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The Little Shadows
Marina Endicott - 2011
We follow the lives of all three in turn: Aurora, the eldest and most beautiful, who is sixteen when the book opens; thoughtful Clover, a year younger; and the youngest sister, joyous headstrong sprite Bella, who is thirteen. The girls, overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, are forced to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. All they have is their youth, beauty and talent.
Letters to Amelia
Lindsay Zier-Vogel - 2021
Amidst her heartache, the 30 year-old library tech is tasked with reading newly discovered letters that Amelia Earhart wrote to her lover, Gene Vidal. She becomes captivated by the famous pilot who disappeared in 1937. Letter by letter, she understands more about the aviation hero while piecing her own life back together.When Grace discovers she is pregnant, her life becomes more intertwined with the mysterious pilot and Grace begins to write her own letters to Amelia. While navigating her third trimester, amidst new conspiracy theories about Amelia’s disappearance, the search for her remains, and the impending publication of her private letters, Grace goes on a pilgrimage of her own.Letters to Amelia is a stunning, contemporary epistolary novel from the creator of the internationally acclaimed Love Lettering Project. It underscores the power of reading and writing letters for both connection and self-discovery, and celebrates the unwritten, undocumented parts of our lives.Above all, Letters to Amelia is a story of the essential need for connection—and our universal ability to find hope in the face of fear.Praise for Letters to Amelia:"Brimming over with Lindsay Zier-Vogel's obvious love for the story of Amelia Earhart, Letters to Amelia is a wonderful novel about flight and passion, about love-letters and reaching out; a novel about how we never know quite what's coming next, but still keep launching ourselves into the blue tomorrow."—Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13"A tender portrait of heartbreak and a thoughtful ode to new motherhood. Letters to Amelia is an endorsement of finding our own ways to heal, and a celebration of that big, messy, wonderful journey of coming into one's own. Charming and beautifully rendered, this is a big-hearted hopeful novel, full of life and love." —Stacey May Fowles, author of Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game that Saved Me"When we think of Amelia Earhart, we think enigmatic adventurer and feminist pioneer—and, of course, of her mysterious disappearance. But in Letters to Amelia, we meet a different Amelia Earhart, as seen through the eyes of Grace, the novel’s protagonist, a young library tech tasked with reading her letters: an Amelia who is funny, charming, joyful, sad, and most of all, full of life. Zier-Vogel writes with uncanny empathy about heartbreak, friendship, motherhood, and the common threads that connect women across time, geography, and even between earth and sky. Letters to Amelia is a gorgeous, big-hearted debut that will make you feel like you are flying, and Zier-Vogel is a writer whose career is about to soar." —Amy Jones, author of Every Little Piece of Me"Letters to Amelia invites us to hold our heroines close and to take heart – it is gentle and joyous, full of tenderness, alive and sturdy with hope." —Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault
Cockroach
Rawi Hage - 2008
Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator’s violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky émigré cafés, and out into the frozen nighttime streets of Montreal. Bold, haunting, and emotionally trenchant, Cockroach is a powerful story of immigrant experience, indignation, and unrelenting fortitude.
The Girls Across The Bay
Emerald O'Brien - 2017
A bond stronger than blood. A connection that could end it all. Madigan Knox and Grace Sheppard became sisters the day they entered their foster home. After living through a childhood nightmare, one brave act set them free, but split them apart into different homes.As adults, they are reunited in the small coastal town they dreamed of living in as children, but the reality of life in Tall Pines is far from what they had imagined.When a woman is found dead in her home, Madigan reports on the crime while Grace investigates. A dark connection to the victim is discovered, pulling them both closer to the crime and the traumatic past they are desperate to move on from. With old wounds ripped open and dark secrets threatening their bond, the sisters must rely on each other more than ever before to survive.
The New Commander: The great saga of England continues (The Company of Archers)
Martin Archer - 2018
The Christians have broken the truce and the Fifth Crusade has begun, the irate Saracens are expelling Christians and Jews from their lands, and desperate refugees are pouring into Jerusalem's port city of Acre which is expected to fall. There are coins to be earned carrying those most favoured by God to safety, meaning those with the most coins to pay for a place on one of the company's galleys. And the French governor of Acre wants to leave his young wife behind and flee with the chests of coins he collected from the city's Saracen merchants before he expelled them despite the bribes they paid him. It is a rollicking good story and a very good read.
