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in the North Atlantic Sea,

some very Randomanimals

are hiding in the trees鈥�

So begins Ashley Fayth鈥檚 delightful nonsense poem in which readers meet a range of 鈥渨ild and wondrous鈥� beasts鈥攍ike the sniger, the floose, the squiffin, and the butterflabbit. With its playful rhymes and rollicking rhythm, this book is a perfect read-aloud. Yet even in its silliest moments, The Sniger and聽 the Floose is a gentle reminder to respect and preserve the beauty of the natural world around us, and a joyous celebration of imagination.

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The book is divided into two sections, representing the unique voice and perspective of each author. Wheaton's section consists of two elegant lyric poems, as well as a fifteen-part sequence written in a poetic form known as "ghazals." Sorrowing and precise, the poems in this sequence survey the remains of her working-class childhood home, a once-thriving place, ravaged by family alcoholism and despair. Both celebratory and grieving, these poems grapple intensely with larger issues of working-class poverty, limited choices, and the chaotic legacy of addiction.

The book's opening section gathers together twenty lyric poems by Richards, each one steeped in his own direct, visceral experience of his beloved Miramichi. Bold, plain-spoken, and elegiac, these deeply felt poems explore the grand terrain of love and loss and are marked with the same purposefulness, acuity, and compassion that appear in Richards' fiction.

Alike and different, these two writers share a devotion to the physical landscapes of New Brunswick and call us to fiercely cherish the beauty of rural life and experience.

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Elspeth, recently retired from Cape Breton University's Celtic Culture Department, is not sure how to deal with her teenage daughter Cecelia's outdated and strangely troubling post-secondary plans. Maybe the spiritual inclination Cecelia has would have been welcomed in the past, but with all the scandals the Catholic Church has been going through during recent decades, all Elspeth can do is wonder if it is too early in the day for a glass of wine before responding.

Cecelia has always been a quiet, sometimes even cold child, and Elspeth worries once again if she and Andrew had been too old to raise a menopausal baby. Now as Cecelia approaches high school graduation, and all the decisions that come with that transition, the gap between them seems to be more than merely an age thing.

As she tries to understand her strange desire to become a nun, Cecelia befriends an aging Sister at the Notre Dame congregation at the convent in Mabou. Madonna, a fitting name for a woman who lived a life devoted to God, is in a time of transition as well, struggling with ailments of an aging mind and body. Because of Cecelia's interest, she tries to piece together the reasons she became a bride of Christ.

Faith, family, and fate bring these three women together. Cecelia is looking for hope in an increasingly fragile world but Madonna's past, if she can face it, may challenge all of them.

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In sharp, insightful prose, Boy With a Problem taps into the heart of our deeply human fear of failing to truly connect with others. The fissures that erupt between us, how quickly they widen from cracks to chasms鈥攖his is the thread running through these wise, raw, and tender stories.

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Readers return to Allan Cooper's poems to be reminded of the quiet power of nature and how it can shape our lives and provide sustenance, vision, and even salvation when necessary. Here are poems to be read slowly and cherished.

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Here are illuminating stories of love, heartbreak, daydreams, and expectations 鈥� fulfilled and unfulfilled. Curtis charts the lives of small-town boys and girls, men and women who struggle with the challenges and limitations of poverty, isolation, and a kind of discrimination rarely documented in fiction.

Each work is marked by the insight of a veteran author whose life has been dedicated to the creation of a singular fictional world unique to the Maritimes but universal in its echoes of the unending longing of the human spirit. It is a world where dreams are born and die and sometimes live on despite the odds.

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On the street, hard-drinking Halifax police detective Ray Vargas has an unfailing habit for finding trouble, and when a man is found shot to death in the back of a Chevy truck, Vargas finds more trouble than he can handle 鈥� the murdered man is his oldest friend and the husband of his lover.

Frank's death reminds Ray of an unspoken debt left unpaid. He sets off to find a killer in a city that doesn't much want a killer to be found. At every turn, he encounters lies and danger. With his partner Artie Brennan and friends Ezekiel Dixon and jazz great Louis Armstrong, Ray tries to make sense of the deepening mystery, but hope is hard to come by 鈥� at least until he meets Lee White, Frank's one-time assistant, who might just be his own bridge to a better tomorrow.

Nothing in Halifax is what it seems. As the tension builds, and the stakes grow higher, Ray knows that his own future with Lee depends on his solving the mystery. But to do that, he must make a difficult choice: cross a bridge 鈥� or burn it.

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