Books published by Iguana Books

Alfie, Tubby, Ollie, and Raxl have created a band - Dog Band! Alfie is the lead singer and guitar player, Tubby plays bass, Ollie plays the drums, and Raxl is the back-up singer and can play many instruