National Network for Equitable Library Service

A single mother. An abandoned farmhouse. An epic battle with the northern wilderness. Broke and desperate, Molly Bannister accepts the ironclad condition laid down in her great-aunt’s will: to receive her inheritance, Molly must spend one year in an abandoned, off-the-grid farmhouse in the remote backwoods of northern Alberta. If she does, she will be able to sell the farm and fund her four-year-old daughter’s badly needed medical treatment. With grim determination, Molly teaches herself basic homesteading skills.

A daughter’s search for her mother reveals her family’s past in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her home in Toronto one luminous summer morning in the mid-1980s. Her daughter, Rita, knows her mother has a history of dissociation and memory problems, which have led her to wander off before. But never has she stayed away so long. Unconvinced the police are taking the case seriously, Rita begins to carry out her own investigation.

When her mom is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Jayce searches for her estranged father, hoping he can fix everything. Jayce Loewen has had to take on a lot of responsibility over the years. Her single mom works two jobs and long hours, leaving Jayce in charge of her four-year-old sister most of the time. When her mom is diagnosed with cancer, Jayce decides to track down her long-absent father in the hope that he will be able to make everything okay again. Looking for her dad was one thing, but when she actually finds him, Jayce is in for a real shock.

From the author of the bestselling Jalna series. Shaw Manifold is a born forester, of hardy stock. A fatherless boy of nine, he was brought up in the rugged environment of his grandfather’s farm, a lonely youngster in the midst of callous elders. His only ally was his mother, Cristabel, whose work removed her to a distant city.

From the author of the bestselling Jalna series! Writing in isolation was never trickier than in this full house. In this short but poignant tale, Mazo de la Roche tells the story of a small boy from an orphan home who has come to work for two sisters — Mrs Morton and Lydia Dove — who are, in old age, suffering greatly reduced circumstances. They have rented out half of their house to a writer, Lindley, who has sought out this isolated spot for the writing of a novel. However, the seclusion promised him is broken by strange and frightening events.

After generations of prosperity in the mining town of Brighton, Newfoundland, Jack and Angela McCarthy find themselves jobless. In order to keep his family together, Jack accepts a job in a gold mine in the wilds of northern Alberta. 2015 DEWEY DIVA PICK Arriving in Foxville, the McCarthys find themselves resented, bullied, and cast as outsiders. When Jack’s best friend, Peter, is swindled out of his savings and resorts to stealing from the mine, his attempts at reversing their fortunes thrust both families into even deeper torment.

Just as blue eyes or a birthmark may be passed down through the generations, so too are other, far less welcome traits, not all of them physical, but emotional. More in Anger is the poignant story of three generations of women and the emotional legacy that follows each of them throughout the years. In 1915, Opal King marries a man whose past steeped him in anger. Opal’s thwarted dreams, and her husband’s temper, reverberate and influence the life of their elder daughter Pearl.

As Cynthia ruminates on her changing circumstances, life forces her to take a look at those she calls family. A former literary notable, Cynthia Wilkes is looking down the barrel of an empty nest, an empty desk, and an endless supply of empty pages when an unlikely protégé comes calling, setting in motion a chain of events that will force Cynthia, and those closest to her, to redefine the idea of family and of self.

First published in 1935, Young Renny takes us even further back in the Whiteoak family saga to 1906. Renny, the young master of Jalna, is just eighteen. His twenty-year-old sister Meg is engaged to marry the young man next door, Maurice Vaughan Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest, now in their fifties, have squandered their inheritances abroad on high living and reside again at Jalna. But the plot thickens further, when two outsiders join the mix: A gypsy woman, who seduces Renny, and a distant cousin from Ireland, who befriends Gran, moves into Jalna, and spies on the family.

First published in 1958, Centenary at Jalna brings us to 1953 when the Whiteoaks gather to mark the 100th anniversary of their estate. It has now been a century since Captain Philip and Adeline Whiteoak arrived in Canada and built their legacy. While this should be a time of festivity for the clan, tension and discontent surround the forthcoming marriage of a new generations Adeline and Philip, grandchildren of the originals. To make matters worse, young Dennis risks tragedy and Wakefield finds himself in a doomed relationship.