One for the Rock


Kevin Major - 2018
    But when he leads a group of tourists along the cliffs of St. John's harbour, one of them ends up dead. Not only is there a murderer in his tour group, but the cop assigned to the case is sleeping with Sebastian's ex-wife. It seems like things can't get any worse, but as he's enlisted to help flush out the perpetrator, the trail leads deeper than expected, and Sebastian finds himself on the edge.

Right Away Monday


Joel Thomas Hynes - 2007
    He spends just as much time scraping the bottom as he does being high as a kite and can’t seem to find middle ground. A hopelessly self-destructive and at times unforgivably brutal young man, Clayton is a sometimes bartender at the Awl and Hatchet with a bad attitude that elicits love and loathing in equal measure. Over the course of a write-off year, Clayton wrestles with the conflicting desires of wanting to matter to somebody and to care for no one, wanting to prove he’s different from the so-called wasters around him but not enough to say no to a pint. In the filthy bars, cold back alleys and soiled bedrooms of downtown St. John’s that Clayton inhabits, we spend a debauched year with him as he drinks and dreams, fights and fails, screws and screws up. He lives his life as an eternal weekend, sure he can stop any time and accomplish great things. But then Clayton meets Isadora, who stirs something real and achingly human underneath the swagger, sending him on the bender of his life.Right Away Monday is a stormy novel of unlikely beauty, peopled by unforgettable characters—including one Valentine Reid, Clayton’s burnt-out and battered rocker uncle; the lovely though world-weary Monica; and the shrewd Mike Quinn, slum landlord and owner of the Awl and Hatchet. Unnervingly authentic, these are the constituents of a world grown weary and wasted, with a new generation stumbling blindly behind. But oblivion is only skin deep. Beneath the wreckage of youthful distraction lie the vast and abiding questions that haunt our quietest moments—questions of destiny, fate, mortality and of our connections to one another. Ushering the chaos and uncertainty of this dark bar-room universe into the bright intensity of Hynes’ unflinching gaze, Right Away Monday will grab you by the throat and not let you go.

Something for Everyone


Lisa Moore - 2018
    Taking us from the Fjord of Eternity to the streets of St. John’s and the swamps of Orlando, these stories show us the timeless, the tragic, and the miraculous hidden in the underbelly of our everyday lives. A missing rock god may have jumped a cruise ship — in the Arctic. A grieving young woman may live next to a serial rapist. A man’s last day on earth replays in the minds of others in a furiously sensual, heartrending fugue. Something for Everyone is Moore at the peak of her prowess — she seems bent on nothing less than rewiring the circuitry of the short story itself.

Barrelling Forward


Eva Crocker - 2017
    What happens when the man interviewing you for a job takes you on a date to see a hypnotist? How do you get rid of a psychosomatic case of bedbugs? What’s the best way to get rid of a beaver dam? How do you tell someone you just started seeing that you didn’t know you had scabies when you hooked up? In the Cuffer Prize–winning story, “Skin and Mud,” two boys have an intimate encounter as they wander through the barrens one day after school.Barrelling Forward is packed with unforgettable characters, vibrant humour, and acute insight into the overwhelming anxieties of new adults living their lives in the midst of a crumbling old economy.

House of Hate


Percy Janes - 1992
    Set in the stark, confining atmosphere of a Newfoundland milltown, this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of the Stone family-caught in relentless poverty and tyranized by Saul Stone, an illiterate man whose primitive fury warps and twists his wife and children. A brilliant portrayal of existence bereft of tende ess, House of Hate is a Tale of human ordeal and of an anguished striving for love in the midst of bitte ess. It is, as Farley Mowet has observed, a book unique in Canadian Literature. Percy Janes is a Canadian author who was raised in Newfoundland and retu ed there to live after extended travels in Europe.

The Story of Bobby O'Malley


Wayne Johnston - 1985
    His memories cluster around the houses they lived in, the schools he went to, the uncles and aunts and cousins he knew as a boy. This is an extremely funny book and the account of how Ted O'Malley repaired the plumbing is likely to become a classic of its kind. It is also a warm and touching book. As a picture of its time, it is clear, true and absolutely unforgettable

Flesh & Blood: Stories


Michael Crummey - 1998
    Set largely in the small Newfoundland mining town of Black Rock, but straying as far west as Vancouver and as far east as China, these stories are subtle, stark portrayals of people alternately looking for or trying desperately to escape their place in the world.A young boy confuses love and allegiance, then stumbles into the complexities of adulthood; a brother and sister fall in love with the same woman; a frustrated wife protests her husband’s neglect by going on strike with the miners’ union; a lover’s drug habit reunites a woman with the sister she has lost.Anchor Books is proud to publish an expanded edition of Michael Crummey’s brilliant collection Flesh and Blood, which includes three original stories written just for this edition. Graceful, affecting, and generous of spirit, these stories are unforgettable.

