Novels

Imbued with passion, creativity and insight, Brandon Reid’s debut novel is a wonderfully creative coming-of-age story exploring indigeneity, masculinity and cultural tradition.

Twelve-year-old Derik Mormin travels with his father and a family friend to Bella Bella for his grandfather’s funeral. Along the way, he uncovers the traumatic history of his ancestors, considers his relationship to masculinity and explores the contrast between rural and urban lifestyles in hopes of reconciling the seemingly unreconcilable, the beauty of each the Indigenous and “Western” way of life—hence beautiful beautiful.

He travails a storm, meets long-lost relatives, discovers his ancestral homeland; he suffers through catching fish, gains and loses companions, learns to heal trauma. In Beautiful Beautiful we delve into the mind of a gifted boy who struggles to find his role and persona through elusive circumstance, and—

All right, that’s quite enough third-person pandering; you’re not fooling anyone. Redbird here, Derik’s babysitter, and narrator of this here story. Make sure to smash that like button. We’re here to bring light to an otherwise grave subject, friends. It’s only natural to laugh while crying. I bring story to life. One minute I’m a songbird singing from a bough, the next, I’m rapture. I connect you to the realm of spirit… Well, as best I can, given your mundane allocation.

Follow us through primordial visions, dance with a cannibal (don’t worry, they’re friendly once tamed) and discover what it takes to be united. Together, we’ll have fun. Together, we are one. So tuck in, and believe what you’ll believe, for who knows what yesterday brings. Amen and all my relations, all my relations and amen.

Reviews
“Beautiful Beautiful is a fitting title for Brandon Reid's novel, for it describes the work itself—it's simply beautiful. Reid manages to capture hypnotic traditional storytelling in written form—by stretching, manipulating and breaking traditional rules and conventions of the English language. Reid draws us into the tormentous but stunning world of a boy who, while young in years, is an ancient soul. Through brilliant description, mind-blowing shifting of perspective and a brilliant use of the boy's internal voice, we join the daily toils of a Heiltsuk family as they struggle to live off the capricious bounty of the Pacific Ocean. Like Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise, Beautiful Beautiful stakes out new ground in the literary scene.”— Darrel J. McLeod, author of A Season in Chezgh’un

Additional Information
336 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women…one of them her sister.

There are secrets in the land.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

The truth will be unearthed.

Reviews
“Blood Sisters sets its hooks on page one and then pulls relentlessly and colorfully through buried secrets and rediscovered Native heritage.”— C. J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Storm Front

"Vanessa Lillie’s riveting thriller explores the elusiveness of truth, and the history that binds people together—and to a place—no matter the time or the distance. At once captivating and illuminating, surprising and powerful, Blood Sisters is a story that resonates."—Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls

“Combines pulse-pounding action with Cherokee myth and customs. I loved Syd Walker, a compelling new character who’s dealing with her own disturbing family history while trying to unravel the disappearance of several Native women. I hope we’ll see more of Syd Walker soon!” —David Heska Wanbli Weiden, award-winning author of Winter Counts

“This suspenseful mystery will not only captivate you, but it may just teach you something about Cherokee history, land rights and the plague of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Including queer and Two-Spirit characters, Blood Sisters is a meaningful and compelling thriller.” —Ms. Magazine

Additional Information
384 pages | 6.21" x 9.29" | Hardcover

Krie Redsky is an extraordinary Indigenous child who has both a curse and blessing that allows him to walk between this world and the Spirit Realm. He is also at an age where he is learning to cope with the twists and turns of friendships, the awkwardness of first love, and the self-doubt that must be overcome following loss and betrayal. But, nurtured by Knowledge Keepers as “one who is without fear, and with the ability to cross realities,” he is soon recognized as an individual who can – and will – battle the terrifying ancient spirit stealers known as Bonewalkers. But is he strong enough for what is to come?

Additional Information
236 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series.

Minnesota, 1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmer—until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.

