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Cozy Fest 2025: Festival Shop
Enjoyed this year’s Cozy Fest readings and want to read the featured books? Shop them below, or find them at your local independent bookseller.
All Books in this Collection
Showing 1–16 of 17 results
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A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News
$24.95Multiple award–winning author Cary Fagan displays his extraordinary range and talent in this propulsive new story collection that is by turns sensitive, surprising, and outrageously funny.
A disgruntled border in 1970s London watches an affair develop between his landlady and a young Canadian student. A woman recalls the family that lived in a lovely tree in her backyard. A fifteen-year-old girl steals a book from a bookstore and sets in motion a remarkable whirlwind journey through New York City. Three turn-of-the-century musicians cross into Saskatchewan to escape an angry gunslinger. A couple decides to separate, only to find that their cat and their dog have a lot to say on the matter.
With witty dialogue, compelling characters, and superb writing, each of the five exquisite stories in A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News differs vastly from the next, yet together conjure a world fuelled by the power of our wildest imaginings.
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A Quilting of Scars
$26.95Filled with the pleasure of recognizable yet distinctively original characters and a deftly drawn sense of time and place, A Quilting of Scars brings to life a story of forbidden love, abuse and murder. Pulsing with repressed sexuality and guilt, Larkin Beattie reveals the many secrets he has kept hidden throughout his lonely life. The character-driven narrative is a meditation on aging and remorse, offering a rich account of the strictures and rhythms of farming in the not-so-distant past, highlighting the confines of a community where strict moral codes are imposed upon its members and fear of exposure terrifies queer youth. As Larkin reflects upon key events, his recollections include his anger at the hypocrisy of the church, and the deep grief and loneliness that have marked his path. There is a timelessness to this story which transcends the period and resonates with heart-breaking relevance.
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Blue Hours
$24.95A novel about fatherhood, grief, unanswerable questions, and the small, magical moments that make up life.
Keith has always striven to break rules as he navigates full-time parenting and supports the career of his successful photographer wife. Her unexpected illness and death leaves both him and his son Charlie in bits. When they take a road trip, a journey begins that does not end when they return home.
Keith must deal with revelations that complicate his grief, even as Charlie’s response is unsettling. Together, father and son connect with loved ones, strangers, and each other. Life’s magical and mystical moments emerge. Is it enough to heal, though?
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Christmas Weekend
$16.95Geoffrey isn’t too thrilled about having to spend Christmas weekend at his dad’s cottage in the Laurentians. The Internet is so lousy Geoffrey can’t play computer games. Even worse, there’s Rebekah, his dad’s latest girlfriend. Rebekah is unbearably cheerful and for someone Jewish, she’s way too into Christmas. It doesn’t help that Geoffrey’s kid sister Angela and the family dog, Paprika, give Rebekah a chance. A freak storm traps the family in the cottage. When a late-night cooking experiment goes terribly wrong, Geoffrey and his sister get to know Rebekah in ways they could never have expected.
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Heal the Beasts
$24.95“Schott’s animated account moves at a fast clip, is full of colorful anecdotes, and will delight animal lovers of all stripes.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
Sharing the stories of 22 different animal healers and veterinarians from across eras and continents, Dr. Schott examines the always fascinating, often unexpected, and sometimes hilarious veterinary methods employed to treat all manner of creatures. From healing dogs and horses to gorillas and even dragons, at the heart lies the evolution of the human-animal bond, which has been more cyclical than linear.
James Herriot will be familiar to many people, but most of the other featured vets will be new. They range from Palakapya, who treated fighting elephants in India almost 3,000 years ago, to Dr. Louis Camuti, who had the first feline house call practice anywhere, tending to the cats of celebrities in mid-twentieth century Manhattan
Whether you have a passion for animals, the history of the medical sciences, or just quirky history, this light-hearted exploration of the empathetic relationship between man and beast will entertain and delight. -
Heliotropia
$23.95WINNER OF THE 2025 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN AWARD FOR POETRY
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 OTTAWA BOOK AWARD
“Where fear collides with the little shield of love.”
