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.
In collection of poetry where nature takes pride of place, a writer “shows a strong understanding of poetic craft,” relating lyrical tales that are “personal, observant, moving, and expansive” and “made potent through a distinctive working of language and image.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews All of Us Hidden, by Joanna Streetly (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press: 2025) $20.00 / 9781773861722
YA horror set at a spiritual retreat that isn’t: “Structurally impressive, mythologically rich, and recurrently dark, Cheng has carefully infused just enough humour and hope in a novel where it’s easy to root for the good guys.” —Jessica Poon reviews Beautiful Brutal Bodies, by Linda Cheng (Toronto: Listening Library, 2025) $20.99 / 9781250865816
A charming and upbeat picture book takes a brisk and enthused tour through sports history to discuss women who broke with convention. A heavy skirt that’s too cumbersome for swimming? Grab some scissors! —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews This Skirt Won’t Work: How Women Athletes Changed Their Clothes and Changed the Game, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Eva Byrne) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Explore, 2025) $28.99 / 9781728267845
An author “enamoured with the engine’s colourful history and ongoing survival,” melds historical narratives and storytelling to create appealing glimpses of the engine in action, whether in 1886, 1947, or 1964. —Ron Verzuh reviews Engine 374 and Me: True (and Partly True) Stories of a Celebrated CPR Locomotive, by Lisa Anne Smith (Vancouver: Time Talk Press, 2024) $20.00 / 9780968786512
The fourth volume of an epic series—with “two branching timelines that have a massive crossover of characters, cities, histories, and wars”—grabs attention for its deft and artful handling of complexity, and for its queer inclusivity. —Myshara McMyn reviews Wake (The Call of the Rift, Book Four), by Jae Waller (Toronto: ECW Press, 2023) $23.95 / 9781770414594
“The lines are tough and full of bones, like dried salmon, but respond well to chewing”: epic in size and scope, a posthumous volume grapples with literary and cultural inheritance, as well as the desecrations of BC’s colonial-capitalist history. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl (The Book of Gates, Vol. 1), by Tom McGauley (Afterword by Luke Franklin) (Moncton: Galleon Books, 2025) $29.99 / 9781998122080
Finding inspiration in a haiku by Matsuo Bashō, an author leads young readers on a strikingly-coloured and capricious journey into Edo-era Japan… and their own creativity. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews A Pond, a Poet, and Three Pests, by Caroline Adderson (illustrated by Lauren Tamaki) (Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2025) $21.99 / 9781773068930
Family, friendship, prejudice, and loss are thoughtfully explored in a pair of chapter books for young readers. “There’s such valuing of connection in these pages, and an honesty to the whole,” writes our reviewer. —Alison Acheson reviews A Promise to Protect, by Nikki Bergstresser (Victoria: Heritage House, 2025) $14.95 / 9781772035438 and I Won’t Feel This Way Forever, by Kim Spencer (Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2025) $14.95 / 9781459838208
Phantasmagorical speculative fiction that spans centuries and jumps between dimensions, a novel unfolds as “a bold, evocative exploration of what it means to awaken to one’s purpose in a world shaped by both ancient forces and uncertain futures.” —Raeshelle Pascual reviews A Dream Wants Waking, by Lydia Kwa (Hamilton: Wolsak & Wynn, 2023) $22.00 / 9781989496756
