Fiction Books
Greenwood: A Novel
Regular price $24.00NATIONAL BESTSELLER, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE, AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOREST OF READING'S EVERGREEN AWARD, THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZE, AND THE RODERICK HAIG-BROWN REGIONAL PRIZE
A magnificent generational saga that charts a family's rise and fall, its secrets and inherited crimes, and the conflicted relationship with the source of its fortune--trees.
They come for the trees. It's 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich-eco-tourists in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall and facing the possibility of his own death. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is just out of jail for one of her environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and rapacious timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is a Depression-era drifter who saves an abandoned infant, only to find himself tangled up in the web of a crime, secrets, and betrayal that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: a steady, silent pulse thrumming beneath Christie's effortless sentences, working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival.
Transporting, beautifully written, and brilliantly structured like the nested growth rings of a tree, Greenwood reveals the knot of lies, omissions, and half-truths that exists at the root of every family's origin story. It is a magnificent novel of greed, sacrifice, love, and the ties that bind--and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.
The Berry Pickers
Regular price $25.99WJB's Book Club Pick for August 2025!
Use code BOOKCLUB to get 20% off at checkout.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER 2023 BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE
WINNER of the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL for EXCELLENCE in FICTION
WINNER Best First Novel, Crime Writers of Canada Award
WINNER Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction
FINALIST Amazon First Novel Award
FINALIST for the Atwood-Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
FINALIST Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction
FINALIST Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award
FINALIST OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
Longlisted for the First Nation Communities READ
A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that remains unsolved for nearly fifty years
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, is seen sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a field before mysteriously vanishing. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, who was the last person to see Ruthie, is devastated by his sister’s disappearance, and her loss ripples through his life for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as an only child in an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, while her mother is overprotective of Norma, who is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem to be too real to be her imagination. As she grows older, Norma senses there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she pursues her family’s secret for decades.
A stunning debut novel, The Berry Pickers is a riveting story about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.
Critical Praise
"The ghosts of lost children haunt generations in this lucid and assured debut." — New Yorker
“A harrowing tale of Indigenous family separation . . . [Peters] excels in writing characters for whom we can’t help rooting . . . With The Berry Pickers, Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mi’kmaw ancestors.” — New York Times Book Review
"Peters beautifully explores loss, grief, hope, and the invisible tether that keeps families intact even when they are ripped apart. A quiet and poignant debut from a writer to watch." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness." — People magazine
“A gripping read, a mystery and a moving narrative all in one book.” — A New York Post Best Book of the Year
"Peters skillfully manages to hold the reader’s attention from the first page to the last . . . The Berry Pickers isn’t a mystery, it’s a truth telling by characters you can reach out and touch—characters whose misfortunes, regrets, feelings, and redemption most readers will relate to." — New York Journal of Books
"The Berry Pickers offers an unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin." — Boston Globe
"Enthralling . . . Powerfully rendered . . . [A] cogent and heartfelt look at the ineffable pull of family ties." — Publishers Weekly
"The strength of Amanda Peters’s novel lies in its understanding of how trauma spreads through a life and a family, and its depiction of the challenges facing Indigenous people . . . [A] powerful message about truth, forgiveness and healing." — Washington Post
"The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters completely broke my heart because it highlights how a moment, a decision by one person can change the course of another person’s life. It has this deep complexity surrounding a well-intentioned woman who acted in an irrational way out of desperation and the book is basically about the impact of her choices." — Jen Psaki, Elle
"This book is a heartbreaking tale of family and loss, deathbed regrets and revelations. It's a force as powerful as any of those." — Good Housekeeping
"Amanda Peters delivers an un-put-down-able novel of identity, forgiveness, and insistent hope." — Christian Science Monitor
