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Pastoral fiction

  • Author:
    Perron, Jean
    Summary:

    « Des chevaux blancs, bruns et noirs apparaissent ici et là, détendus. On ne saurait dire s’ils font partie d’élevages ou s’ils vivent à l’état sauvage. Rien ne semble délimiter ce vaste territoire chargé d’énergie tellurique. Aucune clôture. Aucune affiche. Je sors mon caméscope pour capter ce paysage fuyant, sur lequel je ne peux toutefois projeter tout ce qui me passe par la tête en même temps : les souvenirs de Buenos Aires, encore brûlants, et les réflexions sur mon séjour dans cette ville. À l’opposé, je ne pourrais non plus, même si je tentais de tout oublier en plongeant mon regard dans le décor en mouvement par la fenêtre, effacer de ma mémoire les images et les pensées chargées de questions qui me poursuivent au rythme du train. Je me sens tatoué de l’intérieur, au son d’un tango aussi doux que déchirant. »

  • Author:
    Willard, Christopher
    Summary:

    An unsettling secret joins husband and wife as they sift through layers of recollection in a quest to find comfort, philosophical acceptance, and ultimately forgiveness. Set on a family farm in Sundre, Alberta during the late 1960s, at a time of transition when farming was shifting away from tradition, Sundre is a haunting meditation on the limits of love and mercy, on the natural and the unnatural.Told in a tone that is as dignified as it is unsettling, Sundre builds to a foreboding and fundamental revelation in a mood reminiscent of Sam Shepards best drama. Sundre is an homage to a way of life bygone and to lasting hard-earned truths.

  • Author:
    READ, Miss
    Summary:

    Miss Read, the village school teacher, relates the events of one particular summer.

  • Author:
    Laberge, Rosette
    Summary:

    1920. La guerre a pris fin il y a deux ans déjà, mais cela ne signifie pas pour autant une trêve au sein de la famille Pelletier... De nombreux hommes sont rentrés au pays marqués à jamais par les combats, comme le fiancé d'Anita qui a été amputé durant les hostilités. De plus, la grippe espagnole fait rage. L'amie de Gertrude y succombe en moins d'une journée, ce qui bouleverse la vie de ceux qu'elle laisse derrière de façon si abrupte. Lucille reçoit son congé de l'hôpital... une bien mauvaise nouvelle pour plusieurs ! Tandis qu'elle traite Céline aux petits oignons et tente de lui dénicher un riche mari, Laurier et Charlotte espèrent toujours retrouver leur fils disparu. Adrien et Adjutor, quant à eux, craignent que leur mère imprévisible commette un autre coup d'éclat. Décidément, il ne se passe pas un seul jour sans que quelqu'un regrette le temps où Lucille était internée ! Joseph, le père de cette famille ébranlée mais toujours forte dans l'épreuve, saura-t-il réconcilier les membres de son clan avant qu'il n'éclate ?

  • Author:
    Laberge, Rosette
    Summary:

    1916. Une vieille fille pour s'occuper des parents ; un fils qui aime un peu trop la bouteille ; un autre, ordonné prêtre malgré lui ; une mère qui en impose autant qu'elle peut... Voilà un authentique échantillon de la famille Pelletier. Entre l'installation de l'électricité au domicile et les nombreuses conséquences d'une guerre qui fait pourtant rage en Europe, le quotidien de ce clan en apparence comme les autres n'a rien d'ordinaire. D'un côté, Joseph, le père, tente de reprendre le contrôle de la maisonnée, de l'autre, sa femme Lucille s'attaque sans aucune retenue à quiconque veut lui mettre des bâtons dans les roues : elle est prête à tout pour conserver le pouvoir, sa raison de vivre. Bien que tous aient droit aux foudres de la matriarche à un moment ou à un autre, Gertrude demeure celle qui écope le plus. Elle doit se résigner à être exclue des préférés de sa mère, à l'inverse de Marcella ou Adjutor, à qui Lucille pardonne même le pire. Des bouleversements parfois extrêmes guettent les membres de la famille, à tel point que Joseph se demande sérieusement comment ils feront pour se sortir de leurs ennuis en cette année trouble...

  • Author:
    McBride, Celia
    Summary:

    In a support group for bereaved parents, Shayla, Lyle, Linee, and Jed each fight their personal demons in the search for life after the death of one's child. Set in the vast and remote landscape of Whitehorse, Yukon, playwright Celia McBride plunges into these characters' painful struggle to find a voice for their grief.

  • Author:
    Doshi, Tishani
    Summary:

    Escaping her failing marriage in the United States, Grace Marisola has returned to Pondicherry to cremate her mother. Once there, she receives an unexpected inheritance-a property on the isolated beaches south of Madras-and discovers a sister: Lucia, four years older, who has spent her life in a residential facility. Settling into the pink house on its spit of wild beach, Grace builds a new and precarious life with Lucia, the village housekeeper Mallika, the drily witty Auntie Kavitha, and an ever-multiplying band of dogs, led by the golden Raja. In the lush wilderness of Paramankeni, with its vacant bus stops colonized by flying foxes, its temples shielded by canopies of teak and tamarind, Grace feels that she has come to the very end of the world. But her attempts to leave her old self behind prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury, and bewilderment of life with Lucia. In fierce, lyrical prose, Doshi presents an unflinching portrait of contemporary India, exploring the tensions between urban and rural life, modernity and tradition, duty and freedom. Luminous, funny, surprising, and heartbreaking, Small Days and Nights is a story of the ties that bind, the secrets we bury, and the sacrifices we make to forge lives that have meaning.

