Gail Anderson-Dargatz, the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, brings readers once again into the heart of rural Canada with A Rhinestone Button. As funny as it is tender, it is a novel full of true-to-life characters, natural wonder, and sweet surprises.Despite growing up in the small farming town of Godsfinger, Alberta, Job Sunstrum was always a bit of an outsider. A thin young man with blond, curly hair, he loved baking and cooking, and certainly did not fit in with the rough-and-tumble farm boys around town. Even when Job takes over the farm after his father’s death and his brother’s departure to train as a pastor, his community remains his animals, and perhaps the church women with whom he shares his baking on Sundays. Lonely beyond belief, overwhelmed by religious guilt, and taut with fear at the thought of what life might have in store for him, Job can only turn to God and hope that someday, things will turn around. Only his synesthesia — his ability to see sounds as colours, and feel vibrations as solid forms — provides him with passing moments of solace, but it also reaffirms for him that he experiences the world in a way the other people of Godsfinger could not possibly understand. Then one year, Job’s “tightly coiled” life begins to fall apart, and even the small sureties that got him through the days are torn away from him. The colours even disappear from sounds. Faced with change on every level and not knowing how to live outside the world he was brought up in, Job allows himself to be caught up in the Pentecostal drive of a preacher named Jack Divine, in hopes that clinging to his beliefs, proving his faith, and doing what others expect of him will make everything all right. But when his new-found religious fervour only accelerates his despair and his world continues to crumble, Job is surprised to find that true faith can be found in earthly experiences, and come from the most unlikely of sources. That a world without the familiar colours and shapes of sound is not half-heard, as he feared, but freed to break out in song.Like Anderson-Dargatz’s previous novels, A Rhinestone Button is a loving and magical portrait of small-town life that makes us question what we believe is real, and true.

If you almost had everything that you wanted, how hard would you fight to protect it?

Kira is engaged to the man of her dreams: he’s charming, handsome, wealthy, and a great dad to their baby, Evie, and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Olive. Having grown up with a troubled relationship with her mother and mostly estranged from her father, Kira craves a close family and secure home, and with Aaron, Evie and Olive, she almost has it. The only problem is Aaron’s ex-wife, Madison, who’s out of control and trying to get to Olive. When Kira takes the girls out of town to her childhood summer home and finds out that Madison has followed them, she panics.

Between the beach and the forest on Manitoulin Island, Kira fights to protect Olive, Evie and her fiancé, until a dark secret threatens to unravel the life that is almost hers. With the future she has built hanging in the balance, and her past haunting her at every turn, Kira must choose who to believe and who she wants to be.

National Bestseller

If the man you love went missing, how far would you go to find him? 

Someone is watching Piper, and she thinks she knows who it is: the bushman. But there’s more than one danger lurking in this temperate rainforest. Poachers are taking down old growth trees and jeopardizing plans for a park, a project Piper is passionate about. When she pressures her husband, Ben, a natural resources officer, to identify the culprits, he takes his drone into the wilderness to track them down. And then, just as a snowstorm hits, he goes missing. 

Refusing to believe her husband is gone, Piper begins a desperate search for him, one that continues long after the rescue team has given up. But as she begins to uncover what really happened to Ben, Piper is pursued by a stalker who may have taken her husband’s life and now threatens to take hers.

Key Selling Points

Mark is a city kid who has come to a small town to live with his grandmother after his mom goes into rehab.

Mark has to take a school bus home for the first time. The long, noisy ride home is nothing like riding city transit. There’s some kind of secret code of knowing where you’re allowed to sit, the kids scream nonstop and someone even tries to set Mark’s seat on fire. He quickly decides that all these kids are too strange and does his best to avoid them. But when tragedy strikes, Mark learns that he has more in common with these country kids than he had ever imagined.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! The epub edition of this title is fully accessible. Available in French as L’autobus infernal.

Sixteen-year-old Emma can’t imagine anyone being romantically interested in her.

But after a summer morning working at the café with her best friend Robin and new hire Jack, Emma finds a rose in the tip jar. Is the flower really for her? Emma wonders if Jack is the one who left the rose. Or maybe someone left the rose for him or for Robin. The more Emma thinks and talks about the rose, the more uncomfortable the vibe at the café gets. Now Emma just wants to figure out who likes her, who she likes and what to do about it. This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading-level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

Jay doesn't believe in Bigfoot.

His dad loves hunting for Bigfoot, but searching for a mythical creature in the dark isn't Jay's idea of fun. Especially because he always gets stuck looking out for his little sister while his dad plays with the cool gear, like night-vision goggles. But while out on a camping trip, a large creature starts hunting them, and then Jay’s father goes missing. Jay is forced to start tracking the creature himself while still keeping his sister safe. It turns out that not only is Bigfoot real but it isn't the only threat in the woods. There’s a different kind of monster out here, one who is armed with a gun. Jay must act fast to save his father before it’s too late. And he needs Bigfoot’s help to do it.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! This edition is formatted using Noah Text® which increases reading accessibility and fluency for striving readers by highlighting syllables and long vowels. The epub edition of this title is fully accessible.

