Vagrant Press

Sorcha is over the hook-ups and gay haunts of her twenties. At thirty-one what she wants, more than anything, is to have a baby. Then she meets Chris-with her buttoned-up plaid, 90s heartthrob hair, and grand romantic gestures-and things get serious. Fast. Though Sorcha's friends find her new partner problematic, Sorcha has an explanation for everything. As Chris's moods turn volatile and Sorcha becomes increasingly isolated, Chris paints an idyllic picture of domestic bliss in Cape Breton. Sorcha is all in: if her conservative religious upbringing taught her anything, it's how to save. Plus, Chris promises Sorcha the thing she wants most-a baby. But when Sorcha becomes pregnant and Chris's abuse escalates, Sorcha realizes she must escape the life they've built together, just as she escaped her own stifling family years before. When Sorcha's estranged Aunt Agnes, a retired midwife, messages Sorcha out of the blue, her bothy in the Scottish Highlands seems the perfect place to hide. As the bundle of cells in Sorcha's belly diligently divides, she daydreams that Agnes will deliver the baby and they'll stay in Scotland, where Chris can't find them. And where, just maybe, Sorcha could build the sort of family she's always ached for. Exploring the clandestinity of queer abuse, the fierceness of friendship, and the magic of found family, milktooth is a bold, inventive, lyrical and darkly funny story about finding the strength to cut away what's harmed you and create something entirely new.

Born into a basket of clean sheetsruining a perfectly good load of laundryEmmeline never quite fit in on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England. Now she is retired and living in a small coastal town with her best friend, Vera, an excellent conversationalist. Vera is also a small white dog, and so Emmeline is making an effort to talk to more humans. When she joins a memoir-writing course at the library, her classmates don't know what to make of her. Funny, loud, and with a riveting memoir, she charms the lot. As her past unfolds for her audience, friendships form, a bonus in a rather lonely life. She even shares with them her third-biggest secret: she has liberated hundreds of spoons over her lifetimefrom the local library, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill. She is a compulsive spoon stealer. When Emmeline unexpectedly inherits the farm she grew up on, she knows she needs to leave her new friends and go see the farm and what remains of her family one last time. She arrives like a tornado in their lives, an off-kilter Mary Poppins bossing everyone around and getting quite a lot wrong. But with her generosity and hard-earned wisdom, she gets an awful lot right too. A pinball ricocheting between people, offending and inspiring in equal measure, Emmeline, in her final years, believes that a spoonfulperhaps several spoonfulsof kindness can set to rights the family so broken by loss and secrecy. The Spoon Stealer is a classic Crewe book: full of humour, family secrets, women's friendship, lovable animals, and immense heart.

A novel inspired by the original screenplay for the award-winning feature film Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor, about a young trans woman who returns to her family farm in the wake of her mother's death, written by celebrated actor and screenwriter Shelley Thompson. The MacInnes family is grieving. The loss of Miranda has devastated her husband, John Andrew, her eldest daughter, Tammy, and her youngest child, Dawn. Not Donnie anymore but Dawn, like sunrise, who transitioned while her mother received cancer treatment - without the rest of the family knowing. Now, when Dawn leaves Halifax for rural Nova Scotia to attend her mother's funeral, she knows she'll be meeting her sister and father for the first time as herself. With Dawn's revelation, John Andrew and Tammy find themselves grieving for the son and brother they once knew, while Tammy's fiancé, Byron, becomes an unexpected ally. Between the complicated reaction from her family, unwanted attention from local bigots, and whispers from curious neighbours, Dawn wonders if she can ever really come home. A work of fierce allyship, of enduring love, and of gentle hope, ROAR follows a family through grief and estrangement as they become catalysts for change in their rural community. Told from multiple points of view, with confidence and tenderness, actor and screenwriter Shelley Thompson's debut novel is profoundly authentic, drawing on her own experience as the mother of a trans child and a fierce activist for the trans community.

