15 Canadian books we can't wait to read in July
A new month means new books! Here are some of the most anticipated Canadian titles for July 2022.
Cold, Cold Bones by Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs' bestselling mystery books featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan return with the 21st novel in the series. This time around, Temperance is caught up in a case involving a box with a human eyeball and a series of nasty killings that resemble past murders she has solved. Things are further complicated when her own daughter goes missing in the middle of the case.
When you can read it: July 5, 2022
Reichs is a forensic anthropologist, academic and bestselling crime writer with more than 20 novels to her credit. Her bestselling mystery series about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan was adapted into the hit television show Bones.
Road to Nowhere by Paris Marx
Road to Nowhere is a nonfiction book about how Silicon Valley's technological vision of the future — including automated electric vehicles and the ubiquity of ride-hailing services — are potentially flawed and a threat to a successful future. Author Paris Marx examines ideas around what the safety and sustainability of future notions of travel might look like.
When you can read it: July 5, 2022
Paris Marx is a socialist writer and host of the Tech Won't Save Us podcast. They also write for NBC News, Jacobin and Tribune.
Some Maintenance Required by Marie-Renée Lavoie, translated by Arielle Aaronson
It's 1993 and Laurie's final year of school. She works part-time at a restaurant and cares for her neglected, potty-mouthed neighbour, Cindy. Laurie devours books and has big dreams, but struggles to keep her car running. As she experiences a budding romance, Laurie's eyes are opened to a more complicated world of class differences and circumstances beyond her control.
Some Maintenance Required is a humorous coming-of-age story about taking responsibility and owning your life.
When you can read it: July 5, 2022
Marie-Renée Lavoie is a Canadian writer from Quebec. She's the author of three other books, including A Boring Wife Settles the Score, Autopsy of a Boring Wife and Mister Roger and Me (La petite et le vieux in French), which won Radio-Canada's Les combat des livres in 2012.
Arielle Aaronson is a French-to-English translator of novels, films and more. She has previously translated Marie-Renée Lavoie's A Boring Wife Settles the Score and Autopsy of a Boring Wife. Aaronson lives in Montreal with her family.
Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic
This debut short story collection by Nada Alic examines the lives of women from many walks of life as they navigate the modern world. Bad Thoughts explores the nature of reality, love and desire in a world filled with people looking to cope and belong.
When you can read it: July 12, 2022
Nada Alic lives in Los Angeles by way of Toronto and writes about art, design and maintaining a creative practice. Her fiction series Future You, a collaborative project with visual artist Andrea Nakhla, has been featured in Urban Outfitters, Nasty Gal and Cool Hunting, It's Nice That, Metatron and elsewhere. Alic made the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist for The Intruder.
An Orchid Astronomy by Tasnuva Hayden
An Orchid Astronomy follows Sophie, who is living in the Norwegian north as climate change takes hold. The ice is melting, the animals are dying and Sophie's mother is dead. The experimental poetry of An Orchid Astronomy wrestles with the grief we feel for the loss of loved ones and the changing world.
When you can read it: July 15, 2022
Tasnuva Hayden is a writer of Bengali descent based in Calgary. She is the fiction editor for filling Station, a Canadian experimental literary magazine. Her work has appeared in Nōd Magazine, J'aipur Journal, Anti-Lang, carte blanche, Qwerty and more.
The Sugar Thief by Nancy Mauro
The Sugar Thief is a novel with themes of comedy, melodrama, baked goods and a secret recipe. It revolves around Sabine Rose, a successful social media influencer with a successful baking channel who returns home to visit her family who owns an Italian bakery. But when her father dies, things spiral into tragedy and farce as her family tries to pick up the pieces.
When you can read it: July 19, 2022
Nancy Mauro is a New York City-based writer, author and a former advertising creative director. Originally from Thunder Bay, Ont., she has lived and worked in Toronto and Vancouver where she was a fellow and graduate of the University of British Columbia's MFA program in creative writing. Her debut novel, New World Monkeys, was published in 2010.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The latest novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is set in 19th-century Mexico and has elements of the supernatural as it reimagines the classic work The Island of Doctor Moreau. Carlota Moreau is a young woman who lives in an estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. Carlota's father is the eccentric Doctor Moreau, a man whose scientific experiments have created the hybrids — part human, part animal monstrosities. Living in the jungle, Carlota is caught up in this world filled with secrets and horror.
When you can read it: July 19, 2022
Born and raised in Mexico, Moreno-Garcia is the B.C. author of novels Signal to Noise, Gods of Jade and Shadow, Untamed Shore, The Beautiful Ones and Velvet was the Night. She is also a critic and has edited science fiction anthologies.
