Explore Dazzling New Reads to Inspire You This Summer

For over 30 years, Knopf Canada has been home to award-winning books by some of Canada's finest writers. This summer, pick up a novel by one of your favourites. Enjoy a sneak peek into four select offerings exploring the themes of identity, gender, friendship and aging from a whole new lens.

Fayne
By Ann-Marie MacDonald

"As rich, ambitious and multi-layered as [MacDonald's] fans will have come to expect.... This is fiction at its best, skilfully capturing life's chaos and the boundaries that are supposed to contain it, a story of death and desire and beating, bloody hearts." — Financial Times

In beloved author Ann-Marie Macdonald’s first novel in almost a decade: science, magic and love collide with family secrets and lies. It’s the late 19th century and Charlotte Bell is growing up lonely on a vast estate straddling the border between England and Scotland.

With her mother and older brother deceased and she herself suffering from a mysterious condition — Charlotte is kept away from the world by her doting father Lord Henry. When her father hires a tutor to satisfy her insatiable curiosity, she discovers an artifact that will upend her entire world.

Snow Road Station
By Elizabeth Hay

“Joyous and lyrical, ‘Snow Road Station’ is an ode to the North, in fact an ode to life itself, and all its possibilities.” — Mary Lawson, bestselling author of A Town Called Solace

It’s the winter of 2008 and 60-year-old, sexy, seemingly unfooled actress Lulu Blake blanks on her lines during a Beckett play and flees the theatre. Humiliated and out of work, she returns to small-town Ontario where she prepares for the last act of her life.

At the centre of this witty and wise novel is the friendship between Lulu and her closest friend Nan as they contemplate growing old, confront the limits of their life choices and untangle the messy feelings that kept them apart for decades.

In Giller Prize winner Elizabeth Hay’s writing, the enduring bond of female friendship and love’s capacity to surprise us at any age make for a read you can’t put down.

The Art of Vanishing
By Lynne Kutsukake

"A fascinating glimpse into the intersection of art, class and the complexity of adult friendship… I couldn’t put this book down.” — Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves

Tender, enthralling and evocative of 1970s Japan, The Art of Vanishing is a story of a young woman straddling the thin line between loyalty and obsession.

In Lynne Kutsukake’s powerful new novel, talented Akemi leaves her small village for a rooming house in Tokyo where she meets the rebellious Sayako. As the girls quickly become inseparable, they follow two enigmatic artists into the underbelly of Tokyo’s art world. Following a devastating betrayal, Sayako disappears, and Akemi must do everything she can to find her — and face her new self.

Curiosities
By Anne Fleming

“Intellectually stimulating and an offbeat dip into history, Curiosities appeals as a dense puzzle that’s intriguing fun.... A riot of cerebral invention.” — Brett Josef Grubisic, the Toronto Star

This sparkling, genre-bending novel weaves the intricate tapestry of secret lives and loves from 1600s England with contemporary truths about identity and belonging.

Amateur historian Anne has stumbled across an obscure archive of manuscripts — each the thread in a singular strange tale. A plague descends upon a village and two children — Joan and Thomasina, the only survivors — are bonded until they are forced apart.

As adults, Joan is hired as a maid and Thomasina is sent on a voyage to Virginia where she begins to navigate life as a male. Reunited years later, their story fades into obscurity until Anne can uncover the fate of the two lovers.