Coast to Coast “Canada’s Family Women” Literary Series

Hold My Girl

by Charlene Carr

For fans of Jodi Picoult, Kate Hewitt and Ashley Audrain, a heart-wrenching novel about two women whose eggs are switched during IVF
Katherine is a woman full of obsessions. Everything clean, everything perfect, all the time. After seven years of trying—and failing—to conceive, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child. But she’s afraid that Rose may not be her daughter; her pale skin doesn’t match Katherine’s own.
Tess never got her happy ending. She took on IVF alongside Katherine and a group of hopeful mothers, but her daughter, Hanna, was stillborn. After a series of poor choices, she’s divorced, broke and stuck in a job that’s below her skill set.
Ten months later, Katherine and Tess get a call from the fertility clinic that reveals shocking news: the two women’s eggs were switched. While Katherine’s perfect life beings to crumble around her, for Tess it’s the glimmer of hope she needs to get her life back on track. But it will take a custody battle to decide who deserves to be Rose’s mother, a battle that will push both women to the brink.
With themes of racial identity, loss and betrayal, this emotional novel centred around a difficult moral question beautifully explores the complexities of motherhood.

The Wise Women

by Gina Sorell

Popular advice columnist Wendy Wise has been skillfully counseling her magazine's readers for decades. So why is it that the only people who can’t seem to heed her Wise Words are her adult daughters?

Now they’re both in crisis: Clementine, the working mother of a six-year-old boy, has just discovered that her husband has absconded with their life savings, and architect Barb is overextended at work and back together with her cheating ex-girlfriend. Sensing capital-P Problems to be solved, Wendy swoops in to save the day, even though her daughters haven’t asked for—and don’t want—her help. But when Wendy sets about hunting down her rogue son-in-law, Barb and Clementine quickly discover that their mother has been hiding a few problems of her own.

Delightful chaos ensues as the three women grapple with relationships, real estate calamities, and aging, all while confronting simmering resentments and addressing long-standing bitterness between them. As the Wise women rally together, they’ll discover that though the future may look entirely different from what they've expected, it may be even brighter than they’d hoped.

The Sound of a Rainbow

By Sharon Frayne

Troubled, almost 16-year-old Raven Tantie just wants to be left alone, after her disastrous final performance in The Teen Talent show goes viral on social media. Worse, following a therapist’s advice, her divorcing parents send her to Rainbow Wings, an inclusive summer camp for the performing arts in Northern Ontario. Initially, Raven is angry at the world, but inside she’s desperate for acceptance and belonging. Campers with physical exceptionalities, learning disabilities, and complex neurodiversity are welcome at Rainbow Wings. Anxious and self-absorbed, Raven resists the charms of the quirky staff, the other campers, and the beautiful natural environment. When Ash, a camper with autism struggles to cope, her empathy for others begins to grow. Camp Director J. B., a former rock musician and professional clown, utilizes a philosophy of loving respect to help the campers. His estranged elderly mother lives in an abandoned wildlife sanctuary nearby, under threat from unscrupulous developers. When hard decisions have to be made, can Raven learn to use kindness and honesty to help new friends and herself? Because sometimes, when life deals hard problems, you can regain your confidence, and with trust and hope, build a better future.

The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters
NATIONAL

BESTSELLER

A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that remains unsolved for nearly fifty years
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, is seen sitting on her favourite rock at the edge of a field before mysteriously vanishing. Her six-year-old brother, Joe, who was the last person to see Ruthie, is devastated by his sister’s disappearance, and her loss ripples through his life for years to come.
In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as an only child in an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, while her mother is overprotective of Norma, who is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem to be too real to be her imagination. As she grows older, Norma senses there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she pursues her family’s secret for decades.
A stunning debut novel, The Berry Pickers is a riveting story about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.