Canadian Debut Authors

The last exiles : a novel

Shin, Ann, author.
2021

Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, miles away, Suja has begun to feel the tenuousness of her privilege when she learns that Jin has disappeared. Risking everything, and defying her family, Suja sets out to find him, embarking on a dangerous journey that leads her into a dark criminal underbelly and tests their love and will to survive.

The chai factor

Heron, Farah, author
2019

Thirty-year-old engineer Amira Khan has set one rule for herself: no dating until her grad-school thesis is done. Nothing can distract her from completing a paper that is so good her boss will give her the promotion she deserves when she returns to work in the city. Amira leaves campus early, planning to work in the quiet basement apartment of her family's house. But she arrives home to find that her grandmother has rented the basement to... a barbershop quartet; and Duncan, the small-town baritone with the flannel shirts, is driving her up the wall. As Amira and Duncan clash, she is surprised to feel a simmering attraction for him. How can she be interested in someone who doesn't get her, or her family's culture?

Marilla before Anne

Michalos, Louise
2021

The Son of the House

Onyemelukwe-Onuobia, Cheluchi.
2021

In the Nigerian city of Enugu, young Nwabulu, a housemaid since the age of ten, dreams of becoming a typist as she endures her employers' endless chores. Educated and privileged, Julie is a modern woman. Living on her own with no intention of becoming Eugene's second wife. When a kidnapping forces Nwabulu and Julie into a dank room years later, the two women relate the stories of their lives as they await their fate. Set against four decades of vibrant Nigeria, celebrating the resilience of women as they navigate and transform what still remains a man's world. Residence: Halifax, N.S.

Swimming Back to Trout River : A Novel.

Feng, Linda Rui.
2021

In the summer of 1986 in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. What Junie doesn't know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three members of the family before Junie's birthday - even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light. Residence: Toronto, ON.

We, Jane

Wall, Aimee
2021