In the wake of the murder, Cash can’t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmer’s grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawnee’s missing mother—whom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster system—another body turns up. Concerned by the escalating threat, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse.

Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric read woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and women’s liberation.

Reviews
“A tragic, unforgiving crime novel that emphasizes the perils of the foster care system for Indigenous children.”—Library Journal, Starred Review

“Peyton Place meets Fargo in this clipped tale of misdoings in the Red River Valley . . . Rendon explor[es] the ways the deck is stacked against Cash because she’s a woman, an Ojibwe, and a maverick with limited respect for white men’s rules.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Rendon excels at balancing plot and character, taking time to probe Cash’s psychology while orchestrating a deliciously complicated mystery for her to solve. Readers will be rapt.”—Publishers Weekly

“Outstanding . . . Rendon delivers lots of suspense; a resourceful, rural community-smart heroine in Cash; and wrenching insights into the overt and covert racism endured by Indigenous people.”—Booklist

Series Information
This is the fourth book in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series from author Marcie Rendon. 

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.83" x 8.60" | Hardcover 

December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.

Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.

Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

Series Information
This is the second book in The Indian Lake Trilogy.

Additional Information
464 pages | 5.50" x 8.37" | Hardcover

Buffalo Mountain is set to host a gold coin exhibition with dealers coming from all over, and Thumps DreadfulWater winds up with the task of making sure the event goes off without a hitch. As if he didn’t already have enough to do.

For starters, he and Claire Merchant are trying to work out their relationship. Should they move in together or should they continue on as they have in the past? And there’s Sheriff Duke Hockney, who wants Thumps to give up landscape photography and return to law enforcement. And last but not least, Cisco Cruz, the ninja assassin, shows up in town with a fiancée in tow.

Can things get any more complicated for our hero?

Yes, they can.

When one of the dealers at the exhibition winds up dead, Cruz’s fiancée is revealed to be an FBI agent responsible for his protection. And Claire’s adoption of Ivory hits a major snag. Like it or not, Thumps is going to have to help Claire as best he can, discover why Cruz is really back in town and try to unravel the murder of the coin dealer—before anyone else dies.

In this new DreadfulWater instalment, our favourite reluctant investigator returns with his signature wit and wry humour to solve a mystery that only Thomas King could create.

Series Information
This book is from the DreadfulWater Mystery series, a mystery/detective series from Thomas King.

Books in this series include:
- Dreadful Water
- The Red Power Murders
- Cold Skies
- A Matter of Malice
- The Obsidian Murders
- Deep House 
- Double Eagle
- Black Ice

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

The New York Times–bestselling author of The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw makes his comics debut with this time-hopping horror thriller about far-future Indigenous outcasts on a mission to kill Christopher Columbus.

The year is 2112, and it’s the apocalypse exactly as expected: rivers receding, oceans rising, civilization crumbling. Humanity has given up hope, except for a group of Indigenous outcasts who have discovered a time travel portal in a cave in the desert and figured out where everything took a turn for the worst: America.

Convinced that the only way to save the world is to rewrite its past, they send one of their own—a reluctant linguist named Tad—on a bloody, one-way mission to 1492 to kill Christopher Columbus before he reaches the so-called New World. But there are steep costs to disrupting the timeline, and taking down an icon isn’t an easy task for an academic with no tactical training and only a wavering moral compass to guide him. As the horror of the task ahead unfolds and Tad’s commitment is tested, his actions could trigger a devastating new fate for his friends and the future.

Join Stephen Graham Jones and artist Davide Gianfelice for Earthdivers, Vol. 1 (collecting Earthdivers issues #1-6), the beginning of an unforgettable ongoing sci-fi slasher spanning centuries of America’s Colonial past to explore the staggering forces of history and the individual choices we make to survive it.

