Zach wakes up with no memory, no phone, and no clothes except his stripper g-string. And oh yeah! There’s that pesky naked dead guy in bed next to him. Problem is Zach's not gay. Or a murderer. At least, he doesn't think so. Only one person can help him, his sister, Zora. Of course Zora's got problems of her own—she has three kids at home and is eight month's pregnant with the fourth. So she’s a bit cranky. But that’s not going to stop her from helping her brother. With kids in tow, the siblings set how to find the true killer, clear Zach's name, and reassure Zach he's not gay

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"A hilarious murder mystery romp. Ride along with Zach and Zora on this most entertaining of mysteries.”

Two's company, three's a crowd—and sometimes it’s more than that.

In The Third Person, a collection of uncanny short stories by Emily Anglin, a sequence of tense professional and personal negotiations between two people is complicated when a third person arrives. Within these triangulated microworlds, disorienting gaps open up between words and reality: employees dissolve from job titles, neighbours overstep comfortable boundaries, voices distanced by space or time make their presence felt. Uneasiness builds among these separate but entangled lives.

Anglin’s darkly humorous stories contemplate situations in which characters refashion themselves to fit a new competitive milieu. The Third Person reveals how people can become complicit in these milieus, even desire them, often while being led into the loneliness they can instil.

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Praise for The Third Person:

"Emily Anglin is a master of evasion and inference, a connoisseur of every kind of secret. Each story in this remarkable collection is alive with casually blistering intelligence tempered with compassion for human loneliness. This is a dispatch from the heart of modern incongruity, in which corporate jargon crosses over into poetry, then crosses back, in which lives are upended on a whim. Reading this book is like walking into an apparently familiar room and having all the details add up to something unsettling and new." —Kate Cayley, author of How You Were Born

"Prepare yourself for "spontaneous empathy" and "foreign body sensations," for specters, knowledge brokers, and an oddball cast of characters who feel, at once, both familiar and strange. Reading Emily Anglin's The Third Person is like watching the opening sequence of Hitchcock's Rear Window. As a character in one of the stories tells us, everyone has "public, private and secret lives." Anglin gives us access to all of these lives—offering a unique perspective that combines both the intimacy of the first person and the sweeping distance of the third." —Johanna Skibsrud, author of The Sentimentalists and Quartet for the End of Time

"Straddling the line between realism and uncanny dreamscape, The Third Person has a tone that is singular, consistent, and very involving." —The Winnipeg Review

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Bridge Retakes, the debut novel by Angela Lopes, is a whirlwind millennial tale of love and family and the distances that people will (or won't) go to secure what they want.

A Bahian man and a Brazilian-Canadian woman meet on an online dating site. They come from very different worlds—geographically, economically, religiously—and yet, their connection is undeniable. When these long-distance lovers run up against their own belief systems and those of their families and communities, it's their desire to build a life anew that keeps them moving forward. But all the while, issues of money, class, gender, and corruption threaten to tear them apart.

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Praise for Bridge Retakes:

"This is the story of Phila + Ze, of Canada + Brazil. And like all great love stories it charts the emotions around desire, all its sweats and confusions. And it does this beautifully. What Phila &+43; Ze = is the plot of this book. And as such, what Bridge Retakes adds to these stories and what makes it distinctive is how these sweats and confusions are shaped by more complicated forces, such as national borders and economic inequalities."—Juliana Spahr

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Because fear can transform into confidence, recklessness, the kind of power you can't imagine until you're inside it. And then, once you've felt it, you can't feel alive when it's gone. Sophrosyne. You understood this feeling. I know you did, though you never said it. I saw it, instead, on your face when you danced.

Sophrosyne is one of only four virtues identified by Socrates – four traits which, if lived deeply, define who we are as human beings. But sophrosyne is a concept our culture has long forgotten. 'Self-restraint,' 'self-control,' 'modesty,' 'temperance' – none of these terms expresses the essence of the word.

In this provocative new novel about desire and restraint in a digital age by acclaimed author Marianne Apostolides, 21-year-old Alex is consumed by the elusive problem of sophrosyne for reasons he cannot share with others. While Alex's philosophy professor believes studying it will help shed light on the malaise of our era, Alex hopes it will release him from his darkly disturbing relationship with his mother. As he attempts to uncover his mother's truth, Alex is drawn inside an amorphous, indefinable undercurrent of love and violation. Only through his lover, Meiko, does Alex open into a new understanding of sophrosyne, with all its implications.

