Lovers of shows such as Black Mirror, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, will enjoy Mark Le Dain’s dark satirical collection of stories, Dreamtime.

Dreamtime is a collection of 19 tales set in the near future where a person’s life is monitored, influenced, and sometimes even crafted by the technology we both love and hate.

From stories of people condemned to live within their carbon footprint and clones that expand the empires of only the wealthy (duplicating both their good traits and bad), to stories of a future where a market exists for practically anything, including your life – Mark Le Dain’s disturbing “slices of life” have the potential to awaken the technophobe in all of us.

Fourteen-year-old Georgie Sheppard always felt he was different. Plagued by strange occurrences since early childhood, nothing was ever normal for him. Highly intelligent and studious, he has been a constant target for bullies. The situation, however, moves far beyond the scope of his usual daily torment as an increasingly bizarre series of realistic dreams take him back to the end of the 19th century. Facing dark forces that he cannot even begin to comprehend, Georgie embarks on a perilous journey, one where the fabric of time, and reality itself, may be in jeopardy of forever becoming undone.
 

Join us for a Saturday Siging!

The second of the funny and frenetic murder-lite “Pine Rapids” mystery series, Riotous Assembly, unfolds the continuing travails of Kate Smithers—acerbic, reluctantly middle-aged—lately returned from the West to her hometown up a forgotten Ontario valley. Beset by embarrassing ailments, still on wobbly social footing, in Riotous Assembly our unlikely heroine/sleuth, far from directing investigation, mostly knocks about in a fog of speculation as to the most recent untimely-demise-about-town.

Bring the kids for this special book launch and cut-paper craft party!

Come along on an aviation journey with Alis! This spunky female guide will take you through an ABC of planes featuring gorgeous cut-paper art.

An A to Z of planes past and present, this book has stunning cut-paper art and a cute-as-a-button guide named Alis. Named for Dr. Alis Kennedy, likely one of the first Indigenous women to obtain a commercial pilot licence in Canada, Alis will take you on an aviation tour from the Avro Arrow to the Zeppelin and everything in between. 

Meticulously researched and uniquely crafted, this is a one-of-a-kind book that will delight aviation fans big and little.

The Owl's Nest YA for Adults Book Club is for adults who LOVE  Young Adult fiction! We know you are out there and you're not alone.
Each month we will meet to discuss a compelling YA novel and will explore many genres within the YA category.
This months pick is The Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit

About the Book:
Set in Poland during the Second World War, Anna and the Swallow Man is a stunning, literary, and wholly original New York Times bestseller and Publishers Weekly best book of the year perfect for readers of The Book Thief and All the Light We Cannot See.
 
Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up. Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She’s alone.
 
And then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see.
 
The Swallow Man is not Anna’s father—she knows that very well—but she also knows that, like her father, he’s in danger of being taken, and like her father, he has a gift for languages: Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, even Bird. When he summons a bright, beautiful swallow down to his hand to stop her from crying, Anna is entranced. She follows him into the wilderness.
 
Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers, and even, despite their better judgment, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous. Even the Swallow Man.

Join us for a Saturday Signing!

The Palm Tree is just a palm tree. There's nothing special about her. Nobody sits under her for shade, or climbs up her branches. She doesn't even have branches! But when a storm rolls in and wild winds and pounding rain batter the shore, the Palm Tree discovers that there's something very special about her indeed. 

Featuring: M. Jane Colette, Alyssa Linn Palmer, Win Day, and Emily Varga!

Come celebrate the first (International!) Bookstore Romance Day on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2019 at Owl’s Nest Books! Authors from the Calgary Association of the Romance Writers of America will be in the store all day to talk about everything romance, deliver oh-so-romantic readings, introduce you to Calgary’s thriving romance community, and offer free (five page) manuscript consults to aspiring romance authors. Author appearances, readings, signings, and fun-and-games (romance authors know the best games, trust us) throughout the day; the main event scheduled for 2 pm to 4 pm.

Join us for a Saturday Signing!

Newlyweds, Tessy McGuigan and Marshall Tayse have boarded the plane and are headed to Tessy’s beloved homeland, magical Ireland, for their honeymoon. However, there is a mystery to be solved in the mix of their enchanting holiday. An amulet and ring, along with a strange note written in Gaelic, left by her mother over four decades ago, needs to be translated before the mystery can be solved. Capture and enjoy all the breathtaking scenery, haunted castles, cathedrals and lively pubs Ireland is so famous for

The Owl's Nest YA for Adults Book Club is for adults who LOVE  Young Adult fiction! We know you are out there and you're not alone.
Each month we will meet to discuss a compelling YA novel and will explore many genres within the YA category.
This months pick is Front Lines by Michael Grant

About the book:
An epic, genre-bending, and transformative new series that reimagines World War II with female soldiers fighting on the front lines.