"This powerful debut novel examines the search for truth in the face of trauma and the enduring nature of family love." — Electric Literature
"Peters' debut combines narrative skill and a poignant story for a wonderful novel to which many readers will gravitate . . . Indigenous stories like this matter." — Booklist
"There is something very special about starting on a debut novel and finding you're in the grip of a precocious talent. Amanda Peters writing is fabulously compelling. Our booksellers love this book, and we are thrilled to name it our 2023 Discover Prize winner." — James Daunt, CEO Barnes & Noble
“Amanda Peters manages to take you home to the East Coast in the very best ways – through family love and personal grief and the precious accounting of minutes and memories. You cannot help but love these characters from the first chapter. They stay with you long after the last page.” — Cherie Dimaline, bestselling author of The Marrow Thieves
“The Berry Pickers is an intimate story about the destruction wreaked on a family when their youngest child goes missing. Peters brilliantly crafts a multi-layered tale about how one irrational act creates irrevocable harm that ripples through multiple lives, including the lives of the perpetrators. This is an emotional novel that is beautifully rendered. An amazing read from a talented new voice.” — Michelle Good, bestselling author of Five Little Indians
“A marvelous debut. The Berry Pickers has all the passion of a first book but also the finely developed skill of a well-practiced storyteller. The Berry Pickers is a triumph.” — Katherena Vermette, bestselling author of The Break
“The thing about picking a handful of berries is that each one is different—some are sweet, some sour, some extra juicy. The Berry Pickers is just like a handful of berries. It’s an unassuming novel filled with so much sweet, so much sour, so much juice. Reading this book, I was only ever hungry when it ended.” — Morgan Talty, award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez
“The Berry Pickers is a beautiful novel about family and about the way it makes and breaks and re-makes us again. This is a story of many border crossings, journeying away and coming back, and it contains a cast of characters you will never forget. With this book, Amanda Peters establishes herself as an essential new voice in Canadian Literature.” — Alexander MacLeod, author of Animal Person
"One family’s secret is the source of another family’s pain in this poignant debut that reads like a modern literary classic. Moving, heartbreaking, and hopeful, The Berry Pickers is a powerful tale of haunting regret, bonds that will never be broken, and unrelenting love. Amanda Peters’ skilled storytelling evokes all the sensations of summer in Maine, singing around a fire, and the horror that takes hold when a child goes missing." — Nick Medina, author of Sisters of the Lost Nation
"In 1960s Maine, Joe is troubled by the guilt of being the last person to see his little sister Ruthie before she disappeared. Nearby, Norma grows up to unhappy parents with a lot of secrets. The Berry Pickers is a profound study of the love, grief and betrayals of two families." — ’inews, The best new books to read
“The Berry Pickers is a beautifully written, immersive book with a unique, propulsive structure. Its enduring resonance inspired us to think deeply about the issue of kidnapping and family separation. The three-dimensional characters are well-drawn, revealing flaws that inspire empathy, strong family bonds, and the search for the truth that ties this story together in a deeply satisfying way.... The Berry Pickers is a deeply poignant read that we'd recommend to anyone. It's a wonderful achievement in crime fiction, marking the marvellous debut of an exciting Canadian writer. Bravo!” — Jury, Crime Writers of Canada Awards
Meet Me at the Lake
Regular price $24.95
In this breathtaking new novel from the #1 bestselling author of Every Summer After, a random connection sends two strangers on a daylong adventure where they make a promise one keeps and the other breaks, with life-changing effects.
Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in Toronto. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.
At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s Muskoka lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin.
She needs a plan—a lifeline. To her surprise, it comes in the form of Will, who arrives nine years too late, with a suitcase in tow and an offer to help on his lips. Will may be the only person who understands what Fern’s going through. But how could she possibly trust this expensive-suit wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago. Will is hiding something, and Fern’s not sure she wants to know what it is.
But ten years ago, Will Baxter rescued Fern. Can she do the same for him?
One of:
TODAY’s “36 new books we can’t wait to read in 2023”
Buzzfeed’s “33 Romance Books to Look Out for in 2023”
CBC’s “30 highly anticipated Canadian titles coming this year”
SheReads' “Most Anticipated Romances of 2023”
“A breathtaking tale of star-crossed lovers that gripped me from page one. Meet Me At The Lake is nostalgia, summer breeze, second chances and pure heart.”
—Elena Armas, New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception
“A perfect summery blend of sexy romance and second chances, Meet Me at the Lake is a poignant waltz between evergreen pines and poplars and heartache. I fell in love with Will and Fern over and over and over again.”
