Hiding from the Nazis in the forests of Slovakia’s Low Tatra Mountains in the fall of 1944, in constant danger from the Germans occupying nearby villages, fourteen-year-old Agnes Grossmann and her family made the daring decision to escape high into the mountains and hike along treacherous ice-covered peaks to safety. Twenty-four years later, Agne …

Two Jewish girls born six months apart – Judit Grünfeld (Judy Abrams) in Hungary and Eva Felsenburg (Marx) in Czechoslovakia – are separated from their parents and forced to "pass" as Christian children. Theirs are the amazingly parallel but unique stories of two children who were able to survive when so many others perished.

On the run in Nazi-occupied Poland, thirteen-year-old orphan Marian Finkelman — later Domanski — was forced to grow up much too early. When he finally escaped the ghetto in his hometown, Marian’s perfect Polish and fair complexion helped him narrowly escape death as he travelled through the Polish countryside.

The son of an Antwerp diamond merchant, Paul-Henri Rips was ten when the Nazis invaded Belgium and ended his “golden childhood” forever. Guided by his father’s admonition to “Sei a mensch” (Be a decent person), Rips managed to hold onto his humanity in the face of unfathomable inhumanity.

Not quite two when he immigrated to Canada, Max Bornstein returned to Europe in 1933, the year that Adolf Hitler came to power. Barely surviving as a stateless refugee in 1930s Paris, he escaped France when it fell to the Nazis only to be interned in a Spanish concentration camp.

At fifteen, Felix Opatowski begins smuggling goods out of the Lodz ghetto in exchange for food. In 1943 he is deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he is recruited as a runner for the Polish Underground and implicated in the plot to blow up the crematoria.

Born to a runaway teen and Iroquois Warrior, struggles to find her place, her loyalties eternally torn between two warring peoples. When the American Revolution sets the Mohawk Valley ablaze, will a young soldier’s love prove strong enough to save her? Born to a runaway teen and Iroquois Warrior, struggles to find her place, her loyalties eternal …

Angelica is a Patriot heiress, stalked by a brutal, fortune-hunting British officer. She is forced to trust Jack, the mystery man who pledges to take her on a dangerous war-time journey up river to her Albany home, she expects to encounter brigands, Tories and Indians. What she doesn’t expect is to lose her heart along the way.

Twenty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor Miklós is being shipped from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to Gotland, Sweden, to receive treatment at the Larbro Hospital. Here he is sentenced to death again: he is diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors inform him that he has six months to live. But Miklós decides to wage war on his own fate: …

Hush, hush, hush

Here comes the Bogeyman . . .

London during the long, dark days of the Blitz: a city outwardly in ruins, weakened by exhaustion and rationing. But behind the blackout, the old way of life continues: in the music halls, pubs, and cafés, soldiers mix with petty crooks, stage magicians with lonely wives, scandal-hungry reporters with g …

Shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Award.

Part history, part biography, part true crime, Hanns and Rudolf chronicles the untold story of the Jewish investigator who pursued and captured one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals.

May 1945. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is ass …

Under the Yellow & Red Stars is a remarkable story of survival, coming of age and homecoming after years as a stranger in a strange land. Alex Levin was only ten years old when he ran deep into the forest after the Germans invaded his hometown of Rokitno and only twelve when he emerged from hiding to find that he had neither parents nor a community …

Under the Yellow & Red Stars is a remarkable story of survival, coming of age and homecoming after years as a stranger in a strange land. Alex Levin was only ten years old when he ran deep into the forest after the Germans invaded his hometown of Rokitno and only twelve when he emerged from hiding to find that he had neither parents nor a community …

Despite his potential, extraordinary skating skills, and unmatched dedication and endurance, George Faulkner never made the Montreal Canadiens’ roster. But he was trying to break into a famous hockey dynasty never before seen in professional hockey. His story does not just begin and end with the Canadiens; in fact, George Faulkner had more than o …

The Prime Minister gives permission for John Alford to board a tramp steamer crammed with a thousand young enlistees bound for adventure in the Boer War. They steam across a stormy Atlantic into a year of dusty, disease-ridden battles in South Africa - the first engagement by Canadian Forces on foreign soil. He and his courageous comrades endure fr …

Eric Alford's safe and romantic life on the peaceful Gaspe Coast is shattered by his decision to follow his elder brother John (the Pilgrim and The Chaplain) into the 1914-18 cataclysm of death and destruction known as the "Great War for Civilisation". By his thundering Howitzer, Gunner Alford assaults the Hun through every major Canadian battle of …

Eric Alford, one of the brave but shell-shocked soldiers of WWI, sets out during Canada's Great Depression to find his British sweetheart. He ends up in Australia, where he finally wins ordination as a clergyman. After an emotionally fraught round the world trip, he arrives home in Quebec only to find his traumas growing worse. He continues to batt …

