NNELS Upgrade

Incidental Music visits the troubled and fascinating period of the Hungarian Revolution, within its larger context of the Communist post-war years in Eastern Europe, explores Toronto’s heritage and urban development, takes a sober outsider view of Canadian society and politics, and last, but not least, revels in the beauty of the opera—all through the tumultuous and passionate love affairs of its main characters. The lives of the three protagonists overlap, but there is never any unison.

Amah and the Silk-Winged Pigeons draws on the lost histories of the women descended from African slaves who resisted English rule during the 1857 uprising in Lucknow, India. The book is about the event that triggered Queen Victoria’s reign in India for almost a century, and illuminates new and important female, Muslim perspectives on what has been called the first war of Indian independence. Lucknow in 1856 is the most opulent city in India. If the English take it over, the royal family and centuries of rich, cosmopolitan culture will disappear.

One Italian Renaissance painter created stunning portraits of warmth and sensitivity, caught Michelangelo’s favourable attention, served the most powerful monarch of the time, and achieved international renown. But that artist fell into obscurity for one reason – she was a woman. Sofonisba Anguissola’s abilities as a painter, evident while still in her mid-teens, combined with her father’s promotional efforts, made her well known in her native northern Italy. That fame led to a position as a lady-in-waiting to the young wife of King Philip ii of Spain.

God-fearing Nara Lee carries a painful secret and a corrosive guilt. Set against an historical backdrop when Korea was a colony and citizenry was rendered impotent, Nara’s life is forged in the 1919 March First Movement. Her journey takes her from her ancestral home to an insidious orphanage to a forced-labour factory during the Japanese Occupation. When colonialism has outlived its usefulness, she is emancipated only to live through an era of high suspicion and treason.

Shortly after the first referendum on Quebec separation, four people in their forties encounter each other in Ile d’Or, the town where all of them grew up. The novel is about gold and greed and renewal and hope. About people who emerge from a frontier existence into the society of the late twentieth century with the need to discover how their contemporary lives connect with their pasts: how growing up in a mining town in northern Quebec in the 1930s through 1950s shaped who they are today.

Stony Point tells the story of a woman who succeeds in doing things at a time when custom restricts her from doing anything. In 1903, shortly after the Frank slide, a newspaper reporter vanishes from a mining town in the Crowsnest Pass. Lucille travels to Stony Point in search of her sister's husband. She finds a town under the heel of a ruthless mine owner who has the local Mounted Policeman and a corrupt businessman in his pocket. Determined to find Stanley Birch, Lucille turns Stony Point upside-down.

Holy Rule takes place during three weeks in October, 1958, focusing on the lives of a group of nuns who teach at St. Monica’s Girls’ School. During this time of high autumn, the pope lies dying in Rome — and then finally dies — while thousands of miles away life carries on among the students and teaching nuns in St. Monica’s Girls’ School. The girls—Gwen, J.J., Sally — are living in the adolescent space between childhood and adulthood and are testing their limits with their nun-teachers.

The Hedge, set in early New England, is the story of an intelligent young governor’s wife who is repressed by the severe attitudes of the Puritans, to the point where she withdraws from society, and is considered to have lost her mind. Anne Yale Hopkins comes to Hartford, Connecticut in 1638, delighted to have escaped the household of her stepfather Theophilus Eaton, a rigorous Puritan, by marrying Edward, who becomes governor of Hartford. She is a voracious reader, and has written several books. She can hardly wait to make a fresh start in a new land.

Only by Blood is a novel of search for roots, mother-daughter love and family reconciliation. A Polish woman receives puzzling news from her mother just before she dies. She wants to fulfill her mother's last wishes, but has little idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland, back in time and over the ocean. Spanning over sixty years, this story tells about the lengths to which mothers will go in order to save their daughters and the secrets they will keep to protect them from pain.

As a young man in the midst of World War II, Jacob fell in love with an older woman and began a rapturous affair, until she seemingly vanished. As strange things start to happen around him, a familiar young woman appears at Jacob's house with a mysterious notebook. The past doesn't stay buried and the mystery of Maddy Heisler is reveled. With secrets and lies, lovers and spies, Jacob will never be the same again.