April is the coolest month

Canadian Independent Bookstore Day is April 27, but every day is a good day to check out new releases at your local shop, according to Pat St. Germain.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Shashi Bhat McClelland & Stewart

More proof that great things come in small packages. This short-story collection from gifted novelist Shashi Bhat gives us nine female protagonists who are so genuine they're basically our new best friends for the duration. A woman who takes smart precautions on first dates is cajoled into going along with a dating-app match's seemingly reasonable suggestions on a second date. Totally get it, even as the date progresses from cringey to scary. A writer is naturally mortified when her ex-boyfriend publishes a novel featuring a woman who is obviously based on her.

And a lonely, self-repressed giantess who gets a chance to shine at the library where she works goes to extreme lengths to make it to the event.

Some stories are informative. A college student with self-esteem issues considers having a laser procedure to change her eye colour and it turns out to be a real — and really disturbing — experimental treatment. (Also, it seems all people with blue eyes have a common ancestor.)

And thanks to a story titled Am I The A--hole, you may discover the joy of spending thousands of hours reading actual AITA posts on Reddit.

Droll, surreal, poignant, infuriating — Death covers a lot of bases.

Want more? Pick up Bhat's novel The Most Precious Substance on Earth. In 2022, it was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award for Fiction.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

Nadine Sander-Green House of Anansi Press

Young, green and ripe for the plucking, 24-year-old Millicent lands her first reporting job in Whitehorse a few months after graduating from college. Luckily, she has a friend in need of a roommate on the outskirts of town, but as winter settles in, Millicent's life takes a dark turn. She mistakes a creepy predator for a rebel artist and becomes mired in a toxic relationship.

Ocean Drive

Sam Wiebe Harbour Publishing

Paroled seven years after a manslaughter conviction, hotheaded 29-year-old Cameron Shaw gets a mysterious job offer involving an international crime syndicate. Looks like White

Rock, B.C., cop Meghan Quick is about to have a brush with the same crew after a young woman dies in a house fire under suspicious circumstances. It's the start of a whole new crime series from Vancouver's Sam Wiebe (the Wakeland novels).

Someone Saw Something

Rick Mofina MIRA

Prolific author Rick Mofina's latest thriller is set in New York City, where a six-year-old boy vanishes in Central Park on the way home from school. The plot is on the thick side. The boy's mother is high-profile TV journalist Corina Corado, who adopted him as a baby while she was on assignment in Central America — and who has faced death threats from haters who claim she stole the boy from his birth mother. Her husband is an engineer who's hiding a burner phone from her and the police. And her 16-yearold stepdaughter Charlotte is in a rebellious phase. In fact, Charlotte was babysitting when she was distracted by a text from a much-older boyfriend at the very moment the boy disappeared.

So whodunit? Leave it to New York's finest — single mom detective Vicky Lonza — to close the case.