March 2026 Loan Stars Adult Canadian top picks

Loan Stars is the readers’ advisory tool that allows libraries across Canada to indicate popular upcoming titles. Using LibraryData, the library data aggregation service, the forthcoming titles with the most orders become Loan Stars top picks!

The March 2026 Loan Stars Adult Canadian top 10 list features ten books that have at least one author, illustrator, translator, or editor (in the case of an edited collection of material) who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.

You can see each book and find out a bit more about them in the list below, or you can download our poster if you want to display it, say in your library or on social media. (Tag us: @LoanStarsCA!) You can also view these titles on CataList in this catalogue.

March 2026 Adult Canadian List

Loan Stars top pick:

Son of Nobody

by Yann Martel 🍁

9781039001503 | Literary

Description:

rom the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.

“The past is never done with: always the song continues”

Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody.

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, and always.

Strangers in the Villa

by Robyn Harding 🍁

9781538774007 | Thrillers

Description:

From the international bestselling author of The Drowning Woman, a psychological thriller about a couple rocked by infidelity who moves to a villa in Spain’s Costa Brava to rebuild their relationship, only to welcome a pair of visitors who have no intention of leaving.

Sydney Lowe’s life in New York is shattered when her husband, Curtis, admits to a meaningless affair with a client. Begging for forgiveness and vowing to prove his devotion, Curtis suggests the couple retreat to a remote hilltop house in Spain to repair their marriage.

High above the Mediterranean, Sydney and Curtis are working on the isolated property and their relationship when a pair of Australian travelers turns up at their door in dire need of help. Lonely for companionship and desperate for free labor, Sydney and Curtis invite the attractive young couple to stay. But as the days pass, dark secrets come to light, the Lowes’ bond is tested, and not everyone will leave the villa alive.

Lessons From a Lifetime

by David Suzuki 🍁 with Ian Hanington 🍁

9781536248234 | Biography & Autobiography

Description:

In words and photographs, Lessons From a Lifetime shares David Suzuki's journey from surviving internment camps as a Japanese-Canadian child to becoming North America's most trusted voice in science communication. The book charts his years as a geneticist and superstar professor at the University of British Columbia; his dedication to demystifying complex science through his public broadcasting work, especially his beloved CBC Television program, The Nature of Things; his founding of The David Suzuki Foundation; and his unparalleled dedication to standing up for Indigenous and environmental rights, a dedication that continues today.

A stunning tribute to a fearless truth-teller who transformed how we understand our relationship with the natural world, Lessons From a Lifetime belongs on every bookshelf.

Love Song

by Elle Kennedy 🍁

9781464247033 | Romance

Description:

New York Times bestselling author Elle Kennedy returns with her signature heat and humor for a Briar universe standalone romance featuring the next generation Off-Campus characters—where one unforgettable summer changes everything.

After a brutal breakup, college junior Blake Logan escapes to her family's lake house in Tahoe, determined to shut out the world. Her plan is simple: no men, no drama. Until Wyatt Graham shows up. Four years older and far too good at getting under her skin, Wyatt is the living embodiment of a "bad idea," and the guy who shattered her pride when she confessed her crush at sixteen.

With his music career stalled, Wyatt has come to Tahoe for inspiration. The last thing he expects is to find it with Blake. He's spent years keeping his distance, convinced he's all wrong for her, but she's no longer the innocent girl he once knew. She's confident, captivating, and impossible to ignore. And the slow-burning tension between them? It's catching fire fast.

They both know this can't last, but one reckless kiss turns into another, and soon they're tangled in something that feels dangerously like more. Just as they finally give in to the pull, tragedy tears them apart, leaving their hearts in pieces.

But forgetting that one, nearly perfect summer? Not a chance. And when fate brings them together again, Blake and Wyatt must decide if this is a second chance…or the final verse.

Moonlight Murder

by Uzma Jalaluddin 🍁

9781443472883 | Mystery & Detective

Description:

Kausar Khan, the Detective Aunty, returns in a new case about the mysterious death of a young man in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood, which draws her back to the unresolved death of her son twenty years ago…

When Kausar Khan decided to move back to Toronto to be closer to her family, she didn't expect to have another murder investigation on her hands so soon--or rather, she didn't expect to have another murder investigation on her hands ever. But when a young man named Mateen is found dead in their Golden Crescent neighborhood, and when it turns out Mateen was close with Kausar's granddaughter, Maleeha, what's a grandmother to do but try to solve the case?

And it's not just a devastated Maleeha that is spurring Kausar on to find answers; it's also how much the circumstances of Mateen's death remind her of her own teenage son, Ali, and his mysterious death nearly twenty years before. Kausar knows firsthand what a difference closure could make to a grieving parent--and the more she seeks to find that for Mateen's parents, the more she begins to realize that perhaps it's time she find it for herself as well.

As Kausar conducts parallel investigations into both Mateen's and Ali's deaths and her "aunty" skills continue to bring information to light, she can't help but wonder if the similarities in the two cases are more than just mere coincidence--but how could two deaths, twenty years apart, possibly be related?

Detective Aunty is determined to find out...

When the Forest Breathes

by Suzanne Simard 🍁

9780735241725 | Public Policy

Description:

The trailblazing scientist who pioneered the once-radical—and now broadly accepted—concept of sophisticated communication between trees returns with a book that blends rigorous science and neglected Indigenous wisdom in service of a powerful vision for the future of our forests.

