National Network for Equitable Library Service

1684, en Nouvelle-France. Libertinage, meurtre, procès, emprisonnement, injustice... Marie Major, une jeune fille à l'esprit indépendant, jouit à Paris d'une vie simple, mais vibrante de culture, de liberté et surtout de livres, tout ce qu'on refuse aux femmes de l'époque. Puis vient le jour où les membres de sa famille, pour ne pas avoir à partager leur héritage avec cette fille « rebelle», la font enfermer à la Salpêtrière. C'est là, en effet, qu'on entasse les infirmes, les orphelines, les teigneuses, les criminelles, les hérétiques, les mendiantes, les démentes et aussi...

In the summer of 1930, fifteen-year-old Matthew Clayton's mother dies, leaving him alone in Vancouver. Using the Union Steamship ticket she gave him, he sets out in search of his father, who is logging somewhere on the rugged West Coast. Matt boards the SS Cardena and begins an incredible voyage up the Inside Passage and through the isolated coastal communities the ship services. On board he befriends fellow passengers Monica James and the high rigger Will Cameron, both intent on finding a new life, and Emily Carr, a soon-to-be-famous painter searching for a new direction in her art.

In the spring of 1884, Jack, an adventurous young man, packs his bags in Victoria, BC, and heads for the prairies, looking for a new life and hoping to get involved in an Indian war. Instead, he lucks into an exciting job in the fur trade and meets and befriends many of the great chiefs of the Cree nation, such as Poundmaker and Big Bear, and ends up between a bullet and a target when the North-West Rebellion erupts.

A military thriller set on a submarine during the Cold War. The year is 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis is brewing. Naval lieutenant Ted Hawkins is sent to sea aboard the HMCS Alert. The submarine’s mission is to shadow an aggressive Soviet submarine. Hampered by claustrophobia caused by a trauma, Ted is forced to deal with both his fears and a superior, Alert's executive officer, who hates him. Terror on the Alert is an exciting thriller set on a submarine during the compelling Cold War era. Ted’s battle with his nemesis propels the action to a shattering conclusion.

Chief factor: In the Hudson’s Bay Company fur-trade monopoly, the title of chief factor was the highest rank given to commissioned officers, who were responsible for a major trading post and its surrounding district. Colonial Victoria in 1858 is an unruly mix of rowdy gold seekers and hustling immigrants caught in the upheaval of the fur trade giving way to the gold rush.

It is the spring of 1885 and the Northwest Rebellion has broken out. Amid the chaos of the Battle of Batoche, a grisly act leaves Reuben Wake dead. A Metis man is arrested for the crime, but he claims innocence. When Durrant Wallace, sergeant in the North West Mounted Police, begins his own investigation into the man’s possible motives, he learns there were many who wanted Wake dead. What Durrant uncovers is a series of covert conspiracies surrounding Metis leader and prophet Louis Riel.

A line of nervous young women got off a ship in Victoria Harbour in 1862 and had to walk the gauntlet between two rows of jostling, eager men. One girl, proposed to on the spot, accepted equally quickly and left town with her new husband. Why did these women leave everything behind in England and come to the west coast? The answers lie in the lusty turmoil of a gold-rush frontier, the horrible disruptions of industrial England and the conflicting aims of earnest Christians and early British feminists.

Jane Priddle, a proper young Englishwoman, has lived a sheltered, genteel life. In 1897, she is offered a life-changing opportunity: she will travel to Canada's northwest frontier to search for young Billie Thomm. Surviving in the gutters of London, England, Billie had acquired the cunning of someone twice his 15 years, but a moment of desperation and his connection to a messy death brought him to the Eastwood Mission Society. Before the law could catch up with him, he became a home child, one of thousands of orphans and beggars shipped to Canada to find better lives.

It’s the winter of 1884, and five hundred Canadian Pacific Rail workers have halted their push through the Rockies at Holt City, an isolated shantytown in the shadow of the Continental Divide. The men are tired and cold, and patience is as scarce as the rationed food. Then, Deek Penner, a CPR section boss, is brutally murdered at the end of the track. His body is found frozen on the banks of the Bow River. Durrant Wallace, a veteran of the celebrated March West by the North West Mounted Police a decade earlier, is returned to active duty to investigate the murder.

Zachary's Horses picks up where Zachary’s Gold left off and continues the adventures of Zachary Beddoes. It is 1870, and the ex-lawman is hiding out in the capital of colonial British Columbia, using the name Lincoln Zachary. He soon befriends a series of locals: a young woman with a mysterious background; a pair of young English gentlemen, who are travelling through the area; a manic, alcoholic notary from the Washington Territory; and a rich but unscrupulous local business family, who are organizing what they think will be the horse race of the decade.