National Network for Equitable Library Service

First published in 1933, The Master of Jalna is Renny Whiteoak, who owns the old house and property. After the death of Grandmother Adeline, Renny attempts to carry on the family tradition. He and his wife Alayne have a daughter named Adeline, who has inherited her namesake’s red hair, strong will, and fierce temper. While Alayne is preoccupied trying to tame this wild, red-headed child, Renny has a love affair with Claire, the widow of his best friend. The whole Whiteoak family is back at Jalna, and Renny looks after everyone, including Claire and her daughter.

Sarah Martin isn’t the only outsider in her small Muskoka town. But when she’s teamed up with Byron Hopper for a geometry project, she discovers that she’s had an easier time being accepted in her new town than some long-time residents. Byron’s family has long been the subject of rumours. Some say that they are a mob family, some say they are part of a witness relocation program, some say they are just plain weird. But the most sinister rumour surrounds Byron’s sister, Garnet, who many believed committed murder.

Charlie Slater is sixty - the age limit for active police work. Lately, he’s been a glorified receptionist for the deputy chief. But then a Toronto lawyer is murdered, and the prime suspect is a prostitute in a pair of silver boots.The case doesn’t ignite any interest until high-powered lawyer Calvin Gregson shows up, supposedly on Flora’s behalf, insisting the police solve the case quietly. Deputy Mackenzie figures the assignment will keep Salter temporarily occupied, and puts him on the case with a young Scotsman new to the force and city.Salter is thrilled.

Short-listed for the 2009 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel Christine Morris is awakened early on a chill November morning by a phone call from one of her colleagues, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Leo Forgach. His daughter, Deirdre, is missing. Despite the fact that she and the doctor have never seen eye to eye, Christine agrees to help him search for Deirdre – only to discover her brutally strangled body in the lake. Heartbroken, Leo tells Christine that his daughter was deaf and had recently given birth to a child she had deliberately ensured would be deaf.

Fifteen-year-old Garnet Walcott is lonely and has a hard time making new friends when she moves to Kitchener, Ontario. Her mother, already preoccupied with work, has begun a search for a father she never knew. By chance, Garnet meets and befriends Elizabeth Tate, an elderly widow who tells Garnet that a priceless set of heirloom jewels dating back to Russian nobility may be hidden in her Victorian home. Elizabeth shows Garnet an intriguing portrait of her late mother-in-law, Sofia Tate, wearing sapphires and diamonds.

Joe Barley, full-time English professor and part-time private detective, is given a simple case: to track Jason Tyler and find proof of his adultery. But as he’s investigating, Barley stumbles across the story of a missing manuscript containing writings by a young Ernest Hemingway. What is Tyler’s connection to the Hemingway papers? And why does Tyler’s wife insist that Barley stay on the case, long after he’s come up with the required evidence of Tyler’s infidelity?

Short-listed for the 2004 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel After her marriage breaks down, shy schoolteacher Blithe Morrison takes refuge for the summer with her parents in the affluent Toronto neighbourhood of Rose Park. Blithe’s return home evokes memories of her lifelong sibling war with Noel, her golden-boy older brother, now a diplomat posted in England. But when Blithe befriends a lonely 11-year-old girl and takes on a local history project, she uncovers truths about a long-rumoured buried treasure that forever alter her perceptions of her family, her friends, and herself.

Short-listed for the 1990 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award Moving to Soda Creek, a former Gold Rush boomtown in the Cariboo region of interior British Columbia, Kelly Linden and her father try to begin their lives again after a tragic family accident.

Short-listed for the 1997 Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice On the run from the authorities and the angry townspeople of Weasel City, British Columbia, in the early 1940s, teenage Loretta and her younger brother, Teddy, travel with their gambling stepfather, "Bean-Trap" Braden, as he strikes out in search of a good poker game in the Canadian and American West. Loretta and Teddy try to adjust to life on the run as they shuttle from ghost town to ghost town, jumping borders and stowing away on trucks, sleds, and trains.

Run by Karen Morton, the eccentric, sex-fantasy-prone mother in a hilarious yet deeply troubled dysfunctional family in North Vancouver, the Footstop Cafe is a place to put your feet up near the beautiful but tragedy-plagued Lynn Canyon and its vertigo-inspiring footbridge. The canyon and the cafe serve as the nexus around which Karen's universe revolves. Things happen here. Amazing things.