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2014., General, Alfred A. Knopf Canada Call No: Fic MacD Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A powerful drama about motherhood, the dark undercurrents that break and hold families together, and the power and pressures of love. Mary-Rose MacKinnon is a successful YA author who has made enough from her writing to semi-retire in her early 40s. She lives in a comfortable Toronto neighbourhood with her partner and their two young children trying valiantly and often hilariously to balance her creative pursuits with domestic demands. As a child, Mary-Rose suffered from an illness, long since cured and "filed separately" - in her mind. But as her frustrations mount, she experiences a flare-up of forgotten symptoms.
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-- Afterbirthc2015., Adult, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Call No: Fic Alb Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A year has passed since Ari gave birth to Walker, though it went so badly awry she has trouble calling it 'birth' and still she can't locate herself in her altered universe. Amid the strange, disjointed rhythms of her days and nights and another impending winter in upstate New York, Ari is a tree without roots, struggling to keep her branches aloft. When Mina, a one-time cult musician--older, self-contained, alone, and nine-months pregnant--moves to town, Ari sees the possibility of a new friend, despite her unfortunate habit of generally mistrusting women. Soon they become comrades-in-arms, and the previously hostile terrain seems almost navigable."--Amazon.com.
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-- Then she fell :2023., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: NEW IND Fic Ell Availability:0 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences. .
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2016., Adult, Second Story Press Call No: Fic And Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Born in Germany, Marguerite was just into her twenties when she moved to Tunisia with her French lover. She thought she was choosing a life of adventure and freedom, but what she got was children and a marriage that quickly became abusive. Constrained by the minutiae of everyday life, Marguerite longs for the agency to make her own choices. Eventually she flees, leaving her children behind for a year and a half. As the world labels her a wife, a mother, and eventually a bad mother, Marguerite wrestles with her own definition of personhood. Can you love your children and want your own life at the same time?"--From publisher.
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2008., Back Bay Books Call No: Fic Hil Edition: 2022 Back Bay reissue edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: It's summer on Nantucket, and as the season begins, three women arrive at the local airport, observed by Josh, a local boy, home from college. Burdened with small children, unwieldy straw hats, and some obvious emotional issues, the women -- two sisters and one friend -- make their way to the sisters' tiny cottage, inherited from an aunt. They're all trying to escape from something: Melanie, after seven failed in-vitro attempts, discovered her husband's infidelity and then her own pregnancy; Brenda embarked on a passionate affair with an older student that got her fired from her prestigious job as a professor in New York; and her sister Vickie, mother to two small boys, has been diagnosed with cancer. Soon Josh is part of the chaotic household, acting as babysitter, confidant, and, eventually, something more, while the women confront their pasts and map out their futures.
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By Dean, Sunyi2022., Adult, Tor Call No: Fic Dea Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
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2023., Invisible Publishing Call No: NEW IND 811.6 M847b Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Beginning with a revelation of familial sexual abuse, Building a Nest from the Bones of My People charts the impact of this revelation on the speaker. From the pain of estrangement to navigating first-time motherhood in the midst of a family crisis, Morgan explores the complexities of generational and secondary abuse, intertwined as they are with the impacts of colonization.
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2022., Linda Leith Publishing Call No: NEW QWF Bio S399c Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: When Tarah Schwartz miscarried for the first time at almost five months, it was devastating. Determined to try again, more miscarriages would follow, threatening her stability and her relationships, and changing her profoundly. In this memoir, she puts words to excruciating loss to recount her journey to motherhood. As a long time news reporter, Schwartz spent years in front of a television camera telling stories that reflected the power of the human spirit to survive. This time she tells her own.
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c2011., Adult, HarperCollins Call No: 306.8743 B136c Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Identifies vulnerabilities in today's parenting models for women, arguing that current recommendations are imposing 1950s-era limitations at the expense of women's health, fatherhood, and child independence.
