Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamieson
From mentions in major publications to impressive stacks in local and national bookstores, Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is everywhere — and with good reason.
Feminist
The Nowhere Places by Susan LeBlanc
In 1979, in the Hydrostone neighbourhood of Halifax, June’s son Gerald goes missing.
Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim by Jacob Wren
With a title like Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim, I’m not even sure I need to review this one. Isn’t it marvellous?
Monster by Jowita Bydlowska
A piece of autofiction, a form of fictionalized autobiography, Jowita Bydlowska breaks down and pieces back together the darkness and long term ripples of sexual abuse, complicated parenting styles and forgiveness along with revenge.
Hair for Men by Michelle Winters
A dark, comic, strangely endearing novel, Hair for Men by Michelle Winters is a bizarrely endearing novel, despite its heavy storyline.
Bird Suit by Sydney Hegele
Bird Suit’s fictional town of Port Peter could be any number of small towns on a lake, overrun with summer tourists buying ice cream and cheap souvenirs on the boardwalk, filling up the local pubs and motels, knocking up the local girls – before disappearing in September. There are, however, two things that make Port Peter special: its perfect peaches and its Birds. “The women of the town tell one another about the Birds in secret… When a Port Peter girl gets pregnant by a tourist boy, a woman in her life gives her all the information she needs to know.”
Autokrator by Emily A. Weedon
While unfortunately we already know what it looks like when those who aren’t men are denied rights, and what it looks like when hard-won rights are being eroded, Autokrator takes the chilling thought experiment in a more extreme direction: what if women had no rights at all?
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson
The Great War is over, and the summer of 1919 should be one of celebration, but Constance Haverhill has lost her mother to the Spanish influenza. Constance also lost the job managing Lord Mercer’s country estate, which she held all through the war, to a man.
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
It is here that her mother digs up two long spears hidden amongst the roots of a great tree. Annis learns that one of the spears belonged to her grandmother, Mama Aza, who had been a woman warrior married to a king.
The Secret Keeper by Genevieve Graham
Airplanes, Morse code, spy school, family tragedy, sisterhood, and true love — this book really does have it all.
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
Study for Obedience is a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.
Fight Night by Miriam Toews
Those who enjoy appreciating cutting, witty, and sometimes dark humour with a dash of philosophical thought mixed in will find much to like in this Miriam Toews novel.
Dear Hearts by Barbara Miller Biles
Dear Hearts is a collection of character-driven stories that are whimsical, sometimes magical, unsentimental yet poignant, and focus on the ways in which girls and women who were teenagers in the 1960s experienced the changing cultural values shaped by feminism.
Look After Her by Hannah Brown
Upon the death of their art-loving parents, thirteen and fourteen year old Jewish sisters are kidnapped by a family friend and taken to a brothel. There they are held captive by their shared shame and by the younger sister’s forced addiction to morphine. Love and psychodrama gives them the courage to finally escape Vienna.
Swimmers in Winter by Faye Guenther
Faye Guenther’s first collection of short fiction, Swimmers in Winter, is described as a “trifecta of diptychs.” Any of the six pieces can stand well on their own, or can work in their pairs to flesh out the characters, the timeframe, and the realities of life for queer women in their communities. Offering an exploration …
