We used to live in Heaven: The April 2026 Bibliofiles

I found myself on a bit of a literary horror and current politics reading binge this month. Perhaps the two are connected?

Fiction

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

I love the story behind the horror novel We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer. The book was originally published on the No Sleep subreddit, where it generated praise and attention. Netflix acquired the rights to it, and then the original tale was later adapted into the novel. Every writer’s dream!

I love the story in We Used to Live Here as well. It’s a creepy, slow-burning chronicle of a woman’s descent into madness. The story is mostly told from the POV of Eve Palmer, who is renovating an old house she has just acquired with her partner, Charlie. A family shows up on the doorstep one day claiming the father used to live there and asking for a tour.

Note: If anyone ever shows up at your home asking for a tour, say no!

The family are a little weird and get weirder as time goes on. And time does go on as things keep happening to stop the family from leaving. One of the kids plays hide and seek in the home, a storm snows them in, Eve hits her head and needs care, and so on.

The longer the strangers are there, the more disturbing the house gets. Physical features of it change. Eve and Charlie’s dog gets agitated by things they can’t see. Ants march to a secret space in the basement. It’s all the more suspenseful because the house is still new to Eve and she doesn’t know it nearly as well as the family — or as much as they seem to anyway.

The book is intercut with documents which explore various supernatural theories — police reports and Internet posts and so on. All of it contributes to the growing sense of the supernatural around the house itself.

But it’s not just a haunted house story. Eve’s sense of reality begins to break down and the reader finds themselves in an uncertain situation. Is the house actually haunted? Are the strangers supernatural in some way? Or is Eve crazy and getting crazier?

If horror is your thing, then you’ll want to check out We Used to Live Here. Just don’t read it at night if you’re planning on getting any sleep.

Link: https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/We-Used-to-Live-Here/Marcus-Kliewer/9781982198794

The Marigold by Andrew Sullivan

The Marigold is weird literary horror for a generation or maybe generations at this point raised in the nightmare of unaffordable housing markets and gig economies.

In The Marigold Toronto has been built on the blood of innocents — as in the developers use actual human sacrifices to ensure the smooth construction of their projects. The Marigold goes on to implicate the entire western system of capitalism as exploitive and coming with a high cost: “Everything you own comes from bodies and blood, one way or another. Your phone. Your clothes. The good things you have are primarily drawn from the misfortune of others. Blood, sweat, and tears. All of it literal.”

There is a strange counter to this in the form of the Wet, a sentient mold that is spreading throughout the city and absorbing both the dead and the living Borg-style. It doesn’t exactly offer hope of turning things around, but it does undermine the existing system of abuse by the powerful and corrupt and offer instead possibility for change, as mysterious and uncertain as that change may be.

Link: https://ecwpress.com/products/the-marigold

The Sacrificials by Andrew Kozma

An eerie little tale about what happens when strange beings visit a city and everyone decides to celebrate.

Link: https://flashfictiononline.com/issues/march-2026/#the-sacrificials

Ladder to Heaven by Katie Welch

Katie Welch taps into some of the apocalyptic anxieties that permeate the West Coast with her novel Ladder to Heaven. The book is set slightly in the future, after an earthquake has shattered society. It’s also changed the world in very strange ways. People can suddenly talk to animals and the protagonist, Del, spends much of her time in a post-apocalyptic world telling a pair of sea lions the story of her life. The sea lions are puzzled but also intrigued by her tale of addiction, isolation and rebirth. It’s a complicated book that doesn’t have easy answers to the questions it raises but suggests there is always goodness to humanity no matter how bad things get.

Link: https://bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/products/ladder-to-heaven

False Bodies by JR McConvey

Looking for some seriously strange squid lit? Try JR McConvey’s False Bodies.

When an entire crew of oil rig workers off the east coast are found dead with sucker marks on their bodies, an oddball detective nicknamed Yeti decides to investigate.

He soon finds the mystery is even more eerie than it seems. The dead bodies get a little tentacley after death, he’s plagued by weird visions and even weirder visitations, and there’s a crazy cult lurking behind the scenes of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

It turns out the oil company is run by a former tech bro of the deranged prophet genus and the rig was drilling for more than oil. When will we learn that just because we can doesn’t mean we should?

Worth the read just for the scene involving a squid and a Terry Fox statue!

Link: https://breakwaterbooks.com/products/false-bodies?_pos=1&_sid=00804c9ca&_ss=r

Non-fiction

Canada Is Already at War with the US – We Just Don’t Know It Yet by Patrick Lennox

“In the eyes of the Trump administration, Canada is just another big blue state—another Minneapolis. This is because we are a liberal, democratic, multicultural mosaic, because we believe in minority rights and public health care and the right of a woman to choose. We believe in a free press and a fair vote. We believe in the rule of law and the principle of police independence. We believe in science and objective reality. And because of this—and because of our small population and enviable natural resources—we’ve become its target.”

Link: https://thewalrus.ca/canada-is-already-at-war-with-the-us-we-just-dont-know-it-yet/

How Alberta’s Separatist Movement Could Shake North America by Christopher Hernandez-Roy and Randy Boissonnault

What is behind Alberta separatism and what could it mean for Canada and North America?

Link: https://thewalrus.ca/how-albertas-separatist-movement-could-shake-north-america/

Canadians Love a Conspiracy Theory by Lucan Way

Is Canada’s democracy in danger?

Link: https://macleans.ca/politics/canadians-love-a-conspiracy-theory/

Before Paris, there was Toronto— where Ernest Hemingway learned to write by Joseph Frey

Take a tour of Hemingway’s Toronto residences and learn how the city shaped him as a writer.

Link: https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/before-paris-there-was-toronto-where-ernest-hemingway-learned-to-write/

I was lonely and let an app pick my friends. Here’s how it went by Amarah Hasham-Steele

A new wave of apps is looking to help you find friends — for a price.