Debut novel with distinct historical settings (2017 and 1887) portrays two women in perilous marriages. “The way the stories reflect and enhance one another makes the dual narrative technique more than just a gimmick. There is a real dialogue between past and present that justifies telling the two stories together like this,” our reviewer notes. —Ryan Frawley reviews The Art of Getting Lost and Found, by Glenna Turnbull (St. John’s: Breakwater Books, 2026) $24.95 / 9781778530814
“The Golden Boy is a novel that will satisfy with its engaging storytelling, excellent pacing, and clever writing. For that reason alone, I’d recommend it. It also delves into Aristotelian philosophy in a way that feels natural and allows the lay reader to learn about some basic philosophical concepts. The novel was an entertaining and enriching reading experience, and full of ideas that could bring insight to one’s own life.” —Trish Bowering reviews The Golden Boy, by Patricia Finn (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2026) $24.99 / 9781443476768
Despite an author with a clear affection for the mystery genre and a globe-trotting plot, a debut work of fiction underwhelms our reviewer. Brevity might be the soul of wit, but in the case of a novel, that’s not always true. —Zoe McKenna reviews The Mosaic Key, by Archer Campbell (Victoria: Tellwell Talent, 2026) $17.99 / 9781834381039
Featuring writing like “lethal and blunt arrows,” a sophomore novel tells a tale of a complex mother-child relationship, a highly troubled real estate purchase, and a vulnerable protagonist who must “accept every jab and cut life’s sharpest knife has to offer.” —Sergio Espinosa reviews The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts, by Kim Fu (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2026) $24.99 / 9781443465878
An accomplished historical novel tells two stories (set circa 1909 and 1946) to portray southern Saskatchewan culture as experienced by a Métis girl and, later, career woman. “[T]ake your time with it,” our reviewer writes, “It’s an absorbing book.” —W.H. New reviews Wild People Quiet, by Tara Gereaux (Toronto: Scribner Canada, 2026) $25.99 / 9781668060568
Exceptional debut novel portrays the horrors of the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency in Uganda, particularly as experienced by schoolgirls abducted and indoctrinated for service to the cause.—Brett Josef Grubisic reviews We, the Kindling, by Otoniya Okot Bitek (Toronto: Alchemy by Knopf Canada, 2026) $22.00 / 9781039009301
A “first novel from an author short-listed for the Giller Prize … is an extraordinary work—inventive, eclectic, heartfelt, playful, angry, often brilliantly written, mingling myth and actuality, with characters waking from various ‘dreams’ into various realities.” —Harvey De Roo reviews Variations on a Dream, by Angélique Lalonde (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2026) $26.95 / 9780771012600
A Vancouver author’s debut novel, a kind of ‘cozy spy thriller comedy’ set in the England of the ’60s, is a paradoxical offering—at once too much and not enough. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews The Queens of Kaboom, by Martin Butler (Cambridge: Pegasus Publishers, 2025) $26.99 / 9781836710257
Author’s third book (and first novel) is a “confrontational exploration of both explicit and internalized racism, shame, and death, a scathing indictment of capitalism and certain traditions, and a middle finger to blandness.” What’s not to like? —Jessica Poon reviews Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies, by Lindsay Wong (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2026) $27.95 / 9780735242418
Written “in blank verse that swings between paragraphs of near-prose and short stanzas dominated by blank space,” a novel-in-verse traces lovers O and Z, survivors in a war-torn world. The moving, pensive novel “asks us to reflect on how our long legacies of memory and forgetfulness (both purposeful and unintentional) allow us to recreate harmful systems that have endured for hundreds of years and may well persist into the distant future.” —Zoe McKenna reviews Syncopation, by Whitney French (Hamilton: Wolsak & Wynn, 2026) $24.00 / 9781998408283
Debut novel by a Vancouver Island author splices together parody, satire, and an urgent environmental message. Some parts play out far better than others, our reviewer notes. —Kenna Clifford reviews Rise of The Jellies, by Brian Wilford (Altona: Friesen Press, 2025) $28.49 / 9781038322364
Maternal angst, filial contempt: a Freudian field day. (And recommended for the comforts of home: “I made the mistake of reading it on an empty stomach on an unpleasant bus ride while I was already in an overly pensive mood. What Boys Learn is best read with a heating blanket, on a full stomach, ideally with the reassurance of a warm dog curled up near you.) —Jessica Poon reviews What Boys Learn, by Andromeda Romano-Lax (New York: Soho Crime, 2026) $39.95 / 9781641296915
Vancouver-set YA novel relates the dangers of sex traffickers and Snapchat: “The subject material is heavy and dark. If readers are hoping to ignite consciousness and conversations about teen safety on the Internet, however, this is a comprehensive option. The story features authentic characters, vivid examples of how not to use social media, and an unforgiving portrayal of a worst case scenario.” —Isabella Ranallo reviews At Least I’m Trying, by Tara Hodgson (Sturgeon County: Tara Hodgson, 2025) $26.42 / 9781069617705
Darkly clairvoyant, a novel envisions Vancouver in the upcoming midcentury: “It is a thought-provoking, frightening picture of the world along the Corridor, where AI assistants are the norm, where wealth is everywhere, where the Canadian health system is broken and in great jeopardy, and where a social divide between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is apparent everywhere.” —Valerie Green reviews Broadway Corridor: The Great Social Divide, by John D’Eathe (Vancouver: Adagio Media, 2025) $21.99 / 9780991993079
In an inventive, queer-forward collection, stories offer “sustained engagements with a common ethical terrain.” The book’s strength “lies in its refusal to simplify moral experience.” —Michael Bigam reviews Runs in the Blood, by Matthew J. Trafford (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025) $21.95 / 9781834050140
Stylish novel, filled with “viscerally descriptive” as well as “beautiful and morose” writing, also struggles to effectively realize some of its conceits. —Kenna Clifford reviews Horsefly, by Mirielle Gagńe (translated by Pablo Strauss) (Toronto: Coach House, 2025) $24.95 / 9781552454992
Set in assorted time periods and on land (Australia, Italy) and water (Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea), a historical murder mystery is marked by the return of a coolly stylish PI and a cast of striking characters. —Valerie Green reviews The Italian Secret, by Tara Moss (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2025) $25.99 / 9781443461290
Although the front pages of the current volume of an annual anthology raise a couple of questions, the stories that follow range wide in theme, style, and tone. They’re impressive too, from start to finish. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Best Canadian Stories 2026, selected by Zsuzsi Gartner (Windsor, Biblioasis, 2025) $24.94 / 9781771966788
