Tuesday, October 6, 2020

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Fiction & Literature 2020-10-06

Elin Hilderbrand - Troubles in Paradise artwork Troubles in Paradise
Elin Hilderbrand
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

Travel to the bright Caribbean one last time in the satisfying conclusion to the nationally bestselling Winter in Paradise trilogy by Elin Hilderbrand, "Queen of the Summer Novel" ( People ). After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband Russ had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved.  With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident. Meanwhile, the island watches this drama unfold -- including the driver of a Jeep with tinted windows who seems to be shadowing the Steele family. As a storm gathers strength in the Atlantic, surprises are in store for the Steeles: help from a mysterious source, and a new beginning in the paradise that has become their home. At last all will be revealed about the secrets and lies that brought Irene and her sons to St. John -- and the truth that transformed them all.



Amy Meyerson - The Imperfects artwork The Imperfects
A Novel
Amy Meyerson
Genre: Family
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: May 05, 2020
Publisher: Park Row Books
Seller: Harlequin Enterprises Limited

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY GOOD MORNING AMERICA · PARADE · OK! MAGAZINE · ELLE CANADA · CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR · PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “A page-turning family saga, this book will entertain readers of all generations.” —Good Morning America “Compassionate, thoughtful, and surprisingly moving… [The Imperfects] will satisfy fans of Maggie Shipstead and Celeste Ng.” —Booklist From the bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays comes a captivating new novel about a priceless inheritance that leads one family on a life-altering pursuit of the truth. The Millers are far from perfect. Estranged siblings Beck, Ashley and Jake find themselves under one roof for the first time in years, forced to confront old resentments and betrayals, when their mysterious, eccentric matriarch, Helen, passes away. But their lives are about to change when they find a secret inheritance hidden among her possessions—the Florentine Diamond, a 137-carat yellow gemstone that went missing from the Austrian Empire a century ago. Desperate to learn how one of the world’s most elusive diamonds ended up in Helen’s bedroom, they begin investigating her past only to realize how little they know about their brave, resilient grandmother. As the Millers race to determine whether they are the rightful heirs to the diamond and the fortune it promises, they uncover a past more tragic and powerful than they ever could have imagined, forever changing their connection to their heritage and each other. Inspired by the true story of the real, still-missing Florentine Diamond, The Imperfects illuminates the sacrifices we make for family and how sometimes discovering the truth of the past is the only way to better the future.



Ken Follett - The Evening and the Morning artwork The Evening and the Morning
Ken Follett
Genre: Historical
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: September 15, 2020
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a thrilling and addictive new novel--a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth --set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages "Just as transporting as [ The Pillars of the Earth ] . . . A most welcome addition to the Kingsbridge series." -- The Washington Post It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when the only home he's ever known is raided by Vikings, forcing him and his family to move and start their lives anew in a small hamlet where he does not fit in. . . . A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land, but the customs of her husband's homeland are shockingly different, and as she begins to realize that everyone around her is engaged in a constant, brutal battle for power, it becomes clear that a single misstep could be catastrophic. . . . A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning that will be admired throughout Europe. And each in turn comes into dangerous conflict with a clever and ruthless bishop who will do anything to increase his wealth and power. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett's masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins.



Rumaan Alam - Leave the World Behind artwork Leave the World Behind
A Novel
Rumaan Alam
Genre: Literary
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: Ecco
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION A Recommended Book From Vogue * TIME * The Washington Post * Buzzfeed * The Boston Globe * The Wall Street Journal * Vulture * Newsweek * NY Observer *  Refinery29 * The New York Post * Town & Country * Parade * The Millions * PopSugar * AARP * Publishers Weekly * Apartment Therapy * AV Club * Kirkus *  LA Mag * BookPage * Alma * Lit Hub * The Week A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?  Suspenseful and provocative, Rumaan Alam’s third novel is keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.



