Most Anticipated Fall Reads |
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Asha in Her Garden
by Anita Rau Badami
Anita Rau Badami’s lauded storytelling gifts are on full display in this absorbing, entertaining, and deeply relatable novel about a close-knit family immigrating from India to Montreal. The author’s first book in 15 years will delight Anita’s many fans while capturing a new generation of readers. Asha Mohan’s well-loved backyard garden in Montréal, shaded by a cherished old maple tree, has been witness to all the events in her life since she and husband and children moved from to Canada from India decades ago. It is here, in her sanctuary, that Asha finds refuge. Now the maple tree has reached the end of its life and must be cut down.
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My Person
by Téa Mutonji
A taut, piercing exploration of race and privilege, co-dependency and the ways in which world-defining friendships can be both beautifully and excruciatingly life-altering. Best friends of over twenty years, Tania and Margot are preparing to host their monthly Sunday Loaf dinner party, when Tania tells Margot this isn’t working for her anymore - they’ve been entangled for too long and she wants to "unknow" her. But how do you extricate yourself from someone whose family owns the apartment you live in, who has taken you in as their own, even claims you as their "person”? As Tania attempts to live her life loudly on the outskirts of Margot’s bubble, Margot’s past betrayals become increasingly clear. But she means well, doesn’t she? They’d felt like sisters from the start. Or had Tania just been blind to Margot’s antics?
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Let's Kiss and Tell
by Joss Richard
Another warm, witty, and deeply relatable contemporary romance from the bestselling author of "It's Different This Time." Lucy Reid is a sex columnist whose views on relationships aren’t exactly optimistic. Instead, she empowers her readers to embrace their sexuality and challenge the belief that you need a partner to be happy. That is, until her editor tells her that their readers are all in relationships - and the team thinks it’s time for something (or someone) new. To buy herself time, Lucy impulsively claims she’s just started a new relationship that she can write about. Enter Marshall Oakley. Marshall Oakley is the new Senior News Writer at Lucy’s company. When the two meet at a work event, Marsh reveals that Julia, his ex of nine years, is getting married, and he needs a plus one to keep his family off his back. They agree to pretend to be in a relationship until the wedding.
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Eliza Sunshine
by Michelle Good
A powerful family saga following three generations of Cree women and the storytelling tradition that connects them to each other. When Eliza comes home from her first year at residential school, she is barely recognizable to her Nôhkom, Swan. Once bright-eyed and curious, Eliza is now stick-thin and silent, with roughly shorn hair and dull, listless eyes. Gathering bag in hand, Swan gently leads Eliza on long walks through untouched prairie grasses, harvesting medicines, certain that the power of the land will heal her. And as they walk, she shares stories of her own suffering when her traditional ways of being and living collided with the greed and violence of encroaching settlers. For Eliza, Swan's journey offers a master class on how to face unspeakable adversity and remain true to herself.
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Heart of Glass
by Jennifer Hillier
A serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl - and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what's happening now. 25 years ago in Seaside, Washington, a charming drifter named Sam met three inseparable teenage girls at the local amusement park. Days later, one of them was found dead, her body surfacing in a flooded cranberry bog not far from where she was murdered. Barb and Nicolette were shocked to learn that the man they all met at Wonderland was the Carnival Killer. After he's arrested for the murders of five young women - one of whom was their best friend, Lorelei - Nicolette moved to the city to pursue her dreams of being famous. Barb stayed behind in Seaside, eventually becoming a reporter for the local paper. But when the Carnival Killer recants his confession and a new body washes ashore on the eve of Wonderland’s grand reopening, the secrets that Barb and Nicolette have worked so hard to bury begin to resurface.
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Not a Word
by Linwood Barclay
A man’s world is upended after he finds his father and a woman who isn’t his mother dead in the family home - and his mother goes missing. Every family has secrets, but when Reece visits his parents’ home he’s shocked to find his father and a woman he assumes is his mother in bed. Dead. At first glance it looks like a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, but on closer inspection there’s clearly more to the story. For starters, inconsistencies in the crime scene suggest his dad may not have shot himself. As Reece, shaken by his horrifying discovery, awaits questioning from the police, his phone lights up. It’s a call from his mom - his real mom. The dead woman in that bed is clearly not the person Reece believed her to be. Reece simply tells her: “Come home now.” But instead of rushing home, she disappears. Could she have been involved?
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The Birthing Tree
by Amanda Peters
From the award-winning and bestselling author of "Berry Pickers," an unforgettable novel of family, legacy and secrets, following one woman as she confronts buried truths, lost love and the fragile future she alone must protect. In 1955, Aliet’s mother dies in childbirth beneath the birthing tree, a large old oak, where Indigenous women have been giving birth for longer than anyone can remember. After her mother’s death, Aliet is raised by her grandmother and becomes an apprentice to her knowledge of midwifery and Indigenous medicine. At the base of the birthing tree, Aliet becomes the keeper of sacred knowledge, educated so that she may, one day, carry on these traditional practices. Yet, when Aliet grows older, she unexpectedly turns away from her grandmother, her community and all that she’s learned.
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A Glacier's Guide to Dying
by Michelle Porter
Robbie has spent most of life wondering about his real father, Mike, who long since left their family due to his struggles with visions and mistrust of the modern world. Robbie can't forget how much he felt connected to him from his few visits, and not just because they share two differently colored eyes. But now, as he rescues his mother from encroaching wildfires, he's determined to also find his father. Robbie takes off to find answers, and when his uncle confesses that he last dropped Mike off at a glacier, he and his uncle head climb up the mountain of ice to see if Mike might still be there, and whether he's still alive. On the slopes of a huge glacier, Robbie, starts hearing the ancient voice of the glacier itself giving him guidance. Has he accessed a deep connection to the land, or is he succumbing to the same illness that had wreaked havoc on his father's life? Michelle Porter brings her profoundly moving sensibility and disarmingly funny voice to a powerful contemporary story of identity and belonging, loss and healing, within families and with the immortal land itself.
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The Living Realm
by Jordan Tannahill
In this slim but expansive novel from acclaimed and Giller Prize-shortlisted author Jordan Tannahill, a British archaeologist living in Berlin begins to see his dead lovers in a cruising forest on the city's outskirts. While cruising one evening by Teufelssee, a small glacial lake in the Grunewald forest on the edge of Berlin, a man spots a handsome stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to his former lover. Only, Lukas died nearly thirty years ago. Yet the man cannot shake the feeling that it was really Lukas he saw. Along with his friends, Gabor and Birgit, the man spends the long, hot summer by the lake, observing the comings and goings of their fellow nudists, as well as their beloved Elsa, a boar who lives along its fringes. He also continues to encounter Lukas, and then other lost lovers as well.
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Our Cut of Salt
by Deena Helm
There is something haunting Nuhad's childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart. And, in return, the house did the same for her. After Nuhad passes away, her granddaughter, Marina, is determined to visit her grandmother's home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina's mother, Haifa - named for the city that was lost to their family - reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried. But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family's past, the sicker she becomes. Despite Nuhad's ghostly warnings, Haifa rushes to help her daughter. As the three women converge in their ancestral home, they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all.
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