IF you haven’t read Shakespeare’s The Tempest you should become acquainted with the story in order to really appreciate the genius of this take on it. And really what more can I say but this vintage Atwood – hysterically funny, intelligent, filled with dastardly deeds and brewing with characters that you will love to hate (and one or two that you will simply love).

She is one of my favourite authors from NewFoundland. This is the third novel about the Now family (Sylvanus Now and What They Wanted) focusses on Kyle, the youngest surviving brother. Three years after the death of his brother Chris, Kyle is still raw with gried as are his parents. The book explores the insularity of the community in which we find the Nows – it is at times funny, at times searingly heartbreaking and has a great mystery running throughout. The best of the trilogy – but the other two are grand. MOrrissey is really one of Canada’s best!

Iso, a young guatemalan woman works at a fertility clinic in the highland of Guatamala which caters to rich women who hope that the waters of the nearby lake will help their chances of conceiving. Iso becomes pregnant by the clinic’s doctor who is gone before she can tell him. The daughter is taken from her and brought to America and so begins Iso’s journey to reclaim her baby. Political and highly emotional this book reminds us of the great divide between the rich and the poor and the ties that bind us.

George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father is arrested for sexual impropriety at the prep school where he works. The story is about his wife, Joan, his daughter, Sadie, and his son, Andrew and how they cope and come to terms with this life shattering event. Is he guilty? How do you defend someone you love when it seems they’ve done this terrible thing. It is a wonderful read!

Beatrice Dunn turns up at the Tea and Sympathy shop run by Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St. Clair and so begins the story of these three witches and how they change each others’ lives and the lives around them. With all the magic of the Virgin Cure, Ami McKay once again brings us into a world that surely cannot be real. Or can it????

An English nurse accepts a curious job in Ireland. She is to watch over a young girl for two weeks to make sure she doesn’t eat. Why? Because her family claims that she is subsisting on the Holy Spirit and that she hasn’t eaten in 3 months. The English nurse is to work with an Irish Nun and report their findings at the end of the two week period. The story is told from the point of view or the English nurse who has little regard for the Irish or Catholicism for that matter. The book delves into the soul of the narrator, expertely develops her relationship with the girl and the nun and, best of all, keeps us guessing till the end.

The four Guineveres (Vere, Gwen, Ginny and Win) meet at the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent – dropped off by the parents for a variety of reasons, they form a friendship that is everything to them. Domet weaves their past with their present as the four girls dream of a future that frees them from the confines of the convent. Beautifully written, funny and heartbreaking – I could not put this novel down.

An aristocrat is under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. This is the story of the Count who reinvents himself in a Russia that has dumped him. It is heartwarming, funny and, in spite of the fact that nothing much happens, a fast paced read. The count is absolutely delightful!

A great cast of characters whose lives intersect as the result of an affair, a divorce, a remarriage, a divorce and so it goes. She writes compellingly of how our choices become our lives.

Soooo suspensful – from the opening pages we learn that something dreadful happened at Tiffany and Vid’s barbeque to which Erika and Oliver were invited and who, at the last minute, invited their friends Sam and Clementine. Sam and Erika are the oldest of friends but maybe not? What the heck happened in Tiffany and Vid’s backyard? Hilarious, heartbreaking and suspensful – who could ask for anything more???