Spring 2025 Preview: The must-see Vancouver concerts, plays and more

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Local music fans had a year unlike any other in 2024 with massive shows from legends such as the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen to the global phenomenon of the Taylor Swift Eras tour. Those are hard acts to follow, but with gigs from AC/DC to the Weeknd already announced, it looks to be another packed concert list for 2025.

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The spring concert calendar is already filling up with essential gigs by everyone from Indian superstars and leading Latin American rappers as well as some hard rock legends and electropop powerhouses.

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Music

Here are five shows to see this spring:

Devours Sport Car Era release

When: March 8, 7 p.m.
Where: Rickshaw Theatre, 254 East Hastings, Vancouver
Tickets and info: rickshawtheatre.com

Vancouver electronic musician Devours makes music that is equal parts doom and gloom as well as dance and glam. His 2023 album Homecoming Queen was on the Polaris Prize longlist and his coming fifth full-length, Sports Car Era, has been pegged by music press such as Exclaim! as one of most-anticipated Canadian albums of 2025. Devours describes the record as “a nod to the male mid-life crisis and the triumphs and anxieties of reaching 40. It contains ruminations on gay culture, adulthood, the music industry, sexual fantasies with Kevin Costner, and finding one’s place in the world.”

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Back In Overdrive 2025

When: April 3, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Abbotsford Centre, 33800 King Rd., Abbotsford
Tickets and info: livenation.com

Classic hard-rock legends Bachman-Turner Overdrive are one of the greatest groups to ever come out of Canada. The band owned rock radio in the 1970s with massive hits such as Hey You and Takin’ Care of Business. For this cross-Canada tour, the band is also performing songs by Randy Bachman’s previous band, the Guess Who as well. As if that wasn’t enough for fans, multi-platinum Canadian bands April Wine and Headpins are also on the bill.

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Satinder Sartaaj

When: April 11, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Rogers Arena, 800 Griffiths Way, Vancouver
Tickets and info: livenation.com

Satinder Pal Singh, a.k.a. Satinder Sartaaj, is a superstar in India. With a PhD in traditional Sufi singing he exploded on the global Indian music scene with his huge hit song Sai and roles in his turn as Maharajah Duleep Singh in the 2017 film The Black Prince. His collaborations with B.C.’s very-own Nelly Furtado and rap legend Talib Kweli have expanded his fame into new audiences as well. Not only does he write, act, sing and dance, he often performs on an instrument that he created called a saaz-e-sartaaj.

Brett Young: The Back To Basics World Tour 2025

When: April 17, 6:30 a.m.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 601 Smithe St., Vancouver
Tickets and info: Ticketmaster.ca

Country music fans can agree that it was a good thing that Brett Young‘s baseball career was cut short due to an elbow injury. That’s because it gave the California artist time to focus on penning such signature classics as his breakout single In Case You Didn’t Know and massive albums such as 2023s Across the Sheets. Not only is this diamond-selling artist a master of smooth and sexy West Coast country, he is also a published children’s author whose Love You, Little Lady was published by the HarperCollins imprint Tommy Nelson.

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Ana Tijoux

When: May 2, 8 p.m.
Where: Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC, 6265 Crescent Rd., Vancouver
Tickets and info: chancentre.com

Chilean-French hip hop artist Ana Tijoux is a firebrand of personal-as-political Spanish rappers. That’s why she holds down the #3 spot on Billboard’s list of the Most Essential Spanish-Language Rappers of Yesterday and Today. Her latest album, titled Vida, dives into her past as the child of parents who fled the repressive regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet and how people can rid the world of such rulers through resistance, revolution and conviction. This is the Latin Grammy-winning artist’s Vancouver debut.

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Family

As winter melts away and the days grow longer, opportunities to get outside certainly increase.

But the spring always delivers plenty of stormy weather that makes finding fun indoors a necessity. It’s a bit early yet for children’s festivals and many of the other large-scale events to be enjoyed by the whole family.That doesn’t mean there isn’t a wealth of fun entertainment to enjoy over the coming months.

Here are five must-see family events to put on your calendar:

18th Annual Coastal Dance Festival

When: March 4-9, various times
Where: Museum of Anthropology (MOA), 6393 N.W. Marine Dr. and the Anvil Centre, 777 Columbia St., New Westminster
Tickets and info: damelahamid.ca

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After a six-year-long absence from the MOA while the building had seismic upgrades, the annual celebration of Indigenous dance and culture returns to its original home, as well as the Anvil Centre.