—Ashley Poston, New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics
“A completely addicting love story about the ways we find who we are and what we want amidst changing dreams and chances missed. Carley Fortune gives us another perfect summer read brimming with heart, a book to devour in a day, swept away in the nostalgia of young, sexy love. Every Summer After fans, this will not disappoint!”
—Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push
“Meet Me at the Lake is a tender, sweet story that captures the joy and sorrow of growing up. Carley Fortune's latest is a love letter to moms and daughters, as well as second chances.”
—Elissa Sussman, bestselling author of Funny You Should Ask
"Meet Me at The Lake is a beautiful, heart-tugging, love story about secrets, lies, missed connections and second chances. Set against the idyllic backdrop of a family hotel on a rural lake, this novel brims with the warmth of summertime and the feeling of home. An exquisite, emotional read.”
—Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of Stars in an Italian Sky
“Carley Fortune is the master of the love story, tapping into our most primal needs—to be valued and seen for who we really are. Meet Me At The Lake is story telling perfection.”
—Annabel Monaghan, author of Nora Goes Off Script
“Readers experience Carley Fortune's writing with all five senses. In Meet Me At The Lake, that means you'll taste Peter's sourdough. You'll hear the sound of the trees swaying by the lake. You'll smell the gin and the watered-down tonic. You'll see Fern waiting down by the docks. And you'll feel every pulse of electricity from Will. This is a beautiful story of letting go of expectations, growing into who you're meant to become, and letting love in when you don't feel you deserve it. The perfect summer read and an excellent follow-up to Every Summer After. Carley's talent sings on every page.”
—Iman Hariri-Kia, author of A Hundred Other Girls
“THE quintessential book of summer. Nestled in the heart of Canada's cottage country, Fortune masterfully crafts yet another enthralling tale of love and second chances that will burrow itself deep into your soul long after the last page."
—Amy Lea, author of Exes and O’s
“Fortune (Every Summer After) shines in this beautiful tale of love, loss, and forgiveness. This searing story of hard-won second chances is not to be missed."
—Publishers Weekly
“This contemporary romance is an immersive second-chance love story that will transport readers with its dual evocation settings of stunning rural Ontario and thrilling Toronto."
—Library Journal
Normal Women
Regular price $24.00WJB Book Club Pick for November 2023
Join us (and the author, Ainslie Hogarth!) Thursday November 30th at Craftheads, 6:00pm
When her daughter Lotte was born, Dani had welcomed the chance to be a stay-at-home mother. To be good at something, for once. But now Dani can’t stop thinking about her seemingly healthy husband, Clark, dropping dead. Not because she hates him (not right now, anyway), but because it’s become abundantly clear to Dani that if he dies, she and Lotte will be left destitute.
And then Dani discovers The Temple. Ostensibly a yoga centre, The Temple and its guardian, Renata, are committed to helping people reach their full potential. And if that sometimes requires sex work, so be it. Finally, Dani has found something she could be good at, even great at; meaningful work that will protect her and Lotte from poverty, and provide true economic independence from Clark.
Just as Dani is preparing to embrace this opportunity, Renata disappears. And Dani discovers there might be something else she’s good at: detective work.
— Claire Oshetsky, author of Chouette
“An exhilarating ride of a novel that deliciously and irreverently skewers the complacent, the entitled and the self-satisfied.”
— Carole Hailey, author of The Silence Project
Praise for Ainslie Hogarth's Motherthing:
A New York Times Notable Book the Year • A Cosmopolitan Best Horror Book of All Time • A New York Times Editors’ Choice
“A quirky, gruesome, utterly original feminist horror experience.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Creepy, hysterical, emotionally complex.”
—The New York Times, 7 Audiobooks to Listen to Now
"No one crafts horror-comedy quite like Ainslie Hogarth."
—Maclean's
“Motherthing is an inventive addition to the realm of domestic horror, offering masterful subtlety and a blood-soaked commentary on the maternal impulse. […]Artfully unspooling the protagonist’s deterioration at a nearly imperceptible pace, Hogarth creates a brutal, bloody conclusion that is equal parts surprising and inevitable.”
