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Her First Palestinian
By Saeed Teebi. 2022
Elegant, surprising stories about Palestinian immigrants in Canada navigating their identities in circumstances that push them to the emotional brink.…
Saeed Teebi’s intense, engrossing stories plunge into the lives of characters grappling with their experiences as Palestinian immigrants to Canada. A doctor teaches his girlfriend about his country, only for her to fall into a consuming obsession with the Middle East conflict. A math professor risks his family’s destruction by slandering the king of a despotic, oil-rich country. A university student invents an imaginary girlfriend to fit in with his callous, womanizing roommates. A lawyer takes on the impossible mission of becoming a body smuggler. A lonely widower travels to Russia in search of a movie starlet he met in his youth in historical Jaffa. A refugee who escaped violent circumstances rebels against the kindness of his sponsor. These taut and compelling stories engage the immigrant experience and reflect the Palestinian diaspora with grace and insight.Finding Edward
By Sheila Murray. 2022
Cyril Rowntree migrates to Toronto from Jamaica in 2012. Managing a precarious balance of work and university he begins to…
navigate his way through the implications of being racialized in his challenging new land. A chance encounter with a panhandler named Patricia leads Cyril to a suitcase full of photographs and letters dating back to the early 1920s. Cyril is drawn into the letters and their story of a white mother’s struggle with the need to give up her mixed race baby, Edward. Abandoned by his own white father as a small child, Cyril’s keen intuition triggers a strong connection and he begins to look for the rest of Edward’s story. As he searches, Cyril unearths fragments of Edward’s itinerant life as he crisscrossed the country. Along the way, he discovers hidden pieces of Canada’s Black history and gains the confidence to take on his new world.Deep House: A DreadfulWater Mystery (DreadfulWater #6)
By Thomas King. 2022
From the #1 bestselling author of Indians on Vacation, Sufferance and 77 Fragments of a Familiar RuinFor the first time since…
the pandemic, Thumps DreadfulWater has finally found some peace in small-town Chinook. Sure, his beloved cat is still missing and his relationship with Claire is more than uncertain, but at least he can relax in the comfort of his home. And now that local businesses are starting to open their doors again, everything can go back to normal. But when Thumps unintentionally discovers a body at the bottom of a treacherous canyon, he becomes entangled once again in an inexplicable mystery. As more puzzling details come to the surface, Thumps begins to question whom he can truly trust—especially when an unexpected visitor walks back into his life. In the follow-up to Obsidian, a Globe and Mail Favourite of 2020, Thumps DreadfulWater returns with wit and wry humour to solve a mystery that only Thomas King could create.Uncertain Kin
By Janice Lynn Mather. 2022
From Governor General's Literary Award finalist Janice Lynn Mather comes this mesmerizing collection of linked stories that explores the beauty…
and brutality of being alive.SET AGAINST THE VIVID backdrop of The Bahamas, these eighteen luminous and haunting stories introduce us to women and girls searching for certainty and belonging as they navigate profound upheaval. The characters are bold and big-hearted, complex and intimately familiar. They grapple with the bonds of kinship and the responsibilities of parenthood, with grief, longing, betrayal, coming of age and what it means to be a woman. Little girls disappear from their beds one lush August. A jogger with a secret diagnosis makes a sinister discovery on the beach. An island wakes to blood pouring from its taps after a pastor's tirade. An immigrant mother new to Vancouver struggles to plant roots in a city that doesn&’t want her or her son. Tinged with folklore and the surreal, Uncertain Kin is grounded by its emotional richness and breathtaking insight into our relationships with others—and ourselves. This extraordinary collection signals the debut of an important new voice in literature.This Is How We Love
By Lisa Moore. 2022
From the celebrated author of February and Caught comes an exhilarating new novel that asks: What makes a family? How…
does it shape us? And can we ever really choose who we love? As the snowstorm of the century rages toward Newfoundland, twenty-one-year-old Xavier is beaten and stabbed in a vicious attack. His mother, Jules, must fight her way through the shuttered streets of St. John’s to reach the hospital where Xavier lies unconscious. When a video of the attack surfaces, Jules struggles to make sense of what she sees in the footage — and of what she can’t quite make out. While Xavier’s story unfolds, so, too, do the stories that brought him there. Here, across families and generations, are stories of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers; of children cared for, neglected, lost, and re-found; of selfless generosity and reluctant debt. Above all, Moore, in the inimitable largesse of her art, paints a shimmering portrait of the sacrifice, pain, and wild joy of loving. A tour de force of storytelling and craft, This is How We Love brings us a cast of characters so rich and true they could only have been written by Lisa Moore.A Minor Chorus: A Novel