The Orphans of Ardwick
Emma Hornby - 2018
But behind Bracken House's impressive façade lies a household steeped in troubles and mystery, with residents above and below stairs battling their own demons and dark secrets.Not everyone is happy about the new arrivals, and soon the orphans' safety is in danger. If they want to stay in the first home any of them have known for years, they must unravel the past and bring hope to the future. Will they succeed? Or will they come to regret ever leaving the mean slum streets they once called home?Emma Hornby's page-turning, absorbing sagas will tug at your heartstrings.----------------------------
Readers love Emma Hornby:
'Similar to Rosie Goodwin and Dilly Court, Emma Hornby tells a brilliant story that will keep you guessing with twists and turns. Pure talent.''Emma Hornby's books just keep getting better and better. Honest, gritty, lovely characters.''Keep writing Emma, you are very talented and can't wait for your next book. I've read them all.''Emma is a wonderful storyteller and I can't wait for the next one!''Thank you again Emma Hornby for a captivating read''Another beautifully written story by Emma Hornby'
Zhool
Bhalchandra Nemade - 1979
asprawling narrative of the moral life of post-independent society across Maharashtra. The novel unfolds the microcosm of the commercialized education in India.
Alone in the Classroom
Elizabeth Hay - 2011
Observing them and darkening their lives is the principal, Parley Burns, whose strange behaviour culminates in an attack so disturbing its repercussions continue to the present day.Connie’s niece, Anne, tells the story. Impelled by curiosity about her dynamic, adventurous aunt and her more conventional mother, she revisits Connie’s past and her mother’s broken childhood. In the process, she unravels the enigma of Parley Burns and the mysterious (and unrelated) deaths of two young girls. As the novel moves deeper into their lives, the triangle of principal, teacher, student opens out into other emotional triangles – aunt, niece, lover; mother, daughter, granddaughter – until a sudden, capsizing love thrusts Anne herself into a newly independent life. This spellbinding tale – set in Saskatchewan and the Ottawa Valley – crosses generations and cuts to the bone. It probes the roots of obsessive love and hate, how the hurts and desires of childhood persist and are passed on as if in the blood. It lays bare the urgency of discovering what we were never told about the past. And it celebrates the process of becoming who we are in a world full of startling connections that lie just out of sight.Following her award-winning, #1 bestselling Late Nights on Air, Alone in the Classroom is Elizabeth Hay’s most intricate, compelling, and seductive novel yet
How Happy to Be
Katrina Onstad - 2006
She’s been dining out too long, literally and figuratively, on a culture of celebrity worship and empty punditry. She seeks refuge from her better judgment in endless parties, ritual substance abuse, and half-hearted attempts to get herself fired, but in a libertarian newsroom where outrageous spin is the easiest way to sell papers, her bad-girl behaviour just wins her more accolades.Along this path of self-destruction, Max’s past, comic and poignant, keeps intruding: memories of her mother’s brutal death and her hippie father’s crippling breakdown; the reappearance of an aging vegan idealist who briefly played her stepmom on the West Coast commune where she came of age; tender realizations about the bad artist she was supposed to marry and a long-lost boyfriend who seems exotically sane. When a host of prior indiscretions finally catches up with her, Maxime realizes that any chance at happiness depends on uncovering, at last, her one true story.Set during the madness of the Toronto International Film Festival and weaving back and forth between Max’s commune past and her newsroom present, How Happy to Be portrays with razor-sharp insight and bittersweet wit a modern woman’s descent into — and eventual escape from — the deafening pop culture noise of the early twenty-first century. Intelligent, savvy, this novel marks the arrival of a remarkable new fiction talent.