With her bestselling book Finding the Mother Tree, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard advanced a revelatory new paradigm for the profound intelligence of trees and their relationships with each other. Now, with When the Forest Breathes, she examines the forces that threaten forest ecosystems and, with years of research at her back, offers a pragmatic and hopeful vision for a responsible relationship with the forests that sustain us.

Raised in a family of loggers committed to sensible forest stewardship, Simard has watched timber companies ignore the complexity of nature’s self-regulation and Indigenous communities’ finely honed knowledge of the natural world. Plundering the forests for profit, they leave in their wake heightened risk of wildfire, drought, water crises, and endangerment of plant and animal life.

But Simard’s research, which recognizes forests as complex, adaptive systems, has the potential to reverse this pattern. Here, in accessible and impassioned prose, she shares the findings of one of the most ambitious climate research projects ever conceived. In her native British Columbia, Simard and her colleagues study innovative logging patterns that reflect an array of attempts at conservation, plant a mixture of tree species to identify the combinations most resilient to the stresses wrought by climate change, and introduce trees from other climates to increase the adaptivity of the forest. Simard also opens our eyes to the sophisticated knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples, who have stewarded the forests and waters for centuries. Their wisdom offers a valuable bridge from the past, a set of principles grounded in respect for the land.

Powered by rigorous science but infused with authenticity and warmth, When the Forest Breathes is an emboldening declaration that when we take responsible steps, reversing the effects of climate change is within reach. In elegant prose teeming with reverence for the natural world and all it offers us, Simard shares with all of us the gift of her ingenuity, commitment, and optimism.

Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet

by Mary Walsh 🍁

9781443471978 | Humor

Description:

In this disarmingly vulnerable and wickedly hilarious collection of essays, Mary Walsh chronicles her colourful—sometimes difficult, never boring—life, coming to the hopeful conclusion that growing old means finally finding (and loving) yourself

In this sharply observed and wryly funny collection of essays on identity, family, and belonging, Mary Walsh takes readers on a rollicking—and sometimes difficult, but never boring—journey through her life. Her subjects range from the heartbreak of growing up next door to her family, to Newfoundland’s vibrant and not altogether happy entry into the Canadian confederation, to the behind-the-scenes of her wildly popular CBC shows, including This Hour Has 22 Minutes, to her complicated relationship with her complicated mother, and to her struggles with alcohol, self-doubt, and what it means to connect with those around her.

The result is a collection of essays that are deftly comical, vividly rendered, heartachingly vulnerable and, above all, hopeful. In the end, Mary learns the trials and hurdles (some self-inflicted) that she endured in her younger years only make the process of aging all the sweeter. The message she now has is a powerful one: her older years are her best ones yet, because she’s finally learned to accept who she is.

The Hunger Code

by Dr. Jason Fung 🍁

9781778401565 | Health & Fitness

Description:

The Obesity Code helped thousands of people lose weight naturally.

The Hunger Code will help thousands more lose weight—and keep it off—in an era of weight‑loss drugs and ultra-processed foods…without counting calories.

For generations, we've accepted the story that weight loss can never last—that as soon as we go off the diet or stop taking the medication, we revert to our old habits, regain the weight, and the calorie-counting journey starts all over again. Traditional medicine continues to treat the symptom of weight gain rather than addressing its root causes. Too often, healthcare systems intervene with quick fixes and short-term solutions, ignoring the factors that lead to sustainable weight loss that can last a lifetime.

What if the secret to long-term weight maintenance and better health isn’t just about what you eat—or even when you eat—but why you eat?

With the food industry's reliance on ultra-processed foods and the popularity of Ozempic and Mounjaro, understanding the forces behind why we eat is more important than ever before.

North of Ordinary

by Sue Aikens with Michael Vlessides 🍁

9781464242564 | Memoirs

Description:

When the wild strips everything away, what's left is who you are.

In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska—where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months—only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic's long-running TV show Life Below Zero, is one of them. At her remote outpost 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, she weathers more than just brutal winters and hungry bears. Sue battles isolation, injury, and the ghosts of a turbulent past, forging a life in a place most people wouldn't last a day.

Left to fend for herself as a child, Sue's fight to survive began long before she ever set foot in Alaska. In North of Ordinary, she tells the unforgettable story of abandonment, grit, and fierce independence—from navigating deadly storms and surviving a horrific bear attack to learning how to build a life, a home, and a sense of self where most would see only desolation. With her trademark wit, fearless honesty, and an indomitable spirit, Sue proves that the toughest terrain isn't always on the map. It's the one we conquer inside.

Unflinching and inspiring, North of Ordinary is a memoir of resilience, reinvention, and the extraordinary power of choosing your own way through the world.

Seasons of Glass and Iron

by Amal El-Mohtar 🍁

9781250341006 | Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

Description:

Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar.

With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observed tales about life as it is, was, and could be. Like miscellany from other worlds, these stories are told in letters, diary entries, reference materials, folktales, and lyrical prose.

Full of Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Hugo Award-winning and nominated stories, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories includes "Seasons of Glass and Iron," "The Green Book," "Madeleine," "The Lonely Sea in the Sky," "And Their Lips Rang with the Sun," "The Truth About Owls," "A Hollow Play," "Anabasis," "To Follow the Waves," "John Hollowback and the Witch," "Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers," "Pockets," and more.

Want to be the first to know which titles made it to the Loan Stars lists? Sign up for our newsletter. You can also find out more about the program at loanstars.ca.