By Billy-Ray Belcourt. 2022
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE*An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of…
Canada&’s most daring literary talents.An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.Whether he&’s meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely.Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become—and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music.Motherthing: A novel
By Ainslie Hogarth. 2022
A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself…
from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law.Abby Lamb has done it. She's found the Great Good in her husband Ralph, and together they will start a family and put all the darkness in her childhood to rest. But then the Lambs move in with Ralph&’s mother Laura, whose depression has made it impossible for her to live on her own. She&’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, who has a complicated understanding of motherhood given the way her own (now estranged) mother raised her.When Laura takes her own life, her ghost starts to haunt Abby and Ralph in very different ways. Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is being terrorized by a force intent on taking everything she loves away from her. With everything on the line, Abby must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to prove her adoration to Ralph and break Laura's hold on the family for good.Junie
By Chelene Knight. 2022
A riveting exploration of the complexity within mother-daughter relationships and the dynamic vitality of Vancouver's former Hogan's Alley neighbourhood.1930s, Hogan's…
Alley—a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver's East End. Junie is a creative, observant child who moves to the alley with her mother, Maddie: a jazz singer with a growing alcohol dependency. Junie quickly makes meaningful relationships with two mentors and a girl her own age, Estelle, whose resilient and entrepreneurial mother is grappling with white scrutiny and the fact that she never really wanted a child.As Junie finds adulthood, exploring her artistic talents and burgeoning sexuality, her mother sinks further into the bottle while the thriving neighbourhood—once gushing with potential—begins to change. As her world opens, Junie intuits the opposite for the community she loves.Told through the fascinating lens of a bright woman in an oft-disquieting world, this book is intimate and urgent—not just an unflinching look at the destruction of a vibrant community, but a celebration of the Black lives within.Possessed
By Jowita Bydlowska. 2022
From the bestselling author of Drunk Mom, comes a story of romantic obsession, mental illness, and self-discovery as one woman…
travels to a haunted quarantine island.Josephine is obsessed. Or possessed — by unrequited love for a younger man who doesn’t promise anything, but who gives her a taste of intimacy that puts her on the brink of losing her mind. Oscillating between her elusive lover and her older former partner, stuck in the hell that is working in a cubicle, and obliged to tend to her destructive, senile mother, Josephine is trapped. After a work assignment promises to deliver distraction, Josephine makes a decision to visit a former quarantine island in the Adriatic Sea, where she meets an enigmatic, beautiful man with a haunting story. Intimate and erotic, Possessed is a dark and funny story exploring sexual obsession, mental illness, and the supernatural.A RARE MACHINES BOOKUtopia: A Novel
By Heidi Sopinka. 2022
Out of the explosive 1970s L.A. art scene comes a riveting novel about creativity, death, and reinvention that follows two…
artists—one dies mysteriously, and the other takes her place Paz, an ambitious young artist, is drawn to Romy, one of the only women to break into the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California. She is also drawn to Romy&’s husband, Billy, an enigmatic art star. When Romy dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances, Billy is left unmoored, caring for their newborn. Leaving New York and grad school behind, Paz takes on the mantle of Romy&’s life and steps into a ghostly love triangle. When Paz attempts to claim her creative life, strange things start to happen—photographs move, an unexplained postcard arrives, and an unsettling journal entry begins to blur the line between art and life. As Paz becomes increasingly obsessed with the woman she has replaced and the absent man she has married, a disturbing picture begins to emerge, driving her deep into the desert to uncover the truth. Astonishing and profound, Utopia affirms Heidi Sopinka as one of the most exhilarating voices in Canadian literature. A propulsive mix of desire, friendship, and betrayal, Utopia illuminates a crucible moment for art and feminism, which still reverberates today. This is both a visionary love story and a feminist manifesto that will leave you altered.Mouth to Mouth: A Novel
