Loan Stars is the readersâ advisory tool that allows libraries across Canada to indicate popular upcoming titles. Using LibraryData, the library data aggregation service, the forthcoming titles with the most orders become Loan Stars top picks!
The July Adult Canadian Loan Stars top 10 list features ten books that have at least one author, illustrator, translator, or editor (in the case of an edited collection of material) who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.
You can see each book and find out a bit more about them in the list below, or you can download our poster if you want to display it, say in your library or on social media (tag us: @LoanStars!). You can also view these titles on CataList in this catalogue.
July 2023 Adult Canadian List
Loan Stars top pick:
Everyone Here Is Lying
by Shari Lapena đ
9780385698900 | Thrillers
Description:
Welcome to Stanhope! A safe neighborhood. A place for families. William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But heâs been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter, Avery, unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.
Hours later, Averyâs family declares her missing. Suddenly Stanhope doesnât feel so safe. And William isnât the only one on his street whoâs hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Averyâs neighbors become increasingly unhinged.
Who took Avery Wooler? Nothing will prepare you for the truth.
The Librarianist
by Patrick deWitt đ
9781487009915 | Literary
Description:
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void heâs known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Cometâs straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy childâs runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarianâs vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bobâs experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsized players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
Silver Nitrate
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia đ
9780593355367 | Thrillers
Description:
Montserrat has always been overlooked. Sheâs a talented sound editor, but sheâs left out of the boysâ club running the film industry in â90s Mexico City. And sheâs all-but-invisible to her best friend TristĂĄn, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though sheâs been in love with him since childhood.
Then TristĂĄn discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he has a way to change their livesâeven if his tales of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and TristĂĄn to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse, but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and TristĂĄn begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristan might find out that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships
by Ali Bryan đ
9781250863430 | Small Town & Rural
Description:
A year after forest fires ravaged the town of Crow Valley and claimed the life of Dale Jepsonâkaraoke legend, local prison guard, and all-around good guyâthe community hosts a high-stakes karaoke competition. But when a convicted murderer escapes from nearby Crow Valley Correctional, residents discover thereâs more on the line than local, perhaps even national, karaoke fame.
In this darkly comedic, fast-paced ride through an unforgettable small town, five residents with intimate connections to Dale and drastically different goals for the night will collide into, conspire with, and aid one another as they scramble to make it successfully through the evening under the scrutinizing watch of neighbors.
To the soundtrack of classics belted out with abandon, voices will crack, cars will be stolen, marriages will falter, and kids will slip away in search of trouble. And maybe, just maybe, lives will be transformed for the better.
The Summer Girl
by Elle Kennedy đ
9781250863874 | Romance
Description:
College student Cassie Soul hasnât spent an entire summer in Avalon Bay in years, not since her parents divorced and her mother spitefully whisked her away to Boston. Now that her grandmother is selling the boardwalk hotel thatâs been in their family for five decades, Cassie returns to the quaint beach town to spend time with family, ring in her twenty-first birthdayâŚand maybe find herself a summer fling.
On her first night in town, she finds the perfect candidate: Tate Bartlett, Avalon Bayâs fun-loving golden boy.
Tate, sailing instructor and lovable player, is no stranger to flings. In fact, heâs always down for a good time. But the moment he meets Cassie, he knows sheâs not the girl you play games with. Cassie is gorgeous, hilarious, and, frankly, the coolest person heâs ever met. The last thing he wants to do is risk breaking her heart, and so he reluctantly puts her in the friend-zoneâŚonly to realize he made a huge mistake. Soon, his attraction to Cassie becomes impossible to ignore. He wants that fling now. Big-time. And maybe even something more.
Kukum
by Michel Jean đ, Translated by Susan Ouriou đ
9781487010904 | Indigenous
Description:
Kukum recounts the story of Almanda SimĂŠon, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, who falls in love with a young Innu man despite their cultural differences and goes on to share her life with the Pekuakami Innu community. They accept her as one of their own: Almanda learns their language, how to live a nomadic existence, and begins to break down the barriers imposed on Indigenous women. Unfolding over the course of a century, the novel details the end of traditional ways of life for the Innu, as Almanda and her family face the loss of their land and confinement to reserves, and the enduring violence of residential schools.
Sunshine Nails
by Mai Nguyen đ
9781668011256 | Family Life
Description:
Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have made a good life for themselves in Toronto, but their landlord has just jacked up the rent of their family-run nail salon, Sunshine Nails, and itâs way more than they can afford. When Take Ten, a glamorous chain offering a more luxurious salon experience, moves into the neighborhood, the Tran family is terrified of losing their businessâand the community theyâve built around them.
But daughter Jessica comes to their rescue. Sheâs just moved back home after a messy breakup and an even messier firing. Together with her workaholic brother, Dustin, and recently immigrated cousin, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. But as the line between right and wrong gets blurred, relationships are put to the test, and Debbie and Phil must choose: Do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon?
Lump
by Nathan Whitlock đ
9781459751286 | Family Life
Description:
Cat’s career has stalled, her marriage has gone flat, and being a stay-at-home mom for two young kids has become a grind. When she finds out, all within a few days, that she is pregnant, that a lump in her breast is the worst thing it could be, and that her husband has done something unforgivably repulsive, she responds by running away from her marriage and her life â a life that, on the outside, looks like middle-class success. Her actions send waves of chaos through the lives of multiple characters, including a struggling house cleaner, a rich and charismatic yoga guru, and even an ailing dog. What follows is a dark comedy about marriage, motherhood, privilege, and power.
Famous for a Time
by Jason Wilson đ & Richard M. Reid đ
9781459749955 | History
Description:
The cultural impact of sport on a nation is not slight. Famous for a Time explores a number of important, if not well remembered, Canadian athletes and the sports they played to help explain the nationâs complicated history, sporting and otherwise. It is an exploration that reveals the socio-cultural trends that have shaped Canada since Confederation.
Through the prism of some exceptional athletes, the prevailing attitudes of many Canadians about class, race, masculinity, femininity, and national identity are laid bare. Here, from the sidelines, we learn how these attitudes have changed â or not, as the case may be â over time.
From team sports such as lacrosse, baseball, and cricket to Canadaâs cycling craze, track and field, and boxing, each chapter offers insight into an important aspect of the nationâs narrative. The winners and losers of Canadaâs games simply mirror the larger questions that have faced Canadian society across three centuries.
To Have and to Heist
by Sara Desai đ
9780593548509 | Mystery & Detective
Description:
Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. Sheâs lost yet another job, her student loan debt wonât stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, sheâs desperate for a breakâthatâs right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.
Jack is just as charming as he is mysterious. When he offers to help her find the missing necklace and steal it back, Simi jumps at the chance to clear her friendâs name and collect the substantial reward. But every good heist needs a crew. All she needs to do is transform a ragtag group of strangers into an elite heist crew, infiltrate a high-society wedding and steal the necklace from a dangerous criminal before the happy couple say âI doâ. Meanwhile the bride is keeping secrets, a detective with a slow-burn smile keeps showing up at her door, and the ultimate robbery might not be the wedding con, but the way Jack is stealing her heart.
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