In By The Next Pause, Canadian author G. Barton-Sinkia brings us to a time when Toronto was on the cusp of turning into the diverse mosaic it is today. At seventeen, Pam Allen escapes Jamaica, leaving her infant daughter Simone behind. Years later, after the death of her aunt, Pam is forced to take in the daughter she never wanted. They live in a run-down apartment complex in North York next to Mike O'Shea - a racist, loudmouth high school dropout who has recently separated from his wife and finds himself raising his eight-year-old son, Nolan, alone. The two parents try to coexist in a world where they are drowning as single parents until they reluctantly join forces to raise their young children together. When a life-altering mistake forces their children on diverging, tumultuous paths, the make-shift family struggles to find their way back to each other before their whole world crumbles for good.