A breathtaking, fast-paced work of historical fiction based on the tragic true story of the 1941 Mount Allison University residence fire I have a history here. I am part of this landscape. I have forged it, shaped it, and renewed it time and again. At times, I have been a mishap. Once or twice, I was brought forth at the hands of mischief. This time, I was sparked to life. I awoke from the elements, timid and trembling.  In the basement of a residence at a small liberal arts university in rural New Brunswick, while war rages overseas, a fire breaks out in the middle of the night. The town is sleeping. A novel of devastating beauty, based on the true story of the December 1941 fire that destroyed a men's residence at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, killing four students, and bringing the horrors of war startlingly close to home. Told at a blistering pace and in multiple points of view-including characters based on Alex and Rhoda Colville, who were students at the time, as well as faculty and staff, students past and present, a local journalist, and suspicious townspeople-this stunning work of historical fiction explores themes of trauma, love, and humanity in the face of tragedy.

Wendy Hebb has been a fisherman's wife for forty years. She has also been a mother, a yoga instructor, and part-time soap maker. She loves her life in picturesque Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, but it's just not enough anymore. With a burning entrepreneurial desire, she decides that when her husband, Paul, retires, it will finally be her turn to live out her dream. The catch: her dream is to open a sex shop. While Paul begrudgingly goes along with Wendy's "half-cocked" idea, it's out of a sense of guilt; a recently spilled secret has their marriage on the rocks. As soon as the townspeople get wind of Wendy's plans, it opens up a whole other can of worms - and Paul finds himself bait for the local rumour mill. Her silent, "invisible" partner in the project, he secretly hopes her plan for the shop will fail. Orbiting around Paul and Wendy's story is a motley crew of characters, including the Hebbs' daughter, Ellen, a feminist academic who catches the eye of a lady-killer coworker while home for the summer; Wendy's best friend, Betty, a chain-smoking seamstress with secrets of her own; the local minister and her husband, who secretly indulge in role play; and the wealthy Sonya and Booth, who will stop at nothing to make sure the shop never opens its doors - as long as they can avoid discussing their failing marriage. An irreverent novel full of heart and humour, Fishnets & Fantasies is a story of love and lust at any age, of old grudges and older secrets, and of the relationships that make all the awkward fumbling worthwhile.

Tinker Gordon doesn't want anything to change. He thinks that if he holds on tightly enough, his family, his tiny Cape Breton Island community, his very world will stay exactly the way it has always been. But explosions large and small-a world away, in the Middle East, in the land of opportunity in western Canada, and in his own home in Falkirk Cove-threaten to turn everything Tinker has ever known upside down. Set variously in the heart of rural Cape Breton, on the war-torn streets of Aleppo and in a Turkish refugee camp, in the new wild west frontier of the Alberta oil patch, and in a tiny apartment in downtown Toronto, Tinker's family, friends, and neighbours new and old must find a way to make it home.In her adult fiction debut, Alison DeLory ponders a question as relevant in Atlantic Canada as anywhere in the world: where and how do we belong, and what does it take to make it home?

Longlisted for 2022 Dublin Literary AwardsWinner of the 2021 Miramichi Reader's "The Very Best!" Book Awards A brilliant novel reimagining the life of internationally renowned folk artist Maud Lewis by an award-winning author. But I had known since forever that it's colours that keep the world turning, that keep a person going.One glimpse of the tiny painted house that folk art legend Maud Lewis shared with her husband, Everett, in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, during the mid-twentieth century and the startling contrast between her joyful artwork and her life's deprivations is evident. One glimpse at her photo and you realize, for all her smile's shyness, she must've been one tough cookie. But, beneath her iconic resilience, who was Maud, really? How did she manage, holed up in that one-room house with no running water, married to a miserly man known for his drinking? Was she happy, or was she miserable? Did painting save or make her Everett's meal ticket? And then there are the darker secrets that haunt her story: the loss of her parents, her child, her first love. Against all odds, Maud Lewis rose above these constraints-and this is where you'll find the Maud of Brighten the Corner Where You Are: speaking her mind from beyond the grave, freed of the stigmas of gender, poverty, and disability that marked her life and shaped her art. Unfettered and feisty as can be, she tells her story her way, illuminating the darkest corners of her life. In possession of a voice all her own, Maud demonstrates the agency that hovers within us all.

The kids call her Lighthouse: no lights on up there. In a small town, everyone knows when you can't read. But Cathy is just distracted by the light and lines and artistry of everyday life. She is a talented artist growing up in tiny Mariners Cove and yearns for acceptance. She dreams of enrolling in art school, but getting there will be a struggle. Hutch Parsons is everything Cathy is not: charismatic, popular, smart. Overflowing with energy, he is confident in his plans for the future. But one icy evening his world is upended and those plans are swept away. Now he must face a different life and his own struggle. Dancing between points of view, Catching the Light explores the ordinary lives of two extraordinary people. With gorgeously lyrical language and a strong sense of place, this tender novel announces a bright new voice in Atlantic fiction. Winner of the 2014 Percy Janes First Novel Award for an unpublished manuscript.

