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Ava Comes Home
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95From the author of Relative Happiness and Shoot Me comes a riveting story about one terrible secret—a secret kept in shame, buried deep for self-preservation, and exposed in a moment that changes forever the lives of everyone involved.
Ava Harris is a famous actress living the life of the rich and fabulous in L.A. when a family crisis calls her home. It’s been ten years since she’s set foot in Glace Bay, Cape Breton—back when she was plain old Libby MacKinnon. Why she ran away, no one knows. Returning home, she must face her family, her friends, and her first love, Seamus O’Reilly, whose heart broke the day she left.
Ava is a good little actress, determined that no one will know what happened. She will keep the truth buried at all costs—even if she has to run again. But secrets have a way of surfacing, especially in a small town, and love has a way of blasting through the toughest barriers. While Ava can never go home again, perhaps Libby finally can.
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Shoot Me
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95The South End house where Elsie Brooks and her big, complicated family live is bursting with secrets. Elsie’s banished husband lives in the basement. Her lonely sister lives in the attic. Her twenty-something daughters come and go as they please. And when the renegade ninety-one-year-old archaeologist they all know as Aunt Hildy comes home to die, the poor old place becomes impossibly full-of hidden meanings and hidden treasure, of murder and mystery.
Shoot Me is a story about family, fortune, and figuring out who you are. Bestselling author Lesley Crewe has created a mixed-up, frantic, ultimately lovable East Coast family. But as Aunt Hildy would say, “Life is not something that needs to be tamed. It’s messy. Always was, always will be.”
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If I Were a Zombie
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95If I were a zombie
I’d package my drool
put it in Mason jars
sell it at school.This hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated Kate Inglis has two children trying to outdo one another, imagining what they could do if only they were a zombie, a ninja, or a robot. With outrageously entertaining rhyming text and brilliant illustrations from artist Eric Orchard, this is sure to be a favourite with readers of all ages.
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Brighten the Corner Where You Are A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95In this bittersweet novel inspired by the life of Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis, master storyteller Carol Bruneau gives voice to the artist, allowing her to speak from beyond the grave, freed from the stigmas of gender, poverty and disability that marked her life and shaped her art.
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Are You Kidding Me?! Collector’s Edition Chronicles of an Ordinary Life
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95For the first time, bestselling novelist, columnist, and humorist Lesley Crewe’s finest newspaper columns are collected in one place.
Not merely razor sharp, Lesley’s wit is also ocean wide, taking in everything from the humiliations of breast pumping to the indignities of aging, from the frantic excess of holiday preparations to the homey irritations of a long marriage.
As precise in her observations as Jane Austen and as fractious on occasion as Oscar the Grouch, Crewe also has a sweet, tender centre, taking us from a hearty laugh to a good cry in a single paragraph. Readers will relate to Crewe’s ache at missing her mom, her nostalgia for her childhood, her frustrations at raising teenagers, and her impatience for terrible parking lot etiquette in equal measure. The book spans sixteen years’ worth of columns for The Cape Bretoner Magazine, Cahoots Magazine, and The Chronicle Herald.
Are You Kidding Me?! is a side-splitting, heartwarming, Cape Breton–flavoured celebration of the little things.
An exclusive Collector’s Edition featuring—not even kidding!—bonus material:
A bookplate, signed by Lesley Crewe
A letter from Lesley to her fans
An essay about how Lesley’s writing career began
A Q&A between Lesley and her long-time editor
A brand-new bonus column -
Maritime Monsters
Artist: Jeff SolwayPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95This children’s picture book is a field guide to Maritime monsters, taken from local folklore and legends. The monsters described include Prince Edward Island’s Old Hook-Snout, New Brunswick’s Acadian Werewolf, Nova Scotia’s Parker Road Phantom and Newfoundland’s Not-So-Cuddly Kraken!
Each entry includes a short story featuring the monster and a field guide entry: location, diet, size, frequency, description, and special monster-hunting advice. An indispensable resource for the young Maritime monster hunter!
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You Won’t Always Be This Sad A Book of Moments
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95In the wake of her son’s unexpected death, author and storyteller Sheree Fitch wrote it all down, penning an honest, lyrical memoir with words to stir heart. You Won’t Always Be This Sad invites readers on a journey through grief towards hope, guided by the immeasurable depths of a mother’s love.