Crying for the Moon


Mary Walsh - 2017
    John’s, Maureen is the second-youngest daughter of a bitter and angry mother and a beaten-down father who tells the best stories (but only when he’s drunk). If life at home is difficult, then school is torture, with the nuns watching every move she makes. But Maureen wants a bigger life. She wants to go to sexy, exciting Montreal and be part of Expo 67, even if it means faking her way into the school choir.Finally achieving her goal of reaching Montreal, Maureen escapes the vigilant eye of Sister Imobilis and sneaks away, and over the course of a few hours, one humiliating encounter with a young Leonard Cohen and a series of breathtakingly bad decisions change the course of her life forever.A riotous and heart-rending journey from St. John’s to Montreal and back, Mary Walsh’s dazzling debut novel is darkly hilarious but also paints a very real portrait of the challenges of being young and female and poor in 1960s Newfoundland. Crying for the Moon explores the many ways in which one day can reverberate through a lifetime.

Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club


Megan Gail Coles - 2019
    Iris, a young hostess, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Meanwhile Olive, a young woman far from her northern home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street.Through rolling blackouts, we glimpse the truth behind the shroud of scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and discover that resilience proves most enduring in the dead of this winter’s tale.

This All Happened


Michael Winter - 2000
    Gabriel's passion for Lydia Murphy leads him into paroxysms of jealousy-but he never abandons his shrewdly witty perspective on the vagaries of modern love. Concrete and delicately rendered, This All Happened depicts a man's descent from love to fury.About the Author:Michael Winter was born in England and grew up in Newfoundland. He now divides his time between St. John's and Toronto.

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

The Sudden Weight of Snow


Laisha Rosnau - 2002
    Seventeen-year-old Sylvia (Harper) Kostak is caught between her mother’s regrets and the strictures of small-town life in the interior of British Columbia. When Harper meets Gabe, an intense and enigmatic young man living on the ’60s-style arts commune outside of town, she is transfixed. Gradually we learn Gabe’s story and what led him to join his estranged mother on the commune, where, in a bid for freedom, Harper eventually finds herself, setting in motion a series of events leading to tragedy. Resonant with longing and a sense of isolation, the novel brings alive the agonies and ecstasies of growing up, sexual discovery, and how the need to belong can shape both decisions and destinies.Author Biography: Laisha Rosnau was born in Pointe Claire, Quebec, and grew up in Vernon, British Columbia. She has worked as a child-care worker, a landscaper, a waitress, a fruit picker, an interpretive guide, a journalist, and an editor. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she was the Executive Editor of PRISM international. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The Sudden Weight of Snow is her first novel. Laisha Rosnau lives in Vancouver, where she is at work on a collection of poetry and on her second novel.

Lear's Shadow


Claire Holden Rothman - 2018
    When the opportunity to work for an outdoor production of King Lear arises, she grabs it despite her utter lack of theatre experience.Things get off to a rocky start when Bea learns the artistic director, Arthur White, is a childhood friend whose presence stirs up painful memories. Then she inadvertently sparks the lascivious attentions of the aging star of the play and alienates the stage director, who happens to be his former wife. As Bea learns the ropes of her new role, her beloved but demanding father begins behaving erratically and losing himself in forgetfulness and her younger sister Cara reveals cracks in the foundation of her apparently perfect life as a devoted mother and co-owner, with her charismatic husband, of a successful raw foods restaurant.The sisters do their best to care for their father, but his deteriorating condition soon exceeds what either can handle. To make matters worse, the star of Lear is also faltering amidst the confusions of age, illness, and regret over transgressions from his past. In a masterful scene of raucous celebration whirling out of control, the various forces in Bea's life collide in a shocking act that could destroy more than one life--or reveal how those lives might come together in new and stronger ways.Tender, vivid, and powerful, Lear's Shadow is a richly satisfying exploration of how the ties of love can both bind and liberate us, and of how, even in the face of grief, we can embrace life.

We, Jane


Aimee Wall - 2021
    It's back home, and it goes by the name of Jane.

Marthe travels back to a small town on the island with the older woman to continue the work of an underground movement in 60s Chicago: abortion services performed by women, always referred to as Jane. She commits to learning how to continue this legacy and protect such essential knowledge. But the nobility of her task and the reality of small-town, rural life compete, and personal fractures in the small movement become clear.

We, Jane probes the importance of care work by women for women. It underscores the complexity of relationships in close circles, and beautifully captures the inevitable heartache of understanding home. From a celebrated translator of cutting-edge fiction, this is Red Clocks meets Women Talking; a quiet, compelling novel about the magnitude of women's friendships and connection—individually and across eras.

Women Talking


Miriam Toews - 2018
    For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.