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Every Time We Say Goodbye
by Natalie Jenner
In 1955, Vivien Lowry is facing the greatest challenge of her life. Her latest play, the only female-authored play on the London stage that season, has opened in the West End to rapturous applause from the audience. The reviewers, however, are not as impressed as the playgoers and their savage notices not only shut down the play but ruin Lowry's last chance for a dramatic career. With her future in London not looking bright, at the suggestion of her friend, Peggy Guggenheim, Vivien takes a job in as a script doctor on a major film shooting in Rome’s Cinecitta Studios. There she finds a vibrant movie making scene filled with rising stars, acclaimed directors, and famous actors in a country that is torn between its past and its potentially bright future, between the liberation of the post-war cinema and the restrictions of the Catholic Church that permeates the very soul of Italy.
As Vivien tries to forge a new future for herself, she also must face the long-buried truth of the recent World War and the mystery of what really happened to her deceased fiancé.
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The Long-Shot Trial
by William Deverell
Arthur Beauchamp takes a break from the courtroom to write a memoir so he can set the record straight about a headline murder case he fought as a young lawyer in 1966. The trial would either mark him as a pathetic loser or thrust him into the top ranks of criminal counsel.
The background: in 1966, a young housemaid was raped by her employer, a callous and vindictive millionaire. She shot him point blank, so it seemed an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder. Enter Arthur Beauchamp, a young lawyer haunted by having bungled his only previous murder case. He is now called upon to defend a case that he is almost certain can’t be won. But as the trial speeds through twists and turns, his slashing cross-examinations bring hope that the jury might entertain a reasonable doubt.
In the present time, Arthur learns that writing about his social gaffes, booze, and sex is not easy, especially as his efforts are regularly interrupted by the quirky characters who inhabit his supposedly idyllic Garibaldi Island.
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The Secret Keeper by Genevieve Graham
Dot and Dash Wilson, twin sisters with contrasting interests, navigate the challenges of World War II together. Joined by their best friend Gus, they face the upheavals of war, with Gus enlisting in the army. Determined to contribute, the sisters join the WRENS, with Dash becoming a mechanic and Dot a typist. Dot's skills lead her to covert codebreaking work in England, while Dash trains as a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, ferrying aircraft across Europe. However, their bond is tested when personal tragedy and wartime secrecy drive a wedge between them.
As the war intensifies, Dot and Dash find themselves deeply involved in pivotal Allied operations. Dot's involvement in preparations for D-Day and Dash's risky missions as a pilot put their loyalties and skills to the ultimate test. When faced with personal losses and the threat of Nazi occupation, Dot must utilize her espionage training to rescue those dear to her.
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Land of No Regrets
by Sadi Muktadir
Nabil, freshly plucked from middle school in Scarborough, is struggling to find his place at Al Haque Islamic Academy. Between the intense religious studies and new rules, he still longs for his past life of baseball, video games, comic books and girls. When he stumbles upon Maaz and Nawaaz doing something they shouldn't be doing, he quickly falls into their company and joins them in their misdeeds. And together with the new transfer student and unruly class clown Farid, the group executes their rebellion.
One day, while exploring the Madrasa at night, the boys discover the diary of a student who lived on the grounds when it was an all-girls Catholic school. Cynthia Lewis' words connect them to a bygone era and inspires them to hatch a plot to escape. They form a pact, and together, their ultimate decision sends them hurtling down a path that changes their lives forever.
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Wild Failure: Stories
by Zoe Whittall
In Wild Failure bestselling novelist Zoe Whittall's debut collection of poetic fiction contends with the meaning of desire for both intimacy and danger in a world that devalues queer femininity.
n "Oh, El" a dominant woman can't stop herself from toying with the tender heart of her co-worker. The title story, "Wild Failure" is a doomed love story between an agoraphobic and a wilderness hiker. In "Half Pipe" a teen girl's heterosexual ambivalence results in chaos at a skate park. A group of idealistic roommates find themselves the subject of a true crime podcast in "Murder at the Elm Street Collective House." In "The Sex Castle Lunch Buffet" a woman reflects on her brief stint at a 90s strip club after she learns of the death of a former client.
Whittall's characters navigate shame, attachment, and disconnection in this collection of outsider stories, which were inspired by the new narrative movement.
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The Takedown
by Lily Chu
For Dee Kwan, every day is the perfect day. No, really. She has a house she loves, a job she adores, and a ridiculously attractive “nemesis” who never seems to mind when she wins their favorite online game. How can life possibly get better? (It can’t, obviously. It can only get much, much worse.)
Soon Dee is forced to share her adorably cozy home with her parents and prickly estranged grandmother. Then she's tossed into the deep end, tasked with cleaning up a scandal for intimidatingly chic luxury fashion firm Celeste. If that weren’t enough, she discovers her hot-nemesis works there, too…and Teddy is nothing like the man she thought she knew.
Before she can cry foul, Teddy comes clean about his double life: he’s the heir to the CEO and he needs her help to make Celeste a better place—for everyone. But that means taking down the old guard—including his father—intent on standing in their way. Now in the center of a dizzying corporate coup, Dee is forced to decide whether she’s ready to stop watching the world through rose-colored glasses and instead face the truth: about herself, about her feelings for Teddy, and about what she’s willing to do to truly make a difference.
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High Society
by Daniel Kalla
At sixteen, Holly Danvers barely survived the car accident that killed her father. While she has no memory of the crash, it took an ayahuasca treatment, a native plant-based psychedelic therapy, in the jungles of Peru for her to emotionally recover. Twenty years later, Holly is a sought-after psychiatrist determined to use her expertise with psychedelics to treat patients suffering from addictions. Ignoring the risks, she embarks upon an unproven new protocol with miraculous results. But her success in probing the traumas of her patients and the secrets they keep is short-lived.
When one celebrity client goes public with his recovery and another overdoses after accusing Holly of improprieties, her world is turned upside down. With her career on the line, Holly reaches out to her mentor—and estranged husband—Dr. Aaron Laing, for advice and comfort. But he has a different agenda, and it soon becomes clear that it will be up to Holly alone to figure out why her clients are relapsing and dying. To accomplish that, she will have to risk her life and revisit her own deep-seated trauma.
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Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir
by Ahmad Danny Ramadan
“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to.
Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing to the city’s underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria’s LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that’s not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love.
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Crosses in the Sky: Jean De Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia
by Mark Bourrie
A biography of Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf and a history of the colonization of Huronia, the home of the Huron-Wendat nation, Crosses in the Sky is the story of how and why the Jesuits came to “New France,” what happened when they arrived, and how these early encounters have shaped settler relationships with Indigenous people to this day. Departing from existing sainthood narratives of Brébeuf, this deeply researched narrative considers not only the missionary’s fate, but the ongoing tragedy of his colonial legacy and is an essential addition to—and expansion of—Canadian history.
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Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing
by Jennifer Grenz
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, building on sacred stories, field observations, and her own journey, Dr. Grenz invites readers to share in the teachings of the four directions of the medicine the North, which draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of elders; the East, where we let go of colonial narratives and see with fresh eyes; the South, where we apply new-old worldviews to envision a way forward; and the West, where a relational approach to land reconciliation is realized.
Eloquent, inspiring, and disruptive, Medicine Wheel for the Planet circles around an argument that we need more than a singular worldview to protect the planet and make the significant changes we are running out of time for.
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