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Throw Down Your Shadows
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Sixteen-year-old Winnie is a creature of habit, a lover of ritual and stability. If she had her way, not much would change. But when a new family moves to town, Winnie and her three best friends—all boys—find themselves changing quickly and dramatically to impress Caleb, their strange and charismatic new companion. Under Caleb’s influence, Winnie and her friends test boundaries, flirt with danger, and in the end, illuminate darkness within each other and themselves.
Following a before and after structure that pivots around a mysterious and devastating fire at a local winery, Throw Down Your Shadows is a compelling exploration of the contours of young friendship and the development of powerful new appetites.
Reminiscent of The Girls by Emma Cline and Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler, this literary coming-of-age story feeds a growing demand in adult fiction for candid portrayals of the young female experience as complex and provocative, and announces a bold new voice in Canadian fiction.
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A Forest for Calum
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The story is Roddie’s. The stage is his guardian and grandfather Calum’s. A quiet and stoic man, Calum Gillies and his aging friends illuminate for us the changing world around them: the loss of the coal mines, the labour strife and lean years endured, the religious parochialism that divides families and communities and, most important, a disappearing language. The setting is Cape Breton; the themes of cultural and rural change and decline are universal.
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Good Mothers Don’t
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95It’s 1960 and Elizabeth is slowly coming apart. Her reality is splintering and she wants to harm her children. Fifteen years later, Elizabeth is desperately trying to fill in the gaps electric shock therapy has left in her memory. She longs to find her children and explain that she never meant to leave for so long. A moving exploration of illness, memory, and how we fight for who we love.
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Use Your Imagination!
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95A woman becomes obsessed with a story about her family from 1890—when a naked, mute girl stumbled onto their property—and whether or not it really happened. A self-help guru and his chief strategist take their most affluent and unstable clients on a harrowing nature hike that destroys their company. A young convict in a prison creative writing class chronicles the rise and fall of his cellblock’s resident peacemaker. A rural neighbourhood becomes obsessed by the coming of a strange and powerful new homeowner who is in the middle of reinventing herself.
The stories of Use Your Imagination! are about stories, about the way we define and give shape to ourselves through all kinds of narratives, true or not. In seven long stories, Kris Bertin examines the complex labyrinth of lies, delusions, compromise, and fabrication that makes up our personal history and mythology. Sometimes funny, strange, or frightening, these stories represent Bertin’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed, award-winning debut, Bad Things Happen.
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Anne of Green Gables : The Original Manuscript
Editor: Carolyn Strom CollinsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95This fascinating book presents the original text of Montgomery’s most famous manuscript, including where the author scribbled notes, made additions and deletions, and other editorial details. L. M. Montgomery scholar Carolyn Strom Collins offers a rare look into Montgomery’s creative process, providing a never-before-published version of the worldwide phenomenon.
This book differs from previous versions of Anne in that it provides a transcription of the text and notes from Montgomery’s original manuscript, and shows how they were integrated to form the full novel. The culmination of years of research, Anne of Green Gables: the Original Manuscript is a necessary addition to any Montgomery lover’s collection. This volume features scans of the first page of each chapter from the original archived document (showing editorial notes in Montgomery’s handwriting) and an appendix of rare foreign-language covers.
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The Lost Sister
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95The anticipated sophomore novel from celebrated author Andrea Gunraj, The Lost Sister explores gender, race and class dynamics through the harrowing story of sisters Alisha and Diana. Set in Toronto while drawing from real-life experiences of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, The Lost Sister examines topics of child abuse, neglect and abduction in a story about guilt, redemption and peace.
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Crocuses Hatch from Snow
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95In North End Halifax, past and present interweave through the relationships of the characters in Crocuses Hatch from Snow. A soaring exploration of diverse communities across generations, author Jaime Burnet’s debut novel introduces an exciting lyrical voice in queer literary fiction.
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A Dark House & Other Stories
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Snap decisions, risky alliances and comical wrong-headedness bring the stories in award-winning author Ian Colford’s latest collection to life. Colford weaves wit and nuance into portrayals of characters facing questions of fortune, fate and self-preservation. Awkward and dangerous situations arise as Colford, dryly yet empathetically, illustrates what happens when people do what they think is best for all.
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I Place You into the Fire Poems
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$18.95In Mi’kmaw, three similarly shaped words have drastically different meanings: kesalul means “I love you”; kesa’lul means “I hurt you”; and ke’sa’lul means “I put you into the fire.” Spoken word artist Rebecca Thomas’ first poetry collection is at once a meditation on navigating life and love as a second-generation Residential School survivor, a lesson in unlearning, and a rallying cry for Indigenous justice, empathy, and equality.
