Fiction Books
The Glass Hotel
Regular price $24.99GILLER PRIZE FINALIST
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events—the exposure of a massive criminal enterprise and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. The owner of the hotel is New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the wall of the hotel: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass?” Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later, Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship.
Weaving together the lives of these characters, The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the wilderness of remote British Columbia, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.
Critical Praise
“Simply stunning, a boldly experimental work which hooks the reader from its first pages, wending to a powerfully emotional conclusion. . . . The Glass Hotel becomes stronger, and more powerful, with every page. . . . a compulsive read.” — Toronto Star
“Beguiling. . . . With its shattered narrative, the joys of The Glass Hotel are participatory: piecing together the connections and intersections of Mandel’s human cartography, a treasure map ripped to pieces.” — The Guardian
“The Glass Hotel shines in its probing of themes – guilt, loss and theft.” — The Globe and Mail
A striking book that's every bit as powerful — and timely — as its predecessor…Mandel's writing shines throughout the book, just as it did in Station Eleven. She's not a showy writer, but an unerringly graceful one, and she treats her characters with compassion but not pity. The Glass Hotel is a masterpiece, just as good — if not better — than its predecessor. It's a stunning look at how people react to disasters, both small and large, and the temptation that some have to give up when faced with tragedy. — Michael Shaub, NPR
A wondrously entertaining novel… The Glass Hotel is never dull. Tracing the permutations of its characters’ lives, from depressing apartments in bad neighborhoods to posh Dubai resorts to Manhattan bars, Colorado campgrounds, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is like following the intricate patterns on Moroccan tiles. The pleasure, which in the case of The Glass Hotel is abundant, lies in the patterns themselves… This is a type of art that closely approximates life, and a remarkable accomplishment for Mandel… This novel invites you to inhabit it without striving or urging; it’s a place to be, always fiction’s most welcome effect. — Laura Miller, Slate
The Glass Hotel may be the perfect novel for your survival bunker... Freshly mysterious... Mandel is a consummate, almost profligate world builder. One superbly developed setting gives way to the next, as her attention winds from character to character, resting long enough to explore the peculiar mechanics of each life before slipping over to the next... That Mandel manages to cover so much, so deeply is the abiding mystery of this book...The complex, troubled people who inhabit Mandel’s novel are vexed and haunted by their failings, driven to create ever more pleasant reflections of themselves in the glass. — Ron Charles, The Washington Post
The question of what is real—be it love, money, place or memory—has always been at the heart of Ms. Mandel’s fiction... Her narratives snake their way across treacherous, shifting terrain. Certainties are blurred, truth becomes malleable and in The Glass Hotel the con man thrives... Lyrical, hypnotic images... suspend us in a kind of hallucinatory present where every detail is sharply defined yet queasily unreliable. A sense of unease thickens... Ms. Mandel invites us to observe her characters from a distance even as we enter their lives, a feat she achieves with remarkable skill... — Anna Mundow, Wall Street Journal
An eerie, compelling follow-up... not your grandmother’s Agatha Christie murder mystery or haunted hotel ghost story... The novel’s ongoing sense of haunting extends well beyond its ghosts... The ghosts in The Glass Hotel are directly connected to its secrets and scandals, which mirror those of our time... Like all Mandel’s novels, The Glass Hotel is flawlessly constructed... The Glass Hotel declares the world to be as bleak as it is beautiful, just like this novel. — Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe
Emily St. John Mandel has a knack for explosive openings… Mandel is constructing a sort of multiverse that demonstrates the power of fiction to imagine simultaneous realities. — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic
An ephemeral quality permeates the novel… It’s a thrill when the puzzle pieces start to fit together… The final chapter is haunting, taking readers full circle… It’s a sense readers will enjoy as well when they lose themselves in Mandel’s novel. — Rob Merrill, Associated Press
