Zebedee Nungak

For decades, the Inuit of northern Québec were among the most neglected people in Canada. It took The Battle of James Bay, 1971-1975, for the governments in Québec City and Ottawa to wake up to the disgrace.

In this concise, lively account, Zebedee Nungak relates the inside story of how the young Inuit and Cree “Davids” took action when Québec began construction on the giant James Bay hydro project. They fought in court and at the negotiation table for an accord that effectively became Canada’s first land-claims agreement. Nungak’s account is accompanied by his essays on Nunavik history. Together they provide a fascinating insight into a virtually unknown chapter of Canadian history.

Sheila Kindellan-Sheehan

A new high-octane detective Tony Damiano thriller.

On a warm summer evening in June, cast members of the Thirties Show at Café Cleopatra make a gruesome discovery. Discarded like trash, the body of a young man lies crumpled on the roof of the legendary club situated in the former red light district of the city. A few hours later, in another part of the city, a man is gunned down in cold blood. What the victims have in common is a link to the Crémazie Division of Major Crimes. New acting chief Toni Damiano is devastated to learn that her partner may have intentionally corrupted evidence in the first-degree murder case at the Café. The chief sets up an operation that will either clear her partner or give her reason to arrest him. But she also fractures the trust and loyalty of a nine-year partnership. There is no pardon for betrayal, his or hers.

Fans of Kindellan-Sheehan’s previous thrillers—The Red Floor, The Courier Wore Shorts, and Where Bodies Fall, will not be disappointed as we follow and empathize with her ongoing cast of complex and compelling characters.

Lesley Trites

A career-focused woman finds her life taken off course by an unexpected pregnancy and its challenging aftermath; a troubled doctor abandons her family on her daughter’s birthday, the three-tiered pastel layer cake in the passenger seat beside her; a young mother must contend with how to explain her husband’s suicide to their child. In her first story collection, Lesley Trites digs bravely into the dilemmas faced by contemporary women who must be everything to everyone, as they navigate the triangle of responsibilities between motherhood, work, and love.

Written with keen insight and deep affection, Lesley Trites’s A Three-Tiered Pastel Dream unearths pearls of wisdom from the secret lives of women who could easily live next door, drop off their kids at the same school, or work in the next cubicle.

Catriona Wright

Carnal, flamboyant, visceral and bold, Table Manners is a rich meal. Catriona Wright’s debut introduces us to the image of the poet as “gastronaut,” a figure who seems to live entirely between table and a stove and who steeps her surroundings and relationships in complex emotional flavours. “My life,” she writes, “is now tuned to bone marrow donuts and chef gossip. I’m useless at any other frequency.” Wright’s wild narratives are sometimes funny, sometimes frightening and always ravishingly observed. Table Manners is what might have emerged had Julia Child written like Sharon Olds, or if Anthony Bourdain knew his way around a line-break.