Charlotte is going to prove her grandma is right—the lake monster is real!

When Charlotte gets a drone for her fourteenth birthday, she’s determined to get footage of Dottie, the elusive lake monster of Dorothy Lake. Her grandma, who has dedicated her life to searching for the monster, is the joke of the town. But when Charlotte manages to capture a video of the monster and posts it online, she’s the sudden target of a media storm. Now everyone is making fun of her too. Worse, droves of monster hunters arrive in her town, crowding the lake. When their boat propellers threaten to hurt Dottie, Charlotte is faced with a difficult choice.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! This edition is formatted using Noah Text® which increases reading accessibility and fluency for striving readers by highlighting syllables and long vowels.

En skola utsätts för bombhot på sociala medier. Trots stora insatser hittar man ingen bomb. Journalisten Claire Abbott tror sig veta vem den skyldige är, men polisen lyssnar inte på henne. Nu är det upp till Claire att lösa fallet på egen hand. Hon tar hjälp av skolans vaktmästare. Men tiden är knapp ...

Småstadsjournalisten Claire Abbott har ett sjätte sinne när det gäller svårlösta brott. Hon får syner som leder henne till de skyldiga, och därmed kan hon hjälpa polisen att lösa fallen. Det är både farligt och spännande. Samtidigt får vi följa hennes privatliv och hennes nya förhållande med chefen för räddningstjänsten.

Kampen mot klockan är tredje boken i serien om journalisten Claire Abbott. Böckerna är skrivna av den kanadensiska författaren Gail Anderson-Dargatz. Hon visste redan som 18-åring att hon ville skriva om kvinnor på landsbygden. I dag är hon storsäljande författare och finns utgiven i många länder världen över. Detta är den tredje av hennes böcker som översatts till svenska.

Sagt om första boken i serien, Kidnappad: ”Det är rappt och effektivt skrivet, karaktärerna är tydliga, och antydda stämningar och situationer skapar fin närvarokänsla. Riktigt bra.” Staffan Engstrand, BTJ

Sagt om andra boken i serien, Leka med elden: ”Det är också en riktigt spännande och lite humoristisk roman som både handlar om relationer och att hitta sig själv, men också om ett brott som måste lösas. /.../ En effektivt berättad, trevlig och lagom nervkittlande liten spänningsroman. Pia Lindestrand, BTJ

Viljas böcker är uppskattade av personer som är ovana vid att läsa eller kanske har någon form av lässvårigheter. Språket är enkelt med innehållet är anpassat för vuxna läsare.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz, the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, brings readers once again into the heart of rural Canada with A Rhinestone Button. As funny as it is tender, it is a novel full of true-to-life characters, natural wonder, and sweet surprises.Despite growing up in the small farming town of Godsfinger, Alberta, Job Sunstrum was always a bit of an outsider. A thin young man with blond, curly hair, he loved baking and cooking, and certainly did not fit in with the rough-and-tumble farm boys around town. Even when Job takes over the farm after his father’s death and his brother’s departure to train as a pastor, his community remains his animals, and perhaps the church women with whom he shares his baking on Sundays. Lonely beyond belief, overwhelmed by religious guilt, and taut with fear at the thought of what life might have in store for him, Job can only turn to God and hope that someday, things will turn around. Only his synesthesia — his ability to see sounds as colours, and feel vibrations as solid forms — provides him with passing moments of solace, but it also reaffirms for him that he experiences the world in a way the other people of Godsfinger could not possibly understand. Then one year, Job’s “tightly coiled” life begins to fall apart, and even the small sureties that got him through the days are torn away from him. The colours even disappear from sounds. Faced with change on every level and not knowing how to live outside the world he was brought up in, Job allows himself to be caught up in the Pentecostal drive of a preacher named Jack Divine, in hopes that clinging to his beliefs, proving his faith, and doing what others expect of him will make everything all right. But when his new-found religious fervour only accelerates his despair and his world continues to crumble, Job is surprised to find that true faith can be found in earthly experiences, and come from the most unlikely of sources. That a world without the familiar colours and shapes of sound is not half-heard, as he feared, but freed to break out in song.Like Anderson-Dargatz’s previous novels, A Rhinestone Button is a loving and magical portrait of small-town life that makes us question what we believe is real, and true.

If you almost had everything that you wanted, how hard would you fight to protect it?

Kira is engaged to the man of her dreams: he’s charming, handsome, wealthy, and a great dad to their baby, Evie, and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Olive. Having grown up with a troubled relationship with her mother and mostly estranged from her father, Kira craves a close family and secure home, and with Aaron, Evie and Olive, she almost has it. The only problem is Aaron’s ex-wife, Madison, who’s out of control and trying to get to Olive. When Kira takes the girls out of town to her childhood summer home and finds out that Madison has followed them, she panics.

Between the beach and the forest on Manitoulin Island, Kira fights to protect Olive, Evie and her fiancé, until a dark secret threatens to unravel the life that is almost hers. With the future she has built hanging in the balance, and her past haunting her at every turn, Kira must choose who to believe and who she wants to be.

National Bestseller

If the man you love went missing, how far would you go to find him? 

Someone is watching Piper, and she thinks she knows who it is: the bushman. But there’s more than one danger lurking in this temperate rainforest. Poachers are taking down old growth trees and jeopardizing plans for a park, a project Piper is passionate about. When she pressures her husband, Ben, a natural resources officer, to identify the culprits, he takes his drone into the wilderness to track them down. And then, just as a snowstorm hits, he goes missing. 

Refusing to believe her husband is gone, Piper begins a desperate search for him, one that continues long after the rescue team has given up. But as she begins to uncover what really happened to Ben, Piper is pursued by a stalker who may have taken her husband’s life and now threatens to take hers.

Key Selling Points

Mark is a city kid who has come to a small town to live with his grandmother after his mom goes into rehab.

Mark has to take a school bus home for the first time. The long, noisy ride home is nothing like riding city transit. There’s some kind of secret code of knowing where you’re allowed to sit, the kids scream nonstop and someone even tries to set Mark’s seat on fire. He quickly decides that all these kids are too strange and does his best to avoid them. But when tragedy strikes, Mark learns that he has more in common with these country kids than he had ever imagined.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! The epub edition of this title is fully accessible. Available in French as L’autobus infernal.

Sixteen-year-old Emma can’t imagine anyone being romantically interested in her.

But after a summer morning working at the café with her best friend Robin and new hire Jack, Emma finds a rose in the tip jar. Is the flower really for her? Emma wonders if Jack is the one who left the rose. Or maybe someone left the rose for him or for Robin. The more Emma thinks and talks about the rose, the more uncomfortable the vibe at the café gets. Now Emma just wants to figure out who likes her, who she likes and what to do about it. This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading-level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

Jay doesn't believe in Bigfoot.

His dad loves hunting for Bigfoot, but searching for a mythical creature in the dark isn't Jay's idea of fun. Especially because he always gets stuck looking out for his little sister while his dad plays with the cool gear, like night-vision goggles. But while out on a camping trip, a large creature starts hunting them, and then Jay’s father goes missing. Jay is forced to start tracking the creature himself while still keeping his sister safe. It turns out that not only is Bigfoot real but it isn't the only threat in the woods. There’s a different kind of monster out here, one who is armed with a gun. Jay must act fast to save his father before it’s too late. And he needs Bigfoot’s help to do it.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! This edition is formatted using Noah Text® which increases reading accessibility and fluency for striving readers by highlighting syllables and long vowels. The epub edition of this title is fully accessible.

Charlotte is going to prove her grandma is right—the lake monster is real!

When Charlotte gets a drone for her fourteenth birthday, she’s determined to get footage of Dottie, the elusive lake monster of Dorothy Lake. Her grandma, who has dedicated her life to searching for the monster, is the joke of the town. But when Charlotte manages to capture a video of the monster and posts it online, she’s the sudden target of a media storm. Now everyone is making fun of her too. Worse, droves of monster hunters arrive in her town, crowding the lake. When their boat propellers threaten to hurt Dottie, Charlotte is faced with a difficult choice.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! This edition is formatted using Noah Text® which increases reading accessibility and fluency for striving readers by highlighting syllables and long vowels.

En skola utsätts för bombhot på sociala medier. Trots stora insatser hittar man ingen bomb. Journalisten Claire Abbott tror sig veta vem den skyldige är, men polisen lyssnar inte på henne. Nu är det upp till Claire att lösa fallet på egen hand. Hon tar hjälp av skolans vaktmästare. Men tiden är knapp ...

Småstadsjournalisten Claire Abbott har ett sjätte sinne när det gäller svårlösta brott. Hon får syner som leder henne till de skyldiga, och därmed kan hon hjälpa polisen att lösa fallen. Det är både farligt och spännande. Samtidigt får vi följa hennes privatliv och hennes nya förhållande med chefen för räddningstjänsten.

Kampen mot klockan är tredje boken i serien om journalisten Claire Abbott. Böckerna är skrivna av den kanadensiska författaren Gail Anderson-Dargatz. Hon visste redan som 18-åring att hon ville skriva om kvinnor på landsbygden. I dag är hon storsäljande författare och finns utgiven i många länder världen över. Detta är den tredje av hennes böcker som översatts till svenska.

Sagt om första boken i serien, Kidnappad: ”Det är rappt och effektivt skrivet, karaktärerna är tydliga, och antydda stämningar och situationer skapar fin närvarokänsla. Riktigt bra.” Staffan Engstrand, BTJ

Sagt om andra boken i serien, Leka med elden: ”Det är också en riktigt spännande och lite humoristisk roman som både handlar om relationer och att hitta sig själv, men också om ett brott som måste lösas. /.../ En effektivt berättad, trevlig och lagom nervkittlande liten spänningsroman. Pia Lindestrand, BTJ

Viljas böcker är uppskattade av personer som är ovana vid att läsa eller kanske har någon form av lässvårigheter. Språket är enkelt med innehållet är anpassat för vuxna läsare.