National Network for Equitable Library Service

Shifting across three countries, The Deserters explores themes of trust, isolation, abandonment, and emotional disconnection in a world dramatically altered by the experience of war. Eugenie is trying-and mostly failing-to restore an inherited old farm in New Brunswick while her husband, a master carpenter, is away in Spain. The work involved overwhelms her, so she hires Dean to help bring the farm back to working order.

When her house in the Jamaican countryside is damaged by a hurricane, Gertrude Samphire is sent (by her estranged daughter Celia) to Ellesmere Lodge, an assisted living centre. Gertrude is unimpressed with her new wealthy neighbours, and spends most of her time alone. It is only through writing that she finds her voice, and she begins to record her life in a notebook: memories of her gothic childhood, impetuous marriage, and struggles with raising a family.

When a note placed in a delivered lunch tin (a tiffin) is lost Kunal is seperated from his mother and ends up living as a slave. While learning to deliver tiffins with the help of an old friend Kunal hatches a plant that could reunite him with his mother and a better life.

Ivy’s seemingly perfect, master-of-social-causes boyfriend breaks it off in the school hallway before their final exam. So much for love. It turns out Jeremy wants to get good and laid by someone new over summer vacation, before they both head off to different universities in the fall. At her grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday party, Ivy is in no mood to socialize. In fact, she’s downright delicate. Unfortunately, sixteen-year-old Lucan’s peanut allergy reaction happens right in front of her eyes.

When Mira Acharya's father dies, the challenges facing her Indo-Canadian family become that much more daunting. Ravi, her autistic older brother, requires special care but longs to be just like other children. Their mother must work full time to keep a roof over their heads and still make time to be a parent to an over-achiever and a developmentally challenged child. As much as Mira loves her mother and brother, she resents the situations in which living with them places her.

Fifteen-year-old Gemma's life on a small New Brunswick island with her father, Jonah, is not an exciting one. Her mother ran off when she was an infant, and Jonah, an amateur scientist, spends most of his time conducting experiments he thinks will one day bring him fame. But when a woman arrives on the island, Gemma tries to play matchmaker--only to discover Jonah's secret journals, which hold terrifying secrets about both their lives.

Sons and Fathers is a novel about men. It tells the story of how three men use their talent to help and hurt each other - and compete with the accomplishments of their fathers.Three friends, three sons, each with a talent for words he learned from his father. Eli, Michael, and Allan were friends at McGill, and their lives continue to intersect as they make their ways in the shadow of the Peace Tower in Ottawa.

At thirteen, bookish Veronica Reid lives in a world inside her head, even if she isn't entirely successful at resisting the intrusions of the world outside. It's bad enough that she has to wear awful new glasses; it's downright disastrous that she'll have to spend the summer at Laughing Willows Trailer Park with her obnoxious younger brothers and unhappy mother. She can't imagine anything worse.

The Girl Who Stole Everything is the story of a mother and daughter in the Polish countryside, and a father and son on Vancouver's downtown east side. In these old and new worlds a mystery lurks. In Poland, a house stands empty on a village square seventy-five years after its owners were killed. In Vancouver, the aftermath of a murder in an east side pawn shop overturns the life of the victim's niece.

The second novel by award-winning novelist Jennifer Quist is a black comedy of birth, death, love, marriage, mothers-in-law, and five sassy sisters. When Suzanne's role as the perfect daughter-in-law ends in a deadly accident, she panics, makes a monumentally bad decision, and upends her world. The bond with her sisters is the strongest force Suzanne knows, and it may be the one that can keep her from ruin.