World War II, 1942. A court decision makes women subject to the draft and eligible for service. The unproven American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled, the armed forces of Nazi Germany.

Three girls sign up to fight. Rio Richlin, Frangie Marr, and Rainy Schulterman are average girls, girls with dreams and aspirations, at the start of their lives, at the start of their loves. Each has her own reasons for volunteering: Rio fights to honor her sister; Frangie needs money for her family; Rainy wants to kill Germans. For the first time they leave behind their homes and families—to go to war.

These three daring young women will play their parts in the war to defeat evil and save the human race. As the fate of the world hangs in the balance, they will discover the roles that define them on the front lines. They will fight the greatest war the world has ever known.

Perfect for fans of Girl in the Blue Coat, Salt to the Sea, The Book Thief, and Code Name Verity, from New York Times bestselling author Michael Grant.

Ramya immigrated to Canada from India with her husband about fifteen years ago. She typifies the first generation immigrant - a person who straddles two cultures, two countries, two continents, even perhaps two different worlds altogether.The novel has two intertwined threads of narration simultaneously unspooling. The one set in the present is about Ramya's battle to rebuild her life. The other, a series of sorties into the past, examines Ramya's sundry relationships. One narrative skein is Canadian, modern and multicultural, while the other is Indian, steeped in myth and mysticism. They are the two sides of the same coin, the obverse and the reverse - the world as seen through the bi-focal lens of immigrant reality.

A compelling, adventurous, and poignant narrative showing how the heart always knows the way home. As Liz Jansen approached her sixtieth birthday, she needed to understand how the experiences of her German Mennonite ancestors, who’d arrived in Canada as Russian refugees ninety years earlier, had shaped her. Seeking answers, she set off across the country on her motorcycle to visit the places they’d lived as they established themselves in a new world. Three weeks later a catastrophic crash threatened to sideline her quest. Instead, the ensuing time of uncertainty and stillness led her deeper into the exploration of her cultural roots, and her self.

The Owl's Nest Hootdunnit Mystery Book Club meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

September's pick is The Dry by Jane Harper

About the book:
A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.
 

Come on down and toss your name in the hat. Bring 5min of reading or just kick back with a glass of wine and mingle with other writers in a safe and supportive environment.

Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel presents the epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror. Based on the third edition of 1831, this Penguin Classics edition, with an introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle, contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s preface to the first edition. It also includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with "A Fragment" by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori’s "The Vampyre: A Tale."

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Owl's Nest YA for Adults Book Club is for adults who LOVE  Young Adult fiction! We know you are out there and you're not alone.
Each month we will meet to discuss a compelling YA novel and will explore many genres within the YA category.
This months pick is The World on Either Side by Diane Terrana

About the book:
After the death of her boyfriend, sixteen-year old Valentine stops going to school, quits seeing her friends, and, finally, won't leave her bed. Desperate for her daughter to recover, Valentine's mother takes her on a trek in Thailand. In the mountains north of Chiang Mai, Valentine finds a world she didn't know existed, where houses are on stilts and elephants still roam wild. She learns about the Burmese civil war and the relentless violence against the Karen and Rohingya peoples.

Then she meets Lin, a mysterious young elephant keeper tormented by his hidden past, and an orphaned elephant calf, pursued by violent poachers. Together, the three flee deep into the jungle, looking for refuge and redemption.

The Owl's Nest Hootdunnit Mystery Book Club meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

October's pick is The Couturier of Milan by Ian Hamilton.

About the book:
Ava attends London Fashion Week for the launch of the PÖ fashion line, one of the major investments she and her partners in the Three Sisters — May Ling Wong and Amanda Yee — have made during the last year. With the exponential expansion of the luxury-brand market in China, Ava and her partners are determined to see a young Chinese designer break out in Europe and North America and they go full out in London.

The show is a success, but perhaps too much of one. It attracts the attention of Dominic Ventola, the principal partner in the luxury fashion conglomerate VLG. The women are invited to Milan to meet with Ventola and senior executives in his company. VLG offers to buy the Three Sisters’ stake in PÖ. Ava and her partners decline. A few days later, PÖ comes under attack in the fashion media and a large part of their customer base is pressured by VLG to abandon them.

Ava decides to strike back and turns to Xu for assistance, leading to a confrontation between two of the world’s biggest global crime syndicates: the Camorra and the Triad.
 

The Owl's Nest YA for Adults Book Club is for adults who LOVE  Young Adult fiction! We know you are out there and you're not alone.
Each month we will meet to discuss a compelling YA novel and will explore many genres within the YA category.
This months pick is Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry

About the book:
Put an atheist in a strict Catholic school? Expect comedy, chaos, and an Inquisition. The Breakfast Club meets Saved! in debut author Katie Henry’s hilarious novel about a band of misfits who set out to challenge their school, one nun at a time. Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Robyn Schneider. 

When Michael walks through the doors of Catholic school, things can’t get much worse. His dad has just made the family move again, and Michael needs a friend. When a girl challenges their teacher in class, Michael thinks he might have found one, and a fellow atheist at that. Only this girl, Lucy, isn’t just Catholic . . . she wants to be a priest.

Lucy introduces Michael to other St. Clare’s outcasts, and he officially joins Heretics Anonymous, where he can be an atheist, Lucy can be an outspoken feminist, Avi can be Jewish and gay, Max can wear whatever he wants, and Eden can practice paganism.

Michael encourages the Heretics to go from secret society to rebels intent on exposing the school’s hypocrisies one stunt at a time. But when Michael takes one mission too far—putting the other Heretics at risk—he must decide whether to fight for his own freedom or rely on faith, whatever that means, in God, his friends, or himself.

Do we change or does the world change us?

Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.

But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?

In her most ambitious novel yet, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?

The Owl's Nest Hootdunnit Mystery Book Club meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

November's pick is The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

About the book:
Anthony Horowitz has delivered yet another twist on the classic crime novel with this contemporary take on Sherlock Holmes. The Word Is Murder is original and suspenseful and a masterful amalgam of homage and parody.

The New York Times–bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as Watson to a modern-day Holmes. Both are investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder and a trail of bloody clues. 

On a bright spring morning, a woman goes into a funeral parlour to plan her own service. Six hours later she is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.

Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne and his partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes he’s at the centre of a story he can’t control . . . and that his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.

The Owl's Nest YA for Adults Book Club is for adults who LOVE  Young Adult fiction! We know you are out there and you're not alone.
Each month we will meet to discuss a compelling YA novel and will explore many genres within the YA category.
This months pick is Little White Lies by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

About the book:
Eighteen-year-old auto mechanic Sawyer Taft did not expect her estranged grandmother to show up at her apartment door and offer her a six-figure contract to participate in debutante season. And she definitely never imagined she would accept. But when she realizes that immersing herself in her grandmother's "society" might mean discovering the answer to the biggest mystery of her life-her father's identity-she signs on the dotted line and braces herself for a year of makeovers, big dresses, bigger egos, and a whole lot of bless your heart. The one thing she doesn't expect to find is friendship, but as she's drawn into a group of debutantes with scandalous, dangerous secrets of their own, Sawyer quickly discovers that her family isn't the only mainstay of high society with skeletons in their closet. There are people in her grandmother's glittering world who are not what they appear, and no one wants Sawyer poking her nose into the past. As she navigates the twisted relationships between her new friends and their powerful parents, Sawyer's search for the truth about her own origins is just the beginning.

Set in the world of debutante balls, grand estates and rolling green hills, Little White Lies combines a charming setting, a classic fish-out-of-water story, and the sort of layered mystery only author Jennifer Lynn Barnes can pull off.

In the aftermath of war, the hunter becomes the hunted…

Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive.

Transformed by the horrors he witnessed from Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg Trials, British war correspondent Ian Graham has become a Nazi hunter. Yet one target eludes him: a vicious predator known as the Huntress. To find her, the fierce, disciplined investigator joins forces with the only witness to escape the Huntress alive: the brazen, cocksure Nina. But a shared secret could derail their mission unless Ian and Nina force themselves to confront it.

Growing up in post-war Boston, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride is determined to become a photographer. When her long-widowed father unexpectedly comes homes with a new fiancée, Jordan is thrilled. But there is something disconcerting about the soft-spoken German widow. Certain that danger is lurking, Jordan begins to delve into her new stepmother’s past—only to discover that there are mysteries buried deep in her family . . . secrets that may threaten all Jordan holds dear.

In this immersive, heart-wrenching story, Kate Quinn illuminates the consequences of war on individual lives, and the price we pay to seek justice and truth. 

The Owl's Nest Hootdunnit Mystery Book Club meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm. There is no membership fee and drop-ins are always welcome. 

December's pick is Mistletoe Murder by P.D. James

 P. D. James's understanding of human nature illuminates each of these four stories, making them ideal reading for the darkest days of the year. Each treats the reader to her masterfully atmospheric storytelling, a mystery to be solved, and enjoyable puzzles to keep the reader guessing. With wry humour, she pays tribute to her English crime-writing forebears, delighting in the secrets that lurk beneath the surface at enforced family gatherings and in old country houses--from the title story about a strained family reunion on Christmas Eve, to another about an illicit affair that ends in murder, and two cases that introduce James's poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh as a young detective sergeant.

