Fiction Books

One of The Globe and Mail’s “Canadian Books We’re Most Excited About in 2022”
One of CBC Books’ “Works of Canadian Fiction to Watch for in Spring 2022”
One of Esquire’s “The Best Books of 2022 Will Provoke, Persuade and Perturb You”
One of Entertainment Weekly’s “Must-Read Books to Heat Up February”
One of BuzzFeed News’ “Books to Get Excited About This Year”
One of Publishers Weekly’s Book Club Picks for February 2022
One of The New Statesman’s “What to Read in 2022: Fiction”
One of The A.V. Club’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2022”
One of Vulture’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2022”
One of Yahoo’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2022”
 
A new novel about art, love, death and time from the author of Motherhood and How Should A Person Be?

Here we are, just living in the first draft of creation, which was made by some great artist, who is now getting ready to tear it apart.
    In this first draft, a woman named Mira leaves home for school. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal—to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and she enters the strange and dizzying dimension that true loss opens up.
    Pure Colour tells the story of a life, from beginning to end. It is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. It is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and a shape-shifting epic. Sheila Heti is a philosopher of modern experience, and she has reimagined what a book can hold.

A girl is sent against her will to a remote wilderness boot camp where things aren't what they seem in this riveting and twisty paperback thriller.

FROM THIS MOMENT ON, YOU'RE A BEAR CUB. YOU'LL LEARN RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT. HOW TO SURVIVE. IT'S EASIER IF YOU JUST ACCEPT IT.

Dawn isn't a bad person--she's just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn't expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to OUT OF THE WILD, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important "life lessons." It's true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot--but it's not what any of them expect. Because what happens in the woods isn't what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she's ever been in her life. And you will be too.

Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.

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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.

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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. 

Nomi Nickel, a heartbreakingly bewildered and wry young woman, is growing up trapped in a small Mennonite town that seeks to set her on the path to righteousness and smother her at the same time. Left alone with her father when half her family disappears, Nomi is trying to avoid a career at the local chicken abattoir, while dreaming of life elsewhere and--soon enough--finding herself on a collision course with the only community she has ever known. 

A work of fierce originality and brilliance, A Complicated Kindness fearlessly, achingly explores the ties that bind families together and the forces that tear them apart.…

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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. 

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

Instant Bestseller

A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.

But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta’s friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.

What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.

A lush, enthralling new novel from New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley, set during the reign of James I, in which emissary Andrew Logan must complete a vital mission on behalf of the king—a mission that will threaten not only his own life, but everything he holds dear.

The crown prince is dead, and the court is in turmoil. Only a man of extraordinary gifts can uncover the truth.

1613: King James—sixth of Scotland; first of England; son of Mary, Queen of Scots—has unified both countries under one crown. But the death of his eldest son, Henry, has plunged the nation into mourning, as rumours swirl that the prince was poisoned.

Andrew Logan has heard the rumours, but he’s paid them little heed. As one of the King’s Messengers, he has plenty of secrets to guard, including his own. In these perilous times, when the merest suggestion of witchcraft can lead to torture and hanging, men like Andrew must hide well the fact they were born with the Sight—a gift that allows him to see things others cannot.

And he’ll need all his gifts as he embarks on the perilous trip to capture Sir David Moray—once the prince’s trusted advisor, and now the main suspect in his death—and transport him from Scotland back to England. Andrew must travel with not only his prisoner, but an elderly scribe, sent to keep a written record of the journey, and the scribe’s fiery daughter, Phoebe. With treachery lurking at every turn, Andrew won’t just need to guard his prisoner, but his extraordinary gift, and his heart as well.

Both sweeping and intricate, The King’s Messenger is a spellbinding tale of secrets, love, and honour by a writer at the height of her power.

LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025

“Etta and Otto and Russell and James is incredibly moving, beautifully written and luminous with wisdom. It is a book that restores one's faith in life even as it deepens its mystery. Wonderful!” —Chris Cleave, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Little Bee

“I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.”

Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to water.

Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently—and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is a love story that spans fifty years, three lives, two continents and an ocean. It is a story of love and joy, pain and passion, memory and forgetting—and one incredible journey.

Have you ever wondered why Rabbit has such long ears? Or why Raccoon is wearing a mask? In this collection of funny and unique short stories, young Skye enlightens us in a number of Indigenous teachings, passed down to her from her Ojibway Grandfather. Through her natural gift of storytelling, Skye encourages other children to embrace the art and become storytellers, too!

<head><meta charset="UTF-8" /></head>This much-anticipated, game-changing special edition of Canada's premier annual fiction anthology celebrates the country's best emerging Black writers.

For over thirty years, The Journey Prize Stories has consistently introduced readers to the next generation of great Canadian writers. The 33rd edition of Canada's most prestigious annual fiction anthology proudly continues this tradition by celebrating the best emerging Black writers in the country, as selected by a jury comprising internationally acclaimed, award-winning writers David Chariandy, Esi Edugyan, and Canisia Lubrin.