Featuring an expanded program, the festival will showcase dancers, singers and storytellers from the Pacific Northwest, as well as Quebec, Australia and New Zealand.

Presented by B.C.’s very own Dancers of Damelahamid, the lineup includes both ancestral and contemporary performances.

Imagining Our Futures at Family Art Party

When: March 9, noon-4 p.m.
Where: Surrey Art Gallery, 13750 88th Ave.
Tickets and info: surrey.ca/arts-culture/surrey-art-gallery

Spend an afternoon making art and taking in interactive performances inspired by the Rajni Perera: Futures exhibit.

Featuring sci-fi-informed sculptures and paintings looking at how humanity might adapt to a new environment affected by climate change, Perera’s work is a jumping-off point for activities in the Art Monster Booklet that are guided by the SAG youth docents.

Juno-nominated musician Ruby Singh will perform his popular beatbox, live-looping electronic compositions in the Studio Theatre at 1:30 and 3 p.m. His shows are always exciting and new.

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Twilight in Concert

When: March 14, 6 p.m.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 601 Smithe St., Vancouver
Tickets and info: Ticketmaster.ca

Rekindle your love of the epic romantic cinematic saga between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) as the two strive to rise above the human, vampire and werewolf communities in the small Olympic Peninsula town of Forks, Wash.

As you enter the theatre lit by a thousand candles, the 12-piece FILMharmonique Orchestra with vocalist Sam Champagne will perform the score synchronized with the full-length feature projected onto the Orpheum full-sized movie screen.

Tom Allen: J.S. Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow

When: March 16, 3 p.m.
Where: Kay Meek Arts Centre, 1700 Mathers Ave., West Vancouver
Tickets and info: kaymeek.com

Storyteller and broadcaster Tom Allen recounts the tale of a young Johann Sebastian Bach as he undergoes a coming-of-age odyssey.

With guest musicians soprano Suzie LeBland, pianist Leslie Dala, violist Dave Harding and harpist Lori Gemmel, this blend of literature and live music is both a joy to watch and listen to.

It’s a great introduction for young audiences to gain greater appreciation of the musical genius of one of classical music’s greatest composers.

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Our Last Tree

When: April 30-May 3, various times
Where: Roundhouse Performance Centre, 181 Roundhouse, Vancouver
Tickets and info: eventbrite.com

Some Assembly Theatre Company celebrates its 25th anniversary with a collaborative piece between youth and pro artists that addresses issues of the day of great importance to younger generations.

In Our Last Tree, a trio of climate protesters are invited by a ghostly figure to decide whether to inspire positive change or watch their world implode.

Billed as an “apocalyptic theatre production,” the show nonetheless delivers a hopeful message in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

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Dance

Those of us who have wondered what bird flight replicated by humans on skates would look like need wait no longer. Le Patin Libre’s Murmuration is coming to answer that very question, at Kerrisdale Cyclone Taylor Arena no less. Meanwhile, the estimable Ballet BC’s spring program includes Passing, called “enlightening and emotionally charged” by The Luxembourg Times following the company’s performance of Johan Inger’s epic at Luxembourg’s Grand Theatre last year. And watch out for the Canadian debut of Peeping Tom, a Belgian company that prompted a Guardian reviewer to ask, “are Peeping Tom the world’s freakiest theatre troupe?”

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Ballet B.C.: Zenith

When: March 6-8
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St., Vancouver
Tickets: Starting at $19 at balletbc.com

With degrees in industrial design, Andrea Peña is known for exploring the intersection of dance, design, and new media. The Colombia-born Peña, who was a dancer with Ballet BC early in her career, will premiere a new work in the company’s Zenith program. Also on the program are Passing by Swedish choreographer Johan Inger and a new piece by Spanish choreographer Fernando Hernando Magadan. Ballet BC has performed Passing around the world since its 2023 premiere. Inspired by natural catastrophe, the 50-minute piece is set to an original score by Amos Ben-Tal as well as selections from Erik Enocksson and Louis T. Hardin (aka Moondog). Magadan’s latest creation for the company “explores the immensity of space and our relationship with physics and gravity, as well as the fragility and vulnerability of being human.”