Reminiscent of Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, Sophrosyne asks readers to surrender themselves to the book's logic and language. Infused with a sensuality balanced by its intellect, Sophrosyne reads like "the music's rhythm... soft like wax and supple, warm," pulsing through your veins.

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Praise for Marianne Apostolides:

Apostolides is a kind of fan dancer among thematic imponderables: the realms of memory, longing, fear, loss, redemption.

– The Globe & Mail

Apostolides is fearless in revealing herself and masterful in ability.

– Corey Redekop, Shelf Monkey

In vivid language, Voluptuous Pleasure examines tensions between the exploration of personal memories and the construction of engaging narratives.

– Quill & Quire

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On June 6, 2012, Vickie Gendreau was diagnosed with a brain tumour. In between treatments, between hospital stays and her "room of her own," she wrote Testament, an autofictional novel in which she imagines her death and at the same time, bequeaths to her friends and family both the fragmented story of her last year and the stories of the loved ones who keep her memory alive, in language as raw and flamboyant as she was.

In the teasing and passionate voice of a twenty-three-year-old writer, inspired as much by literature as by YouTube and underground music, Gendreau's sense of image, her relentless self-deprecation, and the true emotion in every sentence add up to an uncompromising work that reflects the life of a young woman who lived without inhibitions, for whom literature meant everything right up until the end.

In this way, Testament (translated by talented writer and translator Aimee Wall), inverts the elegiac, "grief memoir" form and plays with the notion of a last testament, thereby beating any would-be eulogists to the punch.

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This novel… was felt like a literary tsunami, with the cries of her prose and the intrinsic qualities of her writing. —Jean-François Crépeau, Le Canada français

"Testament's fragmented texts alternate between the narrator’s private journal and the voices of her friends as they receive her posthumous writing. It is an uncompromising experience, brutal when you least expect it." —Chantal Guy, La Presse

"There is, in Testament, a voice, an energy, a style. Vickie Gendreau was a real talent as a writer. It won't please everyone, but it's undeniable. Yes, it's a cry, sometimes harsh, sometimes confused, it is gut-wrenching and, surprise, is also shot through with touches of humour." —Jean-Yves Girard, Chatelaine

"In addition to the confronting her own imminent mortality, Gendreau takes determined ownership of her legacy." —Steven W. Beattie, Quill and Quire

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Part mystery, part elegy, This Side of Sad begins with an ending: the violent enigma of a man's death. Was it an accident, or did James commit suicide? In the shattering aftermath, his widow, Maslen, questions her own capacity for love and undertakes a painful self-inquiry, examining the history of her heart and tracing the fault lines of her own fragile identity. What emerges is a mesmerizing tour of a woman's complex past, rendered in the associative logic of memory and desire.

A gifted storyteller reminiscent of Alice Munro or Joan Didion, Karen Smythe finds poetic complexity in the seeming trivialities of the ordinary. Meditative, philosophical, and confessional, This Side of Sad is a provocative and piercing novel that explores the disintegration of a marriage; the enduring colloquy between the living and the dead; and the meaning we find within the random architecture of despair and joy.

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"Smythe’s prose is powerful."

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"A courageous debut novel and one of the most searing explorations of love and grief you will ever read. This is writing that probes as deeply as fiction can the conflicting emotions that ensue upon devastating loss. This Side of Sad is a dramatically vivid work of fiction."

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"This Side of Sad [is] a stunner."

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"Singularly fascinating."

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"This Side of Sad is as intimate as a best friend’s confession, as well wrought as a fine clay vessel, and as consoling as only a fine blues tune can be."

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"In this wry and visceral debut novel, Karen Smythe has found new and intriguing ways to tell a powerful story of longing, love, and what it means to be brave. Her characters show us how we are all repeatedly reconstituted by love and how, for better or worse, we must accept what we thought we couldn’t and find a way to live with the different versions of ourselves as we navigate our own lives."

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"Sensitive and authentic, This Sad of Sad brims with introspection, wry humour, and Karen Smythe’s signature literary grace. The story will remain rooted in your heart and mind."

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A CNQ Editors' Book of the Year

Does faith insist upon the spotless soul? Can intellectual integrity and an honest search for the holy in this world survive a collision with religious mania? Is heavenly forgiveness possible this side of the River Styx? In this boisterous, witty, manically paced novel, Maggie Prentice is resolved to find out, even if it costs her everything.

