SCIENCE FICTION - THRILLER A mind-bending, relentlessly paced science-fiction thriller, in which an ordinary man is kidnapped, knocked unconscious--and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew.
(13 copies)
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SCIENCE FICTION - HORROR Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed-- made obsolete-- when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate. What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn't right. Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
(10 copies)
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ROMANCE FICTION - WORLD WAR (1914-1918) A haunting story about the overarching power of love, set against the horrors of the First World War and its effect on the lives of two young Canadians.
(14 copies)
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THRILLERS - CANADIANS A remote Icelandic island. A diplomatic dinner party. A murderer in their midst. When Kavita Banerjee, the deputy ambassador of Canada, dies suddenly at a dinner party attended by the great and the good from Icelandic business and politics, suspicion falls on everyone present, but particularly on the victim's boss, Graeme Shearer, the Canadian ambassador. Jane Shearer, Graeme's long-suffering wife, is accustomed to cleaning up his messes. But now, saving her husband's career--and her crumbling marriage--requires her to investigate her fellow dinner guests. Uncovering corruption and murder is a dangerous job, but Jane knows better than most what desperate people will do to protect their secrets.
(15 copies)
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ROMANCE FICTION - HOMECOMING A queer romantic comedy about taking chances and accepting love-- with all its complications. Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls-- nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it's a different woman every night, but that's just fine with her. When Delilah's estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid's stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there's some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all. Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise-- at first. Though they've known each other for years, they don't really know each other-- so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they're forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations-- including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé-- Claire isn't sure she has the strength to resist Delilah's charms. Even worse, she's starting to think she doesn't want to
(12 copies)
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MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS - COSY MYSTERIES When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunnit--the first book in a cozy new detective series from the acclaimed author of Ayesha at Last. After her husband's unexpected death eighteen months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she'd receive another phone call as heartbreaking--until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years. Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed. The murder of Sana's landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes which have gone unsolved. And the facts of the case are troubling: Sana found the man dead in her shop at a suspiciously early hour, with a dagger from her windowfront display plunged in his chest. And Kausar--a woman with a keen sense of observation and deep wisdom honed by her years--senses there's more to the story than her daughter is telling. With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth. Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty? But even Kausar can't predict the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way ...
(15 copies)
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DOMESTIC FICTION - FAMILIES It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse -- the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
(11 copies)
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ROMANCE FICTION - SOCIAL CLASSES - From an award-winning novelist and sought-after public speaker, an eye-opening memoir about life before and after illegally emigrating from Mexico to the United States.
(15 copies)
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DOMESTIC FICTION - CHINESE CANADIANS An extraordinary novel set in China before, during and after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989--the breakout book we've been waiting for from a bestselling, Amazon.ca First Novel Award winner. Madeleine Thien's new novel is breathtaking in scope and ambition even as it is hauntingly intimate. With the ease and skill of a master storyteller, Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations--those who lived through Mao's Cultural Revolution in the mid-twentieth century; and the children of the survivors, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989, in one of the most important political moments of the past century. With exquisite writing sharpened by a surprising vein of wit and sly humour, Thien has crafted unforgettable characters who are by turns flinty and headstrong, dreamy and tender, foolish and wise. At the centre of this epic tale, as capacious and mysterious as life itself, are enigmatic Sparrow, a genius composer who wishes desperately to create music yet can find truth only in silence; his mother and aunt, Big Mother Knife and Swirl, survivors with captivating singing voices and an unbreakable bond; Sparrow's ethereal cousin Zhuli, daughter of Swirl and storyteller Wen the Dreamer, who as a child witnesses the denunciation of her parents and as a young woman becomes the target of denunciations herself; and headstrong, talented Kai, best friend of Sparrow and Zhuli, and a determinedly successful musician who is a virtuoso at masking his true self until the day he can hide no longer. Here, too, is Kai's daughter, the ever-questioning mathematician Marie, who pieces together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking a fragile meaning in the layers of their collective story. With maturity and sophistication, humour and beauty, a huge heart and impressive understanding, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once beautifully intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of daily life inside China, yet transcendent in its universality.
(15 copies)
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BILDUNGSROMANS - AUTHORS In a Chinatown housing project lives twelve-year-old Benny, his ailing grandmother, and his strange neighbor Constantine, a man who believes he’s a reincarnated medieval samurai. When his grandmother is hospitalized, Benny manages to survive on his own until a social worker comes snooping. With no other family, he is reluctantly taken in by Constantine and soon, an unlikely bond forms between the two.
At least, that’s what Yu, the narrator of the story, wants to write.
The creator of a bestselling comic book, Yu is struggling with continuing the poignant tale of Benny and can’t help but interject from the present day, slowly revealing a darker backstory. Can Yu confront the demons he’s spent his adult life avoiding or risk his own life...and Benny’s?
(15 copies)
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