Le Patin Libre: Murmuration

When: March 20-23 at 7:30 p.m. and March 22 & 23 at 2 p.m.
Where: Kerrisdale Cyclone Taylor Arena, 5670 East Boulevard, Vancouver
Tickets and info: dancehouse.ca

DanceHouse presents the BC premiere of Le Patin Libre’s Murmuration. Inspired by the aerial choreography of birds, the Montreal company’s piece transposes the configurations of mass flight to the ice with the help of some of the world’s most highly skilled skaters, auditioned from seven different countries.

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Belle Spirale. Pictured here, Justin Rapaport and Ariana Barr.

Belle Spirale Dance Projects & Fernando Hernando Magadan: Universus

When: March 21 & 22 at 8 p.m.
Where: Vancouver Playhouse
Tickets and info: chutzpahfestival.com

Chutzpah! presents the world premiere of two new pieces from resident company Belle Spirale Dance Projects. In Universus, Spanish choreographer Fernando Hernando Magadan (also working with Ballet BC this season) and Belle Spirale directors Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez ask questions of cosmic significance: is connection to earth achievable on a chaotically changing planet? Will human resilience be enough for our uncertain future? Eight dancers perform the pieces, which mix choreography, spoken word, and technical design.

Peeping Tom: Diptych (The Missing Door and The Lost Room)

When: April 24-26 at 8 p.m.
Where: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton St., Vancouver
Tickets and info: dancehouse.ca

Peeping Tom combines theatre and dance, dropping a hyperrealist aesthetic into real-world settings. The paired works of Diptych, The Missing Door and The Lost Room, subject a collection of individuals to increasingly bizarre scenarios. Diptych marks the Belgian company’s Canadian debut.

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Company 605 + The Human Expression: New Work

When: June 5-6 at 8 p.m./June 7 at 2 and 8 p.m.
Where: Dance Centre, 677 Davie St., Vancouver
Tickets: $37/$28 students & seniors, plus $1 facility fee available at thedancecentre.ca.

Vancouver’s Company 605 collaborates with Singapore’s The Human Expression (T.H.E) on a new work. Choreographed by T.H.E’s Anthea Seah and Company 605’s Josh Martin, this world premiere is performed by artists from both cities and “frames a meeting of voices seeking out what it means to break and rebuild: a deconstruction and a piecing back together, the fragments and the whole, and the twisting and reshaping of evolving identities.”

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Theatre

Spring in Vancouver. The rain feels a little warmer, cherry trees are blossoming and theatres come alive with the sound of musicals. American musicals, sure. But even with Trump in the White House, who doesn’t love Dolly (9 to 5: The Musical), Tina (The Tina Turner Musical) and Cambodian rock (Cambodian Rock Band)? There’s plenty of Canadian content, musical and dramatic. Plus classic playwrights like Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Here are six hot shows for your spring wish-list:

Children of God

When: March 21-29
Where: York Theatre
Tickets & info: $29-$69 at thecultch.com

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Corey Payette’s residential school musical returns to The Cultch, where it premiered in 2017. It’s a powerful, painful and, at times, profoundly stirring re-enactment of one of the darkest chapters in Canada’s history. Three actors from the original Urban Ink production are back playing some of the Indigenous children and the clergy who torment them. Written, composed and directed by Payette, Children of God is essential Canadian theatre.

The Frontliners

When: May 1-11
Where: Firehall Arts Centre
Tickets & info: $20-$39 at firehallartscentre.ca

The kind of play that marks the difference between Canadian and American society right now, The Frontliners is a dramatic comedy about Vancouver hotel employees trying to find homes for Syrian refugees in the midst of our housing crisis. Written by Zahida Rahemtulla, who gave us the rich comic chaos of The Wrong Bashir (2023). Directed by Derek Chan. Also playing May 13-17 at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre.

Here We Go

When: May 8-25
Where: PAL Studio Theatre
Tickets & info: $30-$40 at westerngoldtheatre.org

A short play by Caryl Churchill, Britain’s greatest living playwright, about aging, dying and the often anonymous, invisible caregivers who help us navigate our endings. The Guardian calls it “a striking memento mori for an age without faith.” Provocative, startling, mesmerizing, exclaims London’s Evening Standard. This Western Gold production stars some of Vancouver’s finest veteran actors. Kathryn Bracht directs.

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Six

When: May 13-18
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Tickets & info: From $175 at ticketmaster.ca

The London/Broadway hit musical about the six wives of Henry VIII gets its Vancouver premiere courtesy of a Broadway Across Canada tour. Calling it “a Tudors Got Talent belt-off among six sassy divas,” the New York Times critic praises the show for its music and fun, for individualizing each of the queens and their contemporary styles, and finding “an accessible, youthful way to talk about women, abuse and power.”