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c2003., Harmony Books Call No: 306.874 F791f Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your LibraryClick here to watch Click here to view
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By Ohlin, Alix2019., Blackriars Call No: Fic Ohl Availability:0 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A masterful achievement: a joint coming-of-age story and an achingly poignant portrait of the strange, painful, ultimately life-sustaining bonds between sisters. Lark and Robin are half-sisters whose similarities end at being named for birds. While Lark is shy and studious, Robin is wild and artistic. Raised in Montreal by their disinterested single mother, they form a fierce team in childhood despite these differences. As they grow up, Lark excels at school and Robin becomes an extraordinary pianist. At seventeen, Lark flees to America to attend college, where she finds her calling in documentary films, and her sister soon joins her. Later, in New York City, the sisters find themselves tested: Lark struggles with self-doubt, and Robin chafes against the demands of Juilliard. Under pressure, their bond grows strained and ultimately broken, and their paths diverge. Lark leaves New York when she meets Lawrence Wheelock, a renowned filmmaker who becomes both her employer and occasional lover, while Robin returns to Canada. When Wheelock denies Lark what she hopes for most of all--a child--she is forced to re-examine a life marked by unrealized ambitions and thwarted desires. And as she takes charge of her destiny, Lark discovers that despite their complicated, oftentimes painful relationship, there is only one person she can truly rely on: her sister. In this gripping, unforgettable novel about motherhood, sisterhood, desire, and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complex path toward fulfillment as an artist and a human being, capturing the peculiar language of sisters, and making visible the imperceptible strings that bind us to the ones we love--or have loved--for good"--
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2014., Inanna Publications Edition: eBook ed. Summary Note: Evie Troy, an impulsive and funny young Jewish woman, has a tendency to overcomplicate things. And that can get her into trouble. When her dying friend Jean-Gabriel, a successful and controversial francophone writer, cons her into carrying out his last wish, delivering a monetary mea-culpa to his ex-wife Amélie, Evie decides she knows better. In a fit of misguided generosity, she appropriates his cash to help set herself up as a surrogate mother on behalf of the barren Amélie, a plan she keeps so secret not even Amélie has an inkling a baby is headed her way. Evie's pregnancy scheme pops so many holes at the seams that she's forced to enlist the aid of her estranged mother Marilyn. Back when she was Evie's age Marilyn lit out on the Abortion Caravan, a cross-Canada road trip whose final blow-out demonstration in Ottawa brought the work of Parliament crashing to a feminist halt. Marilyn can't fathom her daughter's daft determination to saddle up her womb on spec, but she agrees to come on board and the two of them head-butt their way through every step of Evie's program, from arm-twisting Mr. Right into coughing up his sperm to staging the flimflam that will relay the newborn to the oblivious Amélie. But will Amélie accept the baby they're offering up gift-wrapped? Played out against the backdrop of the fight for women's rights in Canada, The Village Idiot's Buffet is the boisterous tale of a mother and daughter at odds, struggling to reconnect across a reproductive divide.
![Evie, the Baby and the Wife [eBook]](/Library/images/cover/noimage.png "Evie, the Baby and the Wife [eBook]")
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2023., Simon & Schuster Call No: BLK Fic Joh Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright...Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC's elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don't let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William's family and grant her the life she's been searching for.
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2009., Adult, Hutchinson Call No: Fic Ken Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Years after vowing to herself and her parents to never marry, have children and lead the resentful life they chose, Jane, now a Harvard professor, falls unexpectedly pregnant. Resolved as she's been to childlessness, she begins to warm to the idea of motherhood, even with a partner who is increasingly absent. But a devastating turn of events takes the decision out of her hands in a way she could never have predicted. Her familiar world torn apart, Jane feels forced to leave her old life behind. She resigns from her job, cuts all ties with friends and family and moves to a place where no one will find her. Isolated, she feels she has finally succeeded in leaving her world. Yet when a young girl disappears, prompting a high-profile police investigation, Jane is drawn in. Convinced that the person at the heart of the case is much closer to her new community than anyone realises, she has to make a decision to either stay hidden or bring to light a shocking truth.
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2002, c2001., Picador USA Call No: 306.874 C985L Edition: 1st U.S. ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library
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2019., Adult, Harper Avenue Call No: MYS Fic Gol Edition: 1st Canadian ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Lauren, a new mother, is exhausted by the demands of her twin boys. Since coming home from the hospital, she rarely leaves the house. But it isn't only new motherhood keeping her there. Lauren knows someone is watching them and someone wants her babies. It started with an incident at the hospital and an emergency call in the middle of the night. No one believes her -- not her husband, not the police -- until one day in the park when everything changes. Is Lauren mad or does she know something no one else does?
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2008., Adult, Europa Editions Call No: Fic FER Edition: Paperback ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Leda is a middle-aged divorcee devoted to her work as an English teacher and to her two children. When her daughters leave home to be with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarrassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in southern Italy. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things begin to take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless, event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The apparently serene tale of a woman's pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past."--From publisher.
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2014., Adult, Goose Lane Editions Call No: 819.4608 C591m Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: There isn't a mother who hasn't thought of herself as stationed far outside maternity's central zone--that imaginary place where all the babies are cooing, bananas are never bruised, and every woman is comfortable enough in her own skin to disregard a magazine's blaring provocation: Are You Mom Enough? In this original and sometimes provocative collection of essays, Saleema Nawaz, Alison Pick, Nancy Jo Cullen, Carrie Snyder, and many others explore the boundaries of contemporary motherhood. There are the women who have had too many children or not enough. There are women for whom motherhood is a fork in the road, encountered with contradictory emotions. And there are those who have made the conscious choice not to have children and then find themselves defined by that decision. Here some of Canada's best writers face down motherhood from the other side of the picket fence. The M Word. It means something to every woman. Exactly what it means is rarely simple. -- Provided by publisher.
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2023., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: Fic Joy Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Series Title: Harold Fry novel.Summary Note: Ten years after her husband, Harold Fry, made his extraordinary walk across England to try and save a dying friend, Maureen Fry makes her own pilgrimage, and although she packs a proper bag and takes the car, her trip will be equally transformative. Unlike her husband, Maureen does not make friends easily, and she is not entirely sure what she hopes to find at the end of the road, but this is a journey she knows she must make, whatever obstacles present themselves on the way. This is a novel about finding your place in the world, and discovering how we connect to each other; about loss, and love and learning to forgive others, and most of all ourselves.