The Woman in the Attic
Emily Hepditch - 2020
When Hannah returns to the lonely saltbox house to prepare her mother for the transition into assisted living, her childhood home is anything but welcoming. Dilapidated from years of hoarding and neglect, the walls are crumbling, leaving Hannah’s wellness crumbling along with them.While packing her mother's things, Hannah discovers a trap door to the house’s attic, the one she believed for most of her life had been permanently sealed shut. Blinded by curiosity, Hannah enters the attic and finds a mysterious bedroom riddled with dark secrets. Desperate to know more, Hannah begins to scramble for answers, combing the house for clues that may lead her to the truth.Hannah must navigate through the violent outbursts of her senile mother, the prying questions of a nosy hospice nurse, and the rage of the coastal wind that threatens the structure of the house. Piece by piece, she assembles a picture of her mother’s not-so-distant past—a twisted tangle of infatuation, lies, and maybe even murder.The Woman in the Attic is a claustrophobic psychological thriller wrought with suspense. This novel will put you on the edge of your seat . . . and make you wary of the unused spaces collecting dust in your home.• Winner — Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize (Mystery)• Winner — NL Reads 2021• Gold Medal Winner — Independent Publisher (Canada - East - Regional Fiction)• Finalist — Crime Writers of Canada Awards (Best First Crime Novel)• Long-listed — BMO Winterset Award
Our Daily Bread
Lauren B. Davis - 2011
For generations the Erskine clan has lived in poverty and isolation on North Mountain, shunned by the God-fearing people of nearby Gideon. Now, Albert Erskine comes down off the mountain hoping to change the future for his brothers and sisters and sets in motion a chain of events that will change everything. Inspired by a true story. From best-selling novelist Lauren B. Davis comes the deeply compassionate story of what happens when we view our neighbors as "The Other," as well as the transcendent power of unlikely friendships. OUR DAILY BREAD is a compelling narrative set in a closely observed, sometimes dark, but ultimately life-enhancing landscape. Lauren B Davis' vivid prose and empatheticaly developed characters will remain in the reader's mind long after the final chapter has been read." -- Jane Urquhart, prize winning author of AWAY and THE STONE CARVERS.
The Orenda
Joseph Boyden - 2013
The girl’s captor, Bird, is one of the Huron Nation’s great warriors and statesmen. Years have passed since the murder of his family, and yet they are never far from his mind. In the girl, Snow Falls, he recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter, but as he fights for her heart and allegiance, small battles erupt into bigger wars as both tribes face a new, more dangerous threat from afar.Traveling with the Huron is Christophe, a charismatic missionary who has found his calling among the tribe and devotes himself to learning and understanding their customs and language. An emissary from distant lands, he brings much more than his faith to this new world, with its natural beauty and riches.As these three souls dance with each other through intricately woven acts of duplicity, their social, political and spiritual worlds collide - and a new nation rises from a world in flux.
Greenwood
Michael Christie - 2019
It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.
The Great Karoo
Fred Stenson - 2008
The Boers have turned out to be more resilient than expected, so the British have sent a call to arms to their colonies — and an a great number of men from the Canadian prairies answer the call and join the Canadian Mounted Rifles: a unit in which they can use their own beloved horses. They assume their horses will be able to handle the desert terrain of the Great Karoo as readily as the plains of their homeland. Frank Adams, a cowboy from Pincher Creek, joins the Rifles, along with other young men from the ranches and towns nearby — a mix of cowboys and mounted policeman, who, for whatever reason, feel a desire to fight for the Empire in this far-off war.Against a landscape of extremes, Frank forms intense bonds with Ovide Smith, a French cowboy who proves to be a reluctant soldier, and Jefferson Davis, the nephew of a prominent Blood Indian chief, who is determined to prove himself in a “white man’s war.” As the young Canadians engage in battle with an entrenched and wily enemy, they are forced to realize the bounds of their own loyalty and courage, and confront the arrogance and indifference of those who have led them into conflict. For Frank, disillusionment comes quickly, and his allegiance to those from the Distict of Alberta, soon displaces any sense of patriotism to Canada or Britain, or belief that he’s fighting for a just cause.The events of the novel follow the trajectory of the war. The British strategy of burning Boer farms, destroying herds, and moving Boer families into camps weakens the Boer rebels, but they refuse to give up. The thousands of Boer women and children who die in the camp make the war ever more unpopular among liberals in Britain. (In fact, this conflict marked the first use of the term “concentration camp” in war.) Seeing the ramifications of such short-sighted military decisions, and how they affect what happens to Frank and the other Canadians, is crucial to depicting the reality of the Boer War. By focusing on the experiences of a small group of men from southern Alberta, Fred Stenson brings the reality of what it would have been like to be a soldier in this brutal war to vivid life. The Great Karoo is a deeply satisfying novel, marked by the complexities of its plot, the subtleties of its relationships, and the scale of its terrain. Exhilarating and gruesome by turns, it explores with passion and insight the lasting warmth of friendship and the legacy of devastation occasioned by war.
Company Town
Madeline Ashby - 2016
One of the few in her community to forego bio-engineered enhancements, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rig. But she’s an expert in the arts of self-defence, and she’s been charged with training the Family’s youngest, who has been receiving death threats – seemingly from another timeline. Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city’s stability – serial killer? Or something much, much worse...?