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The Very Marrow of Our Bones

By: Christine Higdon

$18.95

Defiance, faith, and triumph in a heartrending novel about daughters and mothers

On a miserable November day in 1967, two women disappear from a working-class town on the Fraser River. The community is thrown into panic, with talk of drifters and murderous husbands. But no one can find a trace of Bette Parsons or Alice McFee. Even the egg seller, Doris Tenpenny, a woman to whom everyone tells their secrets, hears nothing.

Ten-year-old Lulu Parsons discovers something, though: a milk-stained note her mother, Bette, left for her father on the kitchen table. Wally, it says, I will not live in a tarpaper shack for the rest of my life . . .

Lulu tells no one, and months later she buries the note in the woods. At the age of ten, she starts running — and forgetting — lurching through her unraveled life, using the safety of solitude and detachment until, at fifty, she learns that she is not the only one who carries a secret.

Hopeful, lyrical, comedic, and intriguingly and lovingly told, The Very Marrow of Our Bones explores the isolated landscapes and thorny attachments bred by childhood loss and buried secrets.
The Virgin Trial

By: Kate Hennig

$17.95

Fifteen-year-old Bess has no idea when she heads to London to see her Uncle Ted that she is about to find herself at the heart of a scandal involving sexual impropriety; her stepfather, Thom; and an attempted overthrow of the government. What does all this have to do with her? How adroitly can Bess manoeuvre through a series of interviews to avoid being swept up in the peril that might ensue? And will she be able to spin the facts to create a myth based on her own innocence?

In this gripping follow-up to The Last Wife, Kate Hennig continues her Tudor Queens Trilogy by cleverly exploring victim shaming, sexual consent, and the extraordinary ability of girls becoming women as she reimagines the scandalous and little-known story of Elizabeth the First before she was Queen.
The Wall and the Wind

By: Veselina Tomova

$10.95

In the middle of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe, a young girl dreams of adventures near and far. One day, a huge wall appears that separates East from West, and dreamer from dreams. No ladder is high enough, no tunnel deep enough to get past that wall. But then a crack appears in the wall, and the girl (now a woman) knows she has the chance to follow her dreams again.
The Ward Uncovered

$27.95

In early 2015, a team of archaeologists began digging test trenches on a non-descript parking lot next to Toronto City Hall — a site designated to become a major new court house. What they discovered was the rich buried history of an enclave that was part of The Ward — that dense, poor, but vibrant ‘arrival city’ that took shape between the 1840s and the 1950s. Home to waves of immigrants and refugees — Irish, African-Americans, Italians, eastern European Jews, and Chinese — The Ward was stigmatized for decades by Toronto’s politicians and residents, and eventually razed to make way for New City Hall. The archaeologists who excavated the lot, led by co-editor Holly Martelle, discovered almost half a million artifacts — a spectacular collection of household items, tools, toys, shoes, musical instruments, bottles, industrial objects, food scraps, luxury items, and even a pre-contact Indigenous projectile point. Martelle’s team also unearthed the foundations of a nineteenth-century Black church, a Russian synagogue, early-twentieth-century factories, cisterns, privies, wooden drains, and even row houses built by formerly enslaved African Americans. Following on the heels of the immensely popular The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood, which told the stories of some of the people who lived there, The Ward Uncovered digs up the tales of things, using these well-preserved artifacts to tell a different set of stories about life in this long-forgotten and much-maligned neighbourhood.

Contributors include Abbey Flower, Sarah Hood, Ron Williamson, Cheryl Thompson, Peter Popkin, Arlene Chan, Karolyn Smardz Frost, Simon Rogers, Liz Driver, Vid Ingelvics, Bethany Good, Adrienne Chambon, Kathy Grant, Guylaine Petrin, Craig Heron, Tom Porawski, Wayne Reeves, Wenh-In Ng, Ellen Scheinberg, Nicole Brandon, Rosemary Sadlier, Matt Beaudoin, Natasha Henry, and Heather Murray.
The Water Beetles

By: Michael Kaan

$22.95

Winner, 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, 2018 McNally Robinson Book of the Year, and 2018 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction
Shortlisted, 2017 Governor General’s Award for Fiction and 2018 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book
A National Post Best Book of 2017
A Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Historical Novel of 2017
On CBC Books’ list of writers to watch in 2018

The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away.

The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders. Thrown into a new world, Chung-Man befriends a young couple who yearn to break free of their rural life. But their friendship ends when the Japanese arrive, and Chung-Man is once again taken captive. Unwittingly and willingly, he enters a new cycle of violence and punishment, until he finally breaks free from his captors and returns to Hong Kong.

