Read Local BC 2016

Krissy Mathews has returned. Four years ago, the seventeen-year-old vanished. The young detective assigned to her case has hunted her relentlessly. Now she bursts through the door of the hospital, a lifeless child in her arms and a man she calls her husband by her side. The police pry Jasper Ryan from Krissy's grasp and charge him with her kidnapping.

Diagnosed with Stockholm syndrome, she is forced to question what she thought was true love, borne of the twisted abuse she suffered while isolated …

Anna always looked forward to summer holidays. This summer is different. Anna is sent to live with her Grandfather, an eccentric artist in his strange new studio. She's terribly afraid that she will be left alone with her books while he paints every day, the summer dragging on page after page. A chance meeting on the ferry, secret gatherings in the garden, and a painted door, quickly change Anna's perceptions. The painted door opens to exciting adventures: ancient and mysterious, dangerous and m …

In her seventh book of poetry, Evelyn Lau digs up her deepest fears to unearth the universal hope we all have — of a life that matters. Tumour's power lies in Lau's ability to talk about the things we don't like to talk about, the things we avoid with lotions and potions and self-medication. Tumour compels sober self-reflection and shining light into the corners of the mind. In the book's first part, Lau roots through the forces of life that shaped her — the family legacy, the cultural inher …

Susan Telfer's intense poems in Ghost Town are possessed of a wild brilliance all their own. There is a raw, unruly, exhumed energy coming to the surface of these poems, which is the source of their power. This book's themes are identity, a struggle for self, invention and re-invention, against the undertow of family dysfunction, of ancestral influences, of grief and loss. They are rooted in the West Coast, explicitly located on the fault line as well as in dreams. Sometimes poetic forms offer t …

After moving into their new home, a keeling-over farmhouse in the country, nine-year-old Cyrus and his brother, Rudy, have trouble adjusting to all the changes.

The fresh-from-the-farm egg yolks are blindingly yellow. The eccentric girl next door has a very unusual sense of style. And Rumpley, a donkey they inherited with the farmhouse, doesn't even know how to bray. Nothing about the country feels warm or familiar. But when Cyrus is stranded one evening by the tide, he finds his lifeline in an u …

While struggling with the death of her beloved adoptive mother, sixteen-year-old Brenna reconnects with members of her biological family, hoping to discover why her biological mother broke off contact many years earlier.

At the same time, she is falling in love with Ryan, who provides support while she grieves but has to leave her when she needs him most. Despite powerful feelings of abandonment, Brenna realizes that getting strong physically and focusing on the needs of others might just help h …

When ten-year-old Journey Song hears that two pandas are being held in a warehouse in her neighborhood, she worries that they may be hungry, cold and lonely. Horrified to learn that the pandas, originally destined for a zoo in Washington, might be shipped back to China because of a diplomatic spat between China and the United States, Journey rallies her friends and neighbors on the poverty-stricken Eastside. Her infectious enthusiasm for all things panda is hard to resist, and soon she's getting …