National Network for Equitable Library Service

Winner of the 2023 BC and Yukon Ethel Wilson Prize — Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize — National bestseller. An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of Canada’s most daring literary talents. An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.

The #1 national bestseller "Marvelous . . . viciously funny and acutely intelligent" (Maclean's), When We Lost Our Heads is the spellbinding story of two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At age twelve, with her pile of blond curls and unparalleled sense of whimsy, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, the affluent strip of nineteenth-century Montreal where powerful families live.

From the acclaimed author of Keeper’n Me and For Joshua, Dream Wheels is a vital and unsparing novel from one of the most fascinating voices in Canadian writing. Joe Willie Wolfchild is on the verge of becoming a World Champion rodeo cowboy when a legendary bull cripples him. At the same time, in the same city, Claire Hartley is brutally assaulted and her 14-year-old son, Aiden, is critically injured during a burglary. The young Ojibway-Sioux man, the Black single mother and her mixed-race son find their lives irrevocably changed.

The first book in bestselling author Kenneth Oppel's explosive new trilogy. It was just rain. But after the downpour, odd black plants begin to shoot up. Suddenly—They. Are. Everywhere. They take over fields and twine around houses. They bloom and throw off toxic pollen—and feed. Strangely, three Salt Spring Island teens seem immune. Anaya, Petra and Seth. What's their connection? What's their secret? A week ago, they wouldn't have thought they had one. But they'd better figure it out fast—the invasion has already begun.

Le radeau est l'histoire de six frères et sœurs qui se retrouvent à deux reprises autour d'un repas pour rattraper les longues années de silence et de séparation. Thomas, le benjamin de la famille, réunit ses frères et sœurs pour la Saint Jean-Baptiste – ainsi que pour leur montrer sa nouvelle maison dans le village de Saint-Raymond – région dont est originaire la famille. Malgré les apparences, les six frères et sœurs ont passé les années sans se connaître et chacun porte en lui un lourd secret.

On paper, Kitty's life is perfect. She lives in Montreal, so vibrant in the 1950s; she married her childhood sweetheart, who happens to also be a handsome movie star; and her detective novels, written under a plausibly male nom de plume, are bestsellers. But Kitty is suffocating under the truth of her life: Montreal feels chaotic and lonely without her mother, and with her father all but estranged. Her husband is a glib Lothario. And she never, ever wants to write another detective novel. When she says as much to her publishers, they panic. She's their golden goose.

Told in a completely distinctive and mesmerizing voice, Wan is the story of Jacqueline, a privileged artist in 1970s South Africa. After an anti-apartheid activist comes to hide in her garden house, Jacqueline's carefully constructed life begins to unravel.

A dystopian horror story about music and mental illness. Nat and her bandmates in The Dead Layaways want to go on tour, but the demonic entities who run their city have other ideas, not to mention the dark cloud that hangs over everything stifles their creativity. This ruined place is not their home, and they have no idea how they ended up here, or where "home" even is. Is there really nothing but endless wasteland beyond the city limits, as the demons claim?

A novel about fatherhood, grief, unanswerable questions, and the small, magical moments that make up life. Keith has always striven to break rules as he navigates full-time parenting and supports the career of his successful photographer wife. Her unexpected illness and death leaves both him and his son Charlie in bits. When they take a road trip, a journey begins that does not end when they return home. Keith must deal with revelations that complicate his grief, even as Charlie's response is unsettling. Together, father and son connect with loved ones, strangers, and each other.

The first collection of short stories from award-winning author Tim Bowling, exploring childhood, work, and aging. Set on the west coast of British Columbia and in Edmonton, the fifteen stories in this collection focus on moments of transformation: between parents and their children, between men and women, between humans and the natural world. In this collection that's every bit as thoughtful and masterful as his past work, Tim Bowling explores the passing of time and the (sometimes desperate) desire for meaning to return, with depth and flashes of humour.