcy McGee is assassinated. As the Prime Minister cradles his friend's bloody head, he blames transplanted Irish terrorists: the Fenian Brotherhood. Within a day, Patrick James Whelan is arrested. After a show trial, Whelan is publicly hanged. That much is history. Did Whelan do the deed? What if Clara Swift, a mere slip of a girl, sees the trace-line of a buggy turn off Sparks Street, moments after the murder? What if Clara, who understands her dead mentor's coded notes, forges an unlikely alliance with the investigator--and ends up a trusted ally of both the condemned man's widow and the Prime Minister's wife? Celtic Knot. It's reimagining a crisis that tested a nation. It's history with a mystery. It's A Clara Swift Tale. And it all begins with a shot in the dark.... "Shortell constructs her gripping historical novel on the bones of an actual incident: the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, a staunch supporter of Canadian nationhood and the subsequent hanging of Irish immigrant Patrick James Whelan, who professed his innocence of the crime to the end. Set mainly in Ottawa in 1868, the story is told with brio by 15-year-old Clara Swift, who describes herself as an "Irish girl, British subject and a Canadian all 21 months we've had a country." When Clara, McGee's servant, hears a gunshot outside the door of their boarding house, she opens the door to find McGee dead . . . The authorities, keen to find the culprit, hastily settle on Whelan. Clara, however, is not convinced of his guilt. Shortell vividly conveys the atmosphere that surrounded the murder and examines the profound impact that McGee's death had on the development of the fledgling nation. This is a lively and fascinating story, well told." - Publisher's Weekly "​A historical novel dramatizes the murder of a prominent Irish politician in late-19th-century Canada . . . Shortell conjures a memorable heroine in Clara: Only 15 years old, she's uncannily sharp and literarily astute but endearingly guileless . . . The author skillfully builds a suspenseful mystery, cautiously meting out just enough information to keep readers gripped by the plot, but not so much that the conclusion becomes transparently obvious. In addition, her prose can be elegant: "In some way, this sealed display made it seem that Mr. McGee's death was all for show. Even Christ's body hadn't been left hanging so long as a lesson to his people before he'd been decently interred." But the novel's strongest selling point is its artful amalgam of historical scholarship and fictional drama--Shortell brings her meticulous research to vivid life. A thrilling and historically edifying period tale." - Kirkus Reviews "Celtic Knot is a story of hope, heroes, loyalty and patriotism, as seen through the eyes of 15-year-old serving girl Clara Swift, a bright, engaging character . . . Clara is the fictional creation of author Ann Shortell--and a perfect foil. While the assassination is the core story, Clara's sleuthing in the matter of a missing manuscript simmers away beneath the surface. Celtic Knot is a lively mixture of historical fact and literary drama, peopled with well-rounded characters and details of the time, such as leather cigar cases, sharp-nibbed pens, and lintel stones carved as a line of shamrocks.Impeccably researched and elegantly written in polished prose, with an all-pervading sense of place that captures the Canadian ethos of the late 1880s, this novel reached the finals in the Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript.The story remains one of the great murder mysteries in Canadian history." - Historical Novel Society "A fine example of Canadian historical fiction, Ann Shortell's Celtic Knot: A Clara Swift Tale (2018, Friesen Press) is constructed around the actual assassination of D'Arcy McGee . . . Thus begins the type of historical novel where the author is free to invent new characters to go with the actual ones and throw in some side stories to create a sweeping novel of intrigue and mystery. There are Protestants and Catholics, Orangemen and Fenians, French and Native too, who all figure into the story in one way or another. Then there is young Clara Swift a strong, assertive Irish girl who is beloved by D'Arcy . . . Clara is used as a type of spy for Major Pierce Doyle, the PM's aide and investigator . . . she attends sessio