—Quill & Quire
“[A] gutsy, gory mashup of domestic horror and dark humour.”
—The Guardian
"A masterfully crafted horror novel that’s by turns humorous and deeply unsettling. . . . Abby makes a wonderful narrator; full of wry insights and frothy humor. . . . This dark domestic drama packs a punch.”
—Publishers Weekly, **starred review**
“Hogarth’s way with words enlivens every page of this psycho romp. . . . Her fearlessness and utter lack of inhibition animate the desperate longing and bitter trauma at the heart of this ghost story, administered with a steady drip of comic relief. Profane, insane, hilarious, disgusting—and unexpectedly moving.”
—Kirkus Reviews **starred review**
Rouge
Regular price $24.95
*INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*
*USA TODAY BESTSELLER*
A New York Times Editor’s Choice
From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a “Grimm Brothers fairy tale for the modern age” (Good Housekeeping) and “darkly funny horror novel” (NYLON) about a lonely young woman who’s drawn to a cult-like spa in the wake of her mother’s mysterious death. “Surreal, scary and deeply moving—like all the best fairytales” (People).
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Time, Vogue, The Guardian, Goodreads, Bustle, The Millions, LitHub, Good Housekeeping, PureWow, Our Culture Mag, and more!
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.
Five Little Indians
Regular price $22.99WINNER: Canada Reads 2022
WINNER: Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction
WINNER: Amazon First Novel Awards
WINNER: Kobo Emerging Author Prize
Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize
Finalist: Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize
Finalist: BC & Yukon Book Prize
Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards
Finalist: Kobo Emerging Author Prize
National Bestseller; A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year; A CBC Best Book of the Year; An Apple Best Book of the Year; A Kobo Best Book of the Year; An Indigo Best Book of the Year
Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.
Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.
Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.
With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
Regular price $24.95A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers.
With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.
The Future
Regular price $24.95
WJB Book Club Pick for February 2024!
Join us to discuss The Future on February 29th at 6:00pm at Craft Heads Brewing Company. Use code BOOKCLUB to get 20% off the list price!
Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2024 • One of Tor.com‘s Can’t Miss Speculative Fiction for Fall 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • One of 20 Books You Heard about on CBC Last Week • One of Kirkus Reviews‘ Fall 2023 Big Books By Small Presses • A Kirkus Review Work of Translated Fiction To Read Now • One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023
In an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own kingdom in the trees.
In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their own kingdom in the trees and burned houses regenerate themselves. When Gloria arrives looking for answers and her missing granddaughters, at first she finds only a hungry mouse in the derelict home where her daughter was murdered. But the neighbours take pity on her and she turns to their resilience and impressive gardens for sustenance.
When a strange intuition sends Gloria into the woods of Parc Rouge, where the city’s orphaned and abandoned children are rumored to have created their own society, she can’t imagine the strength she will find. A richly imagined story of community and a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future, The Future is a lyrical testament to the power we hold to protect the people and places we love—together.
Download The Future Reading Guide here!
Praise for The Future
“What makes The Future hopeful is its imagining of new, organic, co-operative (but not egalitarian) communities … savage but caring networks: small, local, and while living close to the edge still managing to get by. It may not be progress, but it is adapting to a vision of the future that hits pretty close to home.”
—Alex Good, Toronto Star
“This atmospheric novel elevates disparate voices, drawing a complex picture of community-focused life beyond the family unit.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The Future is a rewarding read, mostly because of the hope it instills. There is some violence, of course, but Leroux’s vision of the future is one where people go out of their way to help each other to survive.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“Leroux brings believability, poetry, and hopefulness to the dystopian narrative of Fort Détroit by steering clear of the many pitfalls of end-times novel … This permits the novel to imagine infinite small beginnings within the ending, and to show how destruction is balanced by the ever-present promise of creation.”
—Bronwyn Averett, Montreal Review of Books
“At the heart of Catherine Leroux’s extraordinary novel are the rising and vanishing lifeworlds nurtured by the Rouge River. The children of the Rouge are hunters and prey, remorseless, capable, indelible—‘wildings’ who are simultaneously custodians and seeds of the future. This ferocious, provocative dystopia is a dance of knives, and a deeply moving exploration of our decaying, adapting, ever-changing world.”
—Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing
“Unlike some dystopian books, The Future is suffused with a sense of optimism … Though their neighbourhood is decaying and the economy is crumbling, the characters reach beyond the every-person-for-themselves trope by celebrating community, the power of cooperation, and hope.”
—The Miramichi Reader
“An inherently fascinating, original, and carefully crafted novel that raises ‘alternate history’ science fiction to a high level of literary eloquence, The Future is unique, entertaining, and highly recommended.”
—Midwest Review of Books
“This is a wonderful and complicated story about unique and intertwined characters. Leroux includes perfectly subtle allusions, and her writing is absolutely beautiful.”
—McGill Daily
“At the height of her art, in a profound and teeming language marked by dialogues written in an invented patois, Catherine Leroux also gives us a glimpse of a world where nature flourishes against all odds, where legends are brought to life and where magical realism reigns.”
—La Presse, Montreal
“The novel answers concrete questions: what happens after the end of the world? … Nothing can erase the survivors’ traumatic memories but their hope persists and their present is full of intergenerational support and characters who create new ways of living among the ruins … Catherine Leroux delivers a dazzling and original novel, above all a testament to the humanity and resilience of communities in the margins.”
—Etudes, Montreal
“This poignant utopia captures how cities have souls, how they live and die, and how they sometimes miraculously rise from the dead. Far from the usual depressing post-apocalyptic novel, The Future is an exhilarating story in which Gloria, who relies on her daily horoscope to guide her, creates a future for her community that is finally able to find wonder after suffering loss.”
—Livres Hebdo, Montreal
“Despite the suffering and horror, despite the precariousness, the novel is full of hope, light and goodness, and offers a vision of intergenerational healing.”
—Le Devoir, Montreal
Everyone Here is Lying
Regular price $26.00"Lapena is a master of manipulation." --USA Today
William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he's been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter, Avery, unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.
Hours later, Avery's family declares her missing.
Suddenly Stanhope doesn't feel so safe. And William isn't the only one on his street who's hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery's neighbours become increasingly unhinged.
Who took Avery Wooler?
Nothing will prepare you for the truth.
____________________________
Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, and Not a Happy Family, which have all been New York Times and The Sunday Times (London) bestsellers. Her books have been sold in thirty-eight territories around the world. She lives in Toronto
The Lightning Bottles
Regular price $26.99WJB's Book Club Pick for June 2025!
Use code BOOKCLUB for 20% off the list price.
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The author of New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick Lucky returns with a spellbinding story of rock ’n’ roll and star-crossed love—about grunge-era musician Jane Pyre’s journey to find out what really happened to her husband and partner in music, who abruptly disappeared years earlier.
He was the troubled face of rock ’n’ roll…until he suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Jane Pyre was once half of the famous rock n’ roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she’s perhaps the most hated—and least understood—woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate (and soulmate), Elijah Hart—even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted the Lightning Bottles to instant, dizzying fame, first in the Seattle grunge scene, then around the world.
But ever since Elijah disappeared five years earlier and the band’s meteoric rise to fame came crashing down, the public hatred of Jane has taken on new levels, and all she wants to do is retreat. What she doesn’t anticipate is the bombshell that awaits her at her new home in the German countryside: the sullen teenaged girl next door—a Lightning Bottles superfan—who claims to have proof that not only is Elijah still alive, he’s also been leaving secret messages for Jane. And they need to find them right away.
A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, The Lightning Bottles is both a love letter to the 90s and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.
Heavy Are The Stones
Regular price $43.32WJB Book Club Pick for May 2025!
Use code BOOKCLUB for 20% off the list price!
Facing the truth can be deadlier than facing the killer.
Ten days to keep a lie.
Ten plagues if you deny.
Ten ways to watch them die.
Five years ago, when Detective Jena Campbell put the Leviticus Killer behind bars, she locked her darkest secret away with him. Something never meant to surface. Something better left to rot with the madman who had destroyed so many lives.
When a strange man calling himself Azrael appears on social media with threats to unleash ten plagues, ten deaths, in ten days, unless Leviticus is released, Jena is forced to reopen that door and face her past.