Patrick Taylor - An Irish Country Welcome artwork An Irish Country Welcome
Patrick Taylor
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Seller: Macmillan

An Irish Country Welcome is a charming entry in Patrick Taylor's internationally bestselling Irish Country series. In the close-knit Northern Irish village of Ballybucklebo, it’s said that a new baby brings its own welcome. Young doctor Barry Laverty and his wife Sue are anxiously awaiting their first child, but as the community itself prepares to welcome a new decade, the closing months of the 1960s bring more than a televised moon landing to Barry, his friends, his neighbors, and his patients, including a number of sticky questions. A fledgling doctor joins the practice as a trainee, but will the very upper-class Sebastian Carson be a good fit for the rough and tumble of Irish country life? And as sectarian tensions rise elsewhere in Ulster, can a Protestant man marry the Catholic woman he dearly loves, despite his father’s opposition? And who exactly is going to win the award for the best dandelion wine at this year’s Harvest Festival? But while Barry and Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly and their fellow physicians deal with everything from brain surgery to a tractor accident to a difficult pregnancy, there’s still time to share the comforting joys and pleasures of this very special place: fly-fishing, boat races, and even the town’s very first talent competition! Welcome back to Ballybucklebo, as vividly brought to life by a master storyteller. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.



Emily Adrian - Everything Here Is under Control artwork Everything Here Is under Control
A Novel
Emily Adrian
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: July 28, 2020
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Seller: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Amanda is a new mother, and she is breaking. After a fight with her partner, she puts the baby in the car and drives from Queens to her hometown in rural Ohio, where she shows up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged childhood best friend. Amanda thought that she had left Carrie firmly in the past. After their friendship ended, their lives diverged radically: Carrie had a baby the summer after high school, became a successful tattoo artist, and never escaped Ohio’s conservative grid of close-cut grass. But the trauma of childbirth and shock of motherhood compel Amanda to go back to the beginning and to trace the tangled roots of friendship and family in her own life. Compelling and engaging,  Everything Here Is under Control  is a raw, honest, occasionally hilarious portrait of the complexity, conflicting emotions, and physical trauma of both modern motherhood and the intense, intimate friendships that women forge in their youth.



Emma Donoghue - The Wonder artwork The Wonder
A Novel
Emma Donoghue
Genre: Historical
Price: $3.99
Publish Date: September 20, 2016
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

A small Irish village is mystified by what appears to be a miracle but may actually be murder in the next masterpiece from New York Times-bestselling author Emma Donoghue. A small village in 1850s rural Ireland is baffled by Anna O'Donnell's fast, which began as a self-inflicted and earnest expression of faith. After weeks of subsisting only on what she calls "manna from heaven," the story of the "miracle" has reached a fever pitch. Tourists flock in droves to the O'Donnell family's modest cabin hoping to witness, and an international journalist is sent to cover the sensational story. Enter Lib, an English nurse trained by Florence Nightingale who is hired to keep watch for two weeks and determine whether or not Anna is a fraud. As Anna deteriorates, Lib finds herself responsible not just for the care of a child, but for getting to the root of why the child may actually be the victim of murder in slow motion. A magnetic novel written with all the spare and propulsive tension that made Room a huge bestseller, The Wonder works beautifully on many levels—a simple tale of two strangers who will transform each other's lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil in its many masks.



Elsa Morante & William Weaver - History artwork History
A Novel
Elsa Morante & William Weaver
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: February 08, 2000
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

History was written nearly thirty years after Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia spent a year in hiding among remote farming villages in the mountains south of Rome. There she witnessed the full impact of the war and first formed the ambition to write an account of what history - the great political events driven by men of power, wealth, and ambition - does when it reaches the realm of ordinary people struggling for life and bread. The central character in this powerful and unforgiving novel is Ida Mancuso, a schoolteacher whose husband has died and whose feckless teenage son treats the war as his playground. A German soldier on his way to North Africa rapes her, falls in love with her, and leaves her pregnant with a boy whose survival becomes Ida's passion. Around these two other characters come and go, each caught up by the war which is like a river in flood. We catch glimpses of bombing raids, street crimes, a cattle car from which human cries emerge, an Italian soldier succumbing to frostbite on the Russian front, the dumb endurance of peasants who have lived their whole lives with nothing and now must get by with less than nothing.



