Cover Collage: Babies

It’s the New Year, and we were inspired by the newest things out there: BABIES. Check out these seven bookish babes (or baby accessories).

Toronto PI Calli Barrow returns in this mystery, settling into married life with her wife, Jess. Will she be able to set aside her crimefighting ways when Jess announces that she wants a baby? With deft prose and a strong sensitivity, Theresa Shea explores the changing attitudes towards Down’s Syndrome through the interconnected tales of three women through the decades, including the pregnant Marie, mired in modern-day prenatal genetic testing, and Margaret, the mother of a girl with Down’s Syndrome in 1947. Author John Lent returns to his trio of Connelly siblings – Neil, Jane, and Rick – and all their addictions (safe and not) in this novel. The eponymous protagonist of Sheilagh’s Brush gives birth, prematurely, to baby Leah, aided by Mi’kmaq and English midwives. Living at the cusp of the Depression in a resource-scarce bay-town, Sheilagh begins to explore pregnancy prevention while caring for her chronically ill child. This collection of short stories and novellas by Saleema Newaz explores the connections between love familial or romantic or lustful, and the secrets we keep from those loves. Pontypool author Tony Burgess brings us Caesarea, a novel that shows what happens to a town that can’t sleep (as we’re sure any new parents can relate). This winner of the Howard O’Hagan Award for the Best Collection of Short Fiction follows this fictionalized biography of Fred Wah’s life growing up in a Chinese-Canadian cafe, the Diamond Grill.