Manahil Bandukwala’s second collection of poems is a meditation on love during times of social and political upheaval. As a sunflower’s growth reaches toward the sun, so, she suggests, is a lover’s growth compelled by the gravitational pull and soul-light of their beloved. Many of these poems are in conversation with other poets and artists, creating a lineage of call and response. Against a backdrop of terrestrial crisis, come, spend your precious minutes in love’s Heliotropia, where we are magnetized by the unfathomable dark matter of another person, and know ourselves as celestial bodies flowering in spacetime, together.
“Intergalactic yet deeply earthly, intertextual yet wonderfully original…”
—Mikko Harvey, author of Let the World Have You
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In Crisis, On Crisis
$22.00In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” Have we reached a breaking point, arrived at the moment of truth? If so, what now? If not, why do so many people say we’re living through a period of unprecedented crises? Drawing on social research, pop culture and literature, as well as his experience as an activist, father and teacher, James Cairns explores the ecological crisis, Trump’s return to power amid the so-called crisis of democracy, his own struggle with addiction and other moments of truth facing us today. In a series of insightful essays that move deftly between personal, theoretical and historical approaches he considers not only what makes something a crisis, but also how to navigate the effect of these destabilizing times on ourselves, on our families and on the world.
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Queer Country Crossroads
$26.00What does it mean to grow up trans in a rural town? To move from Toronto to a small community in Manitoba? To start a queer ice hockey tournament on the Sunshine Coast? To be the first out queer man that your new friend knows on a first-name basis?
Queer Country Crossroads is an anthology of nonfiction stories and poems written by and for rural 2SLGBTQIA+ folks. Fifty writers, poets, and artists from across Canada share personal stories that explore themes from coming of age and isolation to community and home. Each person’s story is unique: some reflect on growing up in rural settings while others describe their experiences of moving to the countryside later in life. Together, these voices offer diverse perspectives and insights into the strengths and hardships that come with living at the intersection of being rural and queer. Queer Country Crossroads serves as a beautiful reminder of people’s resilience, love and strength.
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Secrets of Stone
$25.00Centuries have passed since the forces of nature won the war against humanity. Sentient animals now rule a healing world, and as the stain of mankind continues to dwindle, a young wolf called Silversong is determined to rise in the hierarchy of his pack. Strong at manipulating wind and air, all he needs is a way to prove himself to his Chief.
Before he can get the respect he deserves, however, Silversong’s aspirations are cut short by the Heretic and his outcast wolves. Against all odds, the Heretic and his band of exiles escape their imprisonment far to the west and wreak havoc on Silversong’s pack. The exiles pose a threat unlike any other, and their enigmatic leader won’t stop his brutal conquest until all wolfkind submits to him.
Silversong can’t let a monstrous wolf like the Heretic roam free. With the wind at his back, he pursues the leader of the exiles into forests of shadow and into ancient places better left forgotten. But the further he strays from home, the more he comes to realize that maybe his enemies aren’t so evil after all. Maybe there’s a reason for the destruction they seek… and maybe there’s a far greater danger lying in wait.
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Seeing You Home
$22.95These interconnected short stories navigate love, loss, and the search for meaning in the wake of tragedy. Clare’s husband Richard is battling cancer in St. Boniface Hospital, and when his cellphone is stolen, she embarks on a restless search, tracking its signal through the city–trying to grasp onto something tangible as everything familiar slips away. Tracing the threads of Clare and Richard’s relationship, from the exhilaration of their first meeting to the raw ache of his absence, Seeing You Home is an intimate portrait of devotion, grief, and the impossible task of finding a way forward.
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Shudder Pulp
$24.95Leaves are turning red in cottage country, and Charley Scott is putting together a Halloween pulp art installation inspired by local lake monster legends. Life imitates art when Laura, a mercenary newcomer with a controversial agenda to upgrade the dam, claims she was attacked by Charley’s monster.
Hours later, Laura is found dead by dry drowning.