Gil Adamson - Ridgerunner artwork Ridgerunner
Gil Adamson
Genre: Literary
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: May 12, 2020
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Seller: House of Anansi Inc

November 1917. William Moreland is in mid-flight. After nearly twenty years, the notorious thief, known as the Ridgerunner, has returned. Moving through the Rocky Mountains and across the border to Montana, the solitary drifter, impoverished in means and aged beyond his years, is also a widower and a father. And he is determined to steal enough money to secure his son’s future. Twelve-year-old Jack Boulton has been left in the care of Sister Beatrice, a formidable nun who keeps him in cloistered seclusion in her grand old house. Though he knows his father is coming for him, the boy longs to return to his family’s cabin, deep in the woods. When Jack finally breaks free, he takes with him something the nun is determined to get back — at any cost. Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson’s follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.



Cassidy K. O'Connor, D.C. Gambel, K.L. Bone, Aldrea Alien, L. R. W. Lee, Jude Cocaigne, Jaclyn Roche, D.E. Chapman, Christa Ann, Hunter S Jones, Krista Ames, Erin McFadden, Silvana G. Sánchez, Amari Ara Dreamer & Monique Singleton - Once Upon Another World artwork Once Upon Another World
Cassidy K. O'Connor, D.C. Gambel, K.L. Bone, Aldrea Alien, L. R. W. Lee, Jude Cocaigne, Jaclyn Roche, D.E. Chapman, Christa Ann, Hunter S Jones, Krista Ames, Erin McFadden, Silvana G. Sánchez, Amari Ara Dreamer & Monique Singleton
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: Cassidy K. O'Connor
Seller: Smashwords, Inc.

Not all fairy tales are as they appear. Was it actually Red who hunted the wolf? What if the prince was the one in distress? Did the straw really get spun into gold? How well did those glass slippers truly fit? Where princesses do their own rescuing, princes aren’t who they first appear to be, and beasts are friends, not foe—and maybe something more… With stories spanning from true love’s kiss to reverse harem, skyscrapers to ancient castles, sweet romance to steamy nights, these alluring tales will satisfy readers of fantasy and romance alike. Grab your copy of ONCE UPON ANOTHER WORLD and discover 22 twisted fairy tales with a happily ever after unlike anything you’ve ever read before. Authors included in the box set are: Joel Crofoot, D.E. Chapman, Iris Sweetwater & Chandra Trulove Fry, Silvana G. Sanchez, Jaclyn Roche, Cassidy K. O'Connor, L.R.W. Lee, K.L. Bone & Erin McFadden, Lianne Willowmoon & Phillip Shadowdragon, Hunter S. Jones, Aldrea Alien, Monique Singleton, D.C. Gambel, Zack Hacker, S. Cinders & Krista Ames, Amari Ari Dreamer, K.A. Fox, M.L. Garza, JB Trepagnier, Jude Cocaigne, Christa Ann



Jodi Picoult - The Book of Two Ways artwork The Book of Two Ways
Jodi Picoult
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: September 22, 2020
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the #1 bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things , a riveting novel about the choices that change the course of our lives . Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She's on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: prepare for a crash landing. As thoughts flash through her mind, Dawn braces herself for impact. The shocking thing is the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years earlier.      Miraculously, Dawn survives the crash, but so do all the doubts she suddenly feels. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, she has her husband, Brian, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula who helps to ease the transition between life and death for her clients. But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a job she once studied for, but was forced to abandon. Now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the life choices she once made.      After the crash, once they've been checked out by a doctor, the airline offers the passengers flights to a destination of their choice. The obvious thing for Dawn is to fly home, to her work, to her family. The other option that occurs to her, though, is to travel to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways--the first known map of the afterlife.      As the story unfolds, Dawn's two futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts she's kept buried. And then there are the questions she's never truly asked: What does a well-lived life look like? When we leave the earth, what do we leave behind? Do we make choices or do our choices make us? And, who would you be, if you hadn't turned into the person you are right now?     



