Shoebox by Sean Paul Bedell
Bedell explores the life of Steve, former insurance salesman, current husband and father to two children, who is just trying to make everyone happy and earn a living.
Grief
Midway by Kayla Czaga
Midway is a highly accomplished piece of writing and an enduring testament to the story-making powers of love.
Tunes for Dancing Bears by Irena Karafilly
Although stillbirth is a common event and severely impacts those affected by this loss, it is rarely discussed. Similarly, it is not often addressed in literature.
I Will Tell the Night by Kevin Thomas Craig
I Will Tell the Night is a touching novel about going home again. There are so many vivid details in Craig’s work, and it will fill one with a bit of necessary hope.
Blessed Nowhere by Catherine Black
Black observes with the cool detachment that objectivity requires; detached but not indifferent.
The Sugar Bowl Feud by Gina N. Brown
Set in small-town Nova Scotia, The Sugar Bowl Feud explores the many facets of grief and how four very different siblings deal with and cope with the pain of overwhelming loss. Told in alternating chapters, from each of the sibling’s points of view, we are introduced to each sibling along with their quirks, opinions, and personalities.
Lucid by Jenna Boholij
As she blows out the candles on her thirtieth birthday cake in the opening of Lucid, Charlie Marin reveals herself to be the antagonistic force driving Jenna Boholij’s literary thriller.
Charlie has a successful job, compassionate family and friends, and a boyfriend in Winnipeg, but she cannot move past the death of her twin Cara, who died at age thirteen. The details of how she died are hidden away, but this loss makes Charlie numb to her circumstances and all possibilities for her future.
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by Michelle Hébert
This is a darkly humourous, late coming of age tale, set in small-town Nova Scotia.
Michael and Me by Merle Nudelman
Stitched together in Merle Nudelman’s new book of poetry, Michael and Me, are the “buried heartbeat of rectangles”: a memory quilt of 39 patches of a mother’s love for her son, and the son’s own legacy of love through his family
Finding New Rooms to Grow: Moving to Delilah by Catherine Owen
If one were to dissect a “home”, what would be found?
Blue Notes by Ann Cathrine Bomann, translated by Caroline Waight
Blue Notes crams a fast-paced, heavily layered story into 242 pages. I was glued to it from the start.
Micrographia by Jennifer Bowering Delisle
The lyric essays in Micrographia explore how losses can collide and reverberate both within our own lives and in our relationships with the rest of the world.
In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying by Eve Joseph
Originally published in 2014, In the Slender Margin was enthusiastically received and applauded for its respectful sensitivity in dealing with a subject that is still, to many, an avoidable topic of conversation: death and dying. Using her 20+ years’ experience working as a palliative care counsellor in a hospice as a springboard for exploration, Joseph probes our collective knowledge of that final life experience that we all must face.
Thank You For Loving Me by Nicole Bea
One year ago, Maggie Montgomery’s life crashed down around her. Her hope for a future and family died with her husband, lost at sea in a shipwreck.