Accident, murder, or something supernatural? Charley’s Shudder Pulp exhibit is meant to be immersive, but could she truly have summoned a beast from beneath the waves?
Charley and chocolatier Matt Thorn team up to investigate, but it’ll take more than seafoam toffee to bait this beast. To discern the truth among myths, Charley will have to risk it all to look the monster in the eye.
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The Beauty and the Hell of It & Other Stories
$22.95A woman comes face to face with her rapist at his engagement party. A teen reluctantly celebrating the first Christmas after her mother’s death gets caught cutting her wrists by a stranger. A student hands in a box of Kraft Dinner as her final assignment, and a bipolar art teacher grieves her divorce by online shopping. The Beauty and the Hell of It & Other Stories is a collection of stories about women (and one man) who quietly resist and the resulting moments of transition, acceptance, and vindication. Whether they wrestle with grief, growth, trauma, or all three, these characters don’t give in to expectations about who or how they should be. These stories will appeal to readers who enjoyed the pivotal moments of ordinary life in Sophie Stocking’s Walking Leonard and Other Stories and those who want a slice of contemporary womanhood served up with dark humour as offered in Meghan Bell’s Erase and Rewind.
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The Chorus Beneath Our Feet
$25.00A grief-stricken soldier accompanies his best friend’s body home after eight years away, only to find his mute sister, Mary, missing and wanted for questioning by the police in the murder of an infant in the city’s central park. As Mary’s life hangs in the balance, Jes must follow the obscure clues she has left behind, the only means to find her and absolve her of wrongdoing. In his labyrinthine search, the mystery of the park’s infamous Harron tree and its connection to his sister, and their community, is slowly revealed. The Chorus Beneath Our Feet explores buried secrets, and the human desire for healing and connection.
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The Pollination Field
$21.00Kim Fahner’s The Pollination Field is a poetic foray into the literal and metaphorical world of bees, but it also includes an exploration of other pollinators—bats, beetles, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and even humans. In these poems, Fahner continues with her poetic observation and documentation of how the human world impacts the environment, but also incorporates myth and feminism in her consideration of how women evolve over time.
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The Pugilist and the Sailor
$24.95The Pugilist and the Sailor follows conjoined twins, Bruce and Dougie. Dougie is an ambitious amateur boxer, having dragged his brother into the ring since childhood. Bruce is a bookkeeper who has become smitten with Anka. Unaware of the facts of the twins’ physicality an epistolary relationship unfolds between Anka and Bruce, as he wrestles with broaching the topic of separation with Dougie. Dougie’s sole focus is the Heavyweight Amateur Boxing title as one half of “The Reuben Beast,” though he is trying to ignore his mysterious blackouts and severe headaches. Anka is, specifically, navigating through her grief over her parents’ deaths, but also, generally, reconciling her understanding of being a first-generation Canadian without her Guyanese parents as an anchor.
A character-driven story with an ensemble cast, told across multiple points of view and time periods, examines the unique relationships between conjoined brothers, parents, crushes, and unexpected mentors. A story about the intertwined nature of longing and belonging, compromise and connection, this is ultimately a consideration of family and finding your unique place in it, and in the world. -
The Upending of Wendall Forbes
$23.95Wendall and Ruby Forbes, married for more than fifty years, are confronting the vagaries of aging boomers: sleeplessness, loneliness, memory loss, fear that Ruby is showing signs of dementia, considering the pros and cons of ending life, and the failures of their generation.
A blizzard hits and a remarkable, perhaps unbelievable, band of strangers pay the Forbeses a visit. An indigenous Colombian refugee, his wife, an environmental academic and their child; a young man on an accidental journey quest; a teenage activist and her ten-year-old gay half-brother; and the voice of a sleep consultant in Indianapolis—they all take refuge in Wendall and Ruby’s home in the isolated town of Twenty-Six Mile House in northern Ontario.
The companionship of strangers, and a chance encounter with a foul-mouthed raven and talking lynx and her cub restore Wendall and Ruby’s hope for the future. This is a heartbreaking, funny, wise, and hopeful story.