Loan Stars is the readers’ advisory tool that allows library staff across Canada to collaboratively select their favourite forthcoming titles. Using CataList, the online catalogue service and order management tool available for free to libraries, library staff can endorse the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, and Young Adult titles they want to recommend to their patrons. The titles with the most recommendations become Loan Stars picks!
But who are the authors and illustrators behind these great Loan Stars reads?
We find out in our series Meet the Loan Stars.
Meet Maggie Knox 🍁
Photos by Jenna Davis and Eugene Choi
Maggie Knox is the pen name for Canadian writing duo Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley.
Karma Brown 🍁 is the bestselling author of five novels: the #1 bestseller Recipe for a Perfect Wife, Come Away with Me (a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2015), Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestsellers The Choices We Make and In This Moment, and The Life Lucy Knew. She is also the author of The 4% Fix: How one hour can change your life. A National Magazine Award–winning journalist, Karma has been published in Chatelaine, Canadian Living, SELF, Redbook, and Today’s Parent, among others. She lives just outside Toronto with her husband, daughter, and a labradoodle named Fred.
Marissa Stapley 🍁 is the internationally bestselling author of three commercial women’s fiction novels, including Mating for Life, Things to Do When It’s Raining, and The Last Resort, as well as the suspense novel Lucky. Marissa’s journalism has appeared in magazines and newspapers across North America, including Elle, Today’s Parent, and Reader’s Digest. She lives in Toronto with her family and a precocious black cat named Oscar.
Together, Maggie Knox’s first novel The Holiday Swap made it on both the October 2021 Loan Stars Adult list and the Best of the Brightest 2021!
Find out more about the duo behind Maggie Knox, their love for libraries, and their book recommendations in the interview below.
If you could visit any library in the world, where would you go?
The Austrian National Library.
Do you have a favourite librarian, real or fictional?
We love Sheila at the Kitchener Public Library!
Which book would you choose to recommend to library patrons?
Our Darkest Night by our dear friend Jennifer Robson 🍁.
What does being a Loan Stars pick mean to you?
Libraries make it possible for us to do the research that goes into our novels, the ones we write together and the ones we write on our own. We also love that libraries make our books accessible to everyone — and so it means a lot to us to be given this honour.
And thanks to you both, Maggie Knox!
Are you a Loan Stars-recommended author or illustrator who wants to be featured on our blog? Get in touch!
Until next time.
Find out what titles made it to the November 2024 Loan Stars Adult Canadian list.