Evergreen Awards 2010

Each year the Ontario Library Association nominates ten new titles by Canadian authors to be considered for the Evergreen Adult Fiction Award. These titles are read by library patrons across Ontario, who vote for their favourite in October.

Come Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

Jessica Grant's debut novel is one of those rare books that manage to entwine humour with poignant insight and a captivating plot. A story about belonging, relationships, the importance of family, and a kindhearted critique of modern life."

Burmese Lessons By Karen Connelly

Taking the reader into a world as dangerous as it is enchanting, Karen Connelly layers her radiant prose with passion, regret, sensuality, and humor. A story of how one woman came to love a wounded, remarkably beautiful country, and of a gifted man who has given his life to the struggle for change.

February by Lisa Moore

The story of the man who never comes back from sea . Moore's third work of fiction (after Alligator) imagines the impact one such disaster—the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger—has on Helen O'Mara, a mother of three small children whose husband, Cal, dies at sea.

The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman

Inspired by the life of Doctor Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott, The Heart Specialist is the story of Agnes, an ambitious woman pursuing her calling to be a Doctor against all odds in the Montreal of 1875. Long listed for the Giller prize in 2009.

The Mystery of Grace by

Charles d e Lint - As strong a novel as de Lint has yet written, full of mystery, magic, and genuine freshness. "De Lint is a romantic; he believes in the great things, faith, hope, and charity (especially if love is included in that last), but he also believes in the power of magic”--Edmonton Journal

Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg

An intriguing murder mystery debut from one of Canada's foremost criminal lawyers. "Clever, complex, and filled with an engaging cast of characters, Old City Hall captures the vibrancy and soul of Toronto."-- Kathy Reichs

Oonagh by Mary Tilburg

Set in Cobourg in 1833 and based on the fascinating true tale of two unlikely lovers - a runaway slave from the Southern States and an Irish immigrant girl - braving the social persecution of a mixed-race marriage as they try to build a life together in a new land.

Small Beneath the Sky by Lorna Crozier

Small Beneath the Sky begins with light, which is so appropriate to this landscape it would seem a shame to begin anywhere else. Light, not dust, humour, not misery, infuse this memoir. Like the Prairies, a thing worth returning to.” --Globe and Mail

Underground by June Hutton

A debut novel about a man whose search for purpose begins at the Battle of the Somme, crosses Depression-era Western Canada and leads to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War. Hutton's prose is "taut and lean, elegant and poetic”