A woman becomes obsessed with a story about her family from 1890-when a naked, mute girl stumbled onto their property-and whether or not it really happened. A self-help guru and his chief strategist take their most affluent and unstable clients on a harrowing nature hike that destroys their company. A young convict in a prison creative writing class chronicles the rise and fall of his cellblock's resident peacemaker. A rural neighbourhood is mesmerized by the coming of a strange and powerful new homeowner who is in the middle of reinventing herself. The stories of Use Your Imagination! are about stories, about the way we define and give shape to ourselves through all kinds of narratives, true or not. In seven long stories, Kris Bertin examines the complex labyrinth of lies, delusions, compromise, and fabrication that makes up our personal history and mythology. Sometimes funny, strange, or frightening, these stories represent Bertin's follow-up to his critically acclaimed, award-winning debut, Bad Things Happen.

It's 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together-though they have little idea how to create such a life.Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped, and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes. When the Greenes receive the news they have been waiting for, and that Una is convinced will save her and her marriage, she she begins to unravel in ways neither is prepared for.From critically acclaimed and bestselling author Carol Bruneau comes an achingly honest portrait of a marriage in a time of war-and an examination of how it is that we come to know ourselves.

The story begins with Nell, the "spinster on the hill" near St. Peter's, Cape Breton. Scarred by her own childhood, she swears she could never love a child and that she will never marry, denying herself a life with the man she loves. She's proven wrong when a baby is born just down the road from her. Her love of little Jane, despite herself, propels us forward through generations trying to untangle their own traumas and secrets. Eventually, we meet Bridie-joyful, kind, capable Bridie-and see her struggling through the echoing pain of those who came before her. Her choices, her bravery, her "nest of wonderful women," and her ultimate refusal to settle for anything less than love, eventually redeem her and everyone around her-even the spinster on the hill. As real as our own family dramas, Beholden is full of Lesley Crewe's trademark wit, heartbreaking losses, incredible women with unbreakable friendships, and the sweet wildness of Cape Breton.

This was the line between here and there. No landwash, no vague intertidal zone, no undecided. She stood at the edge, a mass of instincts and yearnings and despair, while the dawn painted itself in around her, shade by delicate shade.The kids call her Lighthouse: no lights on up there. In a small town, everyone knows when you can't read. But Cathy is just distracted by the light and lines and artistry of everyday life. She is a talented artist growing up in tiny Mariners Cove and yearns for acceptance. She dreams of enrolling in art school, but getting there will be a struggle. Hutch Parsons is everything Cathy is not: charismatic, popular, smart. Overflowing with energy, he is confident in his plans for the future. But one icy evening his world is upended and those plans are swept away. Now he must face a different life and his own struggle.Dancing between points of view, Catching the Light explores the ordinary lives of two extraordinary people. With gorgeously lyrical language and a strong sense of place, this tender novel announces a bright new voice in Atlantic fiction.

Vintage Margaret Atwood meets Patricia Highsmith in this slyly seductive debut set on an eerily beautiful farm teeming with secrets.The drought has discontented the bees. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But Cynthia knows how to breathe life back into her farm: offer it as an artists' colony with free room, board, and "life experience" in exchange for backbreaking labour. Silvia, a wide-eyed graduate and would-be poet, and Ibrahim, a painter distracted by constant inspiration, are drawn to Cynthia's offer, and soon, to each other.But something lies beneath the surface. The edenic farm is plagued by events that strike Silvia as ominous: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. One by one, the other residents leave. As summer tenses into autumn, Cynthia's shadowed past is revealed and Silvia becomes increasingly paralyzed by doubt. Building to a shocking conclusion, The Honey Farm announces the arrival of a bold new voice and offers a thrilling portrait of creation and possession in the natural world.

