In 1913 Dr. Louis Thomas and his family settle on the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Enchanted by how this French land navigates the harsh climate of the Atlantic Ocean, he immerses himself in his passion for photography and captures the soul of the place. Yet despite his love for St. Pierre and its people, he leaves one day, abandoning his photographs. Fifty years later, François, a native of St. Pierre now working in Paris, and a young aspiring writer Emily, discover the impressive collection of photographs left behind. The two endeavour to exhibit the collection, and above all, to discover what haunted the mysterious Dr. Thomas.

The Islands of Dr. Thomas explores how art preserves culture and identity, connecting generations.

Inspired by the true story of the Goler Clan of Nova Scotia, Our Daily Bread is a novel about what happens when we view our neighbours as "The Other" and the transformative power of unlikely friendships.

The God-fearing people of Gideon shun The Erskine Clan, who have lived on North Mountain in poverty, secrecy and isolation, believing their neighbours to be beyond salvation. "That's the mountain," they say. "What do you expect from those people?" Yet in both groups nearly everyone has secrets and nothing is as it seems. On the mountain, Albert Erskine dreams of a better life and safer lives for his younger brothers and sisters. He lives by his code: "You keep your secrets to yourself and you keep your weaknesses a secret and your hurts a secret and your dreams you bury double deep." In town, young Ivy Evans is relentlessly bullied by her classmates. Though her father, Tom, is a well-liked local, his troubled marriage to a restless outsider is a source of gossip. As rumors and innuendo about the Evans spread, Ivy seeks refuge in Dorothy Carlisle, an independent-minded widow who runs a local antique store. When Albert ventures down the mountain and seizes on the Evanses' family crisis as an opportunity to befriend Ivy's vulnerable teenage brother, Bobby, he sets in motion a chain of events that changes everything.

When Elizabeth Thiessen embarks on an expedition to study the cave murals of Baja California, Mexico, she is catapulted onto a mythical, existential journey into the unknown. Within days of landing in the Baja, Elizabeth discovers that her daughter, Patricia—posted in Afghanistan with the Canadian armed forces—is taken hostage by the Taliban. Elizabeth struggles with her decision to remain on assignment and suffers extreme anxiety over her daughter's hostage-taking. Her psychological fragility is pushed to the brink by the field expedition's physical hardships, and is intensified by her romantic involvement with Richard Wellington, one of seven of the international team of anthropologists commissioned to study the pictographs. Believed to have been painted over 4,000 years ago by a tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers, the murals, embodied within a cave overhang, in the Sierra de San Francisco, are a testament to the nomads' pantheistic reverence for nature and the universe. Collaboratively with the other teams members, Elizabeth formulates her own unique interpretation of the pictographs, undergoes a catharsis and overcomes her mounting feelings of despair and powerlessness. On a personal level Elizabeth is compelled to realize that if her daughter survives her ordeal, like her father, Stanislaw, she will no longer be the same person. As the nomadic painters so aptly depicted in the cave murals millenia ago, there is only certainty in the life cycle repeating itself.

The stories in Anne Fleming's new collection are marked by high intelligence, playfulness and a crackling sense of humour. If pressed, Fleming will say that the stories explore how love and disappointment, and humour and resilience, are twinned.

Anne Fleming is a Canadian fiction writer. She also writes poetry and children's books, plus the occasional stage play and screenplay. She likes to cross-country ski and play the ukulele, although not necessarily at the same time. Born in Toronto, she moved to British Columbia in 1991.

Reeling from a failed marriage, Sheila, a twentysomething playwright, finds herself unsure of how to live and create. When Margaux, a talented painter and free spirit, and Israel, a sexy and depraved artist, enter her life, Sheila hopes that through close—sometimes too close—observation of her new friend, her new lover, and herself, she might regain her footing in art and life.

Using transcribed conversations, real emails, plus heavy doses of fiction, the brilliant and always innovative Sheila Heti crafts a work that is part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part bawdy confessional. It's a totally shameless and dynamic exploration into the way we live now, which breathes fresh wisdom into the eternal questions: What is the sincerest way to love? What kind of person should you be?

After a childhood marked by pain, Rena Greenblatt has found the strength to build a successful career as a photographer. Like the ultrasensitive infrared film she uses, Rena sees what others don't see, and finds a form of love. Rena travels to Florence with her father and his second wife. As the trip progresses, in an internal dialogue with her mental double, Rena submits her past to exposure. Using dark room techniques she reevaluates her explosive sexual coming of age, her relationships with her father, her family and her various lovers.

With exceptional flair and talent, Nancy Huston explores the links between family intimacies and our collective lives, between destruction and creation. In the spirit of her bestselling novel Fault Lines, Infrared is a story about how childhood, family, and our culture all have a direct impact on our lives.

Crossings was Betty Lambert's only novel; it was revolutionary for its frank and unsettling portrayal of Vicky, a female writer in Vancouver in the early 1960s, an educated and intelligent woman who struggles to come to terms with herself as she navigates an emotionally abusive relationship with Mik, a violent logger and ex-con. Their physical, often violent affair offers an honest and unflinching look at relationships and female suffering. The book caused a furor when it was first published, and in fact was banned from some feminist Canadian bookstores. At the same time, it was widely acclaimed by critics and writers, including Jane Rule, who wrote: "This portrait of an artist as a young woman should stand beside Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are and Margaret Laurence's The Diviners as a testimony of the courage and cost of being a woman and a writer."