Alison Manley

Alison Manley bounced around the Maritimes before landing in Miramichi, NB, where she works as a hospital librarian. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. When she's not reading biomedical research for her work, she likes reading poetry, contemporary and historical fiction, and personal essays. Noted for a love of bright colours (and lipstick), you can find her wandering the banks of the Miramichi River with a book and a paintbrush.

Held by Anne Michaels

November 20, 2023

A breathtaking and mysterious new novel from the beloved Anne Michaels, internationally bestselling author of Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault.

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

November 6, 2023

I was glued to this one; Rice is a great storyteller, and his writing shines again here.

Landscapes by Christine Lai

November 6, 2023

“One of the most beautifully chilling novels I’ve read this year was Landscapes by Christine Lai.”

The Red Hairband by Catherine Greene

November 4, 2023

Through three intertwined stories, The Red Hairband explores the inhumanity that is brought about when we are too certain of our beliefs.

A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All by Melanie Brooks

November 2, 2023November 2, 2023

A Hard Silence is an intimate glimpse into Melanie’s memories of coping with the tragedy of her father’s illness and enduring the loneliness and isolation of not being able to speak.

A Dream Wants Waking by Lydia Kwa

October 30, 2023

Weaving a silken web of Chinese myth, speculative fiction and storytelling Lydia Kwa has brilliantly realized a future where questions of sentience, of personhood and of the truth of dreams wrap around a timeless quest for freedom and for love.

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue by Christine Higdon

October 23, 2023October 23, 2023

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is immersed in the complex political and social realities of the 1920s and, not-so ironically, of the 2020s: love, sex, desire, police corruption, abortion, addiction, and women wanting more.

And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

October 9, 2023

A mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences.

A Fall Afternoon in the Park by Mehri Yalfani

October 1, 2023

With its twenty short stories, A Fall Afternoon in the Park invites the reader deep into the interior worlds of Iranian women living in both Iran and Canada.

Her Body Among Animals by Paola Ferrante

November 21, 2023September 25, 2023

Through these confrontations of the complexity of living in a woman’s body, Her Body Among Animals moves us from hopelessness to a future of resilience and possibility.

While Supplies Last by Anita Lahey

September 24, 2023

In While Supplies Last, her first collection in eleven years, Lahey throws herself on the mercy of a changing climate, takes refuge in art and revels in everyday wonders.

All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

September 18, 2023September 18, 2023

Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, this poetic and often funny debut by an author with autism is written from the point of view of an autistic mother as she and her headstrong adolescent daughter are befriended by a glamorous, charismatic couple with dark ulterior motives.