The Glass Hotel… totally sticks the landing… Mandel’s prose is such a pleasure to read… [I] gave way to real delight in the skill with which Mandel brings together themes that have occupied previous sections of the novel, revisiting earlier characters and incidents from surprising new perspectives in a narrative sleight of hand that recalls what M. Night Shyamalan does in movies such as Unbreakable. Mandel’s conclusion is dazzling. — Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Absorbing, finely wrought... Mandel paints an intricately plotted, haunting portrait of heartbreak, abandonment, betrayal, riches, corruption and reinvention in a contemporary world both strange and weirdly recognizable. — Joyce Sáenz Harris, Dallas Morning News
Mandel... specializes in fiction that weaves together seemingly unrelated people, places and things. The Glass Hotel... is no exception... Kaleidoscopic... Mandel dissects the surreal division between those who are conscious of ongoing crimes, and those who are unwittingly brought into them... The Glass Hotel... examine[s] how we respond to chaos after catastrophe. — Annabel Gutterman, Time
A careful, damning study of the forms of disaster humanity brings down on itself... In a world where rolling disasters fade into one another, it’s a reminder that Mandel wants to lurch us out of the tedium. — Hillary Kelly, Vulture
The Glass Hotel will haunt you… Mandel delicately illuminates the devastation wreaked on the fraud’s victims while brilliantly teasing out the hairsbreadth moments in which a person can seamlessly slide into moral corruption… The Glass Hotel isn’t so much plot driven as it is coiled—a taut braid of lives undone by Alkaitis’ and others’ grifts… negotiating slippery ethics and questionable compromises, and the liminal space between innocence and treachery. — Ivy Pochoda, O Magazine
Deeply imagined, philosophically profound… The Glass Hotel moves forward propulsively, its characters continually on the run… Richly satisfying… The Glass Hotel is ultimately as immersive a reading experience as its predecessor [Station Eleven], finding all the necessary imaginative depth within the more realistic confines of its world… Revolutionary. — Ruth Franklin, The Atlantic
Long-anticipated... At its heart, this is a ghost story in which every boundary is blurred, from the moral to the physical... In luminous prose, Mandel shows how easy it is to become caught in a web of unintended consequences and how disastrous it can be when such fragile bonds shatter under pressure. A strange, subtle, and haunting novel. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Mandel’s wonderful novel (after Station Eleven) follows a brother and sister as they navigate heartache, loneliness, wealth, corruption, drugs, ghosts, and guilt... This ingenious, enthralling novel probes the tenuous yet unbreakable bonds between people and the lasting effects of momentary carelessness. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Another tale of wanderers whose fates are interconnected... nail-biting tension... Mandel weaves an intricate spider web of a story... A gorgeously rendered tragedy. — Booklist (starred review)
Named best book of the year by Entertainment Weekly and BookPage
Chosen as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, and TimeOut New York Named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, O Magazine
Winner of the Toronto Book Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award Finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Sunburst Award
Longlisted for the Baileys Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
— Accolades for Station Eleven
“Deeply melancholy, but beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac. . . . A book that I will long remember, and return to.” — George R.R. Martin
“Station Eleven is so compelling, so fearlessly imagined, that I wouldn’t have put it down for anything.” — Ann Patchett
“Absolutely extraordinary.” — Erin Morgenstern
“It’s hard to imagine a novel more perfectly suited, in both form and content, to this literary moment.” — The New Yorker
“A novel that carries a magnificent depth. . . . It’s a sweeping look at where we are, how we got here and where we might go. While her previous novels are cracking good reads, this is her best yet.” — The Globe and Mail
“Gracefully written and suspenseful. . . . Its evocation of the collapse of our civilization is powerful.” — National Post
“A boldly lyrical tale. . . . The novel commands a broad array of characters and a plot of kaleidoscopic intricacy. . . .Mandel turns her gifted attention to the mirages of now, and to the truth that we are haunted, always, by the lives of others.” — Scotiabank Giller Prize jury citation
Best Canadian Stories 2024
Regular price $23.95
Selected by editor Lisa Moore, the 2024 edition of Best Canadian Stories showcases the best Canadian fiction writing published in 2022.