Reviews
"Earthdivers is why I read comics–a timely concept told boldly; a strong debut by Stephen Graham Jones who proves a voice to watch with something to say; and career work by Davide Gianfelice, a veteran artist who was already light years ahead of his peers." –Pornsak Pichetshote, author of The Good Asian

“A time-twisting trip you don't want to miss! Myths, mayhem and history-altering murders ahoy!” –Cavan Scott, author of Dead Seas

“Earthdivers feels fresh, compelling, and bold…It’s a comic that stands head and shoulders apart from the rest of the pack on the shelves. Don’t wait for the trade – this is an urgent comic that begs to be read.” –Comic Watch

“Stephen Graham Jones enters the comics scene with a dense but fascinating and well-paced comic with a tasty dash of political commentary, as every great science fiction story should have. The visuals from Davide Gianfelice and Joana Lafuente are well-directed and stunningly detailed, making for a wholly immersive reading experience.” –Monkeys Fighting Robots

Series Information
This is the first book in the Earthdivers series.

Additional Information
176 pages | 6.69" x 10.19" | Paperback

'These are troubling times. The world is a dangerous place,' the voice of the Chairman said. 'I can continue to assure you of this: within the Wall you are perfectly safe.'

Christine could not sleep, she could not wake, she could not think. She stared, half-blind, at the cold screen of her smartphone. She was told the Agency was keeping them safe from the dangers outside, an outside world she would never see.

She never imagined questioning what she was told, what she was allowed to know, what she was permitted to think. She never even thought there were questions to ask.

The enclave was the only world she knew, the world outside was not safe. Staying or leaving was not a choice she had the power to make. But then Christine dared start thinking . . . and from that moment, danger was everywhere.

In our turbulent times, Claire G. Coleman's Enclave is a powerful dystopian allegory that confronts the ugly realities of racism, homophobia, surveillance, greed and privilege and the self-destructive distortions that occur when we ignore our shared humanity.

Reviews
'A brilliant, engrossing, necessary read' - Courier Mail

'If you liked Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or Charlotte Woods' The Natural Way of Things, this one is clearly for you' - Sydney Morning Herald

'Coleman offers an urgent critique of bigotry and, implicitly, of colonialism, writing with conviction about the ways technology can be misused by those in power, but also how it might be deployed for good. Indeed, despite its dystopian tenor, Enclave is ultimately a hopeful novel, and one which suggests it is far from futile to aspire to a better future' -Manjimup-Bridgetown Times 

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.25"

Return to The Meridian with New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s sequel to the most critically hailed epic fantasy of 2020 Black Sun—finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Lambda, and Locus awards.

There are no tides more treacherous than those of the heart. —Teek saying

The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent.

The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded?

As sea captain Xiala is swept up in the chaos and currents of change, she finds an unexpected ally in the former Priest of Knives. For the Clan Matriarchs of Tova, tense alliances form as far-flung enemies gather and the war in the heavens is reflected upon the earth.

And for Serapio and Naranpa, both now living avatars, the struggle for free will and personhood in the face of destiny rages. How will Serapio stay human when he is steeped in prophecy and surrounded by those who desire only his power? Is there a future for Naranpa in a transformed Tova without her total destruction?

Welcome back to the fantasy series of the decade in Fevered Star—book two of Between Earth and Sky.

Reviews
“Rebecca Roanhorse… [is one] of the Indigenous novelists reshaping North American science fiction, horror and fantasy — genres in which Native writers have long been overlooked.”— The New York Times

Educator & Series Information
This is the second book in the Between Earth and Sky Series.

Additional Information
416 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

After the death of her estranged father, artist Rita struggles with grief and regret. There was so much she wanted to ask him – about his childhood, their family, and the Mi'kmaq language and culture from which Rita feels disconnected. But when Rita's girlfriend Molly forges an artist's residency application on her behalf, winning Rita a week to paint at an isolated cabin, Rita is both furious and intrigued. The residency is located where her father grew up.

On the first night at the cabin, Rita wakes to strange sounds. Was that a body being dragged through the woods? When she questions the locals about the cabin's history, they are suspicious and unhelpful. Ignoring her unease, Rita gives in to dark visions that emanate from the forest's lake and the surrounding swamp. She feels its pull, channelling that energy into art like she's never painted before. But the uncanny visions become more insistent, more intrusive, and Rita discovers that in the swamp's decay the end of one life is sometimes the beginning of another.

Reviews
"Green Fuse Burning is an impressively vigorous fiction debut from a truly dynamic storyteller. Tiffany Morris has laid out a concise and creepy tale that mesmerizes as it weaves through several realms, from the tangible to the spiritual. I was captivated by the looming mystery and the striking imagery that carried me like a current to the story's monumental resolution. This book is a must-read in new speculative fiction!" - Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves

"Morris quietly dazzles and disquiets in this weird horror novella . . . Poetic and grotesque imagery drives the novella's horror, with fluid narration fostering a sense of disconnect and dread . . . This is a subtle and refreshing twist on the cabin in the woods trope." - Publishers Weekly starred review

"A verdant alienation seeps through every page as Morris reimagines the possibilities of decay, a desperate isolation scouring the mind to reveal a torrid, seething strangeness beneath, the inevitable reckoning gathering its strength below the calm surface of the pond." - Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold and The Handyman Method

Additional Information
112 pages | 6.12" x 9.03" | Paperback

Upon learning his great-uncle Alfred has suffered a stroke, Richard sets out for Ste. Anne, in southeastern Manitoba, to find his father and tell him the news. Waylaid by memories of his stalled romance, tales of run-ins with local Mennonites, his job working a honey wagon, and struck by visions of Métis history and secrets of his family's past, Richard confronts his desires to leave town, even as he learns to embrace his heritage.

Evoking an oral storytelling epic that weaves together one family's complex history, Hold Your Tongue asks what it means to be Métis and francophone. Recalling the work of Katherena Vermette and Joshua Whitehead, Matthew Tétreault's debut novel shines with a poignant, but playful character-driven meditation on the struggles of holding onto "la langue," and marks the emergence of an important new voice.

Reviews
"Inspired by deep knowledge of his French-Métis homeland, Matthew Tétreault has given us a rich, beautifully written novel. In this story you'll meet unforgettable characters who "sprang from the soil." This intricate yarn is an evocative detective story, a search for the first betrayals and deviations, a glorious patchwork of vision and memory, buoyed by love as tough and vulnerable as the land that nurtured it. The past is palpable, vibrant in these pages, full of promise, like 'seedlings.'"--Margaret Sweatman, author of The Gunsmith's Daughter

"The wonderful thing about Hold Your Tongue is that it definitely does not hold its tongue. English, French, and Michif gallop across its pages, mingling and colliding like the fractious history of the Canadian West echoing into the present. What James Joyce did for the voices of the Irish Matthew Tétreault has done for those of his own people. This earthy, wise, big-hearted novel about a Métis community's tangled past and uncertain future shouts, gossips, mourns, jokes, confesses, and sings. Before you reach the end you'll be singing along with it."--Thomas Wharton, award-winning author of Icefields and The Book of Rain

"Witty, down-to-earth, and yet transformative, Matt Tétreault's Hold Your Tongue sets a new benchmark for literature in Canada, folding in francophone and Métis voice and culture and navigating the tensions of family, history, self, and place. Marked both by verisimilitude and contemplation, Hold Your Tongue is a journey through the geography of identity that emerges speaking with a fresh, assured voice."--Conrad Scott, author of Water Immersion

"With cutting language, Matthew Tétreault weaves a narrative that runs us through history and love of land while simultaneously questioning a modern prairie existence. His distinctive voice brings a reader along with the narrator as he navigates the passing of his great-uncle Alfred and, with that, the loss of generations worth of knowledge. At the same time, the narrator questions a future and what it really means to lose the land you love, the question of leaving, and what coming back home really looks like. From brawls with the neighbouring small towns to being buried in your favourite camo ball cap to figuring out a future that may never really exist, this is a read that will keep you sucked into the pages like a hose pumping out the honey bucket."--Conor Kerr, author of Avenue of Champions

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

Memories. Some memories are elusive, fleeting, like a butterfly that touches down and is free until it is caught. Others are haunting. You'd rather forget them, but they won't be forgotten. And some are always there. No matter where you are, they are there, too.

