When Henry Robinson's first daughter, Starr, is born with Williams Syndrome, he swears to devote his life to making her happy. More than twenty years later, we find Henry working at Frankie's Funhouse, where he repairs the animatronic band that Starr loves, wrestling with her attempts at living outside the family home. His wife, Kathy, wishes he would allow Starr more independence, hoping that Henry will turn his attention a little more to their own relationship and to their other daughter, who is pregnant. As tensions mount Henry's young co-worker, Darren, reveals he needs to get to Chicago Comic Con to win back his ex-girlfriend, so Henry packs Starr (and her pet turtles) and Darren (still dressed as Frankie the mascot) into the van for a road trip no one was prepared for. Told in multiple points of view, we hear from Henry, Darren and Starr as they all try to find their place in the world. In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo is a charming, tender and often funny story of a father struggling to let his daughters grow up and of a family struggling against hard odds, taking care of each other when the world lets them down. Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country's greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.

A vintage necklace. A long-hidden secret. A second chance for love. When costume designer Ariana Ricci leaves her groom at the altar, she seeks solace at the Palm Springs home of her great-aunt, a Texas-born Hollywood legend who began her career as an extra on the film Roman Holiday. While opening yellowed, 1950s letters postmarked Italy, Ariana discovers relics from her great-aunt's hidden past, including an intriguing necklace that Audrey Hepburn gave her during the filming of the movie. Aching for a fresh start and the chance to resolve an unfinished story, the two embark on a journey to the sun-dappled, elegant shores of Lake Como, Italy that will illuminate secrets of a bygone era and offer second chances to each of them-if they are bold enough to seize them.

When Lillian and Audrey hatch a plot to escape from Tranquil Meadows Nursing Home, “borrow” a car, and spend their hastily planned vacation time driving to destinations west, they aren’t fully aware of the challenges they will face. All they know is that the warm days of August call to them, and the need to escape the daily routines and humiliations of nursing home life has become overwhelming. But their trip is almost over before it begins, until they meet up with the unsuspecting Rayne, a young hitchhiker. As Lillian and Audrey try to take back the control that time and dementia has taken from them, Rayne realizes the truth of their situation. But it’s too late – he has fallen under the spell of these two funny, brave women and is willing to be a part of their adventure, wherever it leads them.

When the world shares the same dream of being guided to a water death by a loved one Nov. 1st, Lyd and her daughter only have a few months left to navigate a changed world and conniving father.

Doubting Yourself to the Bone is a story about the nature of grief, about what it means to be a parent in the face of great sorrow, the idea of re-invented love and hope. Set in Paris and a small town in the Canadian Rockies, the novel is propelled forward by a horrific car crash that reverberates for the victim's husband and daughters. From a scotch-swilling Tibetan monk to a titillating, imagined waif named Katya, whose uninvited visits are always intriguing, this story serpentines through the labyrinth of grief and pain as the victim's husband wrestles with the question, was the car crash an accident or intentional? It is a bumpy and strange journey, peopled with a capricious mother, an aging alcoholic uncle, five Buddhist monks in a broken van, and a nudist lesbian, that leads its main character and the reader on the road to salvation.

Botanist Alfred Homer, ever hopeful and constantly surprised, is invited on a road trip through Southwestern Ontario by his parents' friend, Professor Morgan Bruno, who wants company as he tries to unearth the story of the mysterious poet John Skennen. But this is no ordinary road trip. As Alfred and the Professor encounter towns with familiar names but where Black residents speak only in sign language or where there are Indigenous Parades, house burnings, werewolves, and witches, we realize that this is a journey through the psyche of Alfred and, indeed, though the psyche of Canada. It might just be the quintessential Canadian novel - the one we didn't know we needed. Complete with Alfred's drawings of plants both real and implausible, Days by Moonlight is a Dantesque journey taken during the 'hour of the wolf,' that time of day when the sun is setting and the traveller can't tell the difference between dog and wolf. And it asks that perpetual question: how do we know the things we know are real, and what is real anyway?

It's an ordinary nightmare of a family trip until Theo realizes that the beautiful girl beside the hotel pool is his childhood babysitter, and his first crush. Theo hasn't seen Ronnie for five years, but when she invites him to go with her, and her toddler son, Zach, on a road trip, he leaps at the opportunity to ditch his parents and head to Hollywood. They've only gone a few miles before Theo begins to regret his impulsive decision. Zach cries nonstop, and when they get pulled over by the police, Ronnie is clearly terrified. She says her ex-boyfriend is a cop and that he is looking for her. Theo wants to trust her, but he suspects she is hiding something. And when they reach Los Angeles and she disappears, leaving him to look after Zach, he needs to find out the truth, and decide where his loyalties lie.

"You" and L, a mysterious third gender runaway, hit the road on a mission to find the meaning of life. Traveling by plane, bus and car, You run into trouble with the cops, mourn a family tragedy, smoke hundreds of cigarettes, attend a retirement party, come to terms with a broken heart, and discover that all roads lead back to where You started - in the flowers drawn by two little girls in coloured chalk on the sidewalk

With its starting point in the late 1940s, Cadillac Road is the story of red-haired and fierce narrator Sharon Desjardins: from her earliest childhood memories of leaving Northern Quebec and a violent father to adventures in Buffalo and Crystal Beach with her mother and younger sister, Gloria; from dreams of escaping claustrophobic poverty in shabby Grenville to going to Toronto, mingling with high society and marrying a wealthy lawyer, having turned down local boy and first love Clinton McClary because she doesn't think he'll amount to much. Nor does she think much of her mom marrying Jimmy Dutton, a balding man with protruding ears, a rusty car and a dilapidated house. Sharon sees her beautiful mother fading, becoming little more than a baby-producing machine and blames her stepfather. She swears that won't happen to her, that she won't make her mother's mistakes. And she doesn't. No poverty for her. No dilapidated house. Wealth, respect, a beautiful home--it's all hers now. There's only one problem: Sharon soon realizes she doesn't love her wealthy lawyer husband or his lifestyle and her efforts to please him and fit in leave her depressed and on pills. In the end, Sharon, realizing she needs to be true to her heart, abandons her marriage and takes to the road, a road that could very well lead back to her original hometown of Cadillac.