For fans of Sold on a Monday or The Home for Unwanted Girls, Shelley Wood's novel tells the story of the Dionne Quintuplets, the world's first identical quintuplets to survive birth, told from the perspective of a midwife in training who helps bring them into the world. 

Reluctant midwife Emma Trimpany is just 17 when she assists at the harrowing birth of the Dionne quintuplets: five tiny miracles born to French farmers in hardscrabble Northern Ontario in 1934. Emma cares for them through their perilous first days and when the government decides to remove the babies from their francophone parents, making them wards of the British king, Emma signs on as their nurse. 

Over 6,000 daily visitors come to ogle the identical “Quints” playing in their custom-built playground; at the height of the Great Depression, the tourism and advertising dollars pour in. While the rest of the world delights in their sameness, Emma sees each girl as unique: Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Émilie. With her quirky eye for detail, Emma records every strange twist of events in her private journals. 

As the fight over custody and revenues turns increasingly explosive, Emma is torn between the fishbowl sanctuary of Quintland and the wider world, now teetering on the brink of war. Steeped in research, The Quintland Sisters is a novel of love, heartache, resilience, and enduring sisterhood—a fictional, coming-of-age story bound up in one of the strangest true tales of the past century.

Time travel” — and its hazards—are made literal in this astonishing new novel in which a recklessly idealistic girl dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled (future) world and is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America — “Wainscotia, Wisconsin”—that existed eighty years before.  Cast adrift in time in this idyllic Midwestern town she is set upon a course of “rehabilitation”—but cannot resist falling in love with a fellow exile and questioning the constrains of the Wainscotia world with results that are both devastating and liberating.

Arresting and visionary, Hazards of Time Travel  is both a novel of harrowing discovery and an exquisitely wrought love story that may be Joyce Carol Oates’s most unexpected novel so far.

The Da Vinci Code meets Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve in this erudite adventure story set at the dawn of the printed book about the outlaw poet François Villon and the power of words to change the world.

François Villon, the world's first poet of modernity, was born in Paris in 1431. He was arrested and condemned to death by hanging in 1462 and exonerated in 1463. Shortly after his release from prison, as far as history is concerned, he disappeared forever. 

In Raphaël Jerusalmy's thrilling novel, to ensure his release, Villon has accepted a shady deal offered by the Bishop of Paris at the behest of Louis XI. All Villon has to do to earn his freedom is to convince a printer and bookseller to move from Mayence to Paris, telling him that by doing so he'll be better able to circulate progressive ideas that aren't approved of in Rome. Not surprisingly, Villon's task becomes more complicated that it first seemed. With this riveting tale of plotsand counterplots involving secret organizations in Jerusalem, intrigue in France, and brigands in Italy, Raphaël Jerusalmy leaves readers with their hearts racing and their imaginations stirred.The Brotherhood of Book Hunters is an irresistible read for lovers of books, adventure, and fine writing.

When the rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and five hundred fellow refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia, the young father is overcome with relief: he and his six-year-old son can finally put Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war behind them and begin new lives. Instead, the group is thrown into prison, with government officials and news headlines speculating that hidden among the “boat people” are members of a terrorist militia. As suspicion swirls and interrogation mounts, Mahindan fears the desperate actions he took to survive and escape Sri Lanka now jeopardize his and his son’s chances for asylum. 
            Told through the alternating perspectives of Mahindan; his lawyer Priya, who reluctantly represents the migrants; and Grace, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian adjudicator who must decide Mahindan’s fate, The Boat People is a high-stakes novel that offers a deeply compassionate lens through which to view the current refugee crisis. Inspired by real events, with vivid scenes that move between the eerie beauty of northern Sri Lanka and combative refugee hearings in Vancouver, where life and death decisions are made, Sharon Bala’s stunning debut is an unforgettable and necessary story for our times

The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance.

At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
 
Written in powerfully inventive language and bursting with heart, BRIDGE OF CLAY is signature Zusak.

 Meet Jared Martin: sixteen-year-old pot cookie dealer, smoker, drinker and son with the scariest mom ever. But Jared's the pot dealer with a heart of gold--really. Compassionate, caring, and nurturing by nature, Jared's determined to help hold his family together--whether that means supporting his dad's new family with the proceeds from his baking or caring for his elderly neighbours. But when it comes to being cared and loved, Jared knows he can't rely on his family. His only source of love and support was his flatulent pit bull Baby, but she's dead. And then there's the talking ravens and the black outs and his grandmother's perpetual suspicion that he is not human, but the son of a trickster.