Unable to share what she knows, she turns to the only man who can help her find Azrael before he kills again, the man she condemned. Jena quickly learns the only thing more terrifying than facing him, is facing herself.
J.D. Barker is the New York Times and international best-selling author of numerous novels, including DRACUL and THE FOURTH MONKEY. His latest, BEHIND A CLOSED DOOR, released May 13. His books have been translated into two dozen languages, sold in more than 150 countries, and optioned for both film and television. Barker resides in coastal New Hampshire with his wife, Dayna, and their daughter, Ember.
A clinical neuropsychologist by day, Christine Daigle’s work includes brain-computer interface, translating brain signals into commands that can control technology. As a writer, her novel was selected for the Pitch Wars industry mentorship program. An anthology including her short fiction was a finalist for an Aurora Award. Her co-authored, pen-named work on Kindle Vella was consecutively one of the top 250 serials for several years. In addition to her writing, she also co-hosts the Writers, Ink podcast. She lives in Ontario with her husband, son, and mercurial cat.
Bunny
Regular price $21.00A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel. --Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times
Awad is a stone-cold genius. --Ann Bauer, The Washington Post
The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.
We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.
The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
Regular price $26.00WJB's Book Club Pick for July 2026!
Use code BOOKCLUB to get 20% off at checkout.
Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory-care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a ninety-two-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people.
Linda dismisses the so-called “secret” as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid over the course of their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims—mostly men who'd hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees the natural death of an old, sick man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: is there any chance Jenny’s telling the truth?
The Capital of Dreams
Regular price $34.99
A breathtaking dark fairy tale of survival and betrayal from the vivid imagination of Heather O’Neill
Fourteen-year-old Sofia Bottom lives in a small country that Europe has forgotten. But inside its borders, the old myths of trees that come alive and fairies who live among their roots have given way to an explosion of the arts and the consolations of philosophy. No one, from the clarinetists to the cabaret singers, is as revered as Sofia’s brilliant mother, the writer Clara Bottom. How can Sofia, with a tin ear and an enduring love of the old myths, ever hope to win her mother’s love?
When the country’s greatest enemy invades, and the Capital is under threat, at last Clara turns to her daughter. Sofia must smuggle her new manuscript to safety on the last train evacuating children from the city. But the train draws to a suspicious halt in the middle of a forest, and Sofia runs for her life, losing her mother’s most prized possession. Frightened and alone in a country at war, Sofia must find a way to reclaim what she has lost. On an epic journey through woods and razed towns, colliding with soldiers, survivors and other lost children, Sofia must make the choice between kindness and survival.
In this stunning dark fairy tale of a novel, Heather O’Neill reveals once again her mastery of language that is as delicious as cake and as serious as a gunshot.
Critical Praise
"The Capital of Dreams is not so much a novel to read but one to live (and dream) in. A dark, wistfully comic fable that's as imaginative as it is poignant. An entire world that only Heather O'Neill could create." — Iain Reid, bestselling author of Foe and We Spread
"The Capital of Dreams is a feminist adventure with all of the darkness of a war novel, the charm of a fairy tale, and the heart of a coming-of-age story. O’Neill’s crystal-clear, aphoristic prose reveals complex themes about freedom, desire, and destiny. I underlined passages with one hand and turned pages with the other, rapt right through the stunning final twist." — Maria Adelmann, author of How to Be Eaten
“Uncommonly poetic, nuanced and insightful, The Capital of Dreams is a masterpiece of the tangled threads and beating hearts that make us both ordinarily human and extraordinarily magical. I wish every girl could replace her mirror with pages of O’Neill’s work, to see herself as a fierce and lusty creature well-placed to weave new worlds. The Capital of Dreams will make you grateful you wandered up a dark path and tumbled down a rabbit hole.” — Cherie Dimaline, author of VenCo and Empire of Wild
The Unravelling of Ou
Regular price $21.95WJB's Book Club Pick for June 2026!