Deeply scarred, Chung-Man drifts along respectfully and dutifully, enveloped by the unspoken vestiges of war. It is only as he leaves home once again — this time for university in America — that he finally glimpses a way to keep living with his troubled and divided self.

Written in restrained, yet beautiful and affecting prose, The Water Beetles is an engrossing story of adventure and survival. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of the author’s father, this mesmerizing story captures the horror of war, through the eyes of a child, with unsettling and unerring grace.
The Weight of the Heart

By: Theresa Kishkan

$15.95

When her brother dies in the turbulent water of B.C.’s Thompson River, Isabel sets out to find traces of him in the places he loved. At the same time, she is seeking locations referenced in important literary works by Sheila Watson and Ethel Wilson for a graduate thesis. Her map becomes a cartography of both feminine and personal engagements with landscape and memory. In locating the sources of rich creative expression and by reaching back to ancient ceremonial rituals for death and the afterlife, she finds a way to reconcile her own grief and the writing of B.C’s early feminist writers whom she fears risk being forgotten.
The Western Light

By: Susan Swan

$29.95

The Western Light, the prequel to the international bestselling The Wives of Bath, is Susan Swan’s long-awaited return to the life of the beloved narrator Mary “Mouse” Bradford. Mouse’s world is constrained by a number of factors: her mother is dead, her father — the admired country doctor — is emotionally distant, her housekeeper Sal is prejudiced and narrow, and her grandmother and aunt, Big Louie and Little Louie, the only life-affirming presences in her life, live in another city.

Enter Gentleman John Pilkie, the former NHL star who’s transferred to the mental hospital in Midland, where he is to serve out his life-sentence for the murder of his wife and daughter. John becomes a point of fascination for young Mary, who looks to him for the attention she does not receive from her father. He, in turn, is kind to her — but the kindness is misunderstood. When Mary figures out that the attention she receives from the Hockey Killer is different in kind and intent from the attention her Aunt Little Louie receives, her world collapses. Set against the beautiful and dramatic shores of Georgian Bay, the climax will have readers turning pages with concern for characters they can’t help but love.
The Wind Has Robbed the Legs off a Madwoman

By: Agnes Walsh

$19.95

A rare new book of verse from one of the most recognized and distinguished names in Newfoundland poetry and drama, Agnes Walsh.

This exciting new collection by a beloved Newfoundland poet at the height of her craft focuses on nature and women, with strong imagery and an innate sense of line. It considers the permeable barrier between inside and outside, between self and world. These deceptively simple poems convey wisdom and a profound depth of perception in their evocation of beauty, illness, vulnerability, and place.

The poems of The Wind Has Robbed the Legs off a Madwoman draw from myth, folklore, local history, the unique dialect of Irish Newfoundland, and the edges of feminism and patriarchy.
The Winter-Blooming Tree

By: Barbara Langhorst

$18.95

The Winter-Blooming Tree draws us into the lives of Ursula Koehl-Niederhauser, a school teacher suffering from lapses of memory who is convinced that she has dementia; Andreas, her charming, well-intentioned but somewhat self-absorbed husband; and their grown daughter, Mia, who is about to move home after bouncing all over the country, trying to find herself as a journalist. Distracted by thoughts and memories of the winter-blooming apple tree in her laundry room, Ursula misses the neurologist?s diagnosis and becomes convinced she is falling ill. Andreas, certain that she is fine, refuses to worry her with his own work and health problems. Mia, caught up with her own situation, has no idea that her parents are struggling and can?t understand why her mother, especially, is behaving so badly. The Winter-Blooming Tree delves into the dissonance between family members and how sometimes pride is the only thing standing between those we love and the stories we tell ourselves.
The Witch of Willow Sound

By: Vanessa F. Penney

$24.95

2025 CIBA Booksellers’ List Selection

A feminist gothic tale with a tough-as-nails female protagonist who must find her elderly aunt, long suspected of being a witch.

Madeline is missing. Ordered to find her, Madeline’s estranged niece Fade must return to the lonely forest of Willow Sound, Nova Scotia. There, Fade discovers her aunt’s once-cozy cottage empty and rotting. The ominous smell of something burnt hangs in the air.

In her search for answers, Fade clashes with the people of Grand Tea, a nearby village struggling under the shadow of a massive, looming rock that could tip and crush them all at any time. For generations, they’ve invented bizarre lore about Madeline, calling her a witch and blaming her for their misfortunes. They’ve had more misfortunes than ever lately. And a hurricane is coming.