Featuring:
Madhur Anand • Sharon Bala • Gary Barwin • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Xaiver Michael Campbell • Corinna Chong • Beth Downey • Allison Graves • Joel Thomas Hynes • Elise Levine • Sourayan Mookerjea • Lue Palmer • Michelle Porter • Sara Power • Ryan Turner • Ian Williams
Praise for Best Canadian Stories
“The legacy for Canadian literature in the Best Canadian Stories series can’t be overstated. For years the collection has been the place to discover Canadian writers.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“Best Canadian Stories … combines both emerging and established voices for a fascinating glimpse at the most exciting short fiction coming out of this country.”
—Open Book
“The arrival, late in the fall each year, of [this] collection is always cause for fanfare.”
—Quill & Quire
The Mystery Guest
Regular price $24.95A new mess. A new mystery. It’s up to Molly the maid to uncover the truth, no matter how dirty, in this standalone novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid, a Good Morning America Book Club pick.
When Detective Stark, Molly's old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to know: Who killed J.D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems?
As the case threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows that she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer's identity. But that key is buried deep in her past—because long ago, she knew J.D. Grimthorpe. Molly must comb her memory for clues, and revisit her childhood and the mysterious Grimthorpe mansion where her dearly departed Gran once worked. With Molly and her colleagues under investigation, she knows she must solve the mystery post-haste. And if there's one thing she knows for sure, it's that dirty secrets don't stay buried forever...
This Spells Love
Regular price $24.95A young woman tries to heal her heartbreak by casting a spell to erase her ex from her past—but she wakes up in an alternate reality where she’s lost more than she wished for—in this witty, whimsical friends-to-lovers debut
When Gemma wakes up, she realizes that this silly spell has worked. Not only does it seem that she never dated her ex, but the rest of her life is completely unrecognizable. The worst part: Dax has no idea who she is.
To reverse the spell and get back to her old life, Gemma must convince her once-best-friend-now-near-stranger to kiss her. But as she carries out her plans, she finds herself falling for him--hard. Soon, Gemma begins to wonder whether she even wants to go back to the way things once were. What if Dax was The One all along?
The Bittlemores
Regular price $36.95On mean Harp Bittlemore’s blighted farm, hidden away in the Backhills, nothing has gone right for a very long time. Crops don’t grow, the pigs and chickens stay skinny and the three aged dairy cows, Berle, Crilla and Dally, are so desperate they are plotting an escape. The one thing holding them back is the thought of abandoning young Willa, the single bright point in their life since her older sister, Margaret, ran away.
But Willa Bittlemore, just turning 14, is planning her own rebellion. Something doesn’t add up in the story she’s been told about her missing sister, and she's beginning to question if her horrible parents are even her parents at all. Just as things are really coming to a head, a bright young police officer starts investigating a cold case involving a baby stolen from a little rural hospital 28 years earlier, and Willa and the cows find out exactly how far the Bittlemores will go to protect a festering secret.
Written with Jann’s trademark outrageous humour and full of her down-to-earth wisdom, The Bittlemores is a rural fairytale, a coming-of-age story and a prairie mystery all-in-one, saturated with her observations of the world she grew up in and her deep connection to the animals we exploit. This marvel of a first novel digs into how people come to be so cruel, but it also glories in the miracle of human kindness.
Study for Obedience
Regular price $29.95Shortlisted for the 2023 Giller Prize
Included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023
For readers of Shirley Jackson, Iain Reid, and Claire-Louise Bennett, a haunting, compressed masterwork from an extraordinary new voice in Canadian fiction.
Soon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs - collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threat that lies 'just beyond the garden gate.' And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother's property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.
With a sharp, lyrical voice, Sarah Bernstein powerfully explores questions of complicity and power, displacement and inheritance. Study for Obedience is a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.
The Defector
Regular price $37.00"A full throttle, adrenaline-laced espionage page-turner . . . Get ready to blast off and enjoy the ride!"—Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL Sniper and #1 New York Times bestselling author of the James Reece Terminal List series
"Continuous action, Mach-speed mayhem, sharp intrigue, and well-rounded characters—what more could you want from a thriller?"—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The 9th Man and the Cotton Malone series
From the author of the #1 bestselling thriller The Apollo Murders comes the supersonic hunt for a shadowy Soviet defector.
Israel, October 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MiG fighter is racing at breakneck speed over the arid scrublands below . . . and promptly disappears.
