National Network for Equitable Library Service

Shannon Carew has a complicated relationship with history. Born a Newfoundler, she has spent years on the other side of the country in order to erase her past and set down new roots. But when an opportunity to work with Newfoundland and Labrador's archaeological sites appears, Shannon cannot resist and decides to return home. What awaits her is unexpected - for among the threads of history, and the tangles of her old life, is the chance to discover a new connection.--inside front cover.

Cary Fagan began his career writing short stories before moving on to novels as well as numerous books for children. Yet he has never given up his love for the story form. Here are ten new stories whose characters are funny, serious, peculiar, and absorbing -- as only Cary Fagan can write them.

"According to what we've been told, the source of all knowledge is somewhere just south of Sunset Boulevard. The problem is that Danny has lost the address." So begins Martyn Burke's tragi-comic novel of love and war. Danny, a Canadian sharp-shooter, and Hank, in the US Army, have been stationed in Kandahar, but they are in Los Angeles desperate to find the Hollywood psychic who will reveal the whereabouts of the women they love.

On a three-tiered stage in the Ontario countryside, the mellifluous voice of an auctioneer can induce grizzled farmers to buy broken shovels. His two sons help out with the business, but it's his strangely mute young daughter who seduces auction-goers with her elaborate vintage costumes. When she disappears, the younger brother - now a Montreal film professor - begins a lifelong search that ultimately leads him to the silent, experimental cinema of Molly O.

For the last five years, Ben Allan has successfully kept dromomania the peculiar male hysteria known as the mid-life crisis at bay, even writing an award-winning essay on the subject. But when his fifteen minutes of fame become a countdown to his fiftieth birthday, Ben begins to see his own life reflected in those he has written about. Goaded by his father and colleagues, Ben begins to question why his life has turned out the way it has and what exactly is stopping him from running away from everything he feels is holding him down.

The story of Anne Shirley has endured generation after generation and catapulted L.M. Montgomery into the ethos of literature. Here, Dreamscape presents a collection of holiday stories featuring Anne and other characters. Disc one includes: Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves; Christmas at Red Butte; Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket; Clorinda's Gifts; The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road. Disc two includes: A Christmas Inspiration; The Unforgotten One; The Josephs' Christmas; The End of the Young Family Feud; A Christmas Mistake.

Fiona Lychenko, now a woman in her late sixties, has spent years researching the death of her high school classmate Zara Stanley, who was brutally murdered at the age of twenty. Determined to solve the crime, something the police weren’t able to do, Fiona interviewed everyone she could in her hometown of Ripley, but every trail led to the same dead end. She even published her findings in a book, hoping it would lead to anonymous clues from readers and outliers, and still, nothing. Now, a decade later, Fiona has finally given up hope that the killer would ever be caught.

It’s 1954 and young Sadie Wilder gets her big break at last – a chance to babysit for the posh Bannister family whose regular babysitter, Wanda Keeler, is down with the mumps. Sadie is certain she can deal with any obstacle, but little does she, or anyone else, for that matter, know that on that very night Hurricane Hazel, to this day, one of Canada’s worst natural disasters, is about to strike Toronto. Sadie is alone with the two small Bannister children, Bobby and Faith, as winds and floodwaters ravage the house.

Alan is an entrepreneur in Toronto who decides to involve himself in a visionary scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless Internet connectivity, a conspiracy spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the city's dumpsters.

When the Cornish Foundation decides to fund the production of an opera entitled Arthur of Britain, or The Magnanimous Cuckold, the participants find their lives begin to resemble the opera's plot.