"An unflaggingly witty and often moving slice of life . . . Poor Super Man explodes on to the stage like a bold comic strip, complete with snappy captions and hard, bright, witty dialogue," writes the Edmonton Journal.

    

    Eilleen Hoffman has just told Danny, her con-artist lover and father of her youngest daughter Grace, to get out — for good. Once a teacher, Eilleen lived a middle-class life, but her taste in men coupled with a predilection for pills and booze has brought her down. Desperate to prevent her family from sinking deeper into poverty, Eilleen reluctantly goes on welfare. Eventually she turns to the only friends she has left, hustlers and hookers, to learn how a woman makes fast money, no investment necessary.With Eilleen on welfare and her older daughter Charlotte a teenaged runaway, child welfare authorities descend on the Hoffmans. As Eilleen trails through several attempts at drying out, the well-intentioned Children's Protection Society finally intervenes to apprehend Grace. With the threat of prolonged separation now a stark reality, Eilleen and Grace must rally to confront their demons with grit, determination and humour. Unblinkingly observed and brilliantly written, Going Down Swinging is about the powerful bond between mother and child. And with her skilful narrative interplay, Billie Livingston illustrates poignantly how the truth of our stories lies not so much in the black and white, as it does in the grey.

    

    She marks out the precious moments of her characters' lives against deceptively commonplace backdrops -- a St. John's hospital cafeteria lit only by the lights in the snack machines; a half-built house "like a rib cage around a lungful of sky" -- and the results linger long in the memory. In Degrees of Nakedness Lisa Moore shows us that love, alongside desire, can sometimes come as a surprise, sometimes an ambush.

    Turned out on the street by his fully employed, entirely fed up girlfriend, he goes on the hunt for cheap shared accommodation and stumbles upon the ideal set-up—a bedroom in the home of Amy, an attractive psychology student who has been abandoned by her condo-buying roommate. Not only does Amy have a surprisingly affordable penthouse apartment with rooftop patio and a fridge full of high-quality comestibles, but she also has a mysterious across-the-hall neighbour, Eldrich, who appears to be home all day, smoking weed and receiving an odd assortment of visitors. Before long, John is availing himself of Eldrich's pot, food and wine. He notices that these staples are provided gratis to Eldrich by friends and acquaintances who rely on him for spiritual guidance. That's when John, atheist and misanthrope, decides to start a New Age cult with Eldrich as guru. And so, as half art project, half money-making scheme, the Answer Institute is born. With Amy as a partner in the enterprise, the cult flourishes and grows exponentially, attracting a wide range of broken, strange and spiritually hungry individuals, including an obscenely wealthy Singaporean expat, a psilocybin-dealing hippie, a conservative mom mourning the death of her only child, and the star of a popular sci-fi TV show. Eldrich begins to embrace his role as Leader with a little too much zeal and introduces his followers to increasingly peculiar rituals. Amy becomes progressively more enamoured of the funds pouring into the coffers, and John lets sexual jealousy get the better of him. The more successful the Institute gets, the more it spirals out of control, culminating in a bizarre ayahuasca ceremony that ends in a way nobody could have expected. With humour and pathos, The Answer to Everything examines the gap between reason and faith, and the human need for connection, love and transcendence.

    In the course of an afternoon, Hagar’s life unfolds: her childhood in a small prairie town, her Scottish immigrant father, the tumultuous relationship with her now-estranged husband, her sons, and their partners. Based on the novel by Margaret Laurence.

    More suited for the academy than combat, his assignment to a rear echelon support squadron seemed a good fit. Everything changed when the Sleer attacked Earth’s newly salvaged spacecraft, UEF Ascension. In a flash, Brooks goes from fleeing a burning transport plane to piloting a broken mech and learning the habits of a fighter pilot from Lt Sara Rosenski, the terror of Nightmare Squadron.But his rising star takes a hit when he learns to talk to the Sleer AI, Genukh…and suddenly the UEF doesn’t know whose side he’s on.Now Brooks and Rosenski are stuck aboard Earth’s Sleer weapon—the Battle Ring--and they may be all that stands between Earth and its induction into the Sleer Empire…Experience the start of a Military Science Fiction Series perfect for fans of Rick Partlow, Jamie McFarlane, and Joshua Dalzelle.

    Only pirates. And Rangers. A space opera in the deep black of space from #1 Bestselling author James David Victor Captain Drummond Bayne is a Navy Ranger tasked with bringing order to the lawless reaches of space. When a simple mission turns deadly, Bayne and his crew must embrace a rogue mentality if they want to make it out alive. Can they escape the pirates with their lives and their convictions? Parallax is the first book in the exciting Deep Black space opera. If you like fast paced space adventure, rogue pirates, and stories more complex than good vs. evil, you are going to love your visit to the Deep Black.

    Now they’ve returned to subdue the human race.While Ethan scrambles to help a crumbling resistance and cultivate a relationship with his childhood crush, he’s plagued by unexplainable premonitions leading to an ancient stasis chamber and a discovery beyond his wildest dreams—the last Earthborn Elven warrior. Ethan must adapt to his new understanding of the world and of his enemies. Magic is real.But even with help, is defeat inevitable? After all, it’s not the first time the Urlowens have visited Earth.Earthborn Awakening is the first book in the Earthborn Legacy series. If you like magic, advanced technology, page-turning suspense, fast-paced action, and romance, then this book is for you. Get ready to read late into the night because you won’t be able to put this story down.