NASA Flight Controller and former top US test pilot Kaz Zemeckis watches the scene from the ground—and is quickly pulled into a dizzying, high-stakes game of spies, lies and a possible high-level defection that plays out across three continents.
The prize is beyond value: the secrets of the Soviets’ mythical “Foxbat” MiG-25, the fastest, highest-flying fighter plane in the world and the key to Cold War air supremacy. But every defection is double-edged with risk, and Kaz needs to tread a careful line between trust and suspicion. Ultimately, he must invite the fox into the henhouse—bringing the defector into the heart of the United States’ most secret test site—and hope that, with skill and cunning, the game plays out his way.
For Chris Hadfield’s second heart-stopping thriller, we move from Space to another rich and exciting part of Chris’s CV: his time as a top test pilot in both the US Air Force and the US Navy, and as an RCAF fighter pilot intercepting armed Soviet bombers in North American airspace. Full of insider detail, excitement and political intrigue drawn from real events, The Defector brings us the nerve-shredding rush of aerial combat, as told by one of the world's top fighter pilots.
--------------------------------------------------------------
CHRIS HADFIELD is one of the most seasoned and accomplished astronauts in the world. The top graduate of the U.S. Air Force test pilot school in 1988 and U.S. Navy test pilot of the year in 1991, Colonel Hadfield was CAPCOM for twenty-five Shuttle missions and NASA’s Director of Operations in Russia. Hadfield served as Commander of the International Space Station where, while conducting a record-setting number of scientific experiments and overseeing an emergency spacewalk, he gained worldwide acclaim for his breathtaking photographs and educational videos about life in space. His music video, a zero-gravity version of David Bowie's “Space Oddity,” has nearly 50 million views, and his TED Talk on fear has been viewed over 10 million times. He helped create and host the National Geographic miniseries One Strange Rock, with Will Smith, and has a MasterClass on exploration. Chris Hadfield's books, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, You Are Here and The Darkest Dark, have been bestsellers all around the world, topping the charts for months in his Canadian homeland.
A Holly Jolly Diwali
Regular price $23.00Niki arrives in India just in time to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights, where she meets London musician Sameer Mukherji. Maybe it's the splendor of Mumbai or the magic of the holiday season, but Niki is immediately drawn to Sam. At the wedding, the champagne flows and their flirtatious banter makes it clear that the attraction is mutual.
When Niki and Sam join Diya, her husband and their friends on group honeymoon, their connection grows deeper. Free-spirited Sam helps Niki get in touch with her passionate and creative side, and with her Indian roots. When she gets a new job offer back home, Niki must decide what she wants out of the next chapter of her life—to cling to the straight and narrow like always, or to take a leap of faith and live the kind of bold life the old Niki never would have dreamed of.
The Maid
Regular price $24.95OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE • *WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION* • *SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGAR ALLAN POE BEST NOVEL AWARD* • INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • CITYLINE BOOK CLUB PICK • “A twist-and-turn whodunit, set in a five-star hotel, from the perspective of the maid who finds the body. Think Clue. Think page-turner.”—Glamour
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Glamour, W magazine, PopSugar, The Rumpus, Book Riot, CrimeReads, She Reads, Daily Hive, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Stylist, Canadian Living
“An endearing debut. . . . The reader comes to understand Molly’s worldview, and to sympathize with her longing to be accepted—a quest that gives The Maid real emotional heft.” —The New York Times
“The Maid is a masterful, charming mystery that will touch your heart in ways you could never expect. . . . This is the smart, quirky, uplifting read we need.” —Ashley Audrain, #1 bestselling author of The Push
A dead body is one mess she can’t clean up on her own.
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.
But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanour has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black. But will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?
Both a Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
All the Seas of the World
Regular price $24.00On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast a small ship sends two people ashore. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. If they succeed, the consequences will affect the destinies of empires, and lives both great and small.
One of those arriving at that beach is a woman abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude. Having escaped, she is trying to chart her own course—and is bent upon revenge. Another is a seafaring merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith, a moment that never leaves him. In what follows, through a story both intimate and epic, unforgettable characters are immersed in the fierce and deadly struggles that define their time.
All the Seas of the World is a page-turning drama that also offers moving reflections on memory, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives—in the past, and today.
Camp Zero
Regular price $26.00In a near-future northern settlement, a handful of climate change survivors find their fates intertwined in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power.
America, 2049: Summer temperatures are intolerably high, the fossil fuel industry has shut down, and humans are implanted with a ‘Flick’ at birth, which allows them to remain perpetually online. The top echelons of society live in Floating Cities off the coast, while people on the mainland struggle to survive. For Rose, working as a hostess in the city’s elite club feels like her best hope for a better future.
When a high-profile client offers Rose a job as an escort at a fledgling company in northern Canada called Camp Zero—a source of fresh, clean air and cool temperatures—in return for a home for her displaced mother and herself, she accepts it. But in the north, all is not as it seems.
Through skillfully entwined perspectives, including a young professor longing to escape his wealthy family and a group of highly trained women engaged in climate surveillance at a Cold War era research station, the fate of the Camp and its inhabitants comes into stunning relief. Atmospheric, original, and utterly gripping, Camp Zero interrogates the seductive and chilling notion of a utopia; asks who and what will survive as global tensions rise; and imagines how love may sustain us.
MICHELLE MIN STERLING was born on Vancouver Island, BC, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she teaches literature and writing at Berklee College of Music. She has an MFA from Boston University and has held writing fellowships at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Baffler, VICE, and Joyland. Camp Zero is her first novel.
Funeral Songs For Dying Girls
Regular price $23.99Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother's grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack.
Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.
The Professionals
Regular price $12.99
Now two groups are after them—the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized crime outfit looking for payback. As they crisscross the country in a series of increasingly explosive confrontations, each of them is ultimately forced to recognize the truth: The real professionals, cop or criminal, are those who are willing to sacrifice everything.
________________
Owen Laukkanen is the author of the Stevens and Windermere series, beginning with The Professionals, which was nominated for the Anthony Award, Barry Award, Spinetingler Magazine Best Novel: New Voices Award, and the International Thriller Writers’ Thriller Award for best first novel. His follow-up, Criminal Enterprise, was nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for best novel. A resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, he is now at work on the next book featuring Stevens and Windermere.
Last Winter
Regular price $24.95As gripping and unforgettable as Fredrik Backman's Bear Town and Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone, this haunting novel digs into the impact of a fatal avalanche on a small BC mountain town, as seen through the eyes of those who survive the tragedy.
"Heart-rending and heart-stopping." —Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens
"...lays bare the truths of mental illness...epically unforgettable." —Jen Sookfong Lee, author of Superfan
"Deeply raw...Insightful and unsparing, this is an important book." —Zoe Whittall, author of The Best Kind of People
Content Note: this is an important book and a powerful depiction of extreme Bipolar disorder. It deals with sensitive subject matter, and we encourage readers to take care of themselves and their mental health while reading.
Last Winter is the story of a child who might not survive the heartbreak of her father’s death and a mother who struggles to both parent and manage her grief in the grips of a Bipolar crisis.
Fiona and Gus’s marriage has veered off course. Fiona’s mental health is shaky at best, and is now further strained under the weight of a transgression that she would like to both forget and repeat. Gus, a pro snowboarder turned backcountry guide, is exhausted by Fiona's mood swings and her ambivalence about their relationship, but mostly by the impact of her erratic behaviour on their eight-year-old daughter, Ruby. Ruby loves them both, but has a much closer relationship with her father, and has stopped talking in the face of the tensions between her parents.
In the midst of this marital crisis, Gus takes Ruby’s class on an overnight trip into the wilderness, where Ruby is one of only two children to survive the avalanche that kills the others, including her beloved father. While Fiona’s mental health is unravelled further by grief, Ruby is flattened by Gus’s loss. After the search ends with no sign of her father, Ruby is determined to find him herself, using the survival skills he taught her and believing that he must still be alive. Her trek back into the snow sets off events that stretches her own resourcefulness and her mother's fragile coping skills to the breaking point.
Atmospheric and deftly told with an economy of words and a finely tuned gaze on the small moments that build up to an inexorable and shocking end, Last Winter is a contemporary drama that will grip readers both for the story and for the vibrant portrayal of the complexities of family life.
