National Network for Equitable Library Service

The rubble of an ancient civilization. A village in a valley from which no one comes or goes. A forest of mother-trees, whispering to each other through their roots; a lakeside lighthouse where a girl slips into human skin as lightly as an otter into water; a desert settlement where there was no conflict, before she came; or the town of Wantwick, ruled by a soothsayer, where tourists lose everything they have. These are the places where things begin.

Rebecca Rosenblum's Once is a fiercely original and assured debut, a collection of sixteen stories portraying the constricted and confused lives of the rootless twenty-somethings'students, office techies, waitresses, warehouse labourers, street hustlers'who inhabit them. These are stories grounded in the all-too-real comedy and tragedy of jobs and friendships and romances, books and buses and bodies.

C.P. Boyko (Blackouts, 2009) has been nominated for the Journey Prize and published in The Walrus, PRISM International, and The New Quarterly. Psychology and Other Stories, his second collection, was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2013. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Boyko received degrees in English and Psychology from the University of Calgary. He lives in Victoria.

Strange things are happening in town, but only Nieve seems to notice that something is up. But when two strangers come to town, trailing night along behind them, and people, including Nieve's best friend Malcolm, begin to disappear, Nieve knows that she must do something. She must venture into the Black City to uncover the mystery and save her town.

From critically acclaimed novelist Ray Robertson comes a rollicking Great Gatsby of the 60s - a sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll-suffused modern tragedy. For Bill Hansen, things couldn't be better. He's got a beautiful folk-singer girlfriend, a job at Toronto's coolest bookstore and, most of all, he's got Yorkville, which in 1966 is nothing short of paradise for a boy from the suburbs.

Gillian Davies is six years old when her mother sends her to Croessfordd to escape the Blitz. But can she escape her child-molesting cousin Angus? Alternating between WWII Wales and present-day Canada, The Monkey Puzzle Tree is the story of Gillian's struggle to accept her childhood trauma, forgive her mother, and confront Angus - who, it seems, is as dangerous as ever.

An Indo-American Canterbury Tales, 'The Meagre Tarmac' explores the places where tradition, innovation, culture, and power meet with explosive force. It begins with Vivek Waldekar, who refused to attend his father's funeral because he was trying to please an American girl who thought starting a fire in his father's body too gross a sacrilege to contemplate.

Our Woman will not be sunk by what life's about to serve her. She's caught her son doing unmentionable things out by the barn. She's been accosted by Red the Twit, who claims to have done things with Our Woman's husband that could frankly have gone without mentioning. And now her son's gone and joined the army, and Our Woman has found a young fella to do unmentionable things with herself, just so she might understand it all 'Malarky' is the story of an Irish mother forced to look grief in the eye, and of a wife come face-to-face with the mad agony of longing.

Clark Blaise's Lunar Attractions is the story of David Greenwood, the fantasy-driven son of a too-charming, two-timing furniture salesman. David is cerebral, sensitive, sickly, and inexperienced'but when a shocking sexual awakening propels him into a world of murder and extortion, his adolescent illusions are stripped bare, and his relationship with his father changes forever.

Two runners race a cargo train through the darkness of a rat-infested tunnel beneath the Detroit River. A drugstore bicycle courier crosses a forbidden threshold in an attempt to save a life and a young swimmer conquers her fear of water only to discover she's caught in far more dangerous currents. An auto worker who loses his family in a car accident is forced to reconsider his relationship with the internal combustion engine. Alexander MacLeod is a writer of 'ferocious intelligence' and 'ferocious physicality' (CTV).