Jonathan G. Sargent

Novelist Calgary, Alberta

Quiet novels about ordinary lives brushing against the inexplicable.

Forthcoming

StillwaterIsland

A novel · Nova Scotia · 2026

On the South Shore of Nova Scotia, three lives are held together by a silence none of them can name. A literary novel about grief, inheritance, and the connections that reach across water and time.

Set on a coast where the fog rolls in off the Atlantic and the wooden houses keep their windows lit late, Stillwater Island moves between voices and decades, tracing the small, domestic shapes that love and loss take when there is nowhere left to put them. It is a book about what the sea keeps and what it gives back — and about the slow, patient work of learning to be still.

Available now

Shadows of the Father

New York, 1981. Erica Hartmann has spent her career at the Morgan Library preserving fragile things—rare manuscripts, ageing letters, the brittle paper of other people’s histories. When her beloved father Franklin dies, she expects grief. She expects the slow work of settling an estate and letting go.

She does not expect secrets.

What begins as a daughter’s quiet mourning becomes something else entirely—a journey that will take her across continents and force her to confront questions she never thought to ask. Who was Franklin Hartmann before he became her father? What did he do during the years he never spoke about? And what did he protect her from knowing?

Some truths, once uncovered, cannot be buried again.

Shadows of the Father is a literary thriller about identity, inheritance, and the impossible weight of family secrets—a novel that asks whether we are defined by our blood or by our choices.

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Available now

The Weight of Healing

Elliott Cooper lives a quiet life as an artist, devoted husband, and friend, carefully guarding a profound secret that could change everything. When circumstances thrust his closely guarded truth toward exposure, Elliott and his wife Claire, a compassionate nurse, are pulled into an intricate web of ethical dilemmas, professional tensions, and personal stakes higher than they ever imagined.

In a compelling story of love, resilience, and sacrifice, Jonathan Sargent delves deep into the complexities of human relationships and the powerful choices made in the name of protection. Rich with emotional authenticity and vibrant characters, this gripping narrative asks readers to consider how far they would go to shield the ones they love, and what it truly means to remain human in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

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A novel that operates with the propulsive tension of a thriller while never sacrificing the patient, atmospheric prose of literary fiction.

Prerelease review · Shadows of the Father

About the author

Jonathan Sargent lives in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and daughter. His writing draws on the landscapes around him and the quiet, complex emotional lives of ordinary people — the small rooms in which grief, love, and the inexplicable do most of their work.

He is the author of The Weight of Healing and Shadows of the Father, with Stillwater Island forthcoming.

For correspondence & inquiries

jonathansargentwrites@gmail.com