Emily St. John Mandel - The Glass Hotel artwork The Glass Hotel
A Novel
Emily St. John Mandel
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: March 24, 2020
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE #1 national bestseller New York Times bestseller From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it. Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later, Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship. Weaving together the lives of these characters, The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the wilderness of remote British Columbia, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.



Alice Hoffman - Magic Lessons artwork Magic Lessons
The Prequel to Practical Magic
Alice Hoffman
Genre: Literary
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Unnamed Arts.” Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back. When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. And it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Love is the only thing that matters. Magic Lessons is a celebration of life and love and a showcase of Alice Hoffman’s masterful storytelling.



Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger - Reschen Valley Series: Season 1 Box Set (1920-1924) artwork Reschen Valley Series: Season 1 Box Set (1920-1924)
Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger
Genre: Historical
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: December 09, 2018
Publisher: Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger
Seller: Draft2Digital, LLC

A plan to flood out her valley. A means to destroy her culture. 1920. Former Austrian Tyrol. When Katharina Thaler, a young Tyrolean farmer, finds a wounded Italian engineer in the mountains of the Reschen Valley, her decision to save his life thrusts both of them into a labyrinth of corruption, prejudice and greed. Angelo Grimani, a civil engineer, knows the details of a project that may destroy Katharina's valley. Not in favour of it himself, he returns home to fend off the forces that envision the biggest reservoir in Italy, headed by Angelo's own father. As the Tyroleans gear themselves to fight for their land, the Fascist party gathers power and momentum. Katharina and Angelo must each decide what to protect: love or country? Dive in and discover the gripping saga based on a history you never knew. This box set contains the first three of six books:  No Man's Land: Part 1, The Breach: Part 2, The Smuggler of Reschen Pass: The Prequel   and bonus material.   Save now on the regular individual retail price! Winner of the Coffee Pot Book Club Book Award 2019 (Best Box Set); Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2019 Finalist, Discovering Diamonds Book of the Month Finalist 2019. "Wonderfully addictive. Lucyk-Berger is a born storyteller." - Mary Anne Yarde, Coffee Pot Book Club blogger "A gripping set of historical novels packed with political intrigue and memorable characters. A FINALIST and highly recommended." The Wishing Shelf Book Awards "A little love, a little politics, a huge number of dilemmas, this is a compelling story. The author is an excellent storyteller with a gently flowing writing style that never detracts from the story she's telling." - Goodreads Reviewer



Jeanine Cummins - American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club) artwork American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)
A Novel
Jeanine Cummins
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: January 21, 2020
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Seller: Macmillan

#1 New York Times Bestseller OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK “ Extraordinary .” — Stephen King “This book is not simply the great American novel; it’s the great novel of las Americas . It’s the great world novel! This is the international story of our times. Masterful.” —Sandra Cisneros También de este lado hay sueños. On this side, too, there are dreams . Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia —trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte , Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed. It is a literary achievement filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times. Already being hailed as "a Grapes of Wrath for our times" and "a new American classic," Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.



Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing artwork Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens
Genre: Literary
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: August 14, 2018
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING PHENOMENON More than 6 million copies sold A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick A Business Insider Defining Book of the Decade  "I can't even express how much I love this book! I didn't want this story to end!"--Reese Witherspoon "Painfully beautiful."-- The New York Times Book Review For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens. Where the Crawdads Sing  is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.



Fredrik Backman - Anxious People artwork Anxious People
Fredrik Backman
Genre: Literary
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: September 08, 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

#1 New York Times bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and “writer of astonishing depth” ( The Washington Times ) comes a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined. Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths. First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle , an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn’t outside parking the car. As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people. Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” ( Shelf Awareness ), Anxious People ’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.