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Kiss the Joy as it Flies Tenth-anniversary edition
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$18.95With all the wisdom, humor and joy we’ve come to expect from Sheree Fitch, Kiss the Joy As It Flies, first published in 2008, marked the well-loved author’s move from children’s literature to adult fiction.
Set in the fictional Maritime town of Odell, with a cast of exasperating but lovable characters, Kiss the Joy As It Flies promises to be a remarkable debut and a reader’s favorite. Panic-stricken by the news that she needs exploratory surgery, forty-eight-year-old Mercy Beth Fanjoy drafts a monumental to-do list and sets about putting her messy life in order. Among other things (hide the vibrator!), she’s determined to finally uncover the identity of her secret admirer; reconnect with long-lost friend and rival Teeny Gaudet; and, most importantly, get her hands on the note her father left before committing suicide all those years ago. But tidying up the edges of her life means the past comes rushing back to haunt her and the present keeps throwing up more to-do’s. Between fits of weeping and laughter, ranting and bliss, Mercy must contemplate the meaning of life in the face of her own death. In a week filled with the riot of an entire life, nothing turns out the way she’d expected.
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Lay Figures
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95In Saint John, New Brunswick in 1939, Elizabeth MacKinnon is swept up in the city’s vibrant community of artists. She finds herself joining their struggles to make sense of making art in a time of economic depression. In a story that couples bitter despair with exuberant triumphs, Elizabeth and her fellow artists make life-changing discoveries about politics and social responsibility, desire and betrayal.
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Beholden
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95The story begins with Nell, the “spinster on the hill” near St. Peter’s, Cape Breton. Scarred by her own childhood, she swears she could never love a child and that she will never marry, denying herself a life with the man she loves. She’s proven wrong when a baby is born just down the road from her. Her love of little Jane, despite herself, propels us forward through generations trying to untangle their own traumas and secrets. Eventually, we meet Bridie—joyful, kind, capable Bridie—and see her struggling through the echoing pain of those who came before her. Her choices, her bravery, her “nest of wonderful women,” and her ultimate refusal to settle for anything less than love, eventually redeem her and everyone around her—even the spinster on the hill.
As real as our own family dramas, Beholden is full of Lesley Crewe’s trademark laugh-out-loud moments, heartbreaking losses, incredible women with unbreakable friendships, and the sweet wildness of Cape Breton.
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Berth
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Uprooted, longing for love and to feel somehow situated, Willa Jackson flees life as a military wife when she meets Hugh, the lighthouse keeper on McNabs Island in Halifax Harbour. The object of her fantasies, a musician, he’s the last of a dying breed in this story set during the final days of lightkeeping before automation. Romanced by this magical location—so close to the city and its lively communities, yet so remote—she involves her ten-year-old son, Alex, in her escape. Things sour when isolation and Hugh, harbourer of secrets deadlier than she can imagine, turn as brutal as the forces of nature—and of self-deception—that threaten to engulf all three. A tender yet heartbreaking story of one woman’s reckoning.
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Purple for Sky
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Mayhem unfolds and loyalties unravel in a tightly knit clan of Bible-thumping shopkeepers when the formidable Ruby Clarke develops dementia, and a secret is revealed about her mother that shatters ties binding Ruby’s niece, Lindy Hammond, to the failing family business. Set in a shrinking community in northern Nova Scotia—a town that a century ago was an industrial hub—this unforgettable novel interweaves the lives of three women from three generations and of the husbands, lovers, and customers who cross them. Past and present come to life in this rich, award-winning story that blends humour and grit, realism and the magic of everyday things, as colourful as the crazy quilt cherished by its characters.
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These Good Hands
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Captive to a staggering genius and mounting paranoia, Mademoiselle—the fictional incarnation of legendary French sculptor Camille Claudel—relives her art-making in Belle Époque Paris from the asylum where she’s been captive for thirty years. The year is 1943, the height of the Vichy regime in war-torn France, and salvation comes in the form of Solange Poitier, the nurse who cares for Mademoiselle in her final days, and their growing friendship. In this compassionate, deftly-researched novel melding art history and storytelling, art and medicine mingle in the characters’ rejection of the misogynistic conditions that would stifle their deepest ambitions and gifts. Best known as Rodin’s muse and mistress, Claudel is given a voice here that’s fiercely hers and her art a recognition long due.