From the trips to the general store to battles with bedbugs and falling cows, Five Pennies brings to life the experiences of a boy growing up in the early west. Filled with details about pioneer life, each story gives insight into the difficulties, challenges, and joys faced by families building a new home on a rugged, new land.  Young Archie's obs …

In 1896, young rector Jack Alford is sent to the implacable, granite shores of Labrador on the vast St. Lawrence River. Hazards imperil his life as he travels this harsh 450-mile coastline by boat and dogsled, to visit his far-flung parishioners. Jack also manages to rescue a cook from the crew of a schooner to keep him company on his travels. In t …

A novel of remarkable historical breadth, Found Far and Wide follows Sam Kennedy through the tragedy of the Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914, the horrors of The First World War, and the dangers of rum-running in Prohibition-era New York. And as Sam journeys through the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, carrying the ghosts of …

"My father has married me to a mad old man." These words, written on a slip of paper inside a fading brocade collar, are a clue to the unlikely marriage of a Jewish remittance man and a 14-year-old orphan in a remote Newfoundland fishing station. The Winterhouse is a compelling novel about finding oneself and creating one's own community.

When a devastating fire sweeps through St. John's, Newfoundland, in the summer of 1892, nineteen-year-old Lily Hunt hopes it's the beginning of a new life that will transform her from a dutiful daughter to a crusader, a suffragist, and a woman in love. Twenty years later, Lily's daughter Grace is deeply immersed in campaigning for women to have the …

In the spring of 1944, as Germany occupied her native Hungary, Anna Hegedűs barely had time to notice the flowers blooming around her. One year later, as the lilacs blossomed once again, she returned to her hometown of Szatmár and set her memories, raw and vivid, to paper. Her unflinching words convey the bitter details of the Szatmár ghetto, …

Annie Kidd’s story is one of innocence, survival, and courage, inspired by the real-life experiences of settlers in a remote area of northern Canada just before and during World War I. Annie is a young English woman who follows her husband, Jim, to a new land and fulfills her dream of owning a home and property. Although she and Jim weather many …

Cally is a twenty-five year old business graduate. Her mother, who was born in Crete but has always refused to talk about it, has died, leaving one instruction: before starting her first job, Cally should visit Crete. There she meets Oliver, a reticent, very attractive US Army deserter. A night of love awakens in Cally feelings she has never known. …

Since childhood, author Fiona Gold Kroll has been drawn to a photograph of her great-uncle, Benjamin Albaum, a Jewish man who disappeared from Paris at the beginning of World War II. A Stone for Benjamin is the compelling story of Fiona’s quest to discover his fate. Chasing Holocaust shadows across Europe and beyond, Fiona begins her powerful jou …

Finalist for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and the IODE Violet Downey Book Award, and an American Library Association Notable Children's Book and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book

It's 1941, and Canada is two years into World War II. Meanwhile, in rural Manitoba, fifteen-year-old Marie-Claire Cote begins a war of her own …

Pilgrims in Love involves a re-visioning of the Canterbury Tales, told from the point of view of Alison, Wife of Bath, and Eglentyne, Prioress. Both undertake the pilgrimage to Canterbury because of personal crises that they face as they approach middle age. In the course of their journey they grow out of the straight-jackets that have been imposed …

Stony Point tells the story of a woman who succeeds in doing things at a time when custom restricts her from doing anything. In 1903, shortly after the Frank slide, a newspaper reporter vanishes from a mining town in the Crowsnest Pass. Lucille travels to Stony Point in search of her sister's husband. She finds a town under the heel of a ruthless m …

The Hedge, set in early New England, is the story of an intelligent young governor’s wife who is repressed by the severe attitudes of the Puritans, to the point where she withdraws from society, and is considered to have lost her mind. Anne Yale Hopkins comes to Hartford, Connecticut in 1638, delighted to have escaped the household of her stepfat …

WINNER OF THE 2011 IPPY BRONZE MEDAL FOR REGIONAL FICTION

"Maura Hanrahan writes powerfully of the pain and joy of motherhood and ultimately delivers a mighty portrait of women’s lives writ large across the blue of sea and sky. I read it in great gulps. ”—Erica Eisdorfer, author of The Wet Nurse’s Tale

On the cusp of the Depression, Sheilagh …

One Italian Renaissance painter created stunning portraits of warmth and sensitivity, caught Michelangelo’s favourable attention, served the most powerful monarch of the time, and achieved international renown. But that artist fell into obscurity for one reason – she was a woman. Sofonisba Anguissola’s abilities as a painter, evident while st …

The Girl Who Was Born That Way is the story of the Berk family, not exactly an ordinary Jewish family, trying to bury its Holocaust past while starting over in post-war USA. The novel centers on the dynamics between the family’s four daughters, the two oldest girls who grew up in the Lodz Ghetto and he two youngest who came of age in an idyllic A …

Paardeberg, South Africa is far from the Canadian prairies. In 1899, best friends from the small town of Portage la Prairie, Will and Mason, sign up with the Winnipeg Rifles” “A” Company to fight in the Second Boer War. Here they meet Robert, the silent anthropologist from Alberta with a mystery he isn—t revealing; Claire, an Australian nur …

High finance, wilderness adventures, violence, and questionable legal tactics all played important roles in the history of the North West Company. William McGillivray, head of the company from 1804 until 1821, was arguably the most powerful businessman in Canada in the early nineteenth century.

