Books

_______________

________________

________________

A Most Anticipated Book Pick by Toronto Star, CBC, The Walrus, Good Morning America, Bustle, CrimeReads, Electric Literature, Debutiful, Ms. Magazine, The Nerd Daily, and Paste.

A mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences.

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be: She’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve is nothing but supportive; and they’ve recently moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter. She isn’t connecting with Dawn, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from their white, watchful neighbours. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

At first, Alice is convinced her discomfort is of her own making. She has gotten everything she always dreamed of, after all. But then strange things start happening. She finds herself losing bits of time, hearing voices she can’t explain, and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours’ passive-aggressive behaviour begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn’s survival. . . . She just has to finish it before it’s too late.

Told in Alice’s raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching look at inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable—and surreal—climax.

Would you trap yourself in a deadly universe to save your loved ones?

All Spencer Newton wants is to fit in. He's always been the nerdy kid, cursed with not only being a genius, but also with ADHD. He's a magnet for harassment. And it seems impossible to avoid torment when the worst perpetrator isn't human, but a manipulative interdimensional being called The Molecule Thief.

As conflict between dimensions rise, the only solution the U.S. military sees is nuclear. That is, until this mysterious Molecule Thief offers Spencer an alternative to annihilation. But Spencer isn't sure if the Molecule Thief is real or all in his head. Can Spencer trust himself to save the world, or will his faith in the Molecule Thief cost him everyone he loves?

________________

L.P. Styles writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. With a limitless and sometimes twisted imagination, L.P. Styles gives readers quirky and inventive worlds to escape into.

Would you return to the landscape you watched burn as a child, especially if you and everyone else believed that the manic, wind-fuelled, merciless fire was your fault?

Set in a fictional version of the real Main-à-Dieu, Nova Scotia, where a 1976 wildfire caused catastrophic devastation, Fire Monster, tells the tale of a skilled oil sands worker who returns to the Cape Breton fishing village where, as a child, he was blamed for causing the fire that tore through the local community, consuming bush, trees, houses, boats, cars, animals and the century-old gothic church. At once a poetry collection, a story inspired by true events, and a visually stunning comic-book adventure, Fire Monsters is a mixed genre story for the ages that explores the aftermath of tragedy, the frayed bonds of friendship and family, and redemptive power.