10 hot Canadian reads—enter to win!

Family ties

When Kate Parker falls into a coma after plummeting over a waterfall in a barrel (no, really), her dysfunctional family gathers to support her. Finn, Kate's daughter, returns home, only to rehash old arguments with her twin, Nicki. Adopted son Shawn is failing in both his marriage and his job. And Kate's husband, Walter, struggles with the idea of losing the love of his life. A rolling cast of narrators offers a unique rendering of the love-hate relationships that define every modern family.

Love, actually

Wright's 13th novel tells the story of James, a widower who, after losing a daughter to cancer, goes in search of Odette, his first love. The 76-year-old finds her in Quebec City, where the sweetness of their rekindled love is tempered by the appearance of Odette's ex-boyfriend, a rough man with a shady history. In an exploration of aging and death, Wright vividly weaves faraway memories with the present day, illustrating that, as the years go by, our past often becomes part of our present longing. With the promise of love, Nightfall offers hope for a new beginning—even after the most painful of endings.

Black magic

Meet Kincaid Strange, a Seattleite who brings back the dead for profit. Zombie raising has been outlawed, so Strange has taken to running illegal séances with her roommate (who's the ghost of a grunge rocker, of course). When a stray zombie shows up at a local bar with no idea how he died or who raised him, Strange is drawn into a murder mystery like no other. If you're a fan of Buffy Summers and Sookie Stackhouse, you'll definitely like Kincaid Strange.

Tough stuff

In the followup to her bestselling memoir, Something Fierce, which detailed her time as a revolutionary in Chile and Argentina, Carmen Aguirre examines the lasting impact of her childhood rape by B.C.'s infamous Paper Bag Rapist. Now an actor and a playwright, Aguirre has difficulty connecting onstage and in relationships. Will meeting her rapist 33 years later bring closure? Dive into this fascinating story of resilience and compassion to find out.

Dark matter

Memoirist Iain Reid, author of One Bird's Choice and The Truth About Luck, delves into fiction with this debut novel. The unnamed protagonist is a woman taking a drive with her boyfriend to visit his parents—all the while thinking their relationship might be over. But this isn't a tale of relationship drama; the trip very quickly takes a creepy turn. Touching on themes of love, isolation, mental illness and fear, this is a terrifying and totally engrossing psychological thriller.

Driving lessons

Before his success with Cataract City (shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2013), author Craig Davidson was a struggling writer with no job prospects—until a flyer led him to a gig driving a bus for special-needs teens. Developing relationships with his charges was lifechanging: His confidence returned, and he learned that even hardships can have positive results. Expect an uplifting read that shows how much a person can change.

Run for it

In his first novel since 2007's The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill invents a fictional world that is frighteningly close to reality. It's a world where undocumented refugees are left to struggle for survival in a place where they don't belong. Keita Ali has nowhere to go. After Keita's mother is killed during a coup in Zantoroland, the new powers that be come back for his journalist father—and it's not hard to see that Keita will be next. The young man will surely die in Zantoroland, but when he flees to the wealthy Freedom State, he's an illegal—no ID, no card, no name, no rights. Once the fastest in his class, Keita becomes a marathoner who relies on prize money to sustain himself. As he tries desperately to escape deportation, he crosses paths with people with different backgrounds and political views who help decide his fate. –Jill Buchner

Writer's room

In the same vein as Stephen King's or William Zinsser's ruminations on writing, this new collection of letters, essays and teaching notes by CanLit treasure Carol Shields breaks down the building blocks of good storytelling for any writer who doesn't know where to begin. It will make you long to pen passages worthy of Shields herself: illuminating, rich with detail and conveying the extraordinary in the ordinary.

About a boy

Set in the mid-1990s, this coming-of-age tale follows 10-year-old Jim as he bounces between his home in New York City and his family cottage in Ontario. It focuses on the tiny moments of each day, and the ways that family members can quietly, irreparably, tear each other apart.

Everyday heroes

Okay, so this one actually isn't that new, but it was part of CBC's Canada Reads panel this year, so it's having a bit of a resurgence. In Anita Rau Badami's second novel (the first being critically acclaimed Tamarind Mem) focuses on regular heroes—the ones that survive every day amidst the pain and struggles that are a part of life.

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