  • Author:
    Giles, W. Mark
    Summary:

    Finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award.

    Dwight Eliot was born on a baseball diamond in the small town of Seep during a dugout-clearing brawl between his hometown team, The Seep Selects, and a visiting team of barnstorming Cuban All-Stars. Decades later, Dwight returns to town only to witness his childhood home being moved down the highway on the back of a huge flatbed truck. Seep is being dismantled, and the land is being redeveloped as a master-planned recreational townsite to complement a nearby First Nations casino. In the face of the town’s erasure, Dwight tries to preserve its stories, and in so doing, comes to question his own. And then his wayward brother, Darcy, arrives on his doorstep with the force of a bus crash. Seep limns the tension between land development and landscape, trauma and nostalgia, dysfunction and intimacy in a narrative of twenty-first century Canada.

    Praise for Seep: “Mark Giles’ Seep is a wickedly wonderful account of how our senses of self and of place can be interrelated, with the swirl of emotions involved in each part of the equation making for a complicated world and illuminating fiction. Giles assuredly steps in the footsteps of his predecessors who so engagingly limned the Alberta prairie: W.O. Mitchell, Henry Kreisel, W.P. Kinsella and Robert Kroetsch. But Giles’ novel brings us firmly into the present era of rampant real estate speculation and the conflicts that ensue when people seek to protect what they value about a locale.” (Tom Wayman, author of Dirty Snow and My Father’s Cup)

  • Author:
    Choyce, Lesley
    Summary:

    For Sylvie, Ragged Island - and the whales who swam around it - is the only world she has ever known. It is the place where she was born and raised, where she lived with her four late husbands, and where she plans to live out her remaining years. It is also the home to a community whose love for the island is immense. But when the Nova Scotia government decides to shut down the ferry service that is the lifeblood of Ragged Island, the residents see their world beginning to disappear. Sea of Tranquility is the lyrical and moving story of an island struggling to survive. Lesley Choyce’s seventh novel, it contains the elements for which the author is known: engaging characters, page-turning storyline, and uproarious humour. Choyce is in top form.

  • Author:
    Farley, Frank
    Summary:

    A young Englishman finds himself isolated in the Australian bush. Adventure and romance ensues as he discovers the reality of outback Australia.

  • Author:
    Rylant, Cynthia
    Summary:

    From Newbery Medalist Cynthia Rylant comes the sweet and resonant follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rosetown, continuing the story of nine-year-old Flora Smallwood's life in quiet Rosetown, Indiana. It is August in Rosetown, Indiana. Ten-year-old Flora is having a calm and busy summer filled with old friends and new projects, dear pets, and, of course, many hours at her favorite place: Wings and a Chair Used Books. It is her constant and her comfort. But change may be ahead for Wings and a Chair, and Flora is uneasy about what it will bring.

  • Author:
    Juby, Susan
    Summary:

    Prudence Burns is an overly idealistic Brooklyn girl who has inherited a derelict plot of land named Woefield Farm. Her motley crew of farm hands consists of Earl, an elderly, reclusive bluegrass legend; Seth, an agoraphobic heavy-metal blogger in early recovery from alcoholism; and Sara, an 11-year-old girl with a flock of elite show poultry. When Prudence is felled by a thyroid condition, things on the farm begin to fall apart, resulting in valiant and sometimes ill-advised attempts to restore domestic bliss. Efforts are complicated by a renegade mule, attempts to turn a hideously ugly child's playhouse into a high-yield roadside farm stand, and an electrical station's worth of crossed wires. Will Prudence get well? Will Seth finally get rid of his pesky virginity? Will Earl rescue Sara? And will anyone, ever, admit they might be wrong?

  • Author:
    Harvey, Kenneth J.
    Summary:

    As a fatherless girl with a mother who persistently encouraged her daughter’s artistic temperament, Anna Wells is highly sensitive to the life developing in her when she discovers she is pregnant. Anna’s gynecologist boyfriend, Kevin, considers the time just not right to have children, so Anna moves to a 100-year-old house in Bareneed, an abandoned cove in Newfoundland, where she takes comfort in renovating the interior of her new home and working on a series of paintings detailing roses. Paralleling Anna’s own journey is a minutely detailed, day-by-day development of the embryo. All goes well until a car arrives delivering a court summons. Kevin has filed a statement of claim seeking the termination of the embryo as "return of property." One night, while still in Bareneed and upset over the impending legal action, Anna discovers an abandoned little girl almost frozen to death in her front yard. Mysterious circumstances continue to surround the children in Bareneed as pro-choice and pro-life factions marshal their forces.

