Showing results by narrator "Athena Karkanis" in All Categories

By the winner of The Journey Prize, and inspired by a real incident, The Boat People is a gripping and morally complex novel about a group of refugees who survive a perilous ocean voyage to reach Canada - only to face the threat of deportation and accusations of terrorism in their new land.

Born and raised on a remote British Columbia commune, Astra Brine has long struggled to find her way in the world, her life becoming a study of the thin line between dependence and love, need and desire. Over the years, as her path intersects with others - sometimes briefly, but always intensely - she will encounter people who, by turns, want to rescue, control, become, and escape her, revealing difficult yet shining truths about who they are and what they yearn for.

When, at the age of sixty, Joanne learns that Douglas Ellard, the reserved general practitioner whom she had grown up believing to be her father was, in fact, the best friend of her biological father, the brilliant visual artist Desmond Love, she begins to question not just who she is, but what factors play a role in shaping all of us and in making us who we really are. Joanne is offered the chance to revisit her family history when writer Roy Brodnitz approaches her with the idea of making a mini-series about the close relationship between the Ellard and Love families

Unprecedented is an extraordinary business book for extraordinary times: a collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from twenty-nine chief executives at Canada’s most iconic and largest companies. These are unforgettable accounts from senior leaders at companies on the front lines during the pandemic—nursing homes, grocery stores, airlines, hotels, pharmacies, shopping malls—along with valuable lessons on crisis management. At their heart, these are stories about overcoming adversity.

Through 11 chapters that take her around the world, from catching wild mice in the woods of Central England to flower arranging with octogenarians in Japan, from laboratories to "hugging centres", Marta embarks on an absorbing, entertaining, and insightful journey to determine the habits that will have the greatest impact on our longevity.

Stranded by volcanic ash in Addis Ababa and grieving her mother’s recent death, Canadian-Ethiopian flight attendant Dessie heads to see her grandfather. But Dessie’s conflicted past stands in her way and her mother’s death causes seismic disruptions in the fine balance of self-deceptions and false histories that uphold her family.

YouTuber Sabine Rose is a star about to go supernova. Her baking channel attracts millions, her production team agonizingly crafts her every moment, and her agent has nearly landed her a television series. But Sabine’s rise to superstardom needs a final push, and she has the perfect idea to get herself there: a well-documented visit home to her family’s bakery.

It’s August 24, and Joanne Shreve and her husband, Zack, are savoring the last lazy days of summer and looking forward to the birth of a new grandchild; involvement in the campaign of Ali Janvier, a gifted politician with a solid chance of becoming the province’s next premier; and the debut of Sisters and Strangers, the six-part series Joanne cowrote that focuses on her early life. The series is the flagship of a new slate of programming, and MediaNation is counting on a big return. Joanne and Zack’s stake in the series’ success is personal.

In a ruinous country house in the now barren English countryside—decimated by heat and drought—and in a dusty library damaged by earthquake and floods, Penelope archives what remains of the estate’s once notable, now diminished, art collection. As she delves into the objects and images, she also keeps a diary of her final months in the dilapidated estate that has been her home for two decades and a refuge for those who have been displaced by disasters.

Before Betty Friedan coined the term feminine mystique, The Torontonians told a classic feminist story of suburban ennui and existential self-discovery, tracing a detailed portrait of femininity in the 1950s through the eyes of its perceptive and thoughtful heroine. The book is also a unique contemporary meditation on community and social ties from a time when Canada's major cities were just beginning to spread out into suburban sprawl.

Living Skies is producing Sisters and Strangers, a six-part TV series about the tangled relationships between the families of Douglas Ellard, the father who raised Joanne, and Desmond Love, her biological father. Joanne is working on the script with Roy Brodnitz, a brilliant writer and friend. The project’s future seems assured, but before the script is completed, Brodnitz disappears while scouting locations in Northern Saskatchewan. Hours later, he’s found - sweat-drenched, clawing at the ground, and muttering gibberish. He dies in a state of mortal terror.

It’s been 11 years since Gota has seen Kosmos, yet she still finds herself fantasizing about their intimate year together in Paris. Now it’s 1999, and, working as a journalist, she hears about a film festival in Sarajevo, where she knows Kosmos will be with his theatre company. She takes the assignment to investigate the fallout of the Bosnian war - and to reconnect with the love of her life. But when they are reunited, she finds a man, and a country, altered beyond recognition. Kosmos introduces Gota to Edina, the woman he has always loved.

Everything in Fay's life is perfect - living in the house she dreamed of as a child, married to a man she loves, and planning her life as an artist. Her life seems full of possibility. Then, late one night, Fay realizes that something has gone wrong. Things have altered in the house, and somehow time, and Fay's husband, Alec, seem to have gone on without her. Fay - who thought her life was on the verge of beginning - finds it has abruptly ended. And she comes to learn that sometimes the life you grieve may be your own.

Joanne’s husband, Zack, recently elected mayor of Regina, is optimistic that he can garner the public support necessary to make Regina a city that works—not just for the few, but for the many. Their oldest son Peter is marrying Maisie Crawford, a woman as clever and forthright as she is lovely. Their lakeside wedding is a dream come true, but when a former lover of a member of the bridal party shows up, the dream becomes a nightmare. Before the bride's bouquet has wilted, there's an act of sickening cruelty; soon afterwards, there’s a murder.

Joanne’s husband Zack is the leading progressive candidate in a neck-and-neck race, with the existing mayor, for Regina’s top job. The tough campaigning is well underway when a disturbing threat disrupts the celebration for the opening of the Racette-Hunter Centre — a project Zack has been spearheading, intended to benefit the impoverished community of North Central Regina. Joanne soon realizes that sinister interests are working behind the scenes of the election, and another savage act makes clear that someone will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo.

As Joanne Kilbourn-Shreve, her husband, Zack, and their daughter, Taylor, rush through the rain from their cottage to their car, the Thanksgiving weekend they just spent at the lake with Zack’s law partners is already slipping away, burnished into memory as pleasantly as the hundreds of other weekends the Falconer-Shreve families have shared at Lawyers’ Bay. Within weeks, a triple homicide will rip apart the lives of those related to the lawyers who, at the end of their first year in law school, only half-jokingly styled themselves “The Winners’ Circle.”

In this sweeping, allusive novel, the celebrated poet, dervish, and oral storyteller Tawhida Tanya Evanson comes to terms with what it means to stand on one’s own two feet in an uncertain world. The acclaimed Antiguan-Canadian artist traces a global journey from Vancouver to the United States, Caribbean, Paris, and Morocco as a relationship with her lover and travel partner disintegrates and she finds herself on a path toward personal discovery and spiritual fulfillment that leads her deep into the North African landscape.

PBJ Decks Smokin Gun (Gunner) is an American Paint Horse, one of the many of Heather Lott Goodwin's herd, and a valuable show animal that won the World Championship Paint Horse title. When Hurricane Katrina passed over the Goodwin property, it took with it the fences, the cattle, and several horses. Heather and her family lived in their horse trailer for six weeks and considered themselves lucky to have safe, comfortable shelter. After the storm, they searched for the animals and recovered many of them. But three months passed before they located Gunner, a hundred miles away.

These twelve short stories dive deep into imaginary worlds where everyday life is marked and marred by war. They speak of wounded love, captured women, confinement, talismans, borders, wolves. They give expression to the voices of Afghan women who would like to change the fate of people like Nâzboo, Khorshid, Hamid and so many others. Originally published by Éditions Le Soupirail in 2019, this collection was the first volume of short stories by Afghan women to appear in France.