We're so excited to reveal our July Summer Reading list, carefully curated for summer vibes and something for every kind of reader. Even better, all of these books will be up for giveaway through the month of July. Head to our giveaways page for your chance to win!
*****
Pet, Pet, Slap, by Andrew Battershill
About the book: Boxer "Pillow Fist" Pete Wilson should be preparing for his big comeback fight. But, having recently undergone an ethical awakening, the new vegan is busy trying to find humane new homes for his menagerie of exotic pets (including Jersey Joe the sloth and Rigoberto the shark). His roommate, Sherlock Holmes, who faked his own death by waterfall, is now Pillow’s in-house doping expert.
Pillow just can’t get motivated to train, and he’s further distracted from his push-ups when both his car and Rigoberto mysteriously disappear. Luckily, Sherlock is a master of deduction. What follows is part underdog sports story, part work of neozoological surrealism, and part existential mystery novel.
*
We Are Already Ghosts, by Kit Dobson
About the book: The Briscoe-MacDougall family retire to their lakeside cabin each summer. This annual vacation is at time to unwind and refresh, a time to relax away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
We are Already Ghosts joins the Briscoe-MacDougalls in the summer of 1996 and returns to them at five-year intervals. William, Clare, Helen, Michael, John, Doug, Mike, Jéanne, Françoise, Celeste, Daphne, Benjamin, and Mackenzie the dog live, grow up, and grow old as the world changes in small ways and in devastating ones. The shock of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan tear across the globe; the Great Recession steals jobs, savings, and houses; and the politics of colonial Canada come evermore into focus. Marriages are made and marriages fall apart, babies are born, lives end, careers are made and broken, the trash gets taken to the dump, the trees bud and then they lose their leaves. The cabin remains and the family returns, year after year.
Impeccably written, crisp, and direct, We are Already Ghosts is a turn-of-the-millennium family epic that documents and challenges Canadian life. Author Kit Dobson writes in conversation with the literary tradition, creating a narratively complex, compelling, and smart novel that is a pleasure to read yet lingers in the mind long after the covers are closed.
*
Born in a House of Glass, by Chinenye Emezie
About the book: Udonwa’s family is at war—a war of relationships, played out under the tyranny of a monster dad. Age twelve, Udonwa has a peculiar love for her father, Reverend Leonard Ilechukwu, who favours her but beats his wife and his other children. She sees his good side: after all, he pays the school fees, and tells her that she, named “the peaceful child,” is the one most likely to become a doctor.
When her newly married eldest sister suddenly takes her from their family compound in Iruama, Nigeria, to live with her in Awka, Udonwa experiences violence first-hand. Later, pieces of a sinister picture emerge that shake her life to the core.
No longer the person she thought she was, Udonwa launches into a period of extreme change, and parts of her life spiral into chaos as she finds herself torn between her love for her father and an underlying need to free herself. This vivid family saga is engrossing, deeply unsettling, and finally uplifting.
*
The Offing, by Roz Harding
About the book: Ivy is in trouble. A recent break-up has left her humiliated and raw, so when her best friend, Regan, offers her a month-long escape in the form of a trip to Australia, it feels like a lifeline, one that Ivy grabs with both hands.
Regan is everything Ivy’s not—confident, free-spirited, charismatic—and a natural at backpacker fun. But Ivy is drawn to a calmer type of holiday, so when she spots an ad for crewmembers on a small yacht being sailed by a doting father and his daughter, the girls decide to take the job. Together with a handsome third crewmember, they set off north into tropical heat, but it's not long before doubts start to creep in. Are the girls simply claustrophobic on the boat, or have they stumbled into something they don't understand?
Tensions rise as the past threatens to catch up with them, and dark secrets emerge that will change everything. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game on land and at sea, this fast-paced, twisty thriller keeps you guessing until the very last page.
*
Sunset Lake Resort, by Joanne Jackson
About the book: When Ruby’s father passes away, but fails to leave her the millions some expected, Steve, her husband of 35 years, moves out. Alone, but in control of her own affairs for the first time in her life, Ruby is torn between panic and relief. When she investigates the remote beach cabin her father had left her instead of his estate, she discovers a dilapidated beach resort in a remote location, seemingly untouched since its former owner, Cecelia Johansen, died under mysterious circumstances. Despite the condition of the property and rumours it is haunted, Ruby decides to move to Sunset Lake Resort, determined to find out why her father bought it, and why he left it to her.
*
Pale Grey Dot, by Don Miasek
About the book: Three members of an elite team of operatives—once so close they were like family—are living in disgraced exile after a mission gone horribly wrong. But, they are thrown back into action when the solar system’s Jupiter Station is attacked from within. It will take all the tricks and tech they have to sort out the truth behind the official reports, and no small amount of courage to fight back against the system’s totalitarian government, in this exciting sci-fi debut novel from pillar of the Toronto science fiction community, Don Miasek.
*
Hides, by Rod Moody-Corbett
About the book: Hides is a novel of family and politics that distinguishes itself through its careful intermingling of seriousness and comedy, and its surreal but eerily plausible setting.
As wildfires rage across the country and another federal election looms, four friends convene for a wilderness hunting trip in northwestern Newfoundland to commemorate the death of one of their sons, killed in a mass shooting in Calgary the year before. Hides traces the emotional ruptures following this violent, untimely death, along with the tensions of old friendships and father-son relationships marred by loss, betrayal, and a pervasive political and environmental disenchantment.
*
Eleven Huskies, by Philipp Schott
About the book: Peter Bannerman, veterinarian and amateur detective, deserves a summer vacation. Peter and his family head to a remote fishing lodge in northern Manitoba for a canoeing trip with his champion sniffer dog, Pippin. But a series of incidents color their plans. The lodge’s sled team of huskies has been poisoned and, at the same time, a floatplane crashes into the lake, killing the pilot and both passengers. While Peter works to save the huskies, it is discovered that the plane crash wasn’t an accident. It was murder.
It’s been a hot and dry summer, and one morning the Bannerman family wakes up to find a forest fire spreading quickly. They manage to dodge the conflagration, making it back to the lodge before it becomes cut off from the outside world. Peter soon figures out that the murderer, who probably also poisoned the huskies, must be among the other guests or staff trapped with them at the lodge. The power fails. The now-enormous fire draws nearer. Can Peter discover the culprit in time?