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Like any young man, Etienne longs for independence and dreams about a bright future. But he’s a Tourangeau, part of a sprawling Quebec family that, though destitute, thrives as insecurely as weeds in a well-tended garden, nurtured by a mother whose abundant love is more than maternal. Then he meets Odile, a beautiful young woman from a good family who inspires Etienne to transform his future into something worthy of her. But, like Romeo and Juliet, their wild, pure love for each other cannot last.

For Joe Shoe, the return to his family home in north Toronto is more than just a trip down memory lane; it’s also a visit to a crime scene. No sooner has Shoe arrived in his old neighbourhood than he discovers that police are investigating a murder in the ravine near his home. And the murder victim is a man who lived in the neighbourhood 35 years earlier — and who moved away while still a suspect in a series of rapes that occurred in the very ravine in which he was ultimately murdered.

Where is reality to be found: at the surface of things or behind it?Max Willem, a young art student in Montreal at the end of the 1960s, becomes obsessed with outward appearances - with makeup, costume, and masks of all kinds. For him, outward reality, and in particular that of the opposite sex, is composed of many veils of illusion and artifice through which he must see if he is to feel fully alive. At the same time, Max discovers his exceptional talent for art forgery.

Sheila Peters makes her impressive fiction debut with a collection of loosely linked stories whose characters, whether they live in the Queen Charlotte Islands or the Prairies, are ordinary men and women who have seemingly everyday experiences that glimmer with the extraordinary. Her spare, stripped-down prose, leavened with sly humour and a gift for poetic resonance, reminds one of the work of Alice Munro or Sandra Birdsell.Peters creates people who often feel out of sync with the spiritual, emotional, and physical environments they find themselves in.

Short-listed for the 2001 Rogers Writers’ Trust of Canada Fiction Prize and the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Prize Lilith Boot’s life changes forever the night she drowns the flowers in her parents’ garden. Frightened by their daughter’s odd behaviour, and her recent pronouncements of psychic visions, the Boots send Lilith to a Vancouver mental hospital. It is there that she becomes pregnant, giving birth after her discharge. Years later, Lilith uses her visions to help Toronto police find missing children.

Joe Grundy is an ex-heavyweight boxer whose main claim to fame was that he got knocked out by champ Evander Holyfield. Now he's chief of security for a posh old hotel, the Lord Douglas, in downtown Vancouver, and life is pretty good. But then a young neo-hippie inherits more than half a billion dollars and decides to give it all away. As soon as the kid checks into the Lord Douglas with the intention of holding a press conference to announce the scheme, Joe knows big trouble is headed his way, especially when the kid winds up dead.

The year is 1927, and the Merril children are once again in school – but one that’s unlike any other. For 10 months out of the year their school, set up in a Northern Ontario railway care that also serves as their home, is on the move. Theirteen-year-old Jenny Merrill loves life on the tracks, but she has a secret wish. She’s fallen in love with a violin on page 244 of the Eaton’s catalogue. But how will she get the money to pay for it?

This psychological mystery introduces David Morgan and Miranda Quin, two maverick and culturally sophisticated Toronto police detectives. When a man is found dead in a garden pond in the wealthy heart of Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood Morgan is lead into speculations about Japanese ornamental koi fish, and Quin into a chilling sequence of revelations that could destroy her. But the real mystery begins not with the deceased but with a woman who walks onto the crime scene and without emotion declares herself to be the victim’s mistress.

2007 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice Selection It is 1838, and in the wake of the rebellion in Lower Canada, Sophie’s and Luc’s worlds are falling apart. Luc is powerless as his only brother stands trial for treason, while Sophie searches for clues to her father’s mysterious disappearance. Meanwhile, her scheming brothers threaten to rip away Sophie’s inheritance.

Short-listed for the Chocolate Lily Book Award, 2005 It’s summer 1950, and for 11-year-old French Canadian Sophie LaGrange, Camp Latona on British Columbia’s Gambier Island promises to be pure bliss. But then Sophie has to buddy up with a strange, unfriendly Jewish refugee girl named Ginette and things go sour. Soon Sophie learns that Ginette has her own secrets and anxieties, worries that explain the girl’s seemly bizarre behaviour.