The Honourable Marie Corbett, KC
RETIRED SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, AUTHOR, WOMEN'S RIGHTS ADVOCATE
New Release
Breaking Ground
(2024)
When free-spirited Carmel spends a summer working at a Canadian Rockies resort in the 1960s, she falls passionately in love. Weighed down by her Roman Catholic upbringing, and at a time when repressive morals condemned free love, she is torn between her desire for her self-indulgent new boyfriend and her desire to have a career. Amidst betrayals, poverty, and unwanted pregnancy, Carmel rises above her personal struggles to achieve her dream by becoming a lawyer in a male-dominated world.
“An absorbing and candid journey of self-discovery from a sheltered Catholic background where rules were rigidly clear into a changing world with few signposts. A well-written reminder of why the women’s movement mattered.”
- Margot Duley, historian, author of Where Once Our Mothers Stood: Women’s Suffrage in Newfoundland, 1890-1925
Praise & Reviews
“The gripping story of a woman defying convention and charting her own path with enthralling passions woven throughout. A captivating read.”
- Victoria Montgomery Brown, author of Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur
“Heartbreakingly honest. Vivid dialogue. The life of an early feminist in the 1960’s who didn’t yet know about feminism, but who lived the learning curve, and tested all of society’s expectations.”
- Linda Silver Dranoff, lawyer, activist, author of Fairly Equal Lawyering the Feminist Revolution
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About Marie Corbett
Born in Avondale, Newfoundland, Marie Corbett is a woman’s rights advocate in the areas of family law, environmental law, pension law, and sexual assault. Marie was the first woman president of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, chair of the first family law conference in Canada, and member of the first Ontario Status of Women Council. She founded and was the first woman president of the Canadian Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges. After her retirement from the bench, she wrote the first memoir by a Canadian woman judge, January : A Woman Judge’s Season of Disillusion. In 2024 she released her second novel, Breaking Ground.