“Deep Cuts is a fantastic debut novel that aptly captures being in your twenties, loving music, and chaotic will-they-won’t-they romance. Winsome, full of heart, and with unusually excellent dialogue, Deep Cuts is destined to become a fondly dog-eared novel, meant to be reread and replayed.”—Jessica Poon reviews Deep Cuts, by Holly Brickley (Toronto: Doubleday, 2025) $26.99 / 9780385699907
“If ever Moore decides to transform his novel into a screenplay for a Casablanca sequel, an intention suggested by naming his chapters as acts and scenes, I’d like to request a reserve seat. It promises to be a marvellous viewing treat.” —Ron Verzuh reviews The Last Reel: A Sequel to “Casablanca,” by John Moore (Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2024) $25.95 / 9781771715140
“Sprawling [and] ambitious” 1940s-set debut novel captures the death and male camaraderie of wartime Europe and the romantic challenges of a mixed-race couple in Vancouver. —Jessica Poon reviews The Riveter, by Jack Wang (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2025) $24.99 / 9781487007614
Aspiring ballerina meets NHL rookie. Eventually, romance blossoms. “Any reader remotely familiar with the trope of I’m Only Pretending to Like You will know where this story is going; however, it’s how Khabra delays the inevitable that I was most impressed by,” writes Jessica Poon in her review of Spiral, by Bal Khabra (Toronto: Berkley, 2025) $24.95 / 9780735250468
Author draws on true-life experiences to portray hardship and perseverance in a wintry city during a horrific three-year campaign of attrition. —Heidi Greco reviews Winter of Siege, by Jan DeGrass (Garden Bay: MW Books, 2023) $20.00 / 9780995277830
Debut novel immerses readers “in the infested Gothic stream of the American South” and portrays memorably obsessive characters “nurtured on beer and cigarettes.” —Michael Greenstein reviews After We Drowned, by Jill Yonit Goldberg (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2024) $22.00 / 9781772142273
“Myth is the only truth, says Eros, echoing Jung, and perhaps we would be better served by a novel that focused more on myth and less on boring humans.” —Sheldon Goldfarb reviews A Bouquet of Darts: A European Travel Mystery, by Reed Stirling (Drayton Valley: BWL Publishing, 2024) $18.99 / 9780228631309
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stuck with them. “Eclectic” is our word of the year.
“Does the novel work? The implied audience is a small one, and even within it, some readers may find the novel more work than reward. But others will likely revel in the intricacy…” —Candace Fertile reviews Hester in Sunlight, by Hannah Calder (Vancouver: New Star, 2024) $22.00 / 9781554202102
Ending of sophisticated restaurant-set novel, “in conversation with the ongoing cultural and legal reckoning happening with men who’ve abused their offices and privileges,” may disappoint some, enrage others. —Greg Brown reviews The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf, by Timothy Taylor (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2024) $26.99 / 9781459753198
Nigeria-set sophomore novel “has enough tangly relationships for a soap opera, ample tension for a psychological thriller, and meaningful, if slightly under-explored sociopolitical commentary on race, religion, and gender.” —Jessica Poon reviews Every Drop of Blood Is Red, by Umar Turaki (New York: Little A (an Amazon Imprint), 2024) $24.99 / 781662508110
“As much as this is a document of a slice of the war, it is a novel about a distinctive character and personality.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews The Forgotten: A Novel of the Korean War, by Robert Mackay (Surrey: Now or Never Press, 2024) $26.95 / 9781989689752
Debut novel, based on family memories, probes the “pitch-black reality of the Holodomor, the Soviet-engineered famine that is estimated to have killed up to five million Ukrainians in the early 1930s.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Black Sunflowers, by Cynthia LeBrun (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2024) $21.95 / 9781554556434
“Remembering, as British writer George Orwell showed in his Homage to Catalonia, brings bloody thoughts to the surface and can unearth opposing memories. Spaner does not shy from including such moments and these add a tough realism to the novel.” —Ron Verzuh reviews Keefer Street, by David Spaner (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781553807209
Featuring a tyrannical emperor, a kindhearted young hero, a daunting quest, and an “exceedingly chaste” romance, the novel succeeds on its own terms. —Jessica Poon reviews The Last Dragon of the East, by Katrina Kwan (Toronto: Saga Press, 2024) $24.99 / 9781668051238
Enthralling, comedy-flecked murder mystery capably illustrates how a “lot can go right–and terribly wrong–in a 24-hour window.” —Caileigh Broatch reviews Bronco Buster, by A.J. Devlin (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2024) $22.95 / 9781774391020
With “each new offering, Van Camp reminds us of his remarkable gift for storytelling. ‘Beast’ is no exception.” —Zoe McKenna reviews Beast, by Richard Van Camp (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771624145
Writing “evocatively with gutsy language and pacing that moves along,” this debut YA novelist also “handles the humanity of her characters with a sense of honour; they feel to be so fully-developed that they’re letting her know where they should be on the page.” —Alison Acheson reviews Devil by the Tail, by Caroline Lavoie (Winnipeg: Deep Hearts YA, 2024) $21.99 / 9781998055616
A veteran writer’s new novel is defined by meticulous, expansive, and breathtaking world-building. Sometimes, though, too much is too much. —Zoe McKenna reviews Blackheart Man, by Nalo Hopkinson (Toronto: Simon & Schuster / Saga Press, 2024) $34.99 / 9781668005101
Part hippie hitchhiker’s odyssey, part draft resister’s memoir, this novel “reads like the diary of… countercultural wanderers of the 1960.” —Ron Verzuh reviews Waiting for the Revolution, by Ross Klatte (Altona: Friesen Press, 2024) $22.99 / 9781039188877