By Antoine Wilson. 2022
&“An enthralling literary puzzle...This powerful, intoxicating book&’s greatest tension is that we have no idea where it is heading.&” —The…
New York Times A successful art dealer confesses the story of his meteoric rise in this &“sleek, swift, and graceful&” novel &“with unexpectedly sharp teeth&” (Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling author).In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, our narrator listens as Jeff Cook, a former classmate he only vaguely remembers, shares the uncanny story of his adult life—a life that changed course years before, the moment he resuscitated a drowning man. Jeff reveals that after that traumatic, galvanizing morning on the beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he had saved, convinced that their fates were now entwined. But are we agents of our fate—or are we its pawns? Upon discovering that the man is renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his Beverly Hills gallery. Although Francis does not seem to recognize him as the man who saved his life, he nevertheless casts his legendary eye on Jeff and sees something worthy. He takes the younger man under his wing, initiating him into his world, where knowledge, taste, and access are currency; a world where value is constantly shifting and calling into question what is real, and what matters. The paths of the two men come together and diverge in dizzying ways until the novel&’s staggering ending. Sly, suspenseful, and engrossing, Mouth to Mouth masterfully blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation, self-respect and self-delusion, fact and fiction—exposing the myriad ways we deceive each other, and ourselves.The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
By Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 2022
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS&’ CHOICE • From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a lavish historical…
drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.&“This is historical science fiction at its best: a dreamy reimagining of a classic story with vivid descriptions of lush jungles and feminist themes. Some light romance threads through the heavier ethical questions concerning humanity.&”—Library Journal (starred review)&“The imagination of Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a thing of wonder, restless and romantic, fearless in the face of genre, embracing the polarities of storytelling—the sleek and the bizarre, wild passions and deep hatreds—with cool equanimity.&”—The New York TimesCarlota Moreau: A young woman growing up on a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of a researcher who is either a genius or a madman.Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.The hybrids: The fruits of the doctor&’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.All of them live in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Dr. Moreau&’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and, in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is both a dazzling historical novel and a daring science fiction journey.We Spread
By Iain Reid. 2022
The author of the &“evocative, spine-tingling, and razor-sharp&” (Bustle) I&’m Thinking of Ending Things that inspired the Netflix original movie…
and the &“short, shocking psychological three-hander&” (The Guardian) Foe returns with a new work of philosophical suspense.Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made, unbeknownst to her, for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many &“incidents.&” Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny—with a growing sense of unrest and distrust—starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling? At once compassionate and uncanny, told in spare, hypnotic prose, Iain Reid&’s genre-defying third novel explores questions of conformity, art, productivity, relationships, and what, ultimately, it means to grow old.The Island of Forgetting: A Novel
By Jasmine Sealy. 2022
How does memory become myth? How do lies become family lore? How do we escape the trauma of the past…
when the truth has been forgotten? Barbados, 1962. Lost soul Iapetus roams the island, scared and alone, driven mad after witnessing his father’s death at the hands of his mother and his older brother, Cronus. Just before Iapetus is lost forever, he has a son, but the baby is not enough to save him from himself—or his family’s secrets. Seventeen years later, Iapetus’s son, the stoic Atlas, lives in a loveless house, under the care of his uncle, Cronus, and in the shadow of his charismatic cousin Z. Knowing little about the tragic circumstances of his father’s life, Atlas must choose between his desire to flee the island and his loyalty to the uncle who raised him. Time passes. Atlas’s daughter, Calypso, is a beautiful and wilful teenager who is desperate to avoid being trapped in a life of drudgery at her uncle Z’s hotel. When she falls dangerously in love with a visiting real estate developer, she finds herself entangled in her uncle’s shady dealings, a pawn in the games of the powerful men around her. It is now 2019. Calypso’s son, Nautilus, is on a path of self-destruction as he grapples with his fatherless condition, his mixed-race identity and his complicated feelings of attraction towards his best friend, Daniel. Then one night, after making an impulsive decision, Nautilus finds himself exiled to Canada. The Island of Forgetting is an intimate saga spanning four generations of one family who run a beachfront hotel. Loosely inspired by Greek mythology, this is a novel about the echo of deep—and sometimes tragic—love and the ways a family’s past can haunt its future.The Theory of Crows: A Novel
