WARM AND COSY BUNDLE

The Winter-Blooming Tree draws us into the lives of Ursula Koehl-Niederhauser, a school teacher suffering from lapses of memory who is convinced that she has dementia; Andreas, her charming, well-intentioned but somewhat self-absorbed husband; and their grown daughter, Mia, who is about to move home after bouncing all over the country, trying to find herself as a journalist. The Winter-Blooming Tree delves into the dissonance between family members and how sometimes pride is the only thing standing between those we love and the stories we tell ourselves.

In the heart of Scarborough sits The Nap-Away Motel, a hunched building providing hidden worlds for its occupants. Within its derelict walls, Suleiman longs to rebuild his broken family, Tiffany creates a fantasy world to escape from her mother’s neglect and Ori plans a search for their run-away twin brother. While they grapple with the challenges of mental health, addiction, and grief, the three dwellers manage to forge a friendship over a litter of stray kittens. Together, they find joy in ruin, and hope when everything seems lost.

In The Weight of the Heart, Isabel sets out to find traces of her brother, who died in the turbulent water of B.C.’s Thompson River, in the places he loved. At the same time, she is seeking locations referenced in important literary works by Sheila Watson and Ethel Wilson for a graduate thesis. Her map becomes a cartography of both feminine and personal engagements with landscape and memory.