Quality Used Books
Set in Singapore in the fifties, the novel focuses on the story of Han. Sold as a slave into the House of Wu at the age of four, she forms a close bond with the heir of the household, but the idyllic childhood soon turns into a life of struggling against tradition and tyranny.
( Courtesy of GoodReads, 330 pages )
In her superbly accomplished new novel, Anita Brookner proves that she is our mast profound observer of women’s lives, posing questions about feminine identity and desire with a stylishness that conveys an almost sensual pleasure.
From the moment Jane Manning first meets her aunt Dolly, she is both fascinated and appalled. Where Jane is tactful and shy, Dolly is flamboyant and unrepentantly selfish, a connoisseur of fine things, an exploiter of wealthy people. But as the exigencies of family bring Jane and Dolly together, Brookner shows us that we may end up loving people we cannot bring ourselves to like — and that this paradox makes love all the more precious and miraculous.
( from the sleeve, 260 pages )
On a spring day in 1968, eight-year-old Isabel Gold prepares tea for her mother, certain she will drink it and recover from her mysterious sadness. But the tea remains untouched. Not long after, her mother takes her own life. Struggling to understand the ghost her mother left behind, Isabel grows up trying on new identities. Her yearning for an emotional connection finds her falling in and out of love with various women, but it is not until Isabel learns how to reach deep within herself that she begins to listen to the truths of her own heart.
( Courtesy of GoodReads, hardcover 317 pages )
November, 1949: In the aftermath of his brother James’s death, Richard MacEwan’s life is suddenly rocked by secrets involving his wife Sarah and daughter Anna. Among his bachelor brother’s papers, Richard discovers a letter from Sarah that hints at an infidelity. Then there is Anna’s affair with a married man, Charles Norden, which threatens to change her life forever. The story of Richard, Sarah, Anna, and Charles–along with the troubling legacy of James–is one of faith and doubt, profound moral and spiritual conflict, and the intricate bonds that hold families together.
( from the sleeve, 278 pages )
The butterfly box is a small art nouveau cigarette case which has been in Lucy Marshall’s family for years. Together with a family portrait allegedly by Klimt, it has been passed down through four generations of mothers and daughters. But the butterfly box hides a secret, which is revealed when the family come together at Lucy’s home in the Cotswolds to celebrate her eightieth birthday. Around her Lucy gathers her daughter Beena, granddaughter Joanna, who is bringing her new boyfriend to meet them for the first time, and, in spirit, her mother Louise. It is Louise’s journals, left in Lucy’s keeping and long unread, which reveal that the box lies at the centre of a family scandal far darker than anyone suspected.
( from the sleeve, 266 pages )
Following the international success of the edgy and critically-acclaimed, Dead Girls, Nancy Lee’s highly-charged debut novel, The Age is an ambitious and poignant exploration of the collapse of family, the price of friendship, and the human struggle to find meaning in life and death. A coming of age novel for today, The Age will appeal to readers of Annabel Lyon, Lisa Moore, Heather O’Neill.
Set in Vancouver in 1984, as Soviet warships swarm the North Atlantic, The Age follows Gerry, a troubled teenager confronted with her single mom’s newest relationship. When she takes solace in a ragtag group of activists planning a subversive protest at the city’s upcoming peach march, her fascination with the group’s leader, and her struggle with sexual identity creates a rift between Gerry and her best friend, Ian. Bolstered by her grandfather, an eccentric ex-news anchor in the throes of a bitter divorce, Gerry tries to put herself at the centre of the protest group’s violent plot. When the demands of these complex relationship become too difficult, Gerry escapes to the role she knows best, survivor in a post-nuclear dystopia of her own creation. Gerry’s real life and fantasy life alternate and accelerate until a collision of events and consequences forces her towards life or death decisions in both worlds.
Electric and engaging, with piercing observation, subversive wit, and the same fearlessness that caused a sensation amongst critics and fans of Dead Girls, The Age is at once a startling post-apocalyptic drama, a harrowing journey through adolescent recklessness and desire, and a dark portrait of a generation molded by nuclear anxiety. Its arrival confirms Nancy Lee as one of Canadian Literature’s most thrilling and compelling voices.
( Courtesy of GoodReads, 281 pages )