Shortlisted for the New Brunswick Book Award for Fiction A novel of absence and adolescence by the author of the award-winning The Town That Drowned. It's 1977. Seventeen-year-old Violet is left behind by her parents to manage their busy roadside antique stand for the summer. Her restless older brother, Bliss, has disappeared, leaving home without warning, and her parents are off searching for clues. Violet is haunted by her brother's absence while trying to cope with her new responsibilities. Between visiting a local hermit, who makes twig furniture for the shop, and finding a way to land the contents of the mysterious Vaughan estate, Violet acts out with her summer boyfriend, Dean, and wonders about the mysterious boneyard. But what really keeps her up at night are thoughts of Bliss's departure and the white deer, which only she has seen. All the Things We Leave Behind is about remembrance and attachment, about what we collect and what we leave behind. In this highly affecting novel, Nason explores the permeability of memory and the sometimes confusing bonds of human emotion.
Edinburgh, 1920. Three children are missing, abducted from the poorhouses of the city. When a body is found near the town of Liberton, Dr Thomas Stevenson, still suffering from the trauma of the First World War, finds himself drawn into the police investigation. But suspicion falls on the woman with the mysterious past who lives with Thomas. Could she be guilty of the brutal murder? With time running out and lives at stake, Thomas must prove her innocence, but to do that he has to find the real killer and unlock the truth about her secret past. A past that casts a long, dark shadow.
Winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction Finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction A remarkable work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller, All We Leave Behind is the story of an Afghan family's frightening escape from a murderous warlord, written by a journalist who broke all her own rules to get them to safety. In 2002, Carol Off and a CBC TV crew encountered an Afghan man with a story to tell. Asad Aryubwal wanted to expose the tyranny of his country's warlords and reveal their deep involvement with Americans and NATO troops. He took a calculated risk when he agreed to be a key figure in a documentary. But his courage and candour set off a chain of events from which there was no turning back. Asad, his wife, Mobina, and their five children had to flee their home. In exile, the family was still in danger and facing an uncertain future. Their dilemma compelled a journalist to cross the lines of disinterested reporting and become deeply involved. Together, they navigated the Byzantine international bureaucracy and the Canadian government's intransigence until the family finally found a new home. Carol Off's powerful account traces not only one family's journey and fraught attempts to immigrate to a safe place, it also illustrates what happens when a journalist becomes irrevocably caught up in the lives of the people in her story and finds herself unable to leave them behind.
What We Leave Behind is a piercing, impassioned guide to living a truly responsible life on earth. Human waste, once considered a gift to the soil, has become toxic material that has broken the essential cycle of decay and regeneration. Here, award-winning author Derrick Jensen and activist Aric McBay weave historical analysis and devastatingly beautiful prose to remind us that life—human and nonhuman—will not go on unless we do everything we can to facilitate the most basic process on earth, the root of sustainability: one being's waste must always become another being’s food.
*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).
I watch for a moment, my heart explodes. This little girl, dressed in white, her face bright as she swirls and twirls, dancing in the sunshine. ‘Mummy!’ she says, running towards me. I catch her, no question. ‘Mummy, you’re here,’ she says.’ And I hold her tight. Imagine you get home one day… and waiting for you on your doorstep is a gift. It is wrapped beautifully, and inside is a notebook, its pages empty. There is no message. But its sender has a story to tell. About a secret. About the little girl you once were. About everything you know about your family. The gifts keep arriving. But when tragedy strikes – leaving your beloved only daughter fighting for her life – the person who has been sending the gifts will have no choice but to come forward. And to finally tell the truth. Even if it’s the very thing that will tear your family apart… A heartbreakingly beautiful novel about motherhood, loss and family secrets, for fans of Kerry Fisher, Susan Lewis and Jodi Picoult. Readers are loving What We Leave Behind: ‘I am completely at a loss for words! This book is incredible from start to finish!... Characters that you truly bond with and a gritty, captivating storyline that makes you want to turn the pages faster and faster but a writing style so perfect that you can't skip a single word… absolutely fantastic! My favourite of Anna's by far! 10/10.’ Tishylou’s World ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I absolutely LOVE this wonderfully enthralling story about family, motherhood and friendship… An absolutely unmissable read for me… I am in awe of the talent this author has for writing such absorbing and captivating stories and I confess to being tearful on more than one occasion… I recommend this novel as truly excellent, a 5* read in every possible way.’ NetGalley Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Heartfelt, beautifully written and left me sobbing. A truly remarkable read that I could not put down, I was hooked from the very first page.’ NetGalley Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Wow!!! Where to even begin??? What an absolutely fantastic and gripping book!!!... Absolute roller-coaster ride of emotions!!!… Had me flying through the pages and filled with suspense… I have definitely found another favourite author.’ Bookworm86 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Anna Mansell is truly one of my favourite writers… She writes with such emotion and flair that it’s impossible not to fall head over heels for her books... I struggled to put this book down. A true page turner.’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘OMG… Wowzers, I couldn't get enough of it… A stunning read… One to remember.’ Nicki’s Book Blog ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘What an absolute heart-wrenching and emotional read. I truly didn’t see where the author was going with the plot, and it truly snuck up on me… A great storyline, and totally unexpected. This book will capture every emotion that you have, and it captivated me from page one… Unforgettable.’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Anna Mansell is fast becoming one of my favourite authors and this book was the icing on the cake. I absolutely loved it. This was an excellent and at times heart wrenching story that pulled me right into it from the first page.’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I can't say how much I loved this story!! Such a feel-good book. Had me hooked from the very beginning.’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I loved this story! The details are incredible and it flows smoothly from each character in this puzzle needed to be solved!… Truly had me reading until I learned the truth! Excellent!’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Fabulous. This book captures your heart… I got so engrossed in this story… Enjoy the ride: it’s a good one.’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