Hazel Gaynor - When We Were Young & Brave artwork When We Were Young & Brave
A Novel
Hazel Gaynor
Genre: Historical
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: October 06, 2020
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

"Gaynor's story of courage and strength will make you believe in the heroic spirit in each of us." —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Came Home sets her unforgettable new novel in China during WWII, inspired by true events surrounding the Japanese Army’s internment of teachers and children from a British-run missionary school. Their motto was to be prepared, but nothing could prepare them them for war. China, December 1941. Having left an unhappy life in England for a teaching post at a missionary school in northern China, Elspeth Kent is now anxious to return home to help the war effort. But as she prepares to leave China, a terrible twist of fate determines a different path for Elspeth, and those in her charge. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School, protected by her British status. But when Japan declares war on Britain and America, Japanese forces take control of the school and the security and comforts Nancy and her friends are used to are replaced by privation, uncertainty and fear. Now the enemy, and separated from their parents, the children look to their teachers – to Miss Kent and her new Girl Guide patrol especially – to provide a sense of unity and safety. Faced with the relentless challenges of oppression, the school community must rely on their courage, faith and friendships as they pray for liberation – but worse is to come when they are sent to a distant internment camp where even greater uncertainty and danger await . . . Inspired by true events, When We Were Young and Brave is an unforgettable novel about impossible choices and unimaginable hardship, and the life-changing bonds formed between a young girl and her teacher in a remote corner of a terrible war.



Thea Lim - An Ocean of Minutes artwork An Ocean of Minutes
Thea Lim
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $4.99
Publish Date: June 26, 2018
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

Shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlisted for the 2019 CBC Canada Reads Longlisted for the 2019 Sunburst Award An unforgettable love story of two people who are at once mere weeks and many years apart, for readers of  Station Eleven . America is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him, even if it means risking everything. She agrees to a radical plan. Time travel has been invented; if she signs up for a one-way trip into the future to work as a bonded labourer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston, Texas, where she will arrive in twelve years.      But when Polly is re-routed an extra five years into the future, Frank is nowhere to be found. Alone in a changed and divided America, with no status and no money, Polly must navigate a terrifying new world to find Frank, to discover if he is alive, and to see if their love has endured.      An Ocean of Minutes is a gorgeous, devastating novel about courage, yearning, the cost of holding onto the past--and the price of letting it go.



Emma Donoghue - The Pull of the Stars artwork The Pull of the Stars
A Novel
Emma Donoghue
Genre: Historical
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: July 21, 2020
Publisher: HarperAvenue
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and ROOM. In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds. 



Souvankham Thammavongsa - How to Pronounce Knife artwork How to Pronounce Knife
Stories
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Genre: Short Stories
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: April 07, 2020
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

FINALIST FOR THE 2020 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Named one of the best books of spring 2020 by The New York Times , Salon, The Millions, and Vogue, and featuring stories that have appeared in Harper's , Granta , The Atlantic , and The Paris Review , this revelatory book of fiction from O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa establishes her as an essential new voice in Canadian and world literature. Told with compassion and wry humour, these stories honour characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world." A young man painting nails at the local salon. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A father who packs furniture to move into homes he'll never afford. A housewife learning English from daytime soap operas. In her stunning debut book of fiction, O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa focuses on characters struggling to make a living, illuminating their hopes, disappointments, love affairs, acts of defiance, and above all their pursuit of a place to belong. In spare, intimate prose charged with emotional power and a sly wit, she paints an indelible portrait of watchful children, wounded men, and restless women caught between cultures, languages, and values. As one of Thammavongsa's characters says, "All we wanted was to live." And in these stories, they do--brightly, ferociously, unforgettably. A daughter becomes an unwilling accomplice in her mother's growing infatuation with country singer Randy Travis. A boxer finds an unexpected chance at redemption while working at his sister's nail salon. An older woman finds her assumptions about the limits of love unravelling when she begins a relationship with her much younger neighbour. A school bus driver must grapple with how much he's willing to give up in order to belong. And in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize-shortlisted title story, a young girl's unconditional love for her father transcends language. Unsentimental yet tender, and fiercely alive, How to Pronounce Knife announces Souvankham Thammavongsa as one of the most striking voices of her generation.