Much Ado About Nothing

When: June 10-Sept. 20
Where: Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival
Tickets & info: From $35 at bardonthebeach.org

Bard on the Beach opens its 36th season with one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, featuring witty, wooing, duelling lovers Beatrice and Benedick. They are played by Bard favourite Jennifer Lines and Sheldon Elter, whom I called “a large, lithe, sensational Métis actor” in a rave review a few years ago. Directed by Johnna Wright with set and costumes by Bard A-listers Pam Johnson and Mara Gottler, respectively.

Waitress

When: June 12-Aug. 3
Where: Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage
Tickets & info: From $39 at artsclub.com

Adapted from the 2007 movie starring Keri Russell, this musical ran for four years on Broadway. Featuring lyrics and music by Sara Bareilles, it tells the story of a waitress trapped in an abusive marriage in a small town who finds fulfilment through baking pies. Starring Rachel Drance with an excellent supporting cast, the Arts Club production will likely run through the summer. Ashlie Corcoran directs.

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One thing about Vancouver: We just can’t get enough of Emily Carr. The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting yet another show of the artist’s work, this one focusing on her forest paintings. But if the venerated naturalist is not your cup of tea, an exhibit of work showcasing the in-your-face political activist art of Banksy offers an alternative. More activist art can be experienced at Restless by Nature, which offers an opportunity to view rarely-seen works by Mary Sui Yee Wong, a Montreal artist formerly based in Vancouver.

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Visual arts

The Art of Banksy Without Limits

When: Until May 25
Where: 1 Alexander, Vancouver
Tickets: Starting at $23 at artofbanksyca.com/vancouver

The real identity of the U.K.-based street artist — or artists? — and stencil master is still unknown. But this hasn’t stopped some enterprising curators from bringing collections of Banksy art to the public. The Art of Banksy Without Limits showcases 200 works, both certified originals and high-quality reproductions. The prints, photographs, lithographs, sculptures, murals and more display Banksy’s talent for creating memorable images and thought-provoking installations. The Vancouver run of Without Limits also features the Western Canadian premiere of a Banksy hologram installation, and a chance to make your own Banksy-type T-shirt using a stencil and spray-paint.

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Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Tranquility of Communion

When: Until May 25
Where: The Polygon Gallery, 101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver
Info: thepolygon.ca

This is the Canadian premiere of a major survey of work by late British-Nigerian photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode. Born into a prominent Nigerian family that emigrated to London in the 1960s in search of political refuge, Fani-Kayode channelled his multi-faceted identity and outsider status into a photographic practice that earned him recognition as a prominent figure within the Black British art scene. In his images, Fani-Kayode explored themes of same-sex and multiracial love, and the exhibition features nearly 200 photographs that range from his most celebrated to previously unseen works.

Restless by Nature: Mary Sui Yee Wong, 1990s to the Present

When: April 12-June 30
Where: Richmond Art Gallery, 7700 Minoru Gate #180, Richmond
Info: richmondartgallery.org

This exhibit gathers a selection of the Montreal-based artist’s works, many of which were presented in alternative spaces or on temporary platforms, or were performance-based or documented insufficiently. Sculpture, photographs, video, costume, a public artwork and a new performance-based piece highlight Wong’s engagement with personal memory, cultural history, familial legacy, Orientalism and anti-Asian sentiment within Canada. Many of the artworks have been updated or rendered site-specific for the Richmond Art Gallery. Archival materials include exhibition catalogues, magazines and personal photographs. Born in Hong Kong in 1956, Wong immigrated to Canada in 1963 and grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown before moving to Montreal in 1988. Her works were exhibited in Montreal and Vancouver in the 1990s and 2000s but have been shown less frequently since the 2010s.

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Emily Carr: Navigating an Impenetrable Landscape

When: Until Jan. 4, 2026
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby St., Vancouver
Info: vanartgallery.bc.ca

Featuring more than 20 of the B.C. artist’s signature forest paintings, Navigating an Impenetrable Landscape celebrates one of Emily Carr’s lifelong inspirations, the natural world. And if you’re thinking, “This sounds like every other Emily Carr exhibit I’ve ever seen,” think again. Visitors to the gallery will encounter a densely hung group of paintings of thick forest scenes faced off on the opposite wall by a single Carr painting of a clearcut landscape with an open horizon. In other words, if you like Carr’s work, this is as close to an immersive experience as you’re going to get, at least for now.

