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Renaissance Press Book Sale!
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All Books in this Collection
Showing 21–40 of 54 results
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Ghost Light Burn
$20.00As the Gate Project expands, building stable, artificial wormholes in orbit around ever more worlds in the Pan Galactum, its hunger for construction materials grows exponentially. But the discovery of the dead binary planets, Sound and Fury, may finally sate the project’s hunger ten times over.
In the shadow of massive, shattered Fury comes an interstellar travelling theatre, bringing with it an old friend of the Maverick Heart crew. One with a nose for trouble who soon discovers a conspiracy of embezzlement, greed, and corporate apathy too deep to investigate alone.
When Ember receives the call for help, it is a mystery too enticing for him, Keene, Lexa-Blue, and Vrick to pass up. One that will take all their skills to unravel before time runs out and the whole system burns.
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Human
$20.00At the behest of the vampiric Shadow Council, Aleksandar Svetoslav, Prince of his House, moves to America to re-establish their foothold there. It was a territory lost when opportunistic vampire hunters laid waste to the hedonistic House Üstrel. He did not expect to find the assets of House Üstrel in such shambles.
Nor did he expect that this tedious mission would lead to the beautiful police officer Alicia Wilde, who resurrects feelings in him that he had long thought dead. He certainly did not anticipate her partner, Detective Stephen Brody, who not only knows what Aleksandar is but has vowed revenge on all his kind.
Things spiral quickly out of control as Aleksandar is drawn into a cat and mouse game with a deranged kidnapper targeting those closest to him. Betrayal draws Aleksandar and Detective Brody together in a frantic battle to save Alicia and the city from a true monster.
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Hunting a Sea-Glass Heart
$22.99Hunting a Sea-Glass Heart is a humorous blend of Pirates of the Caribbean and Golden Girls with a dash of magic.
Anne Bonny has changed little from the wild young pirate she was twenty years ago and chafes under the bonds of southern society in Charles Towne Carolina in 1741. The death of her father breaks these shackles and the subsequent theft of her sea-glass heart, a memento from her beloved Mary Reed, frees Anne to return to her piratical ways.
Sailing from port to port, the menopausal Anne revels in her freedom from corsets and societal constraints while she hunts down her stolen sea-glass heart, a traitorous ex-husband and the now-grown child she gave up to adoption.
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Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!
$22.99In a galactic network known as the Keangal, where space is accessible…
Lieutenant Eileen Iris and the command crew of the S.S. SpoonZ haven’t a clue what it means to be disabled. An unexpected conversation with an intergalactic janitor brings up the question but offers no answers before he’s ’ported away.
Unfazed, duties resume as Iris manages an overprotective guidebot; Security Chief Lartha and her sentient prostheses offer kick-ass protection; Mr. Herbert’s inventiveness is a godsend (although he’s not quite grasped how to flirt); Commander Davan’s affable personality comes through whether trumpeted, texted, or signed; and Captain Warq’s gracious but firm leadership keeps everyone at their best.
Until on one mission, where the crew tears through space.
Just a little bit.
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Kerfuffle
$20.00Welcome to Blakkat Theatre, home of the improv comedy troupe Kerfuffle!
Please permit us to introduce our Cast of Players:
NELLIE WOLFE: age 28, recent orphan, pregnant disabled avenger and sword thief
ANDY MCLEAN: age 21, redhead, devoted bike rider and aspiring Anarchist
CONSTANZIA FORGIONE: age 28, reluctant waitress, emerging gay poet and Nellie’s BFF
CALVAIRE PERSONNE: age 29, PHD candidate, brother to a living sister and a dead twin
SHERMAN SILVERSTEIN: turning 30, father, maker of Jesus Toast, married, for now
YOU, OUR AUDIENCE-PARTICIPANT: at every age, your input is an essential ingredient
Kerfuffle is a seriously funny book about serious matters. Jumping on and off stage, the troupe do their best to make sense and nonsense of their lives and the 2010 Toronto G20 protests. Uncertain which player is her baby daddy, nine-months-pregnant Nellie Wolfe wields her crutch as both prop and weapon to hunt him down. She bands with feminist friends to teach the troupe’s male members about the responsible use of their members. From hidden weapons to the marketing of Jesus Toast, simmering personal and political secrets build to an explosive on-stage reveal. It’s an inside-Anarchy exposé of G20’s crucible moments from black balaclavas to a burning police car to life inside the kettle. As satire at its best, it offers both belly laughs and a demand for justice.
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Life After Redby
$18.00Die. Become a zombie. Get needled. Do it all over again… In Redby, zombies weren’t the enemy. They were just one step in a never ending cycle. Die, become a zombie, get a needle full of nanotech and live to die once more. Immortality. Or the next worse thing. But that was how life went in Redby, otherwise known as Zombie Hell. Cassandra Saratores, former soldier turned zombie hunter (and sometimes zombie), lived in that hell for ten long years. Caught in the endless cycle of death, zombification, and resurrection, Cass became scarred inside and out. When the walls came down and Redby became nothing more than a sensational news story, those scars remained. Now she spends her days in a mental hospital, reminiscing on life as one of the undead. Ten years in hell changes a person. When news arrives that Almesa, the company responsible for the zombie virus and its cure, isn’t as dead as they were rumored to be, Cass has to make a choice: remain in the hospital and work toward a normal life, or suck it up and reclaim her mantle as the last zombie hunter? If Almesa’s plans succeed, the world is going to need as many hunters as it can get.
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Little Joe
$22.99At the age of seven, Joe was a part of a cruise ship disaster that resulted in the death of his parents and the separation from him and his three older siblings. After fourteen years of a different life, Joe opens his mail to see an invitation to his sister’s wedding. Before he knows it, Joe begins to struggle finding a balance between his old and new life. With constant night terrors and the inability to move on from the loss of his parents, Joe’s troubles start to consume him. Joe must find a way to incorporate his old life into his new life, and accept the things he cannot control. We have all grown up with tales of survival, but the question Little Joe answers is: “What happens after the island?”
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Mighty
$25.00With great powerchair comes great responsibility…
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… accessibility!
You wouldn’t like me when I’m out of spoons…
All too often, superhero media depicts disability as something to overcome on the journey to becoming a hero, or as a sign of villainy. It’s time to make heroism accessible for everyone.
In these 15 stories, you’ll meet winged wheelchair users, supernatural spoonies, guardians with glaucoma, and many more. These disabled superheroes fight villains as well as outdated ableist stereotypes, and show that anyone can be Mighty.
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Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests
$22.95The week before Kennedy and Jason’s wedding is busy. There are cake tastings, dress fittings, a formal ball, and, as their superhero personas the Phantom and the Wraith, fighting monsters.
These behemoths are destructive, smell like snack food, and are only after one thing: Door Tech Industries technology.
Adding to the chaos are their friends and families; Jason’s grandmother has returned after having been missing for half a century, Kennedy’s mom is dead-set on keeping things traditional, and Jason’s best friend is kidnapped before the rehearsal.
Kennedy and Jason just want to get married, preferably before the next monster attack.
The second book of four in The Gates of Westmeath series.
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Mrs. Victoria Buys A Brothel
$24.951865, United States—It took thirty years and a dislocated arm for Victoria to leave her abusive husband. Heartbroken, she has to choose her own life over the hope of ever seeing her son again. She escapes the manor in the dead of night, only bringing with her a white wedding dress.
She ends up in Swainsburg, a minuscule town in Wyoming, where she’s adopted by the local prostitutes. To save them from expulsion, she buys the building and learns that in these parts, entertainment is worth more than gold. It’s almost easy, even fun, to organize piano recitals and cancan shows for the cowboys of the area, but being a Madam comes with responsibilities and dangers she isn’t ready to face. Her husband, after all, has contacts everywhere.
It’s hard to navigate the delicate tensions between respectable ladies and whores, between white society and the ‘others.’ Her new friends are women who carved their place in this merciless life; people who, like her, ended up in Swainsburg when they got tired of running.
Victoria falls in love. She doesn’t notice, she can’t even imagine the possibility. The townfolk say the widow Díaz is strange. Natane is actually incredibly awkward, kind, and very lonely. Victoria has no name for this burning friendship, but the feeling grows and demands to be acknowledged.
This is a story about women who age, gossip, drink, love, and help you hide the body of your dead husband.
Successfully funded on Kickstarter, reaching its goal within 2 hours, and becoming one of Kickstarter’s “Projects We Love”.
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Murder at the World’s Fair
$20.00The year is 1893, and airships cloud the skies over the bustling metropolis of Toronto. The city is set to host the world’s fair thanks in no small part to the work of two fantastical inventors. The New World Exhibition is to be a celebration of cultural and technological marvels; roving automatons, clockwork contraptions, the world’s biggest steam-powered paddle boat, all to be fully lit by the wonder of electricity!
On the day of the grand opening, young Norwood Quigley, aspiring journalist, photographer and scion of a world-famous airship magnate, stumbles onto the scene of a murder; the victim: a Prussian Ambassador; the perpetrator: a Chinese assassin, or so the powers-that-be say. In truth, the suspect is Jing, a roguish but amiable youthful delinquent.
Concerned by Jing’s claim of innocence and his assumed guilt by higher powers, including the British Empire’s military, Norwood is thrown into a grand intrigue that hinges on Toronto’s world fair. As chaos consumes the celebrations, he fears that his influential family is being manipulated in a plot to create an international incident that will lead to a war that spans the world.
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Nothing Without Us
$25.00“Can you recommend fiction that has main characters who are like us?” This is a question we who are disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, Spoonie, and/or who manage mental illness ask way too often. Typically, we’re faced with stories about us crafted by people who really don’t get us. We’re turned into pathetic, tragic souls; we merely exist to inspire the abled main characters to thrive; or even worse, we’re to overcome “what’s wrong with us” and be cured.
Nothing Without Us combines both realistic and speculative fiction, starring protagonists who are written “by us and for us.” From hospital halls to jungle villages, from within the fantastical plane to deep into outer space, our heroes take us on a journey, make us think, and prompt us to cheer them on.
These are bold tales, told in our voices, which are important for everyone to experience.
With stories by Myriad Augustine, Carolyn Charron, Joanna Marsh, Elliott Dunstan, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Raymond Luczak, Nicole Zelniker, Dorothy Ellen Palmer, Jamieson Wolf, J. Ivanel Johnson, Tom Johnson, Tonya Liburd, Shannon Barnsley, Madona Skaff, Maverick Smith, George Zancola, Diane Koerner, Laurie Stewart, Tasha Fierce, Nathan Frechette, Emily Gillespie, and Derek Newman-Stille.
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Nothing Without Us Too
$25.00Nothing Without Us Too follows the theme of Nothing Without Us (a 2020 Prix Aurora Award finalist), featuring more stories by authors who are disabled, d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing, Blind or visually impaired, neurodivergent, Spoonie, and/or who manage mental illness. The lived experiences of their protagonists are found across many demographics—such as race, culture, financial status, religion, gender, age, and/or sexual orientation. We want to present these stories because diversity is reality, and it belongs in literary and genre fiction.
So, whether we’re being welcomed to Sensory Hell by hotel staff, witnessing a stare-down between a convenience store worker and an arrogant vampire, or unsure if our social media account is magic, these tales can teleport us elsewhere yet resonate deep within.
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Our Story
$20.00This is a story of friendship, love, loss, and drag told with humour and compassion. In 1977, the author, then a naïve young man, escapes his pulp and paper mill town in northern New Brunswick and goes in search of his gay self. After two years studying in Toronto, he moves to Edmonton, begins his career as a prison guard and timidly comes out into the gay scene. A lasting and sometimes tumultuous friendship develops with Joe, a drag queen and in the summer of 1982 they move to Vancouver in anticipation of fun times and promising futures. Their world changes when they’re swept into the eye of the AIDS storm, a time when testing positive for HIV was considered a death sentence. Written in diary form this is an unflinching account of Joe from before testing positive for HIV until his death. This is an intimate look at the impact AIDS had on the author’s family of gay friends and those around them.
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Out in the Spectrum
$29.95In a world that often misunderstands what it means to be different, living openly as an autistic person can be an act of bravery. Much like the challenges faced by those who were not traditionally gender-oriented in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, being out in the world and open about autism comes with its own unique struggles and triumphs.
Through humor, honesty, and heart, Out in the Spectrum reveals the realities of navigating a world built for neurotypical brains when yours works differently. As an autistic adult, often with other disabilities—some of which place more limits than autism—and as part of a community that includes a higher percentage of those who are not straight or are transgender, building a good life is challenging but remains the goal. Out in the Spectrum celebrates the courage of those who speak out, offering readers a glimpse into the vibrant, creative, and diverse lives of autistic individuals.
Whether you are autistic, love someone who is, or simply want to broaden your understanding, this book is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the transformative power of community. Discover what it means to live authentically, connect meaningfully, and rewrite the narrative around autism.
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Part Time Girl
$26.95How much longer can Michael hide his sex-switches?
After making it through the second year of high-school, he knows it’s only a matter of time until someone notices and freaks out. Then his family will have to run and lose everything, again, or risk being found by the shadowy group that hunts people like him.
He should go, just vanish and stop putting his family at risk, but his oldest friend Angela is in trouble and he can’t leave until they figure out why her troubles with catatonia and hallucinations have reappeared.
To help her, Michael has to trust in Ian—the hottest, richest guy in school who definitely has a hidden agenda—and a mystery woman with a traumatic past who is the only one to know him as a girl.
With people to protect and mysteries to unravel, Michael will need to unlock the full truth behind his identity…something he’s been running from his entire life.
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Run J Run
$20.00Jeremy, a high school English teacher coming to grips with a shattered marriage and haunted by the brother he lost, unexpectedly falls in love with his best friend, Zak. Attractive, wildly unconventional, and happy in an open relationship with his partner Annie, Zak seems to embody everything missing from Jeremy’s life, but when the arrest and death of a marginalized student at the Brooklyn high school where they both teach trigger Zak’s mental breakdown and slow descent, Jeremy and Annie are compelled to cross boundaries, both external and internal, in a desperate attempt to save him.
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S.I.G.N.A.L. and the GOOD
$22.951977. The Gods of Olde Division are back, laden in divine golden armour, here to take up new lives in rural Borealia, lights in the sky by night, under cover of a deadly snowstorm.
Years later, Adam David III says goodbye to his family, including his dear grandfather, Adam David Senior, his musical idol and guitar master, who entrusts Adam III with the Deus Axe, a special instrument forged in fortune and glory – Adam is going to university in the big city – Zero City, the capital, and, after a short bullet-train voyage into downtown O-Town, a suspect note in his grandfather’s old apartment beckons Adam to the Monarch Night Club in the Market area, where he meets Ash Beniir L.R. Codec, for whom he auditions with his grandfather’s newest song, and inherited talents.
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Samantha’s Sandwich Stand
$20.00Samantha is bored. It is summer and her friends are on vacation. When she sees a lemonade stand, she wants to open one but her father convinces her to sell something different: her mother’s homemade Lebanese cream cheese and cucumber pita sandwiches. But can she convince others that her sandwich treat is just as refreshing and delicious as lemonade? When her friends return from their holidays and offer to help her, along with a very hungry eagle, will customers finally come and buy her sandwiches? Samantha’s Sandwich Stand is an inspiring story about believing in yourself, accepting help from others when something doesn’t succeed at first, and celebrating each other’s differences.
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Skylark
$20.00Earth, 2404 AD Much of Canada has been annexed by an alien force known as the daemon. Raised in a Vancouver ghetto on the edge of daemon territory, Bennejin Skye is adopted into the United Space Corps and becomes the commander of the highly successful, if somewhat maverick, Strategic Team 6. When the outermost interstellar Way Station suddenly ceases communications with Earth, Commander Skye and Team 6 are sent to investigate. They discover a new alien threat—the insectoid Ragnar, who move through space consuming resources like a virus. Humanity and daemon-kind realize they must unite in the fight to protect Earth. However, there are those within the United Council who believe this aggressor is daemon, and this faction will go to any length to rid Earth of her newest inhabitants. Overpowered within the United Council, Commander Skye and Strategic Team 6 must turn rogue to save the alliance, or Earth and all who call it home are doomed.