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Moving on is hard. Even harder when it’s from a make-believe friend—someone, or in this instance, some thing—who’s been your strongest source of support. On what should be one of the happiest days ever, the day her granddaughter is born, Minoo is faced with a terrible choice: make a clean break from her constant companion, a sock puppet named Ecology Paul, or lose her daughter and granddaughter, and maybe all of the people she loves. On an emotional drive home from the hospital, Ecology Paul shares the story of how Minoo got to this point, recalling Minoo’s early teenage pregnancy in Iran, her exile to Canada, her questions about her sexuality, and how a ragtag sock puppet came to her when she desperately needed to be seen. Full of imagination, whimsy and heart, The Unravelling of Ou follows Minoo’s struggles to justify the puppet’s existence and untangle herself from her dependence on it, and reconnect with the people she loves.
Praise for The Unravelling of Ou
“Wildly original and captivating. A phenomenal examination of female shame, sexuality, queerness, motherhood, and intimacy, Hollay Ghadery writes with sensitivity and resonating beauty through an unconventional narrator: a sock puppet, Ecology Paul, who delivers the emotional coming-of-age tale of young Minoo with whimsy and emotional depth. Minoo feels trapped in her body and guilt over its sensual pleasures, as she grapples with a complicated relationship with a traditional Iranian mother. In The Unravelling of Ou, the immigrant Canadian narrative is dismantled, and headstrong mothers and daughters clash with patriarchal structures that want to control their bodies, their vanity, and their desires. Vulnerable, brave, and heartbreaking, this powerful novel asks: how do women function in a world that is not designed to love them back? How do oppressed individuals understand and ultimately save themselves? Ghadery delivers answers in a lyrical and imaginative debut.”—Lindsay Wong, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies
“With poignant and delicate prose, The Unraveling of Ou draws the reader in through the unique voice of Minoo’s puppet. Ou knows all the secrets for Ou lives inside Minoo, and only Ou can reveal the depth of the brutal choice forced upon Minoo by her mother when she was a little girl. It’s a choice that shapes Minoo’s life in irreversible ways, even after estrangement from its root cause. A daring, not-to-be-missed short novel by the one and only Hollay Ghadery.”—Nilofar-Lily Soltani, author of Zulaikha
“The Unraveling of Ou is wonderfully layered, with a compelling plot and deeply realized characters. Its bracingly effective central conceit—first person narration by the protagonist’s sock puppet—is fresh and satisfying and, ultimately, quite moving.”—K.R. Wilson, author of Call Me Stan and An Idea About My Dead Uncle
“This novel is a delicious titration of acts of betrayal and care. I’ve never read anything like it before and yet it felt familiar in hard-to-reach places of the soul.”—Margo LaPierre, editor and author of Ajar
“Ghadery has written a surprising narrative that interrogates the treatment of young women caught in the crossfire of cultural norms and mental health. Beautifully told with her trademark use of evocative and poetic language, Ghadery has once again challenged readers to ponder identity and what it means to be seen.”—Lucy E.M. Black, author A Quilting of Scars, The Brickworks, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth
These Memories Do Not Belong to Us
Regular price $32.95WJB's Book Club Pick for May 2026!
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When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers . . .
In a far-off future ruled by the Qin Empire, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of recording and transmitting memories between minds. This technology gives birth to Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation: memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain.
After the sudden passing of his mother, an unnamed narrator inherits a collection of banned memories from her Mindbank so dangerous that even possessing them places his freedom in jeopardy. Traversing genres, empires, and millennia, these memories once belonged to sumo wrestlers and social activists, armless swimmers and watchmakers, all struggling to survive amid the backdrop of Qin’s ascent toward global dominance. Determined to release his mother's memories to the world before they are destroyed forever, the narrator will risk everything—even if the cost is his own life.
Powerful and provocative, These Memories Do Not Belong to Us masterfully explores how governments and media manipulate history to control the collective imagination. It inspires us to see beyond the sheen of convenient truths, revealing stories of sacrifice and love that refuse to be eradicated.
Good Material
Regular price $26.00"One of the foremost 'it' writers of our time. . . . Whatever ails you, Alderton can fix it with her intimate wisdom. . . . There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today." —Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Three Women
Now he is . . .
Without a home
Waiting for his stand-up career to take off
Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story . . .
In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable account of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today and the true voice of a generation.