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
Bold art and great design work together to elevate an already exuberant, well-told tale about Katie Sandwina, a historical strongwoman. —Ginny Ratsoy reviews Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Jen White) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Kids, 2024) $28.00 / 9781728267814
Debut novelist’s tale brings together two women and two centuries in a satisfying book that “sparkles with excitement, history, and the agency of women.” —Valerie Green reviews The Champagne Letters, by Kate MacIntosh (Toronto: Gallery Books, 2024) $36.99 / 9781668061886
Set in an apartment building that is “like a big hug,” The Secret Office is aimed at Grade Three readers, “but its appeal transcends easy age categorization.” —Ginny Ratsoy reviews The Secret Office,
by Sara Cassidy (illustrated by Alyssa Hutchings) (Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2024) $8.95 / 9781459839465
Attractive and handcrafted, a trio of chapbooks also showcase poets with unique gifts for observation and reflection. —Heidi Greco reviews Warp and Weft, by Carla Stein (Chilliwack: Tigerpetal Press, 2024) $15.00 / 9780995863972), Future Tense, by Lauren Peat (London: Baseline Press, 2024) $15.00 / 9781998521005), a tangle of words, by Yvonne Adalian, Mavis Beggs, Elektra Harris, Natalie Hryciuk, barb snyder, and B. Violet [self-published, 2024]
An accomplished, sometimes surreal debut poetry collection fascinates with its immersive scenes and stark memories. —Marguerite Pigeon reviews The Sacred Heart Motel, by Grace Kwan (Montreal: Metonymy Press, 2024) $18.95 / 9781998898169
Debut book, a memoir, chronicles a typical middle-class suburban upbringing that’s followed by years of filling an existential “black hole” with harmful choices. —Carellin Brooks reviews Sunrise Over Half-Built Houses: Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia, by Erin Steele (Qualicum Beach: Dagger Editions, 2024) $26.00 / 9781773861500
“At times, the novel feels—and this is praise—like a couple of opinionated art students kvetching while wearing designer clothes—or latex—in Geneva.” —Jessica Poon reviews Bold Strokes, by Jane Boon (Toronto: Regan Arts, 2024) $22.00 / 9781682452288
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
Marked by “verve and whimsy,” this collection portrays a “virtuous smart mouth poet” who is “gentle with humour” and “searing with insight.”
—Cathy Ford reviews Refabulations: Selected Longer Poems, by Sharon Thesen (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $24.94 / 9781772015102
With a cast of writers, this stylish thriller provides “deeply satisfying escapism; however, it also skillfully depicts parental grief, artistic struggles, and that persistent feeling that, if you just find the right words, then, your life will have meant something.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Deepest Lake, by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Toronto: Soho Crime, 2024) $26.95 / 9781641295604
A ‘fairy tale wedding’ provides a novelist with the opportunity to create “a chaotic, soul-baring, multi-generational family drama.” —Bill Paul reviews The Wedding, by Gurjinder Basran (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771624169
Inspired by family history, novelist sets volatile love affair in the midst of WWII, specifically with the guerrilla actions of Churchill’s Special Operations Executive in northern Italy. —Theo Dombrowski reviews The Cipher, by Genni Gunn (Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2024) $22.95 / 9781773241425
Novel about American socialite struggles to unearth the woman behind the “constant posturing.” —Candace Fertile reviews Peggy, by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2024) $36.00 / 97803458082
Poetry volumes highlight a poet’s “impeccable way of seeing the grieving, dreaming world” as well as another’s “no readily-digested messages.” —Catherine Owen reviews Distractions, by Eve Joseph (London: Baseline Press, 2023) $15.00 / 9781928066873 and Signal Infinities, by Melanie Siebert (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2024) $22.95 / 9780771013980
“At this point, I texted a friend, who wisely said, ‘I think people are reading for sex, not cooking accuracy.’ Remember: this is a romance. The restaurant is just a vehicle for the romance.” —Jessica Poon reviews Knives, Seasoning, and a Dash of Love, by Katrina Kwan (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024) $24.95 / 9781039012417
Poetry volume presents “a diverse offering of entrances into the common and yet infrequently written about life of one woman inhabiting her own time, planting flowers while ‘knowing full well the battle [she] will wage and lose.'” —Catherine Owen reviews Whiny Baby, by Julie Paul (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) $19.95 / 9780228020745
“So, my verdict: this is good art. It provoked me and changed me, in big and small ways.” —Petra Chambers reviews All Things Seen and Unseen, by RJ McDaniel (Toronto: ECW Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781770417090