________________
Miriam Toews is the author of seven bestselling novels: Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is a winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.
Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality
Regular price $32.95Living forever isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Hearts can still break, looks can still fade, and money still matters, even in eternity. The ghosts, zombies, and demons in this collection are all shockingly human, and they’re ready to spill their guts. Vanity, love, and tragedy are all candidly explored as the unfulfilled desires of the dead are echoed in the lives of modern-day immigrants. Story-by-story, the line between ghost and human, life and death, becomes increasingly blurred.
There’s a courtesan from 17th century China who, try as she might, just can’t manage to die. Grandmama Wu, who returns from the dead to protect her grandchildren from bullies. Not to mention an Internet-order bride who inadvertently brings the apocalypse to Nebraska City.
From Shanghai to Vancouver, the women in this collection haunt and are haunted—by first loves, troublesome family members, and traumatic memories. Intertwining horror, the supernatural, and mythology, Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality riotously critiques contemporary life and fearlessly illuminates the ways in which the past can devour us. A collection about transformation and what makes us human, it solidifies Lindsay Wong as one of the most vital and electrifying voices in Canadian literature today.
________________
LINDSAY WONG is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Winnipeg. Follow her on Twitter @LindsayMWong, Instagram @Lindsaywong.M, or visit www.lindsaywongwriter.com.
Mexican Gothic
Regular price $23.00NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “It’s Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.”—The Guardian
IN DEVELOPMENT AS A HULU ORIGINAL LIMITED SERIES PRODUCED BY KELLY RIPA AND MARK CONSUELOS • WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Marie Claire, Vox, Mashable, Men’s Health, Library Journal, Book Riot, LibraryReads
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.
____________________________
Hana Khan Carries On
Regular price $19.99A sparkling, reader-favourite rom-com for fans of You’ve Got Mail, set in competing halal restaurants
“A novel of wit, heart, substance and depth—a love story that explores the challenging issues of our times.” —Ausma Zehanat Khan
“Readers won’t be able to put this Own Voices Muslim romance down.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part-time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she’ll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters.
When her mysterious aunt and teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana’s growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all.
As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.
Uzma Jalaluddin
Biography
UZMA JALALUDDIN is the bestselling author of Ayesha at Last and Hana Khan Carries On, both of which have been optioned for film, the latter by Mindy Kaling. A high school English teacher, Jalaluddin is also a contributor to the Toronto Star and the Atlantic. She lives near Toronto with her family.
Critical Praise
Jalaluddin portrays a swoon-worthy romance as skilfully as she captures the heart of a community. A novel of wit, heart, substance, and depth—a love story that explores the challenging issues of our times. — Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of A Deadly Divide
A sweet and satisfying retelling of “You’ve Got Mail” and absolutely irresistible. I read the whole book in one sitting and cannot wait for more from Uzma Jalaluddin! — Sonya Lalli, author of Serena Singh Flips the Script
Hana Khan Carries On serves us all the ingredients of a delicious tale: a dynamic setting, vibrant characters, a romantic problem of wires-crossed proportions, and a lead you’ll find yourself rooting for until the end. Truly a burst of joy! — S.K. Ali, author of Love from A to Z
A grand celebration of a novel: big, noisy, and joyous. Jalaluddin’s new book is a wholly original romantic comedy for our times, with irresistible banter, near-misses, ulterior motives, and an all-out Bollywood-style climax. I loved it. — Kate Hilton, author of Better Luck Next Time
Cute, emotional, and ultimately joyful. A romance with a warm heart, one wrapped in the bonds of family and friendship, this book left me with a delighted smile on my face. — Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author
"Jalaluddin follows Ayesha at Last with another charming contemporary romance, which maintains a fun, energetic mood while tackling serious themes of prejudice." — Publishers Weekly
