National Network for Equitable Library Service

It's 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together-though they have little idea how to create such a life. Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped, and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes.

Tessa comes of age as the advent of Independence in a small British Caribbean island disturbs the status quo and establishes a new class and race hierarchy in a country that historically was a polyglot nation.

La Brigantessa is based on true events in the aftermath of Italy's 1861 Unification, a turbulent period known as "The Decade of Fire" (1860-1870), when scores of brigands rebelled against the harsh policies imposed by the new government, which in turn ordered the destruction of these outlaws and anyone harbouring them. Gabriella Falcone is a peasant girl who works for Don Simone, the parish priest. She is forced to flee her hamlet of Camini in 1862 after stabbing Alfonso Fantin, a wealthy landowner who sexually assaulted her.

It is The War to End All Wars, and Ena Connelly, a keenly sensory and extraordinary woman, is newly married and living on an Ontario farm. The shock of violence in far-off battlefields is echoed in a terror much closer to hand. With bold perception and remarkable self-reliance, Ena faces a dramatically altered world. Ena is self-contained, and careful not to reach too far into the turbulent emotional lives of others. As the war progresses, Ena forms a fierce bond of loyalty for Blain, the delightful but (necessarily) duplicitous boy who comes to work for her.

Almost True is the story of an extraordinary friendship among four women living in a small village in Burgundy during World War II. Madeleine, the eccentric village beauty, is a spinner of stories and dreams. Léa, the doctor's daughter, is brave and resourceful. Simone, the outsider from Paris, has a secret of her own to hide, and the hardworking and practical Eugénie struggles to keep her vineyard alive. When Eugénie's younger brother, the reckless and handsome Gaston, is suddenly missing, the village buzzes with rumour.

The novel revolves around the forced sale of a painting in Nazi-occupied Vienna. Zoltan Nagy, the legitimate heir, is pressured by his daughter to go to court and recoup his parents' possessions. But Zoltan is in love with the present owner of the painting. What if winning the court case means losing her? And thereby hangs a tale with several twists and turns: secrets, assumptions and slippery identities are the ingredients the author has used to create a page-turner. Zoltan's daughter, Cereta, claims the painting was sold under duress.

In Shakespeare's time, women were not allowed to appear on stage, and so female parts were played by boy actors. In I Was Cleopatra, readers meet John Rice - perhaps the most beautiful and acclaimed boy actor of them all. It is believed by many that John Rice originated the roles of Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and Cordelia, and this fictional memoir explores his life both on and off the stage.

Winner, Roehampton Poetry Prize, Finalist, Man Booker Prize, Finalist, Goldsmiths Prize. Walker is a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder; he can't return home to rural Nova Scotia, and looks instead to the city for freedom, anonymity, and repair. As he finds his way from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco, we witness a crucial period of fracture in American history, one that also allowed film noir to flourish. The Dream had gone sour but - as those dark, classic movies made clear - the country needed outsiders to study and dramatize its new anxieties.

The fourth book in what the Globe and Mail has proclaimed "a terrific series" by "a writer to watch." Summer descends over the picturesque King's Cove as Darling and Lane's mutual affection blossoms. But their respite from solving crime is cut short when a British government official arrives in Nelson to compel Darling to return to England for questioning about the death of a rear gunner under his command in 1943. In Darling's absence, Ames oversees the investigation into the suspicious death of a local elderly woman and uncovers a painful betrayal inflicted forty years earlier.

In 1808, the Russian Ship St. Nikolai ran aground off the Olympic Peninsula; this novel is based on this astounding historical event and the lives of the people affected. In 1808, eighteen-year-old Anna Petrovna Bulygina is aboard the Russian ship St. Nikolai when it runs aground off on the west coast of Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. The crew, tasked with trading for sea otter pelts and exploring the coast, are forced to shore into Indigenous territory, where they are captured, enslaved, and then traded among three different Indigenous communities.