  • Author:
    Ostenso, Martha
    Summary:

    Autumn Dean unexpectedly returns home from Europe to her father's ranch in the Okanagan Valley, where she reconnects with Bruce Langdon, a stoic childhood friend grown into an accomplished rancher. Autumn and Bruce's budding romance is halted by the revival of an intergenerational grudge between their two families that is shrouded in mystery. Autumn is insistent on uncovering the root of the hostility: a forbidden romance between her mother and Bruce's father that had devastating consequences. As Bruce and Autumn circle the truth of what happened, they're both haunted by the past, and must decide if they forge ahead together or alone. Originally published in 1931, Prologue to Love is a lush portrait of early 20th century BC ranch life, and an intergenerational tale of love and loss and hope and redemption. This new edition features an introduction by Hannah McGregor.

  • Author:
    Hill, Laurie Ray
    Summary:

    From the moment she holds her baby niece, Rose is on a mission. Terrified that her baby niece will fall victim to the sexual abuse rampant in the family, Rose tells us in her own warm, funny, down-to-earth voice, how she reluctantly agrees to join a therapy group, hoping she can find out how to prevent disaster and see that baby Jenny grows up unharmed. In the group, she meets new friends who will become like family: Josie, who "sees" the future; Tammy, with a suspicious bruise on her neck; good and steady Marg, whose father is threatening to burn down her apartment house; and sweet, grieving, spiritual Sally. Rose's own chronic problem, she confesses, is picking wrong men. Josie finds a small magazine picture of a little town in northern Ontario. She sees, with her second sight, a resort hotel to be built in this town and a sunnier life for the group. As they begin to take the first painful steps of emotional recovery, an intense fantasy about this unknown town and dream hotel becomes the secret life of the group. Deep friendships evolve as the women help one another through the roller coasters of their recovery process. Despite setbacks, they cling to their dream of moving up north and running their own hotel.

  • Author:
    Cather, Willa
    Summary:

    Alexandra Bergsons, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, inherits her family's ailing farm in Hanover, Nebraska upon the death of her father. Over the years, she turns the farm into a successful enterprise. However, success has not brought peace, as passion and love intervene.

  • Author:
    Kimmel, Fran, Hoyt, Tracey, Watton, Jonathan
    Summary:

    A profoundly moving exploration of our capacity to heal one another. Ellie and Eric Nyland have moved their two sons back to Eric's childhood farmhouse, hoping for a fresh start. But there's no denying it, their family is falling apart, each one of them isolated by private sorrows, stresses, and missed signals. With every passing day, Ellie's hopes are buried deeper in the harsh winter snows. When Eric finds Hannah Finch, the girl across the road, wandering alone in the bitter cold, his rusty police instincts kick in, and he soon discovers there are bad things happening in the girl's house. With nowhere else to send her, the Nylands reluctantly agree to let Hannah stay with them until she can find a new home after the Christmas holidays. But Hannah proves to be more balm than burden, and the Nylands discover that the only thing harder than taking Hannah in may be letting her go.

  • Author:
    Snelling, Lauraine
    Summary:

    Astrid Bjorklund believes God might use her medical training on a faraway mission field. But when an emergency calls her home, she's confronted with a measles outbreak on a nearby Indian reservation.

  • Author:
    Wigmore, Gillian
    Summary:

    Three poetic novellas centred around the author's background of growing up as the child of a veterinarian.Full of humour and compassion, Night Watchcollects three novellas that explore the lives of rural veterinarians. Wigmore's vets struggle to stay awake during unending calving seasons, reaching for moments of stillness and grace between phone calls and farm calls; they balance their own family's births and deaths with shepherding animals through caesareans and euthanasia, covering miles of road in their vast jurisdictions during harsh winters and muddy, ruthless springs. Travelling from small towns in northern BC to the south of France and Fiji, sometimes in the span of a night and sometimes over a lifetime, the men and women in Night Watchwork with their hands, keep their hearts in check, and strain to define themselves against the backdrop of an unforgiving job that puts them at the mercy of the elements—and each other.'One might assume the graphic viscera of farm medicine wouldn't lend itself to beautiful writing, but one would be wrong—Wigmore's lilting writing is as soothing as a lullaby.'—Chatelaine'Wigmore's prose brings to mind Alice Munro's ability to capture the complex emotions that simmer underneath quiet, quotidian moments.'—Vancouver Sun.

  • Author:
    McGhee, Alison
    Summary:

    When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondacks town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a loving but fiercely independent woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, and so Clara built a new life for herself, far from her roots and the world she had always known. Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home. Tamar has become increasingly forgetful, and can no longer live on her own. But just as her mother's memory is declining, Clara's questions are building. Why was Tamar so insistent that Clara leave, all those years ago' Just what secrets was she hiding' The surprising answers Clara uncovers are rooted in her mother's love for her, and the sacrifices Tamar made to protect her. And in being released from her past'though now surrounded by friends from it'Clara can finally look forward to the future. Never Coming Back is a brilliant and piercing story of a young woman finding her way in life, determined to know her mother'and by extension herself'before it's too late.

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