Kihl ’Yahda Christian White: Master Haida Artist

When: Until Feb. 1, 2026
Where: Bill Reid Gallery, 639 Hornby St., Vancouver
Info: billreidgallery.ca

Though he has been included in many group exhibitions, Haida artist Kihl ‘Yahda Christian White has never been the subject of a major retrospective until now. A successful commercial artist for 45 years, White is also a founding member of the Haida Repatriation Committee, which has brought home the remains of more than 500 Haida Ancestors to Haida Gwaii. His work encompasses argillite carvings, gold and silver jewelry, totem poles, masks, and cedar canoes. This solo show features more than 40 artworks, including carvings, regalia and prints.

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Classical music

For all of us who rejoice in the vitality and variety of the Vancouver classical music milieu, there are just too many great options for the final months of this concert season. I suggest a balanced diet approach to springtime listening, including opera, symphony, choral, and solo performer events.

Steven Osborne, piano

When: Sunday, March 30, 3 p.m.
Where: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton St., Vancouver
Info: Vancouver Playhouse

In many ways the Vancouver Recital Society can be considered Wigmore West, given the number of artists who appear at both the Vancouver Playhouse and the very heart of London’s recital culture, the renowned Wigmore Hall. Scottish pianist Osborne is a case in point: he plays regularly in both venues, and for his next Playhouse appearance he offers something quite different from his usual intense programming. At the end of March, he proffers a spring bouquet of shorter pieces, running from Robert Schumann through Frederic Rzewski — his astonishing Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues — and on to pieces by Gershwin and Keith Jarrett.

Pacifica Quartet

When: April 1, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Vancouver Playhouse
Info: Vancouver Playhouse

There’s no fooling around in Friends of Chamber Music’s April 1 program: the Pacifica Quartet, making its third visit to town, offers two ultra-serious landmarks of the string quartet repertoire: Bartók’s Fourth Quartet (1928) and Shostakovich’s Second (1944), true repertoire heavyweights, were composed just 16 years apart. The 26-year-old Samuel Barber created his Opus 11 quartet right between the two: not quite as much of a landmark of quartet writing, but a fine work nonetheless. And of course it was the first iteration of music which has gone on to become one of the most treasured pieces of the last century, a slow movement identified by the simple and direct tempo indication (Molto) adagio.

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War Requiem

When: April 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 601 Smithe St., Vancouver
Info: Orpheum Theatre

Conductor Les Dala, soloists, the Vancouver Bach Choir, and the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra present an extraordinary project in the days before Easter — Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Vancouver and the Requiem share some interesting history. Back in 1962, conductor Meredith Davies presided over the work’s semi-disastrous premiere in Coventry Cathedral. A few seasons later, as music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, he presented the work here. It’s a massive undertaking, but so very much worth the effort. I recall the late Bramwell Tovey saying that the Britten might well be the greatest of all requiems, in that the composer’s powerful anti-war message has the potential to change hearts and minds. Kudos to all those involved for bringing it back to us.

Stefano Maiorana, theorbo

Secret Pages of Venice

When: Saturday, April 26, 8 p.m.
Where: Pacific Spirit United Church, 2195 W. 45st Ave., Vancouver
Info: Early Music Vancouver

Early Music Vancouver and Vancouver New Music team up to bring Italian theorboist Stefano Maiorana to town. He will be playing works by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (1580-1651) and Claudio Ambrosini (b. 1948), intertwined as a musical tribute to La serenissima. The theorbo, by the way, is a sort of super lute, resonant but intimate, a sonic postcard from the past, but, obviously, a source of contemporary inspiration for Ambrosini, who is a Venetian-born composer of operas and electronic music as well as works for solo theorbo.

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Madama Butterfly

When: April 26 May 1 and 3, 7:30 p.m.; April 27 and May 4, 2 p.m.
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 630 Hamilton St., Vancouver
Info: Vancouver Opera

When the end of the season draws nigh, our home team organizations inevitably bring out a grand statement. In the case of Vancouver Opera, it’s Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a staple of VO’s repertoire over the last 65 years. Puccini’s sob story hasn’t changed over the decades, but our attitudes perhaps have. How do contemporary audiences relate to an American tearjerker turned into an opera by an Italian male focusing on the plight of a high-born Japanese woman? You can be sure that director Mo Zhou has thought long and hard about all issues, as have double-cast sopranos Yasko Sato and Karen Chia-Ling Jo; Robert Watson and Adam Luther share the role of the despicable B.F. Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the U.S. navy.