In this moving story of legacy and reclamation, two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless in a broken system, April and Cheryl are separated and placed in different foster homes. Despite the distance, they remain close, even as their decisions threaten to divide them emotionally, culturally, and geographically. As one sister embraces her Métis identity, the other tries to leave it behind.

Will the sisters’ bond survive as they struggle to make their way in a society that is often indifferent, hostile, and violent?

Beloved for more than 40 years, In Search of April Raintree is a timeless story that lingers long after the final page. This anniversary edition features a foreword by Governor General’s Award–winning author Katherena Vermette, and an afterword by University of Regina professor, Dr. Raven Sinclair (Ôtiskewâpit), an expert on Indigenous child welfare.

Educator Information
This 40th anniversary edition features a foreword by Governor General’s Award–winning author Katherena Vermette, and an afterword by University of Regina professor, Dr. Raven Sinclair (Ôtiskewâpit), an expert on Indigenous child welfare.

A critical edition of this work, which includes ten critical essays accompanying the text, is available here: In Search of April Raintree: Critical Edition 

A version written specifically for students in grades 9-12 that does not contain the graphic scene that is contained in this original version is available here: April Raintree

Find a teacher guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree here: Teacher Guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Stories of Indigenous Survivance, Family Separation, and the Child Welfare System

Additional Information
343 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback | Critical Edition

With gorgeous imagery, visual artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas brings to life the tumultuous history of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples and the early colonization by the Europeans of the northern West Coast.

Yahgulanaas uses a blend of traditional and modern art, eschewing the traditional boxes of comic books for the flowing shapes of North Pacific iconography. The panels are filled with colourful and expressive watercolour paintings. The panels of each page, if removed and assembled into one whole image, form a large image reminiscent of a woven robe.

The story follows several historical figures, including Johan Adrian Jacobsen (JAJ), who comes to the Haida village of Masset to collect specimens for a German museum, through a time span that includes first contact, the devastation of the smallpox epidemic, and the mass resettlement of disenfranchised peoples, both Indigenous and European.

Reviews
“This book is a necessary tale told by the perfect voice at the right time. It also uses graphic imagery in a way I've not seen before, and it feels ground-breaking.” — Douglas Coupland

Additional Information
132 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | Hardcover

A multi-generational story of loss, war, community, survival, perseverance, and renewal.

Joe Pete and her cousin Simon will find more than they anticipated buried beneath the snow as they search for her missing father. Their journey will unlock the ancestors and spirits embedded in the present who call back to a past marked by war and kinship, by conflict and wisdom that continue to contour their trajectory towards the future.

Additional Information
300 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback 

A Quebec bestseller based on the life of Michel Jean's great-grandmother that delivers an empathetic portrait of drastic change in an Innu community.

Kukum recounts the story of Almanda Siméon, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, who falls in love with a young Innu man despite their cultural differences and goes on to share her life with the Pekuakami Innu community. They accept her as one of their own: Almanda learns their language, how to live a nomadic existence, and begins to break down the barriers imposed on Indigenous women. Unfolding over the course of a century, the novel details the end of traditional ways of life for the Innu, as Almanda and her family face the loss of their land and confinement to reserves, and the enduring violence of residential schools.

Kukum intimately expresses the importance of Innu ancestral values and the need for freedom nomadic peoples feel to this day.

Educator Information
Translated by Susan Ouriou.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback