The Voyage Home (Women of Troy 3), by Pat Barker (2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Trojan nurse accompanies the doomed prophetess Cassandra to her fate as Agamemnon‘s entourage returns home.

Review: In a landscape overstuffed with retellings, once again this effort from Pat Barker elevates the genre to its full potential. It was jarring not to have Briseis as our point-of-view character in this third book. Cont.

The Summer of Jordi Perez, by Amy Spalding (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Los Angeles teen‘s plans for her Summer internship at a fashionable boutique are complicated when she catches feelings for her colleague and rival.

Review: This is a sweet YA novel perfect for Pride. While the romance is solid, where this really impressed me was in its unique take on body positivity and teenage male-female friendships.

Set Piece, by Lana Schwartz (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: Five years after a passionate chance encounter, an up-and-coming Hollywood production designer gets a second chance with one of the industry‘s hottest actors.

Review: This was a really solid romance, with great characters with strong chemistry and understandable conflict.

Bookish Pair: For another good Hollywood romance, Olivia Dade‘s Spoiler Alert (2020)

Elizabeth Rex, by Timothy Findley (2000 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: On the night before her lover is put to death on her orders, a restless Queen Elizabeth I spends time with William Shakespeare‘s troupe and gets into a battle of wits about the performance of gender with a man who has spent his whole career in drag.

Review: This is probably my favourite play-as-literature thus far. Cont.

Under the Eye of the Little Bird, by Hiromi Kawakami (2016, transl. 2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A novel in linked short stories about the distant fate of humanity.

Review: This will no doubt work for a lot of readers, but despite the fact that I can recognize that it‘s very well done, it was not for me. Told in short stories, all at different moments in the future,, this is meant to keep the reader off guard. Cont.

My Own Lightning (Wolf Hollow 2), by Lauren Wolk (2022)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: After getting struck by lightning, a 1940s Pennsylvania girl begins to see the world—and people—around her differently.

Review: With the first book in this series being such a triumph for me, I was a bit unsure what to expect with this sequel. But wow! I think I like it even more! Cont.

The Nimbus, by Robert P. Baird (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Chicago couple‘s relationship frays when their youngest son starts glowing and they have drastically different reactions.

Review: This is not going to be for everyone, but it was absolutely for me. The premise is big, and, while the author didn‘t go where I‘d have wanted him to, there‘s no doubt where it goes is as realistic as it is unsettling. Cont.

The Dad Rock that Made Me a Woman, by Niko Stratis (2025 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A memoir in essays about the role of music in the author‘s Northern childhood and burgeoning trans identity.

Review: I don‘t have too much to say about this. Each chapter focuses on the role a different artist played in a stage of the author‘s life. Some of these connections are stronger than others. Cont.

Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck (1962)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: The famed author undertakes a road trip across the United States to reconnect with ‘real America‘, accompanied by a beloved aging pet.

Review: This is a fascinating portrait of a divided country that is still enlightening 65 years later. Cont.

How to Seal Your Own Fate (Castle Knoll Files 2), by Kristen Perrin (2025)
⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A fortune teller‘s words once again set murderous events in motion, and old journals once again hold all the clues.

Review: This was such a huge disappointment for me. The first book in this series was great, but this just repeated the premise from the first, even involving the same cast of characters and inciting incident, cont.

God: An Anatomy, by Francesca Stavrakopoulou (2022)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A reassessment of common ideas about the biblical God‘s body (or lack thereof) in light of parallels in neighbouring ancient civilizations.

Review: This book has a simple and incontrovertible premise: Since the Bible talks about God the same as neighbouring cultures did, there‘s no reason to think ancient Israelites believed God not to have a body. Cont.

The Fabulous Zed Watson!, by Basil Sylvester w Kevin Sylvester (2021 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A flamboyant nonbinary kid embarks on a road trip with friends on a quest to find the lost chapters of a cult classic book

Review: I wanted to love this but sadly it just didn‘t work for me. The plot was laughably implausible and the main character—far from fabulous—came off as insufferable. Cont.

The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence (1974 🇨🇦) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: When her daughter leaves home to find herself, an author recollects her own often difficult journey of self-discovery

Review: This is a deserved classic of Canadian literature, even if it left me feeling a bit empty. It succeeds best in its thematic exploration of storytelling, identity, and dispossession, and how those intersect with race, class, and gender. Cont.

The Railway Conspiracy (Dee & Lao 2), by John Shen Yen Nee & S.J. Rozan (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Judge Dee and his lecturer sidekick Lao get pulled into a series of murders related to an international conspiracy against China.

Review: After how much I enjoyed the first book in this series, this was a huge let-down. Cont.

Once Upon a Winter‘s Eve (Spindle Cove 1.5), by Tessa Dare (2011)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Christmas ball in Spindle Cove is disrupted by the arrival of a stranger — and possible French spy — who collapses at the feet of a resident about to be sent home to London, and who thinks he seems eerily familiar.

Review: This is a fun holiday romance novella that‘s a delightful addition to the Spindle Cove series.

The Women of Troy (Women of Troy 2), by Pat Barker (2021)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: As the victorious Greek armies are stranded by impossible winds and tensions rise in the camps, the enslaved women of Troy ponder what comes.

Review: I was blown away by the first book in this series, and the sequel did not disappoint. Cont.

Everything on a Waffle, by Polly Horvath (2004 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A Vancouver Island girl‘s life is turned upside down when her parents go missing

Review: This is one of those middle grade novels that is incredibly silly while dealing with difficult themes and ideas. Cont.

Lion‘s Legacy, by L.C. Rosen (2023)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Fresh off a breakup that puts him in a difficult social position, a teenager reunites with his estranged tv archaeologist father to find a piece of ancient queer history.

Review: This is a queer YA Indiana Jones, with all the fun puzzles and booby-traps and ridiculous ‘archaeology‘—and teenage drama—you‘d expect from it. Cont.

Futbolista, by Jonny Garza Villa (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A hotshot college freshman struggles to harmonize soccer culture and his Mexican heritage with his emerging realization that he isn‘t as straight as he thought he was.

Review: It took a while for me to sink into this one and appreciate the main character; this also doesn‘t do much that‘s not been done well before. But I‘m very glad I stayed with it. Cont

The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A young recovering addict in 2010 New England develops an unlikely friendship with an elderly Lithuanian immigrant living with advanced dementia.

Review: Oof. I‘m not sure what to say about this one. It is unarguably a brilliant and important piece of literature, telling a story with a strong point of view.
Cont.

The Weather Detective, by Peter Wohlleben (2012, transl. 2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An exploration of how to get more out of one‘s garden by understanding it as part of the natural environment.

Review: This is a very good book that suffers because of its English translated title, which bears no connection at all to the book‘s content! Cont.

Run for the Hills, by Kevin Wilson (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Very different people become an unlikely family discover they share the same father and embark on a cross-country road trip to find him and ask why he abandoned them all to forge very different lives for himself.

Review: Wilson is the king of profound but off-kilter fiction, and this is no exception. Cont.

The Wind That Lays Waste, by Selva Almada (2012, transl. 2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: Four lives are changed when an itinerant charismatic pastor and his daughter stop for car repairs at a mechanic shop in drought-ridden rural Argentina.

Review: There‘s a lot to like about this. In barely over a hundred pages, Almada creates and rips open a whole world, with vivid characters and stunning dramatic tension. Cont.

A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove 1), by Tessa Dare (2011)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Susanna will do whatever it takes to preserve her seaside village that‘s become a haven for independent women, but she meets her match when their quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of a young lord tasked with setting up a local militia.

Cont

A Month in Siena, by Hisham Matar (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: The Libyan-British author‘s reflections on a month spent in Siena, adrift after coming to terms with the reality that he will never find out what happened to his father.

Review: Hisham Matar is a brilliant writer (I still can‘t believe his 2024 novel My Friends didn‘t make the Booker short list!) and this short memoir shows why. Cont.

Hey Nostradamus!, By Douglas Coupland (2003 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A 1988 school shooting in Greater Vancouver reverberates across fifteen years.

Review: I graduated high school a year before the 1999 Columbine shooting and was 21 on 9/11, two events which haunt this novel. Cont.

The Shots You Take, by Rachel Reid (2025 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: After not speaking for twelve years, a retired hockey player returns to his former roommate (and occasion lover)‘s home town to try to make amends for the disastrous end of their relationship.

Review: This is a hockey romance, but it‘s not really a hockey romance. Cont

The Last Smile in Sunder City (Fletch Phillips Archives 1), by Luke Arnold (2020)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A hard-boiled private investigator, haunted by his actions in a war that destroyed his world‘s magic, takes the case of a missing vampire.

Review: This was actor Luke Arnold‘s debut, and he set himself a big challenge, having to introduce us to a complex world in addition to his main character and the story itself. Cont.

My Friends, by Fredrik Backman (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A dying artist‘s friends find a kindred spirit in an awkward but talented young woman who has just aged out of foster care.

Review: I had a hard time figuring out how I felt about this at first; I generally find Backman‘s writing to be a little clunky, and here I was also confused because the teenage characters felt far too articulate and self-aware for the story. Cont.

Grimoire Girl, by Hilarie Burton Morgan (2023)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: During a season of loss, an actress reflects on the simple things that provide meaning in life.

Review: I find this hard to rate and review. As a celebrity memoir about the author‘s search for meaning during a trying season this works really well. Cont.

Wolf Hollow, by Lauren Wolk (2016)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A girl in mid-1940s Pennsylvania has to grow up quickly after the arrival of a new girl in town sets off a series of events with lasting consequences for everyone.

Review: This is one of the best middle-grade novels I‘ve read. Cont.

Irresponsible Puckboy (Puckboys 2), by Saxon James and Eden Finley (2022)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: In this friends-to-lovers romance, a clueless but lovable player realizes he may have more-than-friendly feelings for his best friend, who‘s been crushing on him since they met.

Review: This really shouldn‘t have worked; the inciting incident is ridiculous, and all my usual concerns about hockey romances apply. But, it was so much fun. Cont.

The Martian, by Andy Weir (2011)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An astronaut recounts his desperate attempts at survival after an accident strands him on Mars.

Review: There‘s not much I can say about this that hasn‘t already been said. Cont.

Tales From Beyond the Rainbow, by Pete Jordi Wood (2023)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A collection of queer fairy tales, myths, and legends from around the world.

Review: One of the most damaging lies we‘re told is that queer identities are a new and shocking rupture in human society; that‘s why projects like this one, which collect folklore from around the world that address queer themes and identities are so important. Cont

The Beast and the Bookseller, by Eva Devon (2023)

Premise: In this loose retelling of the Beauty and the Beast, a young bookseller, left to run her father‘s store on her own as he sinks into alcoholism, is thrust into the life of an infamously gruff duke.

Review: This is a pretty solid historical romance, but I felt let down by the ‘third act conflict‘, which seemed to undo the duke‘s whole narrative for no reason.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, by Nathaniel Ian Miller (2021)

Premise: A Swedish man recounts his hard life as a miner and trapper in the Arctic in the first half of the 20th C.

Review: Much of my early childhood was spent in the North and even in the 1980s it was a place that attracted oddballs and misfits. This novel captures this spirit of the North perfectly, in all its danger, isolation, peace, community, and queerness. Cont

Most Ardently, by Gabe Cole Novoa (2024)

Premise: A queer reimagining of Pride & Prejudice in which the protagonist, Oliver (named Elizabeth by his parents at birth), longs for a way to seen and be loved for his true self in a restrictive society.

Review: Retellings and reimaginings work best for me when the twist both presents something new through a familiar lens and says something interesting about the original. Cont.

I See You‘ve Called in Dead, by John Kenney (2025)

Premise: After a drunkenly posting his own mock death notice, a New York obituary writer looks for the meaning of life and death.

