Abbotsford local Christopher O’Halloran recently published his book Pushing Daisy (2025). While O’Halloran has had his short stories published before within anthology collections with other authors, this is his first novel and solo piece. Although his novel takes place in a fictional city, the inspiration is very clearly drawn from Abbotsford, notably the Clearbrook area.
From an enjoyment of telling stories and writing early in life, O’Halloran started with short stories then sent his work to indie publications and had a generally positive response. Steadily, he built momentum as more indie publishers picked him up as well as podcasts and artists for online comics and webtoons. During all this, he became a part of the HOWL Society, a web-based horror book club for readers and writers, where he eventually became an editor for the horror anthology, “Howl’s From the Wreckage.” Finally, he was picked up by Lethe Press and published his first novel.
As an Abbotsford local, a fan of horror books, and someone who gets curious about indie authors, I decided to give it a read. The story is about Daisy, a mistreated woman, whose vengeful spirit returns after taking her own life to prey upon the reason for her untimely and unfortunate death: her husband Roger. The book starts off as a slow-burn psychological drama as we follow Roger in his grief after his wife’s death. Gradually, elements of horror are sprinkled in, leaving readers with a feeling of unease and intrigue.
O’Halloran takes his time telling a story about human emotions and handles the development of these characters well, exploring why they are the way they are. This was demonstrated particularly well in their interactions and relationships with each other. Ultimately though, I didn’t find myself rooting for any of the characters. They weren’t exactly enjoyable people to follow and were mostly negative — Roger in particular was revolting in almost every way — although this definitely created interest during the reading process.
I had a wonderfully visceral response to the horror elements. Not only is it creepy and tense, it is bloody, gross, and satisfying. The book started off slow despite the plot moving quickly, and it steadily built momentum leading to a climactic finish. The book was highly engaging from start to finish, due to characters that were meant to not sit right with the reader while dropping hints of something bigger at play, like a slow-burning fuse you know will eventually explode.
I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with O’Halloran to discuss his book and journey to becoming a published author. He mentioned that while the book and its characters are inspired from reality, he ignores certain traits or ideas to amplify others, making the characters work better within the context of the story, even if they may come off as unlikable.
“One of the things I like to do is pull from real life and then kind of adjust certain things and make them either a bigger part or a smaller part of the character.”
O’Halloran described Roger as being complex and an outlet for his inner thoughts.
“Roger Darling is a mixture of the tough, ornery people in my life and the impulses I choose to ignore. He’s the middle finger I sometimes wish I could give to strangers. He’s the horn I want to blare when I get cut off.”
O’Halloran wanted to create real and messy people while telling a story about and around those characters.When talking about what inspired the setting, he explained that pulling from Abbotsford was easy since he is very familiar with it. He zoomed in on why he chose a town house for the setting.
“When you think ‘haunted house,’ I think the image that comes to mind is a dilapidated, Victorian mansion. In reality, none of us are living in that kind of luxury. We’re all in condos and townhouses, so I wanted to find a way to make a rowhome spooky. It wasn’t that hard! Despite being sandwiched between other homes, I think living so tight together still carries with it an isolation that you’d get from a cabin in the woods or a mansion on the hill.”
When asked about his next steps, O’Halloran laughed and said, “Find a publisher for my next novel!”
