National Network for Equitable Library Service

Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, These Good Hands), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity. In "The Race," a war bride's remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in "Burning Times," while they struggle to keep track of one another, both physically and emotionally, on an Italian vacation.

It's 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The First World War is raging, and despite its distance from the conflict, the Halifax Harbour is bustling with activity. Anti-German prejudice is rampant, and though 12-year-old Maddie Schroeder and her 15-year-old brother Will are still mourning the loss of their father, who died in a mysterious boating accident just six months before, his German heritage doesn't merit them much sympathy. The rumours he'd been a German spy are only flamed by his disappearance.

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and selected as an Oprah's Book Club Summer Reading Pick, an Amazon.ca Best Book, and an iTunes Store Best Book When Grace, a highly competent and devoted therapist in Montreal, stumbles across a man in the snowy woods who has failed to hang himself, her instinct to help immediately kicks in. Before long, however, she realizes that her feelings for this charismatic, extremely guarded stranger are far from straightforward.

Winner of Canada Reads 2013 and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O'Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns on the rig. It begins in the present-day, more than twenty-five years later, but spirals back again and again to the "February" that persists in Helen's mind and heart.

Winner of the Quebec Writers' Federation Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize In the Carnival city there are two types of taxi drivers -- the spiders and the flies. The spiders patiently sit in their cars and wait for the calls to come. But the flies are wanderers - they roam the streets, looking for the raised hands of passengers among life's perpetual flux. Fly is a wanderer and a knower.

Vital, funny, moving and assured, La Guerre, Yes Sir! is a surrealist fable set in rural Quebec during WWI and one of the major achievements in Canadian fiction. Canadian Literature greeted its first appearance in these terms: It is the French-Canadian writer Roch Carrier who comes closest to the significance, power and artistry of Faulkner at his best . . . . He might well be able to do for French Canada what Faulkner did for the American South.

When a retired actor who frequents a city park is purported to be transitioning from man to deer, municipal authorities in St. John’s, Newfoundland, find themselves confronted by an exasperatingly difficult problem.Complications mount as advocates, bureaucrats, police, and local politicians try to corral the situation, which escalates into an even bigger problem after the story blows up on Facebook. Leading the charge is the mayor himself.

La Guerre Yes Sir! is the first book in a trilogy -- good news for readers who were delighted by Roch Carrier's first novel. In Floralie, Where Are You? he reaches back to the wedding night of the Corriveau parents. Once again a single night expands until it becomes a world in itself. But this time it is a very different concoction, mingling desire and guilt, nightmare and fantasy, as Anthymo drives Floralie back to his village through the forest. In Sheila Fischman's fluid translation, Floralie, Where Are You? sings with vivacity and grace.

In this coming-of-age story, Benjie Gabai is convinced he’s been the victim of a terrible cosmic hoax. Instead of being born in the 18th century as a French-Canadian voyageur, God has plunked him down in present-day Montreal, into a family that views his fur trade obsession as proof that their Benjie, once so bursting with promise, has well and truly lost it. Benjie serves out his days as caretaker of The Bay’s poky in-store fur trade museum, dusting and polishing the artifacts that fuel his imagination.

His psyche still reeling from having to kill a criminal in the line of duty, Calgary’s Detective Lane flies to Cuba to celebrate the wedding of his beloved niece. While there, though, he finds himself drafted by the local police into investigating the murder of a Canadian tourist. Upon his return to Calgary, links between this incident and the deaths of local elderly pensioners start to make themselves known, drawing Lane and his partner Nigel Li further into a web of conspiracy, politics and big money.