Review: This is a fun, moving, and insightful book. I particularly appreciated how it held certain truths out for us without laying it on too thick; death is after all a mystery that‘s really impossible to write about well. It‘s also a really great New York book. Cont

All the Little Bird-Hearts, by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

Premise: An autistic mother and her daughter become swept up in the life of their glamourous new neighbours.

Review: This was long-listed for the 2023 Booker Prize and it certainly has the literary heft you‘d expect with that. It‘s well-written and has a strong point-of-view that provides good representation for autistic persons. Cont.

Waiting for the Long Night Moon, by Amanda Peters (2024 🇨🇦 🧡)

Premise: A collection of short stories about Indigenous experiences from contact through the present.

Review: Amanda Peters is a wonderful author, so I was excited to pick up this collection of stories. I appreciated the diversity of the collection, in terms of the experiences described, the time periods represented, and even the length of the stories. Cont.

The Art of Doing, by Jesse Lipscombe (2025 🇨🇦)

Premise: A self-help book about the power of getting over yourself and just doing it.

Review: For being a pretty typical self-help book, this is a wild read. Jesie Lipscombe is like the Forrest Gump of opportunity, unwaveringly game to try anything and everything. Cont

Death in the Spires, by KJ Charles (2024)

Premise: Let go from his job after his employer receives a note calling him a murderer, a man tracks down his old college friends to try to find out who killed one of their own.

Review: Every time I read a KJ Charles book I expect a fun, queer, historical romp, but get something far more interesting. This is a compelling mystery that handles privilege and marginalization really successful. Cont

Fifty-Four Pigs (Dr. Bannerman Vet Mysteries 1), by Philipp Schott (2022 🇨🇦)

Premise: An inquisitive and logical rural veterinarian pokes his nose into the mystery of an explosion at a friend‘s farm.

Review: This has a lot going for it: A unique and memorable setting, an engaging main character (whose strengths are also his weaknesses, which pays of in the story), fun details about veterinary life, and a mystery that worked quite well Cont.

The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy 1), by Pat Barker (2018)

Premise: The last days of the Trojan War told through the eyes of Briseis, the enslaved former princess of a Trojan ally whose theft by Agamemnon set off the events of the *Iliad*.

Review: The Greek myth retelling fad got old very quickly for me, but this is one of the best. Cont.

Once Upon You and Me, by Timothy Janovsky (2025)

Premise: A Summer camp manager is caught off guard when he finds himself falling for his boss‘s — and ex-wife‘s — personal assistant.

Review: This is a very sweet, queer, age-gap romance, with great representation for bisexuality and ADHD presentation in adults. It doesn‘t do anything unexpected or spectacular, but it does what it needs to do.
Cont

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans (2025)

Premise: The story of a life and all its joys and tragedies told through the correspondence of an aging retired lawyer.

Review: This is a truly special book — It‘s a moving and intimate portrait of a strong, good, but deeply flawed woman as she looks back on her life, her successes, and failures, while also grappling with what her old age is going to look like. Cont

The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder (1942)

Premise: In this classic play, humanity is portrayed in microcosm as a conventional, suburban American family.

Review: I‘m often surprised by just how early the pastiche, sense of play, and erasure of the fourth wall that I associate with postmodern literature appears in the canon. Cont.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, by Kim Fu (2022 🇨🇦)

Premise: A collection of speculative short stories that put a creepy spin on contemporary life.

Review: This is a great collection of stories that approach life from a twisted angle that was disturbing but incredibly engaging. Highly recommended.

Bookish Pair: For a similarly fascinating collection of speculative stories, Theodore McCombs‘s Uranians (2023)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis (1954)

Premise: A mediocre college instructor sabotages his career in this searing satire of 1950s British academia and cultured society.

Review: This book regularly features on lists of the best novels of the 20th C, or funniest English-language novels, and I can understand why. But the danger with satire is that it is very specific, and because of this, a lot of this has not aged well. Cont.

Hollow Bamboo, by William Ping (2023 🇨🇦)

Premise: A Newfoundland man is given a unique opportunity to connect with the memories of his Chinese grandfather.

Review: This starts off really strong, with a great smart and funny opening scene, but got a bit lost for me along the way. Cont.