"The clever and independent protagonist, large cast of vivid characters, strong family ties, and satisfying enemies-to-lovers trope all have the feel of a classic remake and will thoroughly delight readers looking for modern Indian Muslim representation in a love story that hits real-life issues on the way to a very satisfying conclusion." — Booklist
"Packed with emotion, this romance is also a beautifully written coming-of-age story about a first-generation immigrant. Hana is a relatable, flawed narrator, and the other characters are complex, nuanced, and well-developed. The story is intricately plotted, with dramatic, often heartwrenching scenes that build to a satisfying, realistic conclusion.... Readers won’t be able to put this Own Voices Muslim romance down." — Library Journal (starred review)
"A delicious treat filled with South Asian fervor and Canadian heart." — Kirkus Reviews
“Jalaluddin cleverly illustrates the social pressures facing young Indian-Muslim adults...a highly entertaining tale of family, community, and romance.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A delicious and entertaining novel.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Come for Darcy reimagined as a hyper-conservative young man and Elizabeth Bennet as a wannabe poet frustrated by family obligation; stay for Uzma Jalaluddin’s warm portrait of life for twentysomething Muslims in suburban Toronto struggling to honor their heritage while pursuing their dreams.” — The Globe and Mail
"'Ayesha at Last' is light and incandescent and deeply pleasurable from start to finish." — Christian Science Monitor
"There’s an overabundance of Pride and Prejudice retellings, but few are as thoughtful and creative as this stellar debut from an author to watch." — Library Journal (starred review)
"Jalaluddin constructs a timely and enlightening narrative that validates the experiences of many South Asians and Muslims today, while weaving in universal themes of identity, class, and discrimination....Ayesha at Last's fictional universe acts as a microcosm of a diverse and oft-misunderstood community, and Jalaluddin's compassionate and sensitive writing about it radiates off the page." — NPR
“Ayesha At Last is a beautiful testament to the power of family, kindness, and getting out of one’s own way.” — Entertainment Weekly
“[An] irresistible debut.” — Goodreads
“This sweet debut novel ticks all the boxes for one of summer’s best reads: it’s smart, witty, romantic and utterly charming.” — Canadian Living
"Ayesha at Last is a delight from the first word to the last. Rich with cultural texture, replete with social nuance, and brimming with humor, it is one of the best retellings of Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.” — Frolic
“An uproarious romp, filled with farcical cases of mistaken identity, disastrous proposals and a big Bollywood wedding.” — Toronto Life
“This is the book I’ve been waiting for since my long-running Jane Austen obsession. Move over Darcy, Khalid’s in town.” — S. K. Ali, author of Morris Award finalist, Saints and Misfits
“Uzma Jalaluddin blazes a brilliant new trail with Ayesha At Last, a captivating romance set in the Muslim community, brimming with humour and heart. You will fall in love with Ayesha and Khalid—an Elizabeth and Darcy for our times.” — Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of A Dangerous Crossing
“Ayesha At Last is the modern Pride & Prejudice retelling I never knew I needed. Warm, witty, romantic, and relatable. Honestly, Darcy who? Khalid is everything.” — Alisha Rai, award-winning author
Bad Cree
Regular price $24.99A haunting debut novel where dreams, family and spirits collide
Mackenzie, a Cree millennial, wakes up in her one-bedroom Vancouver apartment clutching a pine bough she had been holding in her dream just moments earlier. When she blinks, it disappears. But she can still smell the sharp pine scent in the air, the nearest pine tree a thousand kilometres away in the far reaches of Treaty 8.
Mackenzie continues to accidentally bring back items from her dreams, dreams that are eerily similar to real memories of her older sister and Kokum before their untimely deaths. As Mackenzie's life spirals into a living nightmare—crows are following her around and she's getting texts from her dead sister on the other side—it becomes clear that these dreams have terrifying, real-life consequences. Desperate for help, Mackenzie returns to her mother, sister, cousin, and aunties in her small Alberta hometown. Together, they try to uncover what is haunting Mackenzie before something irrevocable happens to anyone else around her.
Haunting, fierce, an ode to female relations and the strength found in kinship, Bad Cree is a gripping, arresting debut by an unforgettable voice.
