"The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to...

Love and violence. In some families they're bound up together, dysfunctional and poisonous, passed from generation to generation like eye color or a quirk of smile. Trisha's trying to break the chain, channeling her violent impulses into Muay Thai kickboxing, an unlikely sport for a slightly built girl of Trinidadian descent. Her father comes and goes as he pleases, his presence adding a layer of tension to Toronto's east-end townhouse Trisha and...

For Hunter Frank, the summer of '79 begins with his mother returning home only to collect her welfare cheques for the last two months. When his older sister escapes their northern BC town and his brother goes to fight forest fires, Hunter is on his own. It's been a good summer for the young entrepreneur, but the cash in the purple Crown Royal bag hidden in his mattress still isn't enough to fund his escape from his monstrous mother and the town of...

Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who's often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he's also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can't rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except...

Gloria, an impulsive, naive and likeable teen with FASD tries to keep her family together while her mother's addictions threaten a move to foster care. Willa, an older teen with LD, wants to play in a rock band where her gifts truly shine but her mother's controlling and perfectionistic personality--and Willa's increasingly abusive boyfriend--cause her unhappiness. When Gloria and Willa are partnered in a school club, they soon come to appreciate...

Magic is forbidden throughout the Morning Realms. Magicians are called abomination, and blamed for the plague of monsters that razed the land twenty years before. Jin Zhara already had enough to worry about—appease her stepmother’s cruel whims, looking after her blind younger sister, and keeping her own magical gifts under control—without having to deal with rumors of monsters re-emerging in the marsh. But when a chance encounter with an easily...

Knowing each other for eight years, when they were troublemaking kids sharing secrets and first kisses, Ethan and Rebecca, kept apart by grief and tragedy, will discover whether their hardships have torn them apart or will bring them closer than ever. Eight years ago, Ethan and Rebecca met, two troublemaking kids sharing secrets and first kisses in a tree house, until Ethan's mom returned to take him away. Each and every visit, his only goodbye was...

A Story of Grandparent Carers What happens when a family falls apart, for whatever reason? Be it drugs, alcohol, mental illness or domestic violence, children are caught in the middle, and they suffer. But who will step in to save them? This dilemma faced Donna, a migrant mother, when she realised that her own infant grandchild had been born into a bad situation. Isabella was neglected, a child at risk, when Donna and Tom commenced the long battle...

WHY WON'T SHE HAVE SEX? - This question strikes a chord in the hearts of singles. For Sarah, she's up to no sex till marriage even as she struggles with rising emotions for a young, rich and handsome man, Richard. If you ask Wendy, she'll probably say, "Why not?" To her, if there's no sex in a relationship, then the message of love has not been passed. And Suzan is on the fence, she wants the best of both worlds...Many youths like Sarah, Wendy and...

"After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is finally ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece--"his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet." Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that's when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily--the...