National Network for Equitable Library Service

Cumberland is an industrial town located halfway between Ottawa and Montreal on the shore of the St. Lawrence River. It's facing the close of its factories and mills in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ernest, a mill worker whose job is lost when the mill closes, is fifty-two; his employment prospects are poor. His life to this point hasn't equipped him to face any more loss. Longing for companionship, he meets Bea, a waitress at Malouf's, the local pub.

In England in the spring of 1939, Clancy, an Australian nurse, waits with her infant daughter for news of her lover, who was a volunteer with the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. As she waits, Clancy shares with her daughter the story of her own childhood in the Australian bush and her disastrous marriage to an English archaeologist. When the Spanish Civil War erupted, Clancy volunteered on the Republican side. Her chance for happiness amid the chaos came when she met the young Canadian, Douglas Ross. She has not heard from him since the final desperate offensive.

What lurks in the shadow of the 99%? Montreal is gearing up for the World Economic Forum. On one side are those preparing to welcome the policymakers and moneylenders alike; on the other are groups ready to protest the evils of capitalism and globalization. Caught in the middle is Lee Atwater, who is tasked with investigating a string of bizarre incidents connected to the Economic Forum.

After more than twenty years, Mike Ward is back. Older and a lot wise, he's been sent by the Canadian wire service to cover the spoiled children and their controlling parents: the actors and producers of Hollywood. It's 1940. The war in Europe is well under way. The U.S. is uncertain of its role - and, if it participates, there are those in positions of power who think Germany is best to side wirh.

Dani Price returns to Toronto as an innocent victim of a powerful curse, the Evil Eye, after spending three weeks vacationing in Greece with her best friend, Kat. Now, the two girls have to discover how to lift the curse as bad luck spirals into danger.

Married woman Natha Cole works as a prostitute and eventually reconnects with her former client, bookstore owner, Jules Moore and becomes drawn to an auctioneer.

The artistic world of mid-16th Century Italy comes to life through the eyes of a piebald slave stolen from her home and family in Africa. Chiara, as she is eventually named, is sold to Paolo Pallavicino, an artist in service of Giuliano de Medici. When several unfortunate incidents occur, the artist's wife believes her to be a curse and demands that she be sent away. From this starting point, Chiara works her way from painter to painter, observing the games the artists play on each other and the rivalries that fuel their artistic creations.

Thirteen-year-old Harry Fieldstone and his friends start a Poets' Club at school, then Harry stumbles across a ring. He discovers the ring gives him different powers every day. Harry and the gang learn that the ring can be traced to ancient Rome. Now a centuries-old organization known as the Toga Gang is determined to take the ring for themselves.

When Jacob is called back to Advocate, he is not only returning home again, something he knows he cannot really do; he is going to face his dying grandmother and the people of the town who turned on one of their own. Twenty years earlier, when his uncle David came home, it was to die. The response in Advocate was typical of most towns, large and small, in 1984: when his disease became known, Jacob, his grandmother, his mother, and his aunt, were shunned, turned out from school and their jobs, out of fear of an until-then unknown virus.

This beautiful novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of A Casual Brutality and The Innocence of Age, joins politics and love in a powerful story set in both the Caribbean and Canada. Neil Bissoondath draws us with a startling grace of language into the lives of a mother and daughter whose worlds and dreams collide to release deeply buried secrets.