Inspired by real East Coast traditions and witch lore, The Witch of Willow Sound is a modern gothic tale that explores family lost and found and throws firelight on dark truths about what societies do with the people, and the past, they don’t want.
The Wondrous Woo

By: Carrianne Leung

$22.95

Finalist for the 2014 Toronto Book Awards. The Wondrous Woo tells the story of Miramar Woo who is the quintessential Chinese girl: nice, quiet, and reserved. The eldest of the three Woo children, Miramar is ever the obedient sister and daughter … on the outside. On the inside, she’s a kick-ass kung fu heroine with rock star flash, sassy attitude, and an insatiable appetite for adventure. Just as Miramar is about to venture forth on the real adventure of leaving home for university, her beloved father is killed in an accident. Miramar watches helplessly as her family unravels in the aftermath of her father’s death. Her mother is on the brink of a recurring paranoia that involves phantom hands. Her younger siblings suddenly and mysteriously become savants, in possession of uncanny talents nicknamed The Gifts. As her siblings are swept up into the fantastic world of fame and fortune and her mother fights off madness, Miramar is left behind, feeling talentless and abandoned with no idea who she really is or who she wants to become. She gets herself to university on a bus with no family to see her off, no hugs, and no support. She is utterly on her own. In a story that spans four eventful years, Miramar ventures forth from the suburbs of Toronto to university in Ottawa and back again. Along the way she encounters people and situations light years apart from her sheltered world. She explores new friendships, lust, and a side of herself never seen before. Ultimately, Miramar discovers the meaning of courage, belonging, and family.
Theatre of the Unimpressed

By: Jordan Tannahill

$14.95

How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.

Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d become. There were of course those rare moments of transcendencethat kept me coming back. But why did they come so few and far between?

A lot of plays are dull. And one dull play, it seems, can turn us off theatre for good. Playwright and theatre director Jordan Tannahill takes in the spectrum of English-language drama – from the flashiest of Broadway spectacles to productions mounted in scrappy storefront theatres – to consider where lifeless plays come from and why they persist. Having travelled the globe talking to theatre artists, critics, passionate patrons and the theatrically disillusioned, Tannahill addresses what he considers the culture of ‘risk aversion’ paralyzing the form.

Theatre of the Unimpressed is Tannahill’s wry and revelatory personal reckoning with the discipline he’s dedicated his life to, and a roadmap for a vital twenty-first-century theatre – one that apprehends the value of ‘liveness’ in our mediated age and the necessity for artistic risk and its attendant failures. In considering dramaturgy, programming and alternative models for producing, Tannahill aims to turn theatre from an obligation to a destination.

‘[Tannahill is] the poster child of a new generation of (theatre? film? dance?) artists for whom “interdisciplinary” is not a buzzword, but a way of life.’ —J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe and Mail

‘Jordan is one of the most talented and exciting playwrights in the country, and he will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.’ —Nicolas Billon, Governor General’s Award–winning playwright (Fault Lines)
These Songs I Know By Heart

By: Erin Brubacher

$23.00

Finalist for the 2024 Big Other Book Award for Fiction

Married and divorced in her 20s, looking for friendship in her 30s, and contemplating pregnancy at 40, our narrator wonders if she’s going through life out of order. But Alice, The Turtle, The Kid, and other beloveds show her that motherhood is more than giving birth, art is never finished, and love is not linear.

Through a three-day canoe trip, chance encounters, fierce female friendship, step-parenting, IVF, pandemic isolation, and quiet moments between humans, These Songs I Know By Heart weaves vignettes of everyday mythology into an absorbing and honest meditation on the connections in our lives. With razor-sharp reflection, humour, and most of all love, we are reminded that there’s no formula to life and that instead, we must celebrate what makes the small moments of our lives extraordinary.
Things You’ve Inherited From Your Mother

By: Hollie Adams

$19.95

Shortlisted for the Cover Design Award at the 2016 Alberta Book Publishing Awards!Everyone deals with grief in their own personal way. Take Carrie, for example. To get over her mother’s death from ovarian cancer, she launches a passive-aggressive war with her fellow office workers, embarks on a campaign designed to let her ex-husband know she’s over him (which naturally only pushes her teenage daughter farther away), and plots to rid herself of her mother’s overweight cat, all the while consuming heroic quantities of red wine, spiked coffee, and coffin nails. Nobody’s perfect.Situated at the midpoint between booze-soaked mayhem and middle-aged ennui, Things You’ve Inherited from Your Mother is a riotous assemblage of found objects, Choose Your Own Adventure-style in-jokes and useful facts about mice. In her startlingly funny first novel, Hollie Adams takes the conventional wisdom about “likeable” literary heroines and shoves it down an elevator shaft.
Thirty Feet Under

By: William Wodhams

$24.95

When a museum in Italy is robbed and the guard murdered, the Carabinieri Art Squad ask for Kate Taylor’s help searching for the thieves. After working in the FBI Art Crimes Team for years, doing little but updating files and computer work, she is thrilled to work on a real case.