A true original, capable of brilliant verbal contortions, Maggie Prentice won't give up. Haunted by her past, chafing under the tutelage of her born-again, cult-figure brother, coping with the double devils of alcoholism and disconnectedness, she is pursued by the Tanteek, an armchair prankster out of a Dylan song that incarnates her questions, uncertainties, and fears, and dogs her every move. In her wild, over-the-top, yet eerily familiar universe, Maggie is forced to confront life's big questions — faith, fear, love, and death — does life have meaning?

In this daring, intelligent, whip-smart debut novel, Jane Woods has created unforgettable characters that live in what might be an alternate reality. She has also written a captivating, deeply affective story that grabs the reader and won't let go.

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"You can get carried away by the energy and extravagance of Woods' writing, the aptness of her metaphors ... which is what makes this such an absorbing and even pleasurable raed, despite how screwed-up most of the characters are. ... The narrative allows Maggie's questions and ambivalences room to spread out in all their difficulty and complexity, which is another reason this is such a satisfying read. Her search for God carries on despite her mother, Gerard, and Liam, and despite herself."

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What do a trunk full of vintage clothes, a handsome land developer, and a fifty year old diamond heist have in common? Laken Miller receives a trunk full of expensive vintage clothing and a stack of newspaper clippings about a fifty-year old diamond heist. Now all she has to do is figure out who murdered Tilly San Vicente before the killer silences her as well.

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Nice cozy mystery with unexpected twists

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Did she say, at the beginning, that it rained every day? She was wrong. She misspoke. She didn’t mean it.... No. It did not rain every day. But it rained for a hundred days, that year, which was enough—more than enough, even.

In prose by turn haunting and crystalline, Carellin Brooks' One Hundred Days of Rain enumerates an unnamed narrator's encounters with that most quotidian of subjects: rain. Mourning her recent disastrous breakup, the narrator must rebuild a life from the bottom up. As she wakes each day to encounter Vancouver's sky and city streets, the narrator notices that the rain, so apparently unchanging, is in fact kaleidoscopic. Her melancholic mood alike undergoes subtle variations that sometimes echo, sometimes contrast with her surroundings. Caught between the two poles of weather and mood, the narrator is not alone: whether riding the bus with her small child, searching for an apartment to rent, or merely calculating out the cost of meager lunches, the world forever intrudes, as both a comfort and a torment.

In elliptical prose reminiscent of Elizabeth Smart's beloved novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, One Hundred Days of Rain exposes the inner-workings of a life that has come apart. Readers will engage with Brooks' poetic and playful constraint that unfolds chapter by chapter, where the narrator's compulsive cataloguing of rain's vicissitudes forms a kind of quiet meditation: an acknowledgement of the ongoing weight of sadness, the texture of it, and its composition—not only emotional weight, but also the weight of all the stupid little things a person deals with when they're rebuilding a life.

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Praise for One Hundred Days of Rain:

A quiet and meditative book that reads like a mystery: How do we find ourselves—sometimes simultaneously—moving both toward and away from the things that matter to us most?

– Johanna Skibsrud, 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner for The Sentimentalists

Is there a worse city in which to suffer a vindictive, litigated break up than unrelentingly sodden Vancouver? In these one hundred intimate chapters, Carellin Brooks has convinced me no. Her forbearing heroine bikes through torrents, dodges puddles, keeps moving through bitterness and weather. Nobody, not even the rain, has such nerve.

–Caroline Adderson, author of Ellen in Pieces

Carellin Brooks' marvellous and brooding novel, sparking after yet another downpour, offers a natural history of rain and breakups. Just as snow-bound cultures have numerous words for different kinds of snow, so the Vancouverite requires many words and varied descriptions for rain. The exquisite descriptions of internal and external tensions are what capture here, what pierce and press the reader forward, j-walking through the tumbling language of rain, dodging in and out of the doorways of these short, sharp, shocked chapters. Carellin Brooks offers a loud and persistent rejoinder to the idea of "the pathetic fallacy": the internal and external do coalesce, and they do so at the apex of the most precise and revealing sentences I have read in years.

– Stephen Collis

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It’s tough for Kira, growing up in the small town of Hope as a child prodigy in classical violin, especially when her dad just died. And to make matters worse, Kate McDonough, the red-haired fiddler appears out of nowhere, bewitching the town with her mysterious Celtic music. Even Uncle Jack succumbs to her charms, forgetting his promise to look after Kira’s family. But when someone begins vandalizing the town leaving dead and gutted birds as a calling card, Kira knows without a doubt who’s behind it. Will anyone believe her?

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This phenomenal story will lure you into the magic of the bewitched town and make you care more about the main character than you ever have before.