Vicious Creatures by Ashton Noone
Vicious Creatures is a novel that merges thriller and horror fiction. Ava is in the middle of a violent breakup with her spouse and flees town with her daughter. She soon learns that you can't go home again and Ava's repressed memories resurface — and the town's troubled and supernatural past comes to light.
When you can read it: July 19, 2022
Ashton Noone is a Calgary writer and author. Noone has been a finalist in the In Places Between: The Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest and has been published in Across the Margin, Bosie Magazine and Poydras Review. Her short story The Garden of Impossible Flowers was on the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize longlist.
The Life She Had by K.L. Armstrong
This thriller novel by K.L. Armstrong explores the lengths one is willing to go protect themselves and their family. Celeste Turner crosses paths with a young woman named Daisy, who is trespassing on Celeste's property and has secrets of her own she's hiding. Against her better judgment, Celeste becomes friends with Daisy — and soon gets caught up in secrets, lies and murder.
When you can read it: July 19, 2022
K.L. Armstrong is a pseudonym for popular fantasy and thriller writer Kelley Armstrong. She is also the author of Wherever She Goes.
Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
When Paris Peralta is arrested in her bathroom covered in blood with her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub, she knows she will be charged with murder. Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early 1990s. When Reyes is unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris's secrets and Paris must confront the dark past she left behind.
When you can read it: July 19, 2022
Jennifer Hillier is the author of eight psychological thrillers, including the bestselling Little Secrets, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Anthony Award. Hillier lives in Toronto.
Lookout by Trina Moyles
Now in paperback, Lookout is an exploration of the Lookout Observers — strange, eccentric types who spent five-month summers alone, climbing 100-foot high towers and watching for signs of fire in the surrounding boreal forest. Lookout is a memoir that documents Trina Moyle's summers working alone in a remote lookout tower and her eyewitness account of the unpredictable nature of wildfire in the Canadian north.
When you can read it: July 26, 2022
Trina Moyles is an Alberta author, writer, photographer and seasonal smoke spotter in the northern boreal forest. Lookout won a 2022 Alberta Literary Award in the memoir category.
The Orphan Girl by Kurt Palka
The Orphan Girl is a historical fiction book about friendship and courage that follows Kate, an energetic and spirited young woman in England during the Second World War. Already dealing with loss of her father, she is caught in an air raid and is injured when her house is bombed. While recuperating, a doctor named Claire invites Kate to live with her. But when Claire's husband returns home from the war, the women's lives are forever changed.
When you can read it: July 26, 2022
Kurt Palka is a bestselling novelist based in Toronto. Three of his books are works of historical fiction — Clara, a Hammett Prize finalist set in 1930s Vienna, The Piano Maker, a national bestselling book set in 1930s Canada, and The Hour of the Fox, which follows a lawyer named Margaret Bradley through the death of her son in the 1970s. Palka was raised in Austria and spent most of his career as a journalist.
Where You End and I Begin by Leah McLaren
Where You End and I Begin is a memoir about love, loss and family dynamics. Leah McLaren's real-life relationship with her mother Cessie is a complicated one of 'casual indifference.' The book explores their mother-daughter relationship, one marked with pain, lies, secrets and intergenerational trauma.
When you can read it: July 26, 2022
Leah McLaren is an author, journalist and a former feature writer for the Globe and Mail. Her two novels, The Continuity Girl and A Better Man, have been published in half a dozen countries and translated into several languages.
Francie's Got a Gun by Carrie Snyder
Francie's Got a Gun is a novel set in a small city where a girl named Francie is navigating a troubled family life. Francie goes on the run — but has no idea what to do next. Armed with a gun, Francie decides she has no other options but to survive.
When you can read it: July 26, 2022
Carrie Snyder is a Canadian writer. Her 2012 short story collection The Juliet Stories was a nominee for the Governor General's Award for English fiction.
The Last Days of Smallwood by Edward Roberts
The Last Days of Smallwood is a nonfiction book about Joseph Roberts Smallwood, the first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the "only living father of Confederation." The book examines Smallwood's final days in politics by way of first-hand accounts by political insiders such as Clyde Wells.
When you can read it: July 29, 2022
Edward Roberts was a N.L.-based journalist, lawyer and politician who died in 2022. He served as Newfoundland and Labrador's lieutenant governor between 2002 and 2008. His first book, as editor, was the 2012 book Peter Cashin: My Fight for Newfoundland.
Corrections
- This post has been revised to reflect the correct spelling of the main character's name for Francie's Got a Gun by Carrie Snyder.Jul 11, 2022 5:52 PM ET
