Staff Picks
At FriesenPress, we celebrate each and every book we help our authors publish. Here are some of our team’s recent favourites – happy reading!
the bee and the fleur de lis
love poems for the broken hearted and unrequited by
D R Kendel
Love is primal…and heartbreak? Inevitable. the bee and the fleur de lis is a collection of deeply personal poetry born of hopeless romanticism and truly heartbreaking experiences. Through both free verse and rhyming poetry, D R Kendel plays with language to provoke curiosity and sentiments that tug at the readers’ heartstrings. Her linguistic and punctuation choices contrast romanticism and harshness to capture the beauty love has to offer as well as the pain one must endure while loving in their lifetime. References to the poets, songwriters, and artists who have inspired her can be found scattered throughout Kendel’s work, and her word choices often reflect her love of botany and nature’s charm. This collection has a broad appeal for readers who love beautiful, captivating poetry and who are interested in exploring love and relationships.
Max and Indy at the Christmas Market
by
Charmaine Blackman
The annual Christmas market is a wondrous place. It is full of beautiful sights and delicious smells. Each year, Max and Indy pick out gifts for each other at the market. This year, they head to the market to choose their gifts. They part ways after agreeing to meet back at the towering tree at midnight. Indy finds the perfect gift for Max: gingerbread cookies! But when she sees a little girl hungry and crying in the cold, she must decide what to do with the gift. Should she give it to the girl or keep it for Max? Max finds the perfect gift for Indy: a pretty ornament! But when he sees a little boy who does not have enough money to buy an ornament, he must decide what to do with the gift. Should he give it to the boy or keep it for Indy? When Max and Indy meet back at the towering tree at midnight, the friends both have a story to share with each other.
A Beacon in the Mist
A Novel by
Robert J. Daley
Obsession cuts both ways. Dr. Liam O’Keefe is a top surgeon in Washington, D.C., a master of control in the operating room. At home, it’s a different story. With three young children and a wife, Sara, who feels her career as an investigative journalist has been disregarded, the strain on their marriage is quietly reaching a breaking point. Then Sara is found murdered just blocks from their home. While the police stall, Liam begins searching for answers, and possibly for redemption. What starts as a desperate attempt to make sense of her death becomes a slow unraveling of the life they built together. The secrets she left behind. The ones he has tried to forget. Everyone is a suspect. Even Liam himself. The clues start to fall into place, but the truth is just out of reach. Set in the heart of Washington, this medical mystery peels back the polished surface of marriage, ambition, and control.
Escaping the Hollow
by
Sam Bentley
Tyler is a teenager with the most terrifying ability imaginable—the power to sense people’s emotions and manipulate them. Trained under a ruthless emperor who seeks to hollow out human souls and seize control of the world, Tyler longs for escape. But even if he finds freedom, he must keep his talent a secret, for if anyone discovers what he can do, he’ll never be safe. Peter has lost everything—his home, his family, and his people—all of them slaughtered by the same emperor who has enslaved Tyler. Now, with only his middle son left, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep him hidden, even if it means trusting people he fears. Kit has fought for everything he has, but his unpredictable ability to travel back and forth through time threatens to unravel it all. When a vision reveals a prophecy of the emperor’s downfall, Kit becomes a target. If the emperor finds him, he won’t just stop the prophecy; he’ll end Kit’s future for good. Nyla is bearing the emperor’s heir. Forced to marry him but unwilling to allow her husband to turn her unborn son into a monster, she flees, forced to rely on the emperor’s enemies to keep her hidden. Four lives, four dangerous secrets, and a ruthless ruler who will do anything to retain his hold on power. Can they outrun the empire before it claims them too?
Nomenclature Of An Idle Thought
by
Isheiko Cleare
"And the irony of life was how long it took me to realize how short it is." In this unflinching collection of aphorisms, Isheiko Cleare reflects on love and loneliness, power and faith, childhood and identity. With a voice that’s inquisitive, wry, cynical, hopeful, intrusive, yet potently human, he distills life’s contradictions into lines you’ll want to underline and return to: “She asked if I’ve ever been to war. I said yes. I was once in love.” “Most men are debris of their childhoods.” “Rock bottom taught me not to throw stones.” These fragments of insight stand alone, yet together they form a portrait of a mind wrestling with what it means to live honestly in a world of masks, myths, and endless noise. For readers of contemporary poetry, philosophy, and anyone seeking flashes of clarity in the chaos of being human, Nomenclature of an Idle Thought is a reminder that no one is alone in what they think.
They Don't Make Studebakers Anymore
A Fictional Memoir by
David Becker
I was born on the hood of a Studebaker . . . So begins the story of Boy, coming of age in a small town in the 1960s. From trying to understand the Cold War, to first kisses, and the moon landing, Boy struggles to make sense of his world. The unexpected disappearance of his father raises a multitude of questions: Was he really born in outer space? What exactly does one do when The Bomb lands in your backyard? And what precisely is supposed to happen on the front porch after your first slow dance with a girl? With his exceptional memory and keen observation skills, he chronicles the indignities of summer camp, drama club, driving lessons, and the prom—often with hilarious results—all while trying to assert some independence, and supporting his mother through her struggles to keep the family going. But as childhood makes way for adolescence and mystery gives way to mastery, Boy finds his newfound certainty turned upside down when he makes an unexpected discovery, and a forest-green car that looks an awful lot like the long-lost Studebaker turns everything on its head.
Collective Souls
by
J. Marshall
What if the path to healing your past begins with accepting your child for who they truly are? Collective Souls is a powerful, fictionalized account of four women learning to reclaim their voices. Set in rural 1980s Canada, the story unfolds through interwoven narratives of the women as girls, grappling with poverty, displacement, and generational trauma—setting the stage for who they will become as mothers. Each protagonist—fierce, flawed, and mother to an LGBTQ+ child—wrestles with where she fits: within her family, her community, and most of all, herself. All are determined to protect their children, even if it means facing truths that they have buried deep. This is a novel about motherhood as advocacy, about parenting not from perfection but from the desire to heal what you never had. It’s about the shift from silent shame to finding your voice, from survival to agency. With tenderness and grit, Collective Souls invites you into these women’s kitchens, barns, bars, and backroads—and into the hearts of women learning, at last, to belong to themselves.
Grandma's Blue Bucket
by
Valerie E. Fritz
Grandma’s garden is a magical place. With a blue bucket in hand, Linh and Grandma explore the wonderful vegetables that grow in the warm, dark earth. Linh learns how to open a pea pod to eat the fresh peas nestled inside, which tomatoes are the best to pick, and where to find potatoes deep in the soil. There are so many incredible plants and vegetables, and Linh can’t wait to find them all. One, two, three… a dozen or maybe 200! And after all the vegetables are picked, what will Grandma and Linh do with them? There’s more delight to discover in Grandma’s kitchen. Grandma's Blue Bucket is a sweet, heartwarming story about the bond between a young girl and her grandmother. It shares the beauty of nature and the importance of eating good, healthy food. Grandchildren fill a grandparent’s heart with joy, wonder, and love—and this book shares that contentment with readers young and old.