October 8 2021

New Fiction

Denial by Beverley McLachlin - Jilly Truitt has made a name for herself as one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the city. Where once she had to take just about any case to keep her firm afloat, now she has her pick—and she picks winners.  So when Joseph Quentin asks her to defend his wife, who has been charged with murdering her own mother in what the media are calling a mercy killing, every instinct tells Jilly to say no. Word on the street is that Vera Quentin is in denial, refusing to admit to the crime and take a lenient plea deal. Quentin is a lawyer’s lawyer, known as the Fixer in legal circles, and if he can’t help his wife, who can?  Against her better judgment, Jilly meets with Vera and reluctantly agrees to take on her case. Call it intuition, call it sympathy, but something about Vera makes Jilly believe she’s telling the truth. Now, she has to prove that in the courtroom against her former mentor turned opponent, prosecutor Cy Kenge—a man who has no qualms about bending the rules.  As the trial approaches, Jilly scrambles to find a crack in the case and stumbles across a dark truth hanging over the Quentin family. But is it enough to prove Vera’s innocence? Or is Jilly in denial herself?

Gathering Storm by Sherilyn Decter – Florida Coast, 1932.  Edith Duffy might be grieving her gangster husband’s death, but she’s no damsel in distress.  Leaving the sordid world of Philadelphia bootlegging, she settles in a small town outside Miami and buys a speakeasy.  But when she launches a lucrative rum-running operation, indignant locals conspire to destroy her.  Edith lands squarely back in gangland culture, with a Bible-thumping preacher campaigning to shut her down and smugglers resentful of her skill.  And now she must forge alliances and make unlikely allies just to survive.  Luckily, her mentor is none other than the wife of the notorious Al Capone…  Will Edith’s fondness for underworld profits lead her to a dead end?

When the Summer was Ours by Roxanne Veletzos -  Hungary, 1943.  As war encroaches on the country’s borders, willful young Eva Cesar arrives in the idyllic town of Sopron to spend her last summer as a single woman on her family’s estate.  Longing for freedom from her domineering father, she counts the days to her upcoming nuptials to a benevolent doctor whom she greatly admires.  But Eva’s life changes when he meets Aleandro, a charming, passionate Romani fiddler and artist.  With time and profound class differences against them, Eva and Aleandro still fall deeply in love – only to be separated by a brutal act of hatred.  As each are swept into the tides of war, they try to forget their romance, yet the haunting memory of that summer will reshape their destinies. 

New Non-Fiction

Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould – Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to lead.  She was inspired throughout her life by the example of her grandmother, who persevered to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and by the example of her father, a hereditary Chief and Indigenous leader.  She never anticipated, however, that leadership roles would take her on a journey from her home community of We Wai Kai in Cape Mudge, British Columbia, to Ottawa as Canada’s first Indigenous minister of justice and attorney general in the Cabinet of then newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Wilson-Raybould’s experience in Trudeau’s Cabinet reveals important lessons about how we must continue to strengthen our political institutions and culture, and the changes we must make to meet challenges such as racial justice and climate change.  As her initial optimism about the possibilities of enacting change while in Cabinet shifted to struggles over inclusivity, deficiencies to core tenets of our democracy, Wilson-Raybould stood on principle and, ultimately, resigned.  In standing her personal and professional ground and telling the truth in front of the nation, Wilson-Raybould demonstrated the need for greater independence and less partisanship in how we govern.  “Indian” in the Cabinet is the story of why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader at the Cabinet table, her proudest achievements, the SNC-Lavalin affair, and how she moved forward.  Now sitting as an Independent Member of Parliament, Wilson-Raybould believes there is a better way to govern and a better way of doing politics – one that will make a better country for all.