Bad Land by Corinna Chong

Regina is a socially awkward loner who is content to live a life withdrawn from everyone except her cherished pet bunny. But after seven years of silence, Regina's brother, Ricky, shows up unannounced on her doorstep, along with his daughter, Jez - a peculiar six-year-old with an unnerving vicious streak - upending Regina's quiet life.

It's clear to Regina that something terrible has happened, though the truth won't come to the surface easily. After all, Regina and Ricky lived a childhood fraught with secrets buried as deep as the fossils in the desolate landscape around them. But this secret is one that cannot stay buried for long, and its exposure sets off a calamitous journey through the plains and mountains of Alberta's badlands to the coast of B.C., forcing Regina to confront the brutality of family love and to question how far she is willing to go to preserve it.

By turns thrilling and heartwarming, rife with gothic tension, and carried by fervent compassion, Bad Land is a story about the toxic nature of guilt, the fragility of memory, and the ways we shape our own versions of the truth in order to survive. (From Arsenal Pulp Press)

Bad Landwaslonglisted for the2024 Giller Prize.

• 12 Canadian books make longlist for 2024 $100K Giller Prize
• 64 works of Canadian fiction to read in fall 2024
• B.C. writer and professor Corinna Chong wins 2021 CBC Short Story Prize

Originally from Calgary, Chong lives in Kelowna, B.C. and teaches English and fine arts at Okanagan College. She published her first novel, Belinda's Rings, in 2013. In 2023 she published the short story collection The Whole Animal which includes Kids in Kindergarten, the winner of the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize.

Other books by Corinna Chong