In a Cape Breton family of black sheep, Mary is pure as the driven snow. She is patient and kind with her alcoholic grandmother and volatile mother, loyal and attentive to her spoiled cousin, and pleasant and polite all day as a grocery cashier. Her well-­off aunt, the only other normal person in the family, wants to help her more, but Mary's mother is too prickly and proud. So Mary goes to work, comes home, takes care of her family, and wonders if there'll ever be more to life.When a young couple moves into the apartment upstairs, it sparks a series of changes that leads to major family revelations, and Mary discovers that sometimes doing the wrong thing is the exact right thing to do. Tender, authentic, and crackling with Lesley's irrepressible humour, Mary, Mary is a book for anyone who's ever had a familygood, bad, or a messy mix of both.

Linda Moore's long­awaited sequel to Foul Deeds is another highly engaging mix of art and environmental justice. Finally working a real job as a researcher for the Public Prosecution Service, Roz is on her first paid vacation. She has rented a cottage on Nova Scotia's beautiful Minas Basin with plans to explore ideas for her next theatre production. Accompanied by her cat and a stack of Beckett plays, she has no sooner settled in than she spots what looks like a woman's body tangled in the roots of a floating tree. Before the local RCMP can send a boat out, the body is retrieved by helicopter, and Roz watches it disappear over North Mountain. It's time to call in her old sleuthing partner, McBride.When McBride completely disappears, Roz and her longtime theatre friend Sophie roam the backroads and small towns of the Annapolis Valley in search of clues, narrowing in on the out-of­the­way quarry no one seems to want them to visit, the tanker trunks that nearly run them off the road, and a young journalist who seems to have come too close to the truth.The Fundy Vault is a lightning-paced literary mystery that will keep the heart pumping and the brain ticking long after the final page.

The body of Pastor Sandy Gardner, a TV preacher with a global following, turns up near a Halifax container pier. The mysterious case lands with Cam Neville, a city cop with a dead wife, PTSD, and a haunting past. Can Neville, a former biker and war hero, solve the killing and find himself? In search of the truth, Neville and his partner, a Mi'kmaw Mountie named Blair Christmas, enter a perilous world of strippers, kiddie porn, and corruption that threatens to destroy them. Meanwhile, Neville is torn between loyalties to his two brothers, one still with the Satan's Stallion bike club founded by their father, and another, a priest who wants to save everyone, including Cam.In Disposable Souls, author Phonse Jessome has created a complex and compelling protagonist and placed him in a gritty underbelly of bikers, cops, and killers, masterfully blurring the lines between good and bad, sinners and saints.

Annie Welles is an officer with the Halifax Regional Police's Robbery and Violent Crimes Unit. Recently divorced without custody of her two young sons, Annie's career, too, is now stalling under the ambitions of her ruthless colleagues. When two murders occur within forty-eight hours of each other, she takes a risk to follow her intuition, hoping to prove herself.

It's 1998 and Antony Williams is about to meet his match. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Antony is the child of a demanding single mother and an absconding Vietnam War resister who got too used to leaving home, country, and family. With a keen eye on the hybrid Windsor-Detroit landscape, backhanded affection for his hometown, and a growing understanding of his own family's place in its bootleg history, Antony makes his living as a house painter by day before catapulting loads of Canadian weed across the river to Detroit by night.Then he meets Kate Chan, a beautiful, street-smart law student, who calls his bluff and picks apart his personal mythology. Ultimately she presents him with his own hard choice and forces him to realize he's been smuggling much more than he knows. Keeping Things Whole recounts the arc of their relationship and is cut with Antony's entertaining manifestoes on marijuana, legality, art, theatre, sex, money, and lineage.With this, his second novel, Darryl Whetter gives us a maddeningly cocky but introspective hero, and his frank, nuanced portrait of a border city and its underground history.

St. John's archivist Michael Lowe's life is turned on its head when a Dutch colleague, Anton Aalders, arrives on his doorstep in 1995. Anton is searching for a father he never met, ostensibly a Newfoundland soldier part of the Allied force that liberated the Netherlands at the end of World War II. Anton's visit stretches from a few days to a few weeks, keen as he is to learn as much as he can about Newfoundland, its history, and its people. Rabble rouser and ardent Newfoundland nationalist Miles Harnett, Michael's friend, is obsessed with his own search for the lost "fatherland" of Newfoundland, which relinquished its political independence in 1934. Miles is only too eager to teach Anton-and Michael-the shameful, forgotten history (as he sees it) of the lost country of Newfoundland. The Strangers' Gallery is a finely crafted, at times humorous novel about the search for identity-both political and personal.