An eagle-eyed mother and a hungry child contend with the aftereffects of an unusual multi-course meal. Both the debts of the past and the promise of the future hover over two siblings as they debate what to do with an unexpected windfall. A pesky but beloved baboon looms large in the memory of a daughter whose family has been forced to move to a new town. Unclear boundaries and cheerful hypocrisy dominate a woman’s whirlwind romance with a photographer. A schoolgirl contends with complicated emotions as she awaits the return of her long-absent mother. News of a hunter’s death reverberates throughout his family, travelling across oceans and phonelines to trouble his cousin’s already-shaky relationship. An office worker joins a lost grandmother on an unexpected pilgrimage. After years away, a woman journeys back to Jamaica—and back to the sister who refused to leave with her—stirring up insecurities, laughter, and wounds unhealed by time. All the instructions in the world cannot protect a family from the impacts of grief. The only Black girls in school experiment with what it means to be a lady when you’re not yet a woman.

She's been driving him wild for years.

The good kind of wild. The bad kind of wild.

But mostly, the kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend's little sister and knowing you can't have her.

Forbes may have labeled Ford Grant the World's Hottest Billionaire, but all he cares about is escaping the press and opening a recording studio in gorgeous small town Rose Hill. Something that comes to a screeching halt when he ends up face-to-face with a young girl who claims he's her biological father. Now, he spends his days balancing business with parenting a sullen twelve-year-old, all while trying desperately to keep his hands the hell off his best friend's sister, Rosie Belmont.

After living in the city, Rosie came blasting back into town like a storm. Beautiful, messy, and chaotic. And one wide-eyed, desperate plea for a job is all it takes for Ford to hire her. He vows to keep her at arm's length. Tries to stick to scowls and grumpy one-liners. But with her, verbal sparring is a type of foreplay―friction that soon turns to blistering heat.

Ford knows damn well he shouldn't cross this line. But shouldn't and can't are two very different things.

And the only thing he truly can't do is resist her.

A grumpy burnt out physician and a sunshine psychologist must fake an engagement to save his whitewater canoeing/ relationship therapy startup in Maggie North's sparkling second novel about starting over.

Burned-out former ER doc Stellar J Byrd can solve any crisis except her own life. But with her financial prospects dwindling, she’d do anything to stay in her beloved, pricey wilderness town—even take a job as a camp physician at The Love Boat, an unspeakably touchy-feely relationship therapy startup. If there are sing-alongs, she’s calling in sick.

What’s worse? Her boss is Lyle “McHuge” McHugh, the sunshiny psychologist she’s masterfully avoided since their disastrous hookup last year. Hardheaded relationship scorekeeper Stellar plans to dodge his pathological generosity from now until September, but after a scathing article puts McHuge's romantic credibility into question, a fake engagement is the only way to salvage the camp’s crumbling public image.

It’s strictly business . . . but the more closely they work together, the more Stellar realizes her feelings for McHuge are anything but professional. With competitors hard on their heels and trade secrets at stake, they must find a way to marry his softness with her steel to build a business–and a love–that will last past summer’s end . . .

Saul Indian Horse has hit bottom. His last binge almost killed him, and now he’s a reluctant resident in a treatment centre for alcoholics, surrounded by people he’s sure will never understand him. But Saul wants peace, and he grudgingly comes to see that he’ll find it only through telling his story. With him, readers embark on a journey back through the life he’s led as a northern Ojibway, with all its joys and sorrows.

With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement.

Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.

Finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Winner of the 2022 Indigenous Voices Awards' Published Prose in English Prize
Shortlisted for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award
Longlisted for CBC Canada Reads 2022
Longlisted for First Nations Community Reads 2022
AnIndigo Top 100 Book of 2021
An Indigo Top 10 Best Canadian Fiction Book of 2021

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"What a welcome debut. Young Eddie Toma's passage through the truly ugly parts of this world is met, like an antidote, or perhaps a compensation, by his remarkable awareness of its beauty. This is a writer who understands youth, and how to tell a story." —GilAdamson, winner of the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Ridgerunner

Brian Isaac's powerful debut novel All the Quiet Places is the coming-of-age story of Eddie Toma, an Indigenous (Syilx) boy, told through the young narrator's wide-eyed observations of the world around him.

It's1956, and six-year-old Eddie Toma lives with his mother, Grace, and his little brother, Lewis, near the Salmon River on the far edge of the Okanagan Indian Reserve in the British Columbia Southern Interior. Grace, her friend Isabel, Isabel's husband Ray, and his nephew Gregory cross the border to work as summer farm labourers in Washington state. There Eddie is free to spend long days with Gregory exploring the farm: climbing a hill to watch the sunset and listening to the wind in the grass. Theboys learn from Ray's funny and dark stories. But when tragedy strikes, Eddie returns home grief-stricken, confused, and lonely.

Eddie's life is governed by the decisions of the adults around him. Grace is determined to have him learn the ways of the white world by sending him to school in the small community of Falkland. On Eddie"s first day of school, as he crosses the reserve boundary at the Salmon River bridge, he leaves behind his world. Grace challenges theIndian Agent and writes futile letters to Ottawa to protest the sparse resources in their community. His father returns to the family after years away only to bring chaos and instability. Isabel and Ray join them in an overcrowded house. Only in his grandmother's company does he find solace and true companionship.

In his teens, Eddie's future seems more secure—he finds a job, and his long-time crush on his white neighbour Eva is finally reciprocated. But every timethings look up, circumstances beyond his control crash down around him. The cumulative effects of guilt, grief, and despair threaten everything Eddie has ever known or loved.

All the Quiet Places is the story of what can happen when every adult in a person's life has been affected by colonialism; it tells of the acute separation from culture that can occur even at home in a loved familiar landscape. Its narrative power relies onthe unguarded, unsentimental witness provided by Eddie.