National Network for Equitable Library Service

Javier is fulfilling his parents' wishes by serving as a soldier in the Spanish army — a duty that will take the young swordsman far from his beloved home and family to a planned invasion of England. In France, his unit awaits the arrival of the Armada, and it is there, near the shore of the English Channel, that Javier meets Gaspard, a local merchant who has the face of an angel. Long ago, when he realized he would never truly love a woman, Javier resolved to remain celibate.

It is 1957, and Amal is an inmate of the “Bethlehem Oasis for Troubled Women,” having feigned insanity to avoid being put to death for the murder of her abusive husband. When attacked by a fellow inmate, Amal must confront her traumatic memories.

Rachel, a young Jewish woman from a small town in Russia, has made an incredible journey. Forced to leave her homeland because of the anti-Semitic violence that killed her father, she made her way across land and sea to find refuge in Shanghai, China where she not only survived but managed to establish herself as a newspaper writer ? no easy task for a woman at the turn of the 20th century. Now eighteen, Rachel remains separated from her sweetheart, Sergei, but she has finally realized her dream of coming to America.

In the mid-1800s, southern Alberta was dominated by the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Snake Woman, from the Blackfoot Blood tribe, was born into a life of respect and cooperation with the rhythm of the natural world, a rhythm that seems to be irreparably disrupted by the advance of European traders and settlers. Eleanor, newly transplanted to this promised land with her homesteading parents, was raised on the stories of her uncle, who told of a sky that goes forever and a wind that can blow your memories away.

The year Louisiana – Easy for short – meets Janis Joplin is the year everything changes. Easy is a car mechanic in her dad’s shop, but she can sing the blues like someone twice her age. So when she hears that Janis Joplin is passing through her small town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Easy is there with her heart - and her voice - in hand. It’s 1970 and Janis Joplin is an electrifying blues-rock singer at the height of her fame – and of her addictions. Yet she recognizes Easy’s talent and asks her to meet her in Texas to sing. So Easy begins an unusual journey that will change everything.

Six girls just out of high school live together during the summer of 1943 on a farm as part of the Farm Services - doing the work of the men who are off fighting the war in Europe. We follow the stories of Helene, who sends her wages home to support her single mother; Peggy, a flirt with a secret she must keep; Binxie, whose rich family doesn't approve of her; Isabel, who pines for her fiance off fighting in Europe; and Jean, whose family farm has been taken over by the "farmerettes", as they were known.

The Trillium Award-winning autobiographical novel "La mauvaise mere" by Marguerite Andersen is now in English. Prolific author Marguerite Andersen traces the important moments of her life in this honest and harrowing examination of motherhood. She gives an unflinching account of her relationship with her three children and her years spent following her caprices and lovers, trying to regain the agency she lost when she became a mother. Born in Germany, Andersen was fifteen years old when World War II began.

Rachel is a Jew living in Kishinev, Russia. At fourteen, she has dreams of being a writer. But everything is put on hold when a young Christian man is murdered and Rachel is forced to keep the murderer’s identity a secret. Tensions mount and Rachel watches as lies and anti-Jewish propaganda leap off the pages of the local newspaper, inciting Christians to riot against the Jews. Violence breaks out on Easter Sunday, 1903, and when it finally ends, Rachel finds that the person she loves most is dead and that her home has been destroyed.

Gladys Sage escaped the backwoods of Northern Ontario, leaving behind the body of her stepfather, to arrive in New York and the world of political revolutionaries. Hired to find her is Pinkerton detective James Kelly, a recent Irish immigrant mainly interested in easy money, drink, and women. Going undercover among the radical followers of Emma Goldman, James’ search for Gladdy becomes a passion that will affect the Kelly family for generations. Nawal Habib, James’ granddaughter, has reinvented herself as a devout Muslim.

In the summer of 1900 a meteorite lands on the day of Peg Staynor’s baptismal, barely missing the small church in rural Ontario. This, along with Peg’s almost colourless eyes, is enough to resurrect a local superstition that will haunt Peg and her family for years. Many believe Peg to be a “river child,” taken over by an evil spirit from the Magurvey river that winds its way through the town. Feared and shunned throughout her childhood, Peg is blamed for every misfortune, from drought to ailing livestock.