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Winner of the 2003 Ann Connor Brimer Award, short-listed for the 2004 White Pine Award Martin Emerson’s family, friends, and even his therapist have trouble figuring him out. He never showed much of a reaction to the death of his mother, and his behaviour of late has been getting more and more bizarre. And yet, his website – Emerso.com – has made him something of a cult figure to followers who believe that, if not having all the right answers, "Emerso" at least has all the right questions.

From the author of The Winter Palace comes Eve Stachniak’s first novel about the discovery of secrets and lies that stitch together empires and individual lives. Winner of the 2000 Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Prize Necessary Lies tells the story of the discovery of secrets and lies that stitch together empires and individual lives. What are the lies we tell ourselves and others that get us through our lives? In the summer of 1981 Anna is suddenly offered the opportunity to study English at McGill University in Montreal.

Memoria tells the seemingly ordinary story of a woman overwhelmed by grief when her lover abandons her. The loss opens an old wound: some 20 years ago Emma’s teenage sister vanished without a trace. Soon Emma will meet another man, but the return to joy is painfully slow. Rarely has the loss of love, as well as the subtle dislocation of a family hit by tragedy, been evoked more poignantly than in this luminous novel.

In a brief, panicked moment, Rick mistakes the kindness of an apparent stranger for a threatening act, and inadvertently commits murder. He flees the scene, and tries to keep secret from his family the unfortunate event that has occurred. Little does he know that not only has he killed an innocent man, but the man is the son of Annie, with whom Rick had an intense relationship in his youth. As Rick and Annie struggle to come to terms with the tragedy, each recalls the life they once led, and pines for a life that never was.

Circumstances force Dag, a young snowboarder, to give up his sport and to find another way to live. He embarks on two paths, the first a subsistence job as a barista in a coffee mega-chain, where he works hard to be a worker extraordinaire. He also invents an online alter ego who pronounces his own brand of wisdom and rant, expressing what Dag can’t in his role of coffee slave. Dag doesn’t know who he is any more. Crapped out of his sport. Can do no right by his best friend. Can do no wrong by his girl roommate. Pursued by the corporate paranoia of his coffee overlords.

Sara has the perfect career: as a photographer for a glossy travel magazine, she is able to pursue her passion for photography while at the same time appeasing her mother, who wants her to have a "real job." But Sara's ideal world comes crashing down when she is diagnosed with macular degeneration. As her vision begins to deteriorate, she faces the devastating prospect of having to give up both her career and her passion. Hoping to avoid surgery, Sara is introduced to Sitara - an acupuncturist troubled by doubts and family scars.

A mute Mayan girl held captive in a crate in the Guatemalan jungle, a big-city psychoanalyst with a rescue complex, and a journalist with a broken heart are the characters in Sheila Dalton’s second literary novel. Caitlin Shaughnessy, a Canadian journalist, discovers that Inez, a traumatized young Mayan woman originally from Guatemala, has killed Caitlin’s psychoanalyst partner, Dr. Jerry Simpson. Simpson brought the girl, who may be autistic, back to Canada as an act of mercy and to attempt to treat her obvious trauma.

Christian McPherson’s exciting new novel is a portrait of a woman coming unglued after devastating events send her spiraling out of control. Between popping pills and drinking vodka, Julie Cooper tries her best to do what she has always done: carry on. But when the line between what is real and what is imaginary becomes blurred, a psychotic breakdown lands her in a mental hospital. She desperately needs to get out if she has any hope of saving herself.

Inspired by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s philosophical thought experiment “The Violinist,” What Happened to Tom?  is a psychological and philosophical thriller, a horror story that any one of millions of people could, at any moment, experience. Tom, like many men, assumes that since pregnancy is a natural part of being a woman, it’s no big deal: a woman finds herself pregnant, she does or does not go through with it, end of story. But then Tom wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine.

On the cusp of the Depression, Sheilagh Driscoll of isolated Rennie’s Bay nearly dies while giving birth prematurely to baby Leah. Sheilagh is attended by a traditional Mi’kmaq midwife, Mrs. Mary, as well as by Leah Clarke, a nurse-midwife from England. Baby Leah Mary survives but develops serious asthma, which requires treatment throughout her childhood. Traumatized by the birth and her daughter’s chronic illness, Sheilagh learns about age-old ways of preventing pregnancy.