National Network for Equitable Library Service

A debut novel by acclaimed poet Lisa Robertson, in which a poet realizes she has written the works of Baudelaire. One morning, the poet Hazel Brown wakes up in a strange hotel room to find that she's written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. Surprising as this may be, it's no more surprising to Brown than the impossible journey she's taken to become the writer that she is.

One Friday, Vancouver lawyer Paul Brenner has dinner with his son, Daniel. They talk about work, health, money, and music, and part ways. The following evening, Paul receives the phone call that is every parent's worst nightmare: Daniel has been killed in Stanley Park. 'Hold Me Now' is an unflinching portrayal of a father's grief, as Paul learns how very different the new world -- a world without his son -- will be for him. The investigation of Daniel's murder, the trial, and the sentencing of the killer test Paul's faith in the legal system.

A compelling, haunting novel about a man experiencing gaps in time, and the pain of living with mental illness. Felix wakes up one day to find himself with a girlfriend he doesn't recognize, a life together that is unfamiliar. A novel, with his name on the cover, that he doesn't remember writing. He's been losing time since university. Sometimes these gaps are minutes, sometimes months. But now he begins experiencing flashbacks--revisiting moments from his past--and moments where he gets a glimpse of an unsettling future. He will do anything necessary to keep the people he loves safe ...

Set in an unnamed Pakistani city shortly after Partition, the lives of Ustad Ramzi, one of the greatest wrestlers of the land, who is now old and warmed only by the memories of his past, and the equally renowned Gohar Jan, a courtesan whose kotha once welcomed lords of the land but is now in danger of being shut down, unravel.

A'isha Nasir is a Nigerian teenager who has been charged with adultery. She is sentenced to death by stoning--a sentence to be carried out after her daughter is weaned. Sophie MacNeil is an ambitious, though inexperienced, Canadian journalist living in Nigeria. Speechless is the story of how their lives become intertwined in a fast-paced tale of justice, witness, and courage. Speechless offers a thoughtful and complex view of how stories are told. Who should tell a story? What happens when one speaks on behalf of another?

Grief cannot abide a mystery. No one understands that better than the Clareys of Halifax, a close and loving family whose lives are transformed one night in 1937 when Edie, their wilful daughter and sister, vanishes, leaving no trace, no clue, as to what happened to her. The lingering question of her disappearance will ricochet through succeeding generations of Clareys.

In the spring of 1964, troubled teenager Cookie Blue is found dead in the Red River. Blue Vengeance follows her younger brother Danny and Cookie's friend Janine through a lazy Winnipeg summer, as they plot to kill the despised teacher they blame for Cookie's death.

How to survive the unthinkable? This is the question nine-year-old Tom has to face after witnessing his father kill his mother and then turn the gun on himself. After the horrific event, Tom refuses to speak. At first, he moves in with his childless Aunt Sonya, but she is ill equipped to deal with the traumatized boy. Before long, Tom is forced to move again, this time to downtown Toronto, where he shares a rundown house with his mercurial Aunt Rose and his reckless yet endearing Uncle Will. Claremont is a gripping story of survival.

Matthew Reilly is a lonely priest haunted by secrets. Young Alison is the shy and devoted keeper of Daisy, a falcon that suffered an accident and can no longer fly. When they meet in a Boston parish, Matt tells Alison about the day a decade ago when he missed the plane out of Logan Airport that tore into one of the Twin Towers. What he hasn't told her is that among the victims was a son that no one knew he'd fathered. With no confidantes and close to exhaustion, Matt suffers a heart attack, forcing him to reflect on what's become of his life.

Under the sway of a charismatic stranger, five friends at an isolated lakeside cottage find their idyll unravelling, leaving two of them -- Lydia Eadon and Dorian Grant -- trapped in an explosion of violence that shatters their young lives and propels them past the borders of conventional morality. Forty years later when a body is unearthed from the scene of their revels, Lydia -- a book editor in San Francisco -- and Dorian -- a vagabond actor -- are plunged into a terrible reckoning with the past.