Elsa Morante's novels are "astonishing for the quality of the writing, . . . the complexity of the invented world, the wide-ranging view of the human condition" (Elena Ferrante).

From bestselling author Genevieve Graham comes a sweeping new historical novel of love, tragedy, and redemption set during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. In 1897, the discovery of gold in the desolate reaches of the Yukon has the world abuzz with excitement, and thousands of prospectors swarm to the north seeking riches the likes of which have never been seen before. For Liza Peterson and her family, the gold rush is a chance for them to make a fortune by moving their general store business from Vancouver to Dawson City, the only established town in the Yukon. For Constable Ben Turner, a recent recruit of the North-West Mounted Police, upholding the law in a place overrun with guns, liquor, prostitutes, and thieves is an opportunity to escape a dark past and become the man of integrity he has always wanted to be. But the long, difficult journey over icy mountain passes and whitewater rapids is much more treacherous than Liza or Ben imagined, and neither is completely prepared for the forbidding north. As Liza’s family nears the mountain’s peak, a catastrophe strikes with fatal consequences, and not even the NWMP can help. Alone and desperate, Liza finally reaches Dawson City, only to find herself in a different kind of peril. Meanwhile, Ben, wracked with guilt over the accident on the trail, sees the chance to make things right. But just as love begins to grow, new dangers arise, threatening to separate the couple forever. Inspired by history as rich as the Klondike’s gold, At the Mountain’s Edge is an epic tale of romance and adventure about two people who must let go of the past not only to be together, but also to survive.

In her stunning new novel, Gruen returns to the kind of storytelling she excelled at in Water for Elephants: a historical timeframe in an unusual setting with a creature who may or may not be the hero of the story.      After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year's Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis's father, a former army colonel who is already embarrassed by his son's inability to serve in WWII due to color-blindness. Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father's favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and, when he finds it, he will restore his father's name and return to his father's good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day, the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. Meanwhile, Maddie undergoes a social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and, finally, to love.

  It all started when Jeff Guinn was assigned to write a piece full of little-known facts about Christmas for his paper, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A few months later, he received a call from a gentleman who told him that he showed the story to an important friend who didn’t think much of it. And who might that be? asked Jeff. The next thing he knew, he was whisked off to the North Pole to meet with this “very important friend,” and the rest is, well, as they say, history. An enchanting holiday treasure, The Autobiography of Santa Claus combines solid historical fact with legend to deliver the definitive story of Santa Claus. And who better to lead us through seventeen centuries of Christmas magic than good ol’ Saint Nick himself? Families will delight in each chapter of this new Christmas classic—one per each cold December night leading up to Christmas!

Like a Québécois Bridget Jones's Diary, Marie-Renée Lavoie's Autopsy of a Boring Wife tells the hysterically funny and ultimately touching tale of forty-eight-year-old Diane, a woman whose husband leaves her and is having an affair because, he says, she bores him. Diane takes the charge to heart and undertakes an often ribald, highly entertaining journey to restoring trust in herself and others that is at the same time an astute commentary on women and girls, gender differences, and the curious institution of marriage in the twenty-first century. All the details are up for scrutiny in this tender, brisk story of the path to recovery. Autopsy of a Boring Wife is a wonderfully fresh and engaging novel of the pitfalls and missteps of an apparently "boring" life that could be any of ours.

Avenue of Champions is a collection of interlinked stories that investigates the inherent connection of Indigenous peoples to the land and the permanence of culture, language and ceremony as a form of resistance to displacement. Based on Papaschase and Métis oral histories and lived experience, these stories set in Edmonton examine the relationship of Indigenous youth with urban constructs and colonial spaces--from violence and racism to language revitalization and triumph. The central themes are focused on lateral violence, intergenerational trauma, systemic racism, academic relationships with elders and knowledge keepers, whitewashing, language revitalization and restaking land claims on traditional territories.

Wildly funny and wonderfully moving, Bad Ideas is about just that -- a string of bad ideas -- and the absurdity of love Trudy works nights in a linen factory, avoiding romance and sharing the care of her four-year-old niece with Trudy's mother, Claire. Claire still pines for Trudy's father, a St. Lawrence Seaway construction worker who left her twenty years ago. Claire believes in true love. Trudy does not. She's keeping herself to herself. But when Jules Tremblay, aspiring daredevil, walks into the Jubilee restaurant, Trudy's a goner. Loosely inspired by Ken "the Crazy Canuck" Carter's attempt to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car, and set in a 1970s hollowed-out town in eastern Ontario, Bad Ideas paints an indelible portrait of people on the forgotten fringes of life. Witty and wise, this is a novel that will stay with you a long time.

Features the Edgar Award-winning Story “Obits” A master storyteller at his best—the New York Times bestselling, O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. Since his first collection, Nightshift, published many years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this collection he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it. There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Other stories address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, the names of people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win. Stories include: -Mile 81 -Premium Harmony -Batman and Robin Have an Altercation -The Dune -Bad Little Kid -A Death -The Bone Church -Morality -Afterlife -Ur -Herman Wouk Is Still Alive -Under the Weather -Blockade Billy -Mister Yummy -Tommy -The Little Green God of Agony -That Bus Is Another World -Obits -Drunken Fireworks -Summer Thunder Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King’s finest gifts to his constant reader—“I made them especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

His most provocative and experimental work of the sixties, Beautiful Losers affirms Leonard Cohen as a visionary songwriter and novelist.      Beautiful Losers is a novel of stunning prose that is equal parts vulgar, rhapsodic, and viciously witty. At the center of the story are three individuals, united by their sexual obsessions and mutual fascination with Catherine Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Mohawk saint. A bereaved narrator reconstructs his relationship with his deceased wife and best friend - a love triangle of two men and a woman with a capacity to betray each other repeatedly. As each character gradually succumbs to self-abandonment, their descent is paralleled alongside Catherine's history, whose self-destruction marked her ascendance to sainthood. In a thrilling marriage of profane and divine, this sensuous erotic tragedy examines the fine line between faith and desire, as the lines between the sensualist and the saint blur beyond distinction.

Imagines the early life of the doomed eighteenth-century queen, who at a young age learns from her mother, the ambitious Empress of Austria, that she must leave her coddled life in the Austrian court to marry the dauphin of France.

Born into the lowest class of an ancient hierarchical society, Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, an Untouchable, whose labour is at her ancient orchard hive's command. As part of the collective, she is taught to accept, obey and serve. Altruism is the highest virtue, and worship of her beloved Queen, the only religion. Her society is governed by the priestess class, questions are forbidden and all thoughts belong to the Hive Mind. But Flora is not like other bees. Her curiosity is a dangerous flaw, especially once she is exposed to the mysteries of the Queen's Library. But her courage and strength are assets, and Flora finds herself promoted up the social echelons. From sanitation to feeding the newborns in the royal nursery to becoming an elite forager, Flora revels in service to her hive. When Flora breaks the most sacred law of all-daring to challenge the Queen's fertility-enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses who are jealously wed to power. Her deepest instinct to serve and sacrifice is now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart and her society, and lead her to commit unthinkable deeds . . .