National Network for Equitable Library Service

"Midnight Sweatlodge tells the tale of a group of strangers and family gathered together to partake in this ancient aboriginal ceremony. Each seeks healing from the ceremony and each character gives us a glimpse into their lives that is tearful and true"--Back cover.

When DCI Alan Banks is dragged away from his vacation in London to supervise DI Annie Cabbot's sensitive murder case, he finds himself embroiled in the clandestine world of the secret intelligence service.

This is the story of a middle-aged copywriter in New York City. He's worked at the same ad agency for fifteen years, but one morning this copywriter finds himself fired from his job, and after he catches his live-in girlfriend moving out of their apartment a couple hours later, he's also single. Believe it or not, these aren't the biggest problems in this copywriter's life. There's something bigger, something that has been haunting him his whole life. Meet Earnest Hemmingway. What's in a name?

In the small town of North River, every day that goes by bleeds into the next. Poverty begets hopelessness, hopelessness begets violence, violence begets despair. The only way to change fate, a minister tells his son, is to leave. The minister's son, Jake MacNeil, chooses to ignore his father's advice. Only when he realizes what has become of his life--working a grueling dead end job, living with a drunk, friends with a murderer--does he decide to make something of himself.

"A World Elsewhere has all the hallmarks of Wayne Johnston's most beloved and acclaimed novels: outsiders yearning for acceptance, dreams that threaten to overpower their makers, and unlikely romance. It is an astounding work of literature that questions the loyalties of friends, family and the heart. At the centre of this story is a mystery: the suspected murder of a child. This sweeping tale immerses us in St. John's, Princeton and North Carolina at the close of the nineteenth century.

Alex is a playwright suffering from writer’s block and harsh reviews. His best friend, Roy, is a theatre director with lung cancer and six months left to live. In pursuit of fresh air and great wine, they go on a road trip to the Okanagan Valley, where Roy rediscovers his passion for theatre. But when he decides to stage a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a winery, disaster ensues: the woman cast in the lead is the winery owner’s wife and has no talent; wildfires encroach upon the surrounding forest; and Roy slips closer to death, one cigarette at a time.

Professor Amelia Harsh searches for the legendary city of Camlantis on her quest for the perfect society--a quest that has a good chance of bringing her own world to the brink of destruction as she faces off against convicts, female mercenaries, and a lunatic steamman acting as their guide.

A realistic portrayal of the world of urban twenty-somethings, The Sweet Edge tells the story of a young couple who decide to go their own way for the summer in order to figure out their relationship. Ellen chooses to work in a trendy Toronto art gallery, while Adam takes a solo canoe trip into the Arctic tundra. The two characters alternate chapters and points-of-view: the reader frets with Ellen through an increasingly sweltering city, then journeys inside the young man’s head as he goes dangerously deep into wilderness.

With a viewpoint that shifts as crisply as cards in the hands of a blackjack dealer, Carol Shields introduces us to two shell-shocked veterans of the wars of the heart. There's Fay, a folklorist whose passion for mermaids has kept her from focusing on any one man. And right across the street there's Tom, a popular radio talk-show host who has focused a little too intently, having married and divorced three times.

A riveting exploration of the dark, brooding presence of the First World War in the lives of the inhabitants of a "soldier's settlement" on Vancouver Island.