January 2017 Nominations

*NEW SURVEY (DEC 10). PLEASE VOTE AGAIN.*

January's theme is Canadian fiction. I defined "Canadian fiction" as books taking place in Canada that are by Canadian authors. Many of the noms have author talks coming up in the new year (that we can attend!) or take place in areas around Toronto (so we could have a meeting there!) 

*NOTE: Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson was included on this list, but a helpful Bookends member let me know that it's not being released until February 2017, so it has been removed.*

The January nominations are:

The Night Wanderer | Drew Hayden Taylor

Nothing ever happens on the Otter Lake reservation. But when 16-year-old Tiffany discovers her father is renting out her room, she’s deeply upset. Sure, their guest is polite and keeps to himself, but he’s also a little creepy. 

The mysterious Pierre L’Errant is actually a vampire returning to his tribal home. But Tiffany has other things on her mind: her new boyfriend is acting weird, disputes with her father are escalating, and her estranged mother is starting a new life with somebody else. Tiffany flees into the bush, and has a chilling encounter with L’Errant that changes everything ... for both of them.

[source]

*author talk*

George & Rue | George Elliott Clarke

Brothers George and Rufus Hamilton, in a robbery gone wrong, drunkenly bludgeoned a taxi driver to death. It was 1949, and the two siblings, part Mi'kmaq and part African, were hanged for the killing. 

Both repelled and intrigued by his ancestral cousins' deeds, which he only learned about from his mother shortly before her death, Clarke set out to discover just what kind of forces would reduce men to crime, violence and, ultimately, murder.

The novel shifts seamlessly back into the killers' pasts, recounting a bleak and sometimes comic tale of victims of violence who became killers, a black community too poor and too shamed to assist its downtrodden members, and a white community bent on condemning all blacks as dangerous outsiders. 

[source]

No New Land | M.G. Vassanji

Nurdin Lalani and his family, Asian immigrants from Africa, have come to the Toronto suburb of Don Mills only to find that the old world and its values pursue them. A genial orderly at a downtown hospital, he has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl. Although he is innocent, traditional propriety prompts him to question the purity of his own thoughts. 

Ultimately, his friendship with the enlightened Sushila offers him an alluring freedom from a past that haunts him, a marriage that has become routine, and from the trials of coping with teenage children. Introducing us to a cast of vividly drawn characters within this immigrant community, Vassanji is a keen observer of lives caught between one world and another. 

[source]

Ghosted | Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Mason, a struggling writer, comes in from the cold after five years of drifting. His childhood friend Chaz loans him an apartment and finds him a job selling hotdogs. But Mason drinks too much, does too many drugs and loses too much money at poker, digging himself even more deeply in debt to Chaz, who also happens to be his drug dealer. Talk about a vicious circle. 

Then Mason decides he'll become a ghostwriter of suicide notes. What happens when someone already wrestling with his own demons immerses himself in the tragedies of other people's lives? In this case, a lot: a hotdog cart is totalled, a convict sprung, a funeral faked, a head scalped, a horse stolen. Then, just when it looks like Mason is finally going down, he faces the biggest test of all. 

[source]

The Featherbed | John Miller

When Anna and Sadie discover the diaries of their mother, Rebecca, in the days following her death, they learn that her life was far more complex than either of them knew: a garment worker in early-1900s New York; the reluctant wife in an arranged marriage to an ailing and abusive husband; the improbable friend of a pregnant prostitute. But the diaries reveal more than just surprising details about Rebecca's life: they also point to a family secret - and questions about Sadie's true parentage.

The Featherbed is a gripping family saga that moves between the tenements of New York's Lower East Side and the stately homes of Toronto's Annex. Strong in plot, character, setting, and style, it is a fully-realised debut from an assured writer.

[source]

Red Rover | Liz Bugg

Thalia Spencer is missing. Is she in trouble or is she simply avoiding her family? When Thalia's conservative tycoon father confesses to private investigator Calli Barnow that he offered his daughter money to give up her girlfriend and start dating men, Calli thinks she knows where to start looking. 

She and her best friend, novice drag queen Dewey, comb the bars and clubs of Toronto's gay village, hoping to find Thalia hiding in plain sight. But then Thalia's lover, Zoe, says the girl is missing from her life too, and Calli realizes the situation is more dangerous than she'd thought.

[source]




Vote for your favourite below:

Create your own user feedback survey