David Bergen - Here the Dark artwork Here the Dark
David Bergen
Genre: Short Stories
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: March 10, 2020
Publisher: Biblioasis
Seller: Perseus Books, LLC

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE | A NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOK | "His third appearance on the Giller shortlist ... affirms Bergen among Canada's most powerful writers. His pages light up; all around falls into darkness."—2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury | “David Bergen’s command is breathtaking … His work belongs to the world, and to all time. He is one of our living greats.”—Matthew Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves From the streets of Danang, Vietnam, where a boy falls in with a young American missionary, to fishermen lost off the islands of Honduras, to the Canadian prairies, where a teenage boy’s infatuation reveals his naiveté and an aging rancher finds himself smitten, the short stories in Here the Dark explore the spaces between doubt and belief, evil and good, obscurity and light. Following men and boys bewildered by their circumstances and swayed by desire, surprised by love and by their capacity for both tenderness and violence, and featuring a novella about a young woman who rejects the laws of her cloistered Mennonite community, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner David Bergen’s latest deftly renders complex moral ambiguities and asks what it means to be lost—and how we might be found.



Richard Stark - Breakout artwork Breakout
A Parker Novel
Richard Stark
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: September 08, 2017
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Seller: Chicago Distribution Center

Together at last. Under the pseudonym Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake, one of the greats of crime fiction, wrote twenty-four fast-paced, hard-boiled novels featuring Parker, a shrewd career criminal with a talent for heists and a code all his own. With the publication of the last four Parker novels Westlake wrote— Breakout , Nobody Runs Forever , Ask the Parrot , and Dirty Money —the University of Chicago Press pulls the ultimate score: for the first time ever, the entire Parker series will be available from a single publisher. With Parker locked up and about to be unmasked, Breakout follows his Houdini-like escape from prison with a team of convicts. But when a new heist and new dangers—con artists, snitches, busybodies, eccentrics, and cops—loom among the dark alleys and old stone buildings of the big city to which they’ve fled, Parker soon learns that not all prisons have bars. Featuring new forewords by Chris Holm, Duane Swierczynski, and Laura Lippman—celebrated crime writers, all—these masterworks of noir are the capstone to an extraordinary literary run that will leave you craving more. Written over the course of fifty years, the Parker novels are pure artistry, adrenaline, and logic both brutal and brilliant. Join Parker on his jobs and read them all again or for the first time. But don’t talk to the law.



George Orwell - 1984 artwork 1984
A Novel
George Orwell
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 11, 2011
Publisher: HarperPerennial Classics
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

It is 1984. The world is in a state of perpetual war and Big Brother sees and controls all. Winston Smith, a member of the Outer Party and propaganda-writer at the Ministry of Truth, is keeping a journal he should not be keeping and falling in love with Julia, a woman he should not be seeing. Outwardly compliant, Winston dreams of rebellion against the oppressive Big Brother, risking everything to recover his lost sense of individuality and control of his own future. HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.



B. Hesse Pflingger - The Jake Fonko Series: Books 7, 8 & 9 artwork The Jake Fonko Series: Books 7, 8 & 9
B. Hesse Pflingger
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: November 13, 2018
Publisher: B. Hesse Pflingger
Seller: Draft2Digital, LLC

This special collection includes three full length novels - hundreds of pages of well-researched adventures and thrills - for the price of two individual volumes. Fans of George MacDonald Fraser, Ian Fleming and John D. MacDonald will enjoy former Army Ranger turned covert agent Jake Fonko's globe-spanning adventures. Includes: Fonko Go Home (Book 7), To Russia With Fonko (Book 8), and The Fonko Connection (Book 9). Fonko Go Home – Serbia, 1992. Jake Fonko bumps into an old flame and soon finds himself caught between the Russian Mafia, a Hong Kong crime family and both sides in the Serbian Civil War. To Russia With Fonko – Moscow, 1993. When an old friend calls Jake Fonko with a desperate plea for help in retrieving stolen millions, Jake finds himself in the middle of post-communist Russia–a shattered empire teetering on the edge of collapse. The Fonko Connection – Colombia, 1989. A routine bodyguarding gig goes south when Jake's client strands him in Medellin. All alone, and without backup, Jake must make his way through drug cartels, arms smugglers, and the CIA if he wants to get back home.