    Against a backdrop of a digital economy that rewards online platforms instead of content creators, with climate-change anxiety hanging palpably in the air, the resolutely contemporary Morissette immerses readers into a vagabond year of modern love, as Daniel and Grace navigate their aspirations, insecurities and ambitions amidst a culture obsessed with the instantaneous satisfaction of selfies and self-identity. The Original Face is a fresh and imaginative critical examination of work and life in the 21st century by the author of the cultishly popular New Tab, a finalist for the 2015 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and the 2014 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.

    After finishing mission school they return to their Gwich'in community in the Northwest Territories. Their lives revolve around bootleggers, the bar, drug abuse and meaningless sex. James and Jake try to dull their painful memories of the school. Each hides a dark secret that fuels his nightmares. Enough alcohol silences the demons for a night; a gun and a single bullet silences demons forever. When a friend commits suicide and a former priest appears on television, the community is shattered. James and Jake confront their childhood abuse and break the silence to begin a journey of healing and rediscovery.

    While outrageously false, these hilarious “facts” unearth deep truths about Canadians and their culture. For the over 200,000 people already following on Twitter, @stats_canada is a daily source of the funniest Canadian parody. Now, in their first book, Stats Canada satirizes everything from history, culture, and language to sports, entertainment, politics, weather, and much more. With all-new features, graphs, maps, and other illustrations, Stats Canada has all the laughter you’ve come to expect, with only 10% recycled content! 35% of advice given in any Home Hardware does not come from an actual employee 67% of Canadians own summer snow pants 32% of Canadians can’t spell “tuque” but own at least four 56% of Manitobans are convinced they’ve travelled to the future when visiting other provinces 79% of Canadian teens don’t want to wear their winter coat, it’s not even that cold out 100% of Canadian hockey players give it 110% every game 65% of Canadian Instagram accounts include an artsy photo of a Tim Hortons cup Disclaimer: The official Statistics Canada has taken no issue with the content of this book. They were too polite to object.

    Living in the port city of Halifax, Goyette’s days are bounded by the substantial fact of the North Atlantic, both by its physical presence and by its metaphoric connotations. And like many of life’s overwhelming facts, our awareness of the ocean’s importance and impact waxes and wanes as the ocean sometimes lurks in the background, sometimes imposes itself upon us, yet always, steadily, is. This collection is not your standard “Oh, Ocean!” versifying. Goyette plunges in and swims well outside the buoys to craft a sort of alternate, apocryphal account of our relationship with the ocean. In these linked poems, Goyette’s offbeat cast of archetypes (fog merchants, lifeguards, poets, carpenters, mothers, daughters) pronounce absurd explanations to both common and uncommon occurrences in a tone that is part cautionary tale, part creation myth and part urban legend: how fog was responsible for marriages, and for in-laws; why running, suburbs and chairs were invented; what happens when you smoke the exhaust from a pride of children pretending to be lions. All the while, the anthropomorphized ocean nibbles hungrily at the shoreline of our understanding,refusing to explain its moods and winning every staring contest. “I wrote these poems,” comments Goyette, “because I know very little about the ocean and yet rely on it like a mirror, a compass.” In Ocean, Goyette demonstrates how a spirited, playful and richly mythopoetic engagement with the world can actually strengthen our grasp on its bigger truths.

    In a few days time the attacks become a massacre and all life on Earth moves toward a single purpose: the culling of the human race. "When Mother Nature's angry, she's a bitch! Fauna will have you gripping the edge of your seat from the first page to the last. This is a non-stop eco-thriller and cautionary tale that will leave you looking at your pets with a different eye. This is also the best book I've read all year! Read it now! But maybe lock the doors and windows first." --John Everson, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant and Redemption "We should have known that decades of messing with Nature would come back to bite us -- with a vengeance... In David Benton's exciting, realistic thriller FAUNA our world has finally decided we're the problem, and it's had enough of us. How would we cope if our apocalypse had fangs and four legs and didn't shamble at all? Reminiscent of Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's "The Birds" in approach, FAUNA will raise your neck hairs and chill you to the bone." --W.D. Gagliani, author of Savage Nights and the Nick Lupo Series "The animal kingdom runs amok in David Benton's wildly entertaining Fauna. Exciting, action-packed and disturbing in all the right ways, this man-versus-beast saga gallops at a fierce pace with bloodthirsty menace. Benton's scenes unfold with a cinematic crispness and intensity that keeps the pages turning. This book will leave bite marks!" --Brian Pinkerton, author of Anatomy of Evil "In Fauna, David Benton takes you on a globe-circling thrill ride through a gone-crazy world where the animals have taken charge and want revenge. It's equal parts fantastic escapism and white-knuckle horror--a riveting read from the first page that touches on many of the ways humankind uses things and takes them for granted." --Christian Larsen, author of The Blackening of Flesh and Losing Touch