By David A. Robertson. 2022
A poignant and evocative novel about the bonds of family and the gifts offered by the landWhen a troubled father…
and his estranged teenage daughter head out onto the land in search of the family trapline, they find their way back to themselves, and to each otherDeep in the night, Matthew paces the house, unable to rest. Though his sixteen-year-old daughter, Holly, lies sleeping on the other side of the bedroom door, she is light years away from him. How can he bridge the gap between them when he can’t shake the emptiness he feels inside? Holly knows her father is drifting further from her; what she doesn’t understand is why. Could it be her fault that he seems intent on throwing everything away, including their relationship?Following a devastating tragedy, Matthew and Holly head out onto the land in search of a long-lost cabin on the family trapline, miles from the Cree community they once called home. But each of them is searching for something more than a place. Matthew hopes to reconnect with the father he has just lost; Holly goes with him because she knows the father she is afraid of losing won’t be able to walk away. When things go wrong during the journey, they find they have only each other to turn to for support. What happens to father and daughter on the land will test them, and eventually heal them, in ways they never thought possible.Animal Person: Stories
By Alexander MacLeod. 2022
From Giller Prize finalist Alexander MacLeod comes a magnificent collection about the needs, temptations, and tensions that exist just beneath…
the surface of our lives. Named a Canadian Fiction title to watch by the CBC, Quill & Quire, and 49th Shelf. Featuring stories published in The New Yorker, Granta, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.Startling, suspenseful, deeply humane yet alert to the undertow of our darker instincts, the eight stories in Animal Person illuminate what it means to exist in the perilous space between desire and action, and to have your faith in what you hold true buckle and give way. A petty argument between two sisters is interrupted by an unexpected visitor. Adjoining motel rooms connect a family on the brink of a new life with a criminal whose legacy will haunt them for years to come. A connoisseur of other people&’s secrets is undone by what he finds in a piece of lost luggage. In the wake of a tragic accident, a young man must contend with what is owed to the living and to the dead. And in the O. Henry Award-winning story &“Lagomorph,&” a man&’s relationship with his family&’s long-lived pet rabbit opens up to become a profound exploration of how a marriage fractures. Muscular and tender, beautifully crafted, and alive with an elemental power, these stories explore the struggle for meaning and connection in an age when many of us feel cut off from so much, not least ourselves. This is a collection that beats with raw emotion and shimmers with the complexity of our shared human experience, and it confirms Alexander MacLeod&’s reputation as a modern master of the short story.Fayne: A Novel
By Ann-Marie MacDonald. 2022
THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE 2023 PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTIONA GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF…
THE YEARONE OF CBC&’S BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS OF 2022A beloved writer returns with a tale of science, magic, love and identity.In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition. Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog from the old hired man, Byrn, whose own origins are shrouded in mystery. Her idyllic existence is shadowed by the magnificent portrait on the landing in Fayne House which depicts her mother, a beautiful Irish-American heiress, holding Charlotte&’s brother, Charles Bell. Charlotte has grown up with the knowledge that her mother died in giving birth to her, and that her older brother, Charles, the long-awaited heir, died soon afterwards at the age of two. When Charlotte&’s appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter &“as you would my son, had I one.&” But when Charlotte and her tutor&’s explorations of the bog turn up an unexpected artefact, her father announces he has arranged for her to be cured of her condition, and her world is upended. Charlotte&’s passion for knowledge and adventure will take her to the bottom of family secrets and to the heart of her own identity.