William McGillivray emigrated from the Scottish Highlan …

First published in 1896, this novel blends daring, romance and history into a thrilling adventure that.takes place in the years leading up to the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians.
Jean de Mer, an "Acadian Ranger," is the unofficial seigneur of lands around Minas Basin. After three years' absence he returns to find his son Marc in trouble with a Fren …

If Frederick Scott is remembered at all today, it is as minor Victorian poet or as the father of his illustrious son F.R. Scott. However, Frederick Scott was almost 55 years old and the pastor of St. Matthews Anglican Church in Quebec City when he volunteered to go overseas to serve as senior chaplain with the 1st Canadian Infantry Division during …

Part of the CBC Massey Lectures Series

In History’s People internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan gives her own personal selection of figures of the past, women and men, some famous and some little-known, who stand out for her. Some have changed the course of history and even directed the currents of their times. Others are memorab …

A classic of Canadian literature by the great Quebecoise writer, Kamouraska is based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Quebec. It paints a poetic and terrifying tableau of the life of Elisabeth d'Aulnieres: her marriage to Antoine Tassy, squire of Kamouraska; his violent murder; and her passion for George Nelson, an American docto …

Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award: Fiction

Bonus e-book content includes two out-takes from the novel -- how Antonio Garcia got his beautiful horse and how Miguel Orozco became mayor -- and two essays by Robert Hough: the true history of Dr. Brinkley and Robert Hough's decades-long i …

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the British Empire is engaged in a titanic war with Napoleonic France for global supremacy. The American Republic is quickly expanding its territory along the western frontier, while native peoples struggle to protect their lands from the relentless wave of new settlers.

Bestselling author and scholar James Lax …

Selected for The Globe 100 Books in 2013.

A fascinating work of history, biography, cartography, and literary mystery, Mr Selden’s Map of China unlocks the secrets behind a recently discovered map of China like no other of its time.

In 1659, a vast and unusual map of China arrived in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was bequeathed by John Selden, a …

Indian summer, 1607. Intrepid explorer and map-maker Samuel de Champlain has founded a new and precarious settlement in Annapolis Royal, New France (present-day Nova Scotia). As winter looms, two threats emerge: boredom amongst the men and the deadly sickness scurvy. Champlain hits upon the idea of a moveable feast -- an order of good cheer -- wher …

Selected for The Globe 100 Books in 2013.

A fascinating work of history, biography, cartography, and literary mystery, Mr Selden’s Map of China unlocks the secrets behind a recently discovered map of China like no other of its time.

In 1659, a vast and unusual map of China arrived in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was bequeathed by John Selden, a …

The O'Briens follows the family from The Law of Dreams two generations later: Joe O'Brien is coming of age in a new century in remote Pontiac County, Quebec, with his brothers and sisters by his side.

Their father has abandoned the family and died in the South African war; their frail mother has remarried the abusive and lecherous Mick Heaney. Joe a …

From one of Canada’s brightest emerging writers comes an unforgettable tale of love, art, and life. Set in the vividly imagined streets of 1920s Montreal, Serafim and Claire is the beautiful, moving, and compulsively readable story of two dreamers whose worlds become forever connected.

Claire Audette is a dancer whose reputation in the vaudeville …

The Sisters Brothers meets Master and Commander in Robert Hough’s rollicking and raucous new historical novel.

The year is 1664, and Benny Wand, a young thief and board game hustler, is arrested in London for illegal gaming. Deported to the city of Port Royal, Jamaica, known as “the wickedest city on earth,” Wand is forced by his depleted circ …

Winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction. Peter Behrens's bestselling novel is gorgeously written, Homeric in scope, and haunting in its depiction of a young man's perilous journey from innocence to experience.

The Law of Dreams follows Fergus O'Brien from Ireland to Liverpool and Wales during the Great Potato Famine of 1847, and then beyo …

Set during the decades between the First and Second World Wars, Carry Me is a devastating historical saga about war, love, and escape, from the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning author of The Law of Dreams and The O’Briens.

Carry Me begins in 1909 on the Isle of Wight, England, and follows Billy Lange, the son of the skipper of a racin …

The discovery of an old book provides more information on the medallion, but Paige and Dane will soon be returning to Canada and know it will be several months before they can make another time trip with their cousin Jack. Then, amidst all the preparations for Grantie Etta’s one hundred and fifth birthday party, strange things start to happen. As …