Books You Might Have Missed – Let’s Fix That!
Radiant Press is an award-winning little publisher on the prairies. Publishing beautiful, surprising, and perfectly evocative poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, Radiant boasts a backlist that will delight all likes and types of readers—especially readers who love writing with a hint of dark whimsy.
Here are a few backlist books to add to your TBR!
Remedies for Chiron by m. patchwork monoceros
There’s much musicality in these poems—so much sensory experience. From the infinitely touchable raised stitching on the gorgeous cover (which I believe features artwork by the poet themselves), to the words, which are richly, powerfully textured, this collection of poetry explores bodies in pain, refusing to say they’re not.
The Dark King Swallows the World by Robert G. Penner
The Dark King Swallows the World is the deeply enchanting story of Nora, a preteen who finds herself in Cornwall during WWII with her loving but self-involved mother, her mother’s new guy, and her three-year-old half-brother. When her half-brother doesn’t survive a car accident, Nora suspects a necromancer neighbour had something to do with it—even though the adults seem blind to this neighbour’s involvement.
Eventually, Nora enters a dark world ruled over by the Dark King. Here, she must try to find her “partial” brother to try to save her mother.
Adam’s Tree by Gloria Mehlman
If you love darkly gorgeous short stories, Adam’s Tree by Gloria Mehlman is a must read. These stories follow the lives of people on Saskatchewan’s Cowessess First Nation in the 1940s and 1950s, delving into the oppression of colonialism and the power of the human spirit.
Rebellion Box by Hollay Ghadery
Rebellion Box is multi-genre and award-winning author Hollay Ghadery’s second book and first collection poetry. Using a range of poetic forms, Ghadery’s poems explore motherhood, addiction, mental illness, and the struggle to be whole in a world that wants to break you down atop your easiest to digest parts.
If you lie down in a field, she will find you there by Colleen Brown
You’ve probably never read a memoir like this one. If you lie down in a field she will find you there is a reclamation of life, in the shadow of violence. Author and visual artist Colleen Brown uses shared family narrative to create a heartwarming, heartbreaking tribute to her mother, who was murdered by a serial killer in the 1970s.
The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief by Steven Mayoff
Through the hyperbolic lens of satire, Steven Mayoff’s acclaimed fifth book, disrupts the idyllic picture often painted of Prince Edward Island to tell a darkly funny and thrilling story of political autocracy versus spiritual agency against the backdrop of Canada’s most wholesome province. The story centres around Samson Grief, a reclusive painter who is visited by three operations who claim to work for the supreme one and instruct him to build the Island’s first synagogue.
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Thanks to the team at Radiant Press for sharing this list of backlist gems. You can order any of these books through All Lit Up, or click the “Shop Local” button on the book listings to discover them at your local indie bookstore.