Critical Praise
"With creeps that are ever-creepy and love flowing like beer at a bush party, Bad Cree is a book about the power of dreams, home and family. It reads like a tribute to the ones who came before us Lee Maracle, Jeanette Armstrong, Eden Robinson. This book is tough iskwew in flannel shirts with long unbrushed hair, just looking good. It’s tea rings on Formica tables, cigarette smoke wafting through windows, and an eerie magical realism that only belongs to the bush. Full of Auntie power, Jessica Johns is really coming into her own immense storytelling ways." — Katherena Vermette, author of The Break and The Strangers
"Bad Cree is a masterwork of creeping tension. Wry, moody and subversive, Johns explores the power of connections, both the harm and the healing, with characters rich and warm, tangled in each other, to the land and to the supernatural. Couldn't put it down." — Eden Robinson, author of the Trickster trilogy
"Bad Cree deftly explores the permeable boundaries of dreams, reality, and culture, as well as complex family dynamics and relationships. A compelling novel that is a mystery and a horror story about grief, but one with defiant hope in its beating heart." — Paul Tremblay, author A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
“In evocative yet understated prose, Jessica Johns weaves a captivating tale of love, loss, the violence of greed and the healing power of family. In Bad Cree, Johns delivers a suspenseful and thought-provoking page turner you won’t want to put down.”
— Michelle Good, #1 bestselling author of Five Little Indians
"Both tactile and dreamy, terrifying and beautiful, Bad Cree will wrap you up and pull you along for the journey -once it starts, there’s no backing out, no pause, no stall. I have been waiting years for Jessica John’s books – I say books because there had better be more! She did not disappoint." — Cherie Dimaline, author for The Marrow Thieves and Empire of Wild
“Reading this book is like getting lost inside of a cloud. Jessica Johns has captured the strength, joy and devastation of community and siblinghood and also the powers within. . . . I suggest reading this alongside a friend, or a sibling or an aunty. It’s a surreal dreamy unraveling delight you’ll want to hug about. — Téa Mutonji, author of Shut Up You're Pretty
“The novel serves as a window into a world where dreams intersect with waking reality, and where that unseen dimension is as much a part of the life of a tight-knit family and community as bingo, jokes, and video games. It works equally well as spine-tingling thriller and a touching meditation on grief.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A single death sets this story in motion, but Johns used one lost life to explore generational trauma and the ways in which families and communities can break harmful cycles and heal themselves. At the same time, she delivers a narrative that is truly chilling and suspenseful." — Kirkus Reviews
“Johns laces cryptid terror into the sense of loss that her community feels. . . Visceral details will have readers hanging on the edge of every chapter, waiting to see when the wheetigo will strike next. Perfect for fans of Ramona Emerson’s Shutter and Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians—Johns is a writer to watch.” — Booklist (starred review)
“[Bad Cree] is. . .a story about grief and family and the lingering effects of the infringement of industrialism on native lands. . .When the book ends, what readers will remember most are the moments these characters shared together, playing cards and talking late into the night.” — Library Journal
"A narrative that is truly chilling and suspenseful. A powerful exploration of generational trauma and an artful, affecting debut.” — Kirkus Reviews
What You Won't Do For Love
Regular price $20.95What if we could love the planet as much as we love one another?
"Warm, wise, and overflowing with generosity, this is a love story so epic it embraces all of creation. Yet another reminder of how blessed we are to be in the struggle with elders like David and Tara.” – Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis
What You Won’t Do for Love is an inspiring conversation about love and the environment. When artist Miriam Fernandes approaches the legendary eco-pioneer David Suzuki to create a theatre piece about climate change, she expects to write about David’s perspective as a scientist. Instead, she discovers the boundless vision and efforts of Tara Cullis, a literature scholar, climate organizer, and David’s life partner. Miriam realizes that David and Tara’s decades-long love for each other, and for family and friends, has only clarified and strengthened their resolve to fight for the planet.
What You Won’t Do for Love transforms real-life conversations between David, Tara, Miriam, and her husband Sturla into a charmingly novel and poetic work. Over one idyllic day in British Columbia, Miriam and Sturla take in a lifetime of David and Tara’s adventures, inspiration, and love, and in turn reflect on their own relationships to each other and the planet. Revealing David Suzuki and Tara Cullis in an affable, conversational, and often comedic light, What You Won’t Do For Love asks if we can love our planet the same way we love one another.