*A USA TODAY Bestseller*It is said that our lives are a sum total of the choices we make, which inevitably leaves us to wonder: what if? What if we had the chance to go back and live what could have been? What We Leave Behind hones in on the fleeting moments and stand-out events that irrevocably change our lives. The book chronicles the life and emotional growth of Jessica Parker as she frees herself from the past and moves forward with her future. At sixteen, Jessica is managing the emotional trauma of her father's death while surrendering to the profound pain of a failed first love. Jonas Levy, a twenty-two-year-old medical student, has abruptly walked out of Jessica's life after an intense summer romance, and the wounds are still raw. Is it possible to ever forget the boy you first gave your heart to? Jessica eventually moves on, and in her twenties, becomes a successful music supervisor in Los Angeles. She marries film producer, Marty Tauber, starts a family, and appears to have it all, until things slowly begin to unravel. The marriage struggles through a miscarriage and becomes harder and harder to sustain. With an unexpected phone call from New York, a secret from Jessica's past comes to light. As the rippling effects of her betrayal emerge, Jessica finds herself caught in the firestorm of long-hidden emotional trauma. Thrust into a modern day moral and ethical dilemma, Jessica must face the pain of her past or lose everything she holds dear. Will she be able to reconcile old feelings in time to salvage her marriage? An honest, tender, and poignant portrayal of love in its many forms, this heart wrenching novel will resonate with any woman who has questioned her past and wondered what could have been.
In subtle, sensuous prose, the stories in Sara Majka's debut collection explore distance in all its forms: the emotional spaces that open up between family members, friends, and lovers; the gaps that emerge between who we were and who we are; the gulf between our private and public selves. At the center of the collection is a series of stories narrated by a young American woman in the wake of a divorce; wry and shy but never less than open to the world, she recalls the places and people she has been close to, the dreams she has pursued and those she has left unfulfilled. Interspersed with these intimate first-person stories are stand-alone pieces where the tight focus on the narrator's life gives way to closely observed accounts of the lives of others. A book about belonging, and how much of yourself to give up in the pursuit of that, Cities I've Never Lived In offers stories that reveal, with great sadness and great humor, the ways we are most of all citizens of the places where we cannot be. Cities I've Never Lived In is the second book in Graywolf's collaboration with the literary magazine A Public Space.
Told in alternating timelines, THE THINGS WE LEAVE UNFINISHED examines the risks we take for love, the scars too deep to heal, and the endings we can’t bring ourselves to see coming. Twenty-eight-year-old Georgia Stanton has to start over after she gave up almost everything in a brutal divorce—the New York house, the friends, and her pride. Now back home at her late great-grandmother’s estate in Colorado, she finds herself face-to-face with Noah Harrison, the bestselling author of a million books where the cover is always people nearly kissing. He’s just as arrogant in person as in interviews, and she’ll be damned if the good-looking writer of love stories thinks he’s the one to finish her grandmother’s final novel...even if the publisher swears he’s the perfect fit. Noah is at the pinnacle of his career. With book and movie deals galore, there isn’t much the “golden boy” of modern fiction hasn’t accomplished. But he can’t walk away from what might be the best book of the century—the one his idol, Scarlett Stanton, left unfinished. Coming up with a fitting ending for the legendary author is one thing, but dealing with her beautiful, stubborn, cynical great-granddaughter, Georgia, is quite another. But as they read Scarlett’s words in both the manuscript and her box of letters, they start to realize why Scarlett never finished the book—it’s based on her real-life romance with a World War II pilot, and the ending isn’t a happy one. Georgia knows all too well that love never works out, and while the chemistry and connection between her and Noah is undeniable, she’s as determined as ever to learn from her great-grandmother’s mistakes—even if it means destroying Noah’s career.
From acclaimed author and illustrator pair A.F. Harrold and Levi Pinfold comes another powerful and poignant story about friendship, betrayal, and redemption. Hex doesn't know why he does the things he does-why he sometimes stands up in class to look out the window or ask an unrelated question or do a little dance. He also doesn't know why he threw the rock that day in the woods. He didn't mean for the girl to fall and break her arm. But he's blamed anyway. Enraged at how unfair life is, Hex runs into the woods and finds himself in a strange clearing-a clearing that can't possibly exist-where a strange old woman offers him a deal: she'll rid the world of those who wronged him. All he has to do is accept and they'll be forgotten, forever. But what Hex doesn't know is that someone else has been offered the same deal. When Hex's best friend Tommo wakes up the next day, something feels wrong. Half-whispered memories tug at his brain, making him think that something-or someone-is missing from his life. Can Tommo put the world back the way it was? Or can he find a way to make a new world that could be better for them all? This unforgettable story, complete with lush black-and-white illustrations throughout, explores how we can find the strength to face down monsters: in the darkness, in our friends, and in our selves.