Yet there’s something unusual about their request. It’s a small, unremarkable marble sphinx that was stolen — why would the Carabinieri care? Still, she’s looking forward to some excitement and adventure. Besides, Luca, the Carabinieri’s agent, has big, beautiful eyes.

Kate finds out the sphinx is the key to unraveling one of the greatest mysteries in archeology: the lost tomb of a legendary king. Before long, she’s searching for suspects in an international smuggling ring. People are dying. She doesn’t know who she can trust, including Luca. And time is running out: Kate has two weeks to solve a 3,000-year-old mystery before its treasures are looted and vanish forever.

Back in New York, Paul Klugman is about to give up his dream of becoming a dealer of ancient art. Then he gets a call from an eccentric art collector that will change his life forever. He soon finds the success and wealth he’s always wanted, but the price is higher than he ever expected. And the truth is buried deeper than the artifacts.
This Book Betrays My Brother

By: Kagiso Lesego Molope

$18.95

Winner of the Ottawa Book Award, English Fiction, 2019
Named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2018
Named to the Globe 100, 2018
CBC Books, Top YA Pick for 2018
Named to Best Books for Kids and Teens, Fall 2018
Named to Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best Books, 2018

What does a teenage girl do when she sees her beloved older brother commit a horrific crime? Should she report to her parents, or should she keep quiet? Should she confront him? All her life, Naledi has been in awe of Basi, her charming and outgoing older brother. They’ve shared their childhood, with its jokes and secrets, the alliances and stories about the community. Having reached thirteen, she is preparing to go to the school dance. Then she sees Basi commit an act that violates everything she believes about him. How will she live her life now?

This coming-of-age novel brings together many social issues, peculiar not only to South Africa but elsewhere as well, in the modern world: class and race, young love and physical desire, homosexuality. In beautiful, lyrical, and intimate prose, Molope shows the dilemmas facing a young woman as she attempts to find her place in a new, multiracial, and dynamic nation emerging into the world after more than a century of racist colonialism. A world now dominated by men. There are no simple answers.
This Bright Dust

By: Nina Berkhout

$25.00

“A stirring tale of the Great Depression on Canada’s Alberta prairie. Readers will be moved.” — Publishers Weekly

One of the CBC’s Canadian Fiction Books to Read in Fall 2024
As the Great Depression winds down and war in Europe looms, the small Prairie community of Grayley is all but abandoned. After a decade of dust and drought, few families remain. With growing season approaching, Abel Dodds and the Wisharts decide to plant their crops once again — their last chance to make a living on their debt-burdened farms. But when they learn of an impending royal visit, tensions ignite between the neighbours.

Deeply rooted in the landscape of the Prairies and laced with contemporary concerns, This Bright Dust deftly explores the relationship between people and the land they inhabit. In a richly layered novel, Berkhout tells a moving tale of promise and disillusionment, of near disaster and the cultivation of joy.
this is a small northern town

By: Rosanna Deerchild

$14.95

this is a small northern town is the long-awaited, first full-length collection of poems by Rosanna Deerchild. These are poems about: what it means to be from the north; a town divided along color lines; and a family dealing with its history of secrets. At its core, this collection is about the life of a Cree girl and the places she finds comfort and escape.
This Is How We Got Here

By: Keith Barker

$17.95

Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, This is How We Got Here follows a close-knit family as they deal with an unexpected loss. A mother, father, aunt, and uncle must learn how to move forward after the trauma and re-learn how to interact with one another with forgiveness, humour, and love.

It’s been a year since Paul and Lucille’s son Craig died by suicide, and their once-solid family bonds are starting to break down. While the now-separated couple tries to honour their son, Lucille’s sister Liset and her husband Jim refuse to discuss their nephew. The ties that keep the four together as sisters, best friends, and spouses are strained by grief and guilt… until a visit from a fox changes everything.
This Is War

By: Hannah Moscovitch

$16.95

Master Corporal Tanya Young, Captain Stephen Hughes, Private Jonny Henderson, and Sergeant Chris Anders have lived through an atrocity while holding one of the most volatile regions in Afghanistan. As each of them is interviewed by an unseen broadcasting organization, they recount their version of events leading up to the horrific incident with painful, relenting replies. What begins to form is a picture of the effects of guilt and the psychological toll of violence in a war where the enemy is sometimes indiscernible.