2025 WJB Book Club

A remote lodge in upstate New York is the perfect winter wonderland getaway . . . until the bodies start piling up.

It's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing--maybe even romantic--weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.

So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity--and all contact with the outside world--the guests settle in for the long haul.

Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead--it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic.

Within the snowed-in paradise, something--or someone--is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm.

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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

WJB 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.

WJB'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.

WJB'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

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE*

From the author of the nationally bestselling Strangers saga comes a heartrending story of two Michif sisters who must face their past trauma when their mother is called out for false claims to Indigenous identity.

June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones.

Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family.

But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work.

The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.

In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.

____________________________

katherena vermette (she/her/hers) is a Michif (Red River Métis) writer from Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (Muses’ Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her novels The Break (House of Anansi), The Strangers and The Circle (Hamish Hamilton) were all national bestsellers and won multiple literary awards. Her work for children and young adults includes the picture book The Girl and the Wolf (Theytus) and the graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo (Highwater). She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, and an honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba. katherena lives with her kids—fur and human—in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.

WJB's Book Club Pick for November 2025!

Use code BOOKCLUB to get 20% off at checkout. 

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.