Winner of the 1992 Authors Award for Paperback Fiction, Fever was also nominated for a Commonwealth Award. Like Real Life, Sharon Butala’s newest collection of short fiction, it is a collection of short...

On a very dark night, Janet attends a party with her friends Livie and Nathan, where she meets Baker and begins a relationship with him. It is not until much later that Janet begins to unravel his nice-guy...

A woman recounts her childhood growing up with four sisters, little money, and parents who fought constantly until her father finally left. Even as adults, the sisters do not know how to cope with harmony,...

After her marriage deteriorates, Joan’s life also seems to be falling apart. Irked by living in the suburbs—far from downtown and alone in a neighbourhood of families—Joan moves into a room in a shared...

After winning a literary prize, George Barrett is pulled from obscurity and into the spotlight. When the attention impedes his ability to write, George buys an old house that once belonged to a writer...

A woman examines a box of her mother’s personal photos that has been sitting unopened in her basement since her mother’s death. Now, as she discovers images once meaningful to her mother, she begins to...

Though Jeanne hasn’t seen or spoken to her ex-husband in years, learning of his death brings up memories of their past. Jeanne remembers the happiness of their early days together and how alive they had...

When her father-in-law dies, Carol prepares to go through the process of grieving with her husband. What she does not expect is to become entrenched in memories of her own father and their distant relationship,...

While on a business trip in Calgary, Cecilia’s husband, Colin, falls suddenly and seriously ill. With Colin in the hospital in a fevered sleep, Cecilia feels stunned and disconnected, and she finds herself...

With his farm suffering due to drought, his wife incapacitated by depression after a miscarriage, and the house—which seems to be haunted—likely to be foreclosed, Gabriel cannot keep up with all the things...

As a child, Charlotte spent her summers with her cousins in a house that was the polar opposite of her own. Where her household was organized and ran according to schedule, her cousins lived in a state...

Driving across the city to have dinner with old friends, Marion finds herself suddenly reminded of an experience she had long forgotten. As the night progresses, the memories surface one after another,...

Though happy in her current marriage, a woman remains unable to truly move past her first marriage—feeling constantly like she is living a double life: one internal and one external. Her struggles with...

Charlotte’s life is in disarray after her fifteen-year-old daughter moves in with her deadbeat, squatter boyfriend. Charlotte’s husband stops going to work, and instead spends his days watching the Iran-Contra...

Dr. Mowbray no longer feels that he is a healer, but instead believes that he carries death with him. Mr. Baker, dying in the hospital, dreams of being surrounded by the beauty of nature—a bamboo forest,...

When Alexis and her son, Jamie, are interviewed about a play based on their lives, Alexis recalls meaningful moments throughout their relationship and learns that she and Jamie do not share the same opinions...

When it was first published, The Perfection of the Morning catapulted Sharon Butala into literary stardom, causing the Toronto Star to crown her as "one of this country's true visionaries." At once a...

An intimate and uplifting book about finding renewal and hope through grief and loss.“It was a terrible life; it was an enchanted life; it was a blessed life. And, of course, one day it ended.” —Sharon...

Ginny spends her days caring for her mother, Emmaline, and her mother-in-law, Babette, both of whom are elderly and ailing. Though she feels guilty about it, Ginny often finds herself slipping into thoughts...