Anna Careless, The Stone Maiden (Petpeswick Press) $12.95 ISBN 0-9687995-0-7.

       It's Canso, Nova Scotia during the Depression and Prohibition, and Danny has set his sights on Melora, the daughter of the local newspaper publisher. Danny helps his father empty chemical toilets, and with a nickname like Stinky, he'll never be acceptable to Melora's family. Determined to try, he enlists the help of the townspeople and puts his own unique talents to the test.
       Dolores Moffat-Careless has published two other books under the name Anna Careless: An Unfortunate Likeness and Where the Fishermen Sing. A former registered nurse, she worked for many years for the Department of Community Health in the schools of Montreal. She has four children, seven grand-children and currently lives in Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia with her husband, Richard.

Lesley Choyce, Cold Clear Morning (Beach Holme) $18.95 ISBN 0-88878-416-3.

       Taylor Colby returns to his Nova Scotia coastal village home to live with his boat-builder father after his childhood sweetheart Laura's drug-related death. His mother, who deserted them decades earlier, attempts to reconcile with her husband and son. As Taylor grapples with family dysfunction, he becomes involved with Jillian, a feminist professor from Philadelphia, and her troubled twelve-year-old son, who are also on the run from a past they can't seem to escape.
       Born in rural New Jersey in 1951, Lesley Choyce moved to Nova Scotia in 1979 and started his publishing house, Pottersfield Press. Author, poet, publisher, rock 'n' roll musician, surfer, teacher and historian, he has a different career for every day of the week. In 1980, Fiddlehead Poetry Books published his first book. Since then, he's published forty-odd more in almost any genre you care to name.

Wayne Forster, Six Steps to Employment for People with Disabilities (Cambridge Educational) US$19.95 ISBN 1-56450-499-9.

       Competing for available jobs has never been more challenging. Many people with disabilities face additional barriers to employment. This book is designed to help people with disabilities overcome the obstacles they will face in their job search, present themselves effectively and show employers that their disability is not a liability.
       Wayne Forster is the author of Six Steps To Getting the Job You Want, a complete job search guide drawn from his training programs, his twenty years of experience as a manager and his background as a corporate recruiter. The president of Wayne Forster Learning Inc., he designs and delivers training programs, seminars, workshops and conference keynotes for clients across the continent. He lives in Lower Sackville.

Linda Little, Strong Hollow (Goose Lane) $19.95 ISBN 0-86492-308-2.

       The day Jackson Bigney finds his father dead in a ditch is the day he begins his metamorphosis. In his cabin on the hardscarbble Scotch River farm, he takes up bootlegging and carving small objects which melt into the earth. When he meets and falls in love with accomplished fiddler, Ian Sutherland, he learns to make the hollowness inside into music.
       Linda Little's life has been unlike Jackson Bigney's in almost every way. She grew up in a small family in Hawkesbury, Ontario, studied at Queen's and Memorial Universities and lives on a small farm near River John. This is her first novel, but her short fiction and novel excerpts have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Descant, Wayves and the 1999 Journey Prize Anthology. She is a terrible fiddle player.

Alain Raimbault, L'Arbre à Chaussettes (Éditions Hurtubise) $8.95 ISBN 2-89428-477-2.

       Pour son anniversaire, Faustine demande à ses amis des chansons drôles. Une amie du Cameroun lui en apprend une et lui offre aussi une graine mystérieuse. C'est un petit pois séché qui ne semble pas du tout extraordinaire. Et pourtant! Une histoire remplie d'humour et de clins d'oeil, à partir de 7 ans.
       Alain Raimbault was born in Paris in 1966. He studied Foreign Languages at Poitiers University and emigrated to Canada in 1998. He currently teaches in a French school in Greenwood and resides in Grand-Pré. This is his second book, after Herménégilde l'Acadien.

Susan Sweeney and Cathleen Fillmore, Going for Gold! (Elias Press) $29.95 ISBN 0-9684261-0-7.

       From getting started to putting a customized web marketing strategy in place, Going for Gold! provides an invaluable guide to starting and developing a career as a professional speaker. With tips on warming up cold calls, implementing public relations campaigns, what to charge and how to maximize bookings, this book will be useful to any speaker, whether beginning or advanced.
       Susan Sweeney is the president of Connex Network Incorporated, an international Internet marketing and consulting company. She is a frequent speaker at Internet marketing events, seminars, workshops and conferences. She lives in Dartmouth. Cathleen Fillmore is president of Speakers Gold, a coaching agency for speakers and writers.

J. A. Wainwright, A Far Time (Mosaic Press) $20 ISBN 0-88962-756-4.

       Set in California, Spain, Greece and Canada, A Far Time evokes the spirit of the 1960s. A writer, haunted by a youthful relationship, explores the origins of cultural and personal myth-making, the rhythms between landscape and human desire and the connections between what is lost and found in time.
       A Far Time is J. Andrew Wainwright's second novel. His first, A Deathful Ridge: A Novel of Everest, was one of five finalists for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. A Professor of English literature at Dalhousie University, he has lived in Nova Scotia since 1972, and has written and edited numerous works of non-fiction, most recently A Very Large Soul: Selected Letters from Margaret Laurence to Canadian Writers.

Alice Walsh and illustrator Geoff Butler, Heroes of Isle aux Morts (Tundra Books) $18.99 ISBN 0-88776-501-7.

       Anne Harvey has lived all her young life on Isle aux Morts off the coast of Newfoundland, and has seen what raging storms can do to the helpless ships caught in their path. One morning in July 1832, she awakes to the distress signal - the Despatch is in danger. Anne wastes no time in waking her family, and with their Newfoundland dog, they race to the boat. But can they save the passengers before it sinks?
       A former preschool teacher, Alice Walsh is the author of Uncle Farley's False Teeth and Something's Wrong with Kyla's Mother. Illustrator Geoff Butler grew up in three outports in Newfoundland, and is the author of The Hangashore and The Killick: A Newfoundland Story.

Frances Wolfe, Where I Live (Tundra) $17.99 ISBN 0-88776-529-7.

       The young narrator of this picture book lives in a place where the sun winks off the waves, breezes cool the evening and treasures wait to be discovered. Astute readers will notice that the first letter of each two-line verse spells out the answer. Whether you are far inland or at the shore, Where I Live is a memorable way to visit the sea with the youngest of readers.
       Frances Wolfe's home is on the Nova Scotia shore, where her family has lived for more than a century. Although she has been drawing all of her life, she has no formal art training. She works in the children's department of the Halifax Regional Library. This is her first book.