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Sunshine nails
By Mai Nguyen. 2023
A tender and funny debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family who will do whatever it takes to keep their no-frills…
nail salon afloat after a multimillion-dollar chain opens across the street. Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have made a good life for themselves in Toronto, but their landlord has just jacked up the rent of their family-run nail salon, Sunshine Nails, and it's way more than they can afford. When Take Ten, a glamorous chain offering a more luxurious salon experience, moves into the neighborhood, the Tran family is terrified of losing their business—and the community they've built around them. But daughter Jessica comes to their rescue. She's just moved back home after a messy breakup and an even messier firing. Together with her workaholic brother, Dustin, and recently immigrated cousin, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. But as the line between right and wrong gets blurred, relationships are put to the test, and Debbie and Phil must choose: Do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon? Full of memorable manicures and even more memorable characters, Sunshine Nails is a humorous and heartfelt novel about family, resilience, and what it means to start over
Sunshine Nails: A Novel
By Mai Nguyen. 2023
A Real Simple Must-Read Book of Summer 2023 "Mai Nguyen has proven herself to be a real standout." - Taylor…
Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author. A tender, humorous, and page-turning debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family in Toronto who will do whatever it takes to protect their no-frills nail salon after a new high end salon opens up--even if it tears the family apart. Perfect for readers of Olga Dies Dreaming and The Fortunes of Jaded Women. Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked. Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they've built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon? Sunshine Nails is a light-hearted, urgent fable of gentrification with a cast of memorable and complex characters who showcase the diversity of immigrant experiences and community resilience.
Pride and Joy: A Novel
By Louisa Onomé. 2024
Black Cake meets Death at a Funeral in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family grappling with…
their matriarch’s sudden passing while their auntie insists that her sister is coming back, from an author with a “razor-sharp, smart and tender” (Nafiza Azad, author of The Wild Ones) voice. Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. The recently divorced life coach whose phone won’t stop ringing is also the dutiful Nigerian daughter who has planned every aspect of her mother’s seventieth birthday weekend on her own. As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids try to wake her, they find that she isn’t sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition: Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ himself on Easter Sunday. Desperate to believe that they’re about to witness a miracle, the family overhauls their birthday plans to welcome the Nigerian Canadian community and the host of AJAfrika TV to help spread the word that Mama Mary is coming back. But skeptical Joy is struggling to deal with the loss of her mother and not allowing herself to mourn just yet while going through the motions of planning a funeral that her aunt refuses to allow.Filled with humour and flawed, deeply relatable characters that leap off the page, Pride and Joy will draw in readers as the Okafors prepare for a miracle while coming apart at the seams, praying that they haven’t actually lost Mama Mary for good and grappling with what her loss would truly mean for each of them.
Maya's Laws of Love: A Novel
By Alina Khawaja. 2024
"A charming, funny, and unique twist on challenging the laws and traditions that shape us."—Abby Jimenez, New York Times bestselling author of Yours…
TrulyA bride-to-be convinced she&’s cursed in romance finds her luck changing—at exactly the wrong time.Maya Mirza is so convinced she&’s unlucky in love that she&’s come up with a list of laws to explain it. Most importantly… Maya&’s Law #1: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.But that&’s about to change. Maya&’s headed to Pakistan for an arranged marriage with a handsome, successful doctor who ticks all the right boxes. First comes marriage, then comes love—she&’s sure of it. Except… Law #4: When you think you&’re lucky, think again.From the start, Maya's journey is riddled with disaster, and the cynical lawyer seated next to her on the plane isn&’t helping. When a storm leaves them stranded in Switzerland, she and Sarfaraz become unlikely travel companions through bus breakdowns and missed connections. Law #6: Trips are never smooth sailing.And before long, Maya&’s wondering whether she&’s just experienced the ultimate in misfortune—finally meeting the right man a few days before she marries someone else. And Maya might just be the worst person to keep a secret. Law #18: If you&’re overtired, you&’ll always spill your guts.But maybe, if she&’s willing to bend some laws, this detour could take her somewhere totally—and wonderfully—unexpected."Rooted in Pakistani and Muslim culture and faith, this romance is a fun romp that features plenty of adventure and plot twists. Recommend to fans of Uzma Jalaluddin."—Library Journal, starred review
Wild Life
By Opal Wei. 2024
They're walking on the wild side…The Plan was simple: find a cure for the cancer that nearly took her sister&’s life.…
But for Zoey Fong, something about The Plan isn&’t working anymore. When a crucial tissue sample accidentally winds up in the hands of a very distracting—and disarmingly handsome—visitor, Zoey jumps at the chance to follow him home to retrieve it. Davy Hsieh&’s rugged island estate is no manicured suburban park. His plan is simple: establish a legitimate animal sanctuary and embrace life as a hermit to make up for a sketchy past. Zoey invading his fortress of solitude should not, under any circumstances, be a romantic development. And yet it&’s the single most invigorating week of their lives…when they're able to set their many differences aside and embrace it. Stranded amid all manner of flora and fauna—including a semidomesticated cougar called Baby—Davy and Zoey first have to survive the island. Then they'll need to take a leap of faith, maybe even trusting in each other, to save it. "An absolutely charming opposites attract story that will have you swooning for Davy, feeling for Zoey, and swearing to stay away from geese." —Lily Chu, author of The Stand-In and The Comeback
I Hope This Finds You Well: A Novel
By Natalie Sue. 2024
In this wildly funny and heart-warming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues’ private emails and…
DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job. A laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.