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
“Little Brown Birds” and “Someone,” excerpts from Seventy-Two Seasons: A Memoir About Noticing, by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2026) $22.95 / 9781553807438
Rich with appealingly illustrated pages, a pair of smart picture books introduce young readers to changes—both the kind that the world can spring at us all and internal change. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Sometimes I Feel That Way Too, by Hannah Beach (illustrated by Rebecca Bender) (Toronto: Plumleaf Press, 2026) $24.95 / 9781069093561 and Hello, Baby, It’s Me, Alfie, by Maggie Hutchings (illustrated by Dawn Lo) (Toronto: Tundra Books, 2026) $24.95 9781774886366
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
An excerpt from Lindsay Wong’s Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2026) $27.95 / 9780735242418
Philip Holden’s “The Strange Machine of Dr Goh,” a story in Heaven Has Eyes (Singapore: Gaudy Boy, 2026), $19.00 / 9781958652220.
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
“It’s also healthy to remember that the magazines, and this anthology, aren’t judgements but glimpses of which books of poetry might be coming soon within the editors’ favoured aesthetic styles. It’s part of the process that some poems aren’t chosen. The ones not in this volume, for instance. You could make other volumes for the year that would include them and leave these ones out.” —Harold Rhenisch reviews Best Canadian Poetry 2026, selected by Mary Dalton (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2025) $24.95 / 9781771966764
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
“It’s a call-out, a must-read.” (Just read the damn review already!) —Steven Ross Smith reviews Say It, by Jan Zwicky (Victoria: Deer Mountain Pages, 2025) $15.00 / 9781778235849
For the youngest of readers, this alphabet book, which is strikingly composed and a visual treat, introduces the ABCs in the form of everyday scenes in a BC valley that’s remote to most Canadians. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Elk Valley Alphabet Adventures, by Charné Baird (Fernie: Charné Baird Photography, 2025) $28.95 / 9781069751409
“Geddes’ path out of such blindness is to choose protest: he will join a group of ‘old lefties,’ holding up placards. In other words, he does what old men, bewildered, can do: stand for an ethical point of view within long memories, and hope that the gesture travels well.” —Harold Rhenisch reviews Eyeless in Gaza Again, by Gary Geddes (N.p.: World Beyond War, 2025) $0.00
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
Reissued 2014 novel recounts a father and son’s journey to a backcountry destination: “In Wagamese’s prose, the descriptions of these places are so skilfully rendered that the ugliness becomes beautiful. In the rhythmic, pulsing language, you can smell the empty bottles, the smoke and ashes, the unwashed bodies, the frying bologna.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Medicine Walk, by Richard Wagamese (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2025) $22.00 / 9780771023521
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stayed with them. Once again, “eclectic” is our word of the year.