An Alpine Symphony

When: May 30, 31, 8 p.m.; June 1, 2 p.m.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 601 Smithe St., Vancouver
Info: Vancouver Symphony

While Butterfly is a known entity, the VSO’s season end spectacular, Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony, is anything but. Here is a rare opportunity to hear, and make up our minds about, this 1915 behemoth, which requires somehow fitting an enormous orchestra onto the Orpheum stage. The concept is a sunrise-to-sunset proposition, with 22 detailed stages along the way. Let’s hope the VSO gives us projected titles, so we don’t mistake Through Thickets and Undergrowth on the Wrong Path for Thunderstorm and Tempest, or Descent or Dangerous Moments for On the Summit. Also on the program is Prokofiev’s exhilarating Third Piano Concerto with pianist Bruce Liu, and a curtain raiser by Canadian composer Cassandra Miller.

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Books

Spring offers a fresh start. And that includes your pile of “to-read” books.

Let’s be honest, are you actually going to read all those self-help titles in the stack? Maybe not. So do yourself a favour and remove the new year/new you titles and add in ones that will offer up the restorative reset that comes with a good read.

To help refresh your reading list, here are five B.C. books to check out this spring.

Perseverance: Life and Death in the Subarctic

By Stephan Kesting (Pegasus Books, out now)

Your spring outdoor plans might not be as ambitious as paddling a kayak 1,600 km through the Canadian subarctic but, hey, you can read about the crazy, challenging experience in Vancouver-based Stephan Kesting’s new book. The seasoned adventurer, whose severe failing health set this trip in motion, does all the hard work for you in this page turner of a six-week, solo, scary and deeply rewarding adventure tale that delivers the human spirit writ large.

The Last Exile

By Sam Wiebe (Harbour Publishing, out March 25)

Every season is the right season for an intriguing and entertaining crime thriller. And Vancouver writer Sam Wiebe is one of the best at delivering layered — and timely — stories. For this tale, Wiebe brings back his favourite private investigator, Dave Wakeland, who finds himself brought in to help prove the innocence of a woman accused of killing the retired leader of the Exiles motorcycle gang and his wife. The woman’s lawyer reaches out to Wakeland, whom she has a history with, to help prove her client’s innocence and, basically, keep her alive as forces within the notorious gang/crime syndicate are out for blood. And all this happens while Wakeland is dealing with the potential demise of his security business.

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Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck

By Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, out April 29)
 
If you want an interesting historical read, you don’t have to look much further than an Eve Lazarus title. This time out, the North Vancouver writer has turned her inquisitive mind to the 1914 sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland. The ship began her 192nd trip across the Atlantic Ocean from Quebec City to Liverpool with 1,056 passengers and a crew of 423 on board. In the early hours of May 29, fog settled on the St. Lawrence River, and the ocean liner was hit by a Norwegian coal ship. Fourteen minutes and a lot of mistakes later, the ship had sunk and more than a thousand people died, making this tragedy the worst maritime disaster during peacetime in Canadian history.

A Drop in the Ocean

By Léa Taranto (Arsenal Pulp Press, out May 20)

Based on personal experiences, this young-adult novel for ages 12 and older digs deep as it tells the story of 16-year-old Mira, who finds herself, after four years in various psych wards, in a Residency Adolescent Treatment Centre for obsessive compulsive and comorbid disorders. It’s here she forms complex relationships with other patients and builds trust with her treatment team. Family visits offer Mira some breathing room and a break from her compulsion-driven life. They also show her, through her dying grandfather, that to live a life not dictated by her compulsions she must dump the inaccurate perceptions that are driving them.

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The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog

By Liz Hammond-Kareema and Coast Salish contributors (Harbour Publishing, out May 25)

The story of a dog named Mutton, whose pelt sat in a drawer at the Smithsonian for 150 years until it was discovered by an amateur archivist, sets the stage for a conversation about the science and history of the now extinct Coast Salish Woolly Dog, whose coat was used by Indigenous weavers to craft blankets and other woven items. This book is co-authored with weavers, Knowledge Keepers and Elders, and offers up perspectives and stories from Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō, Suquamish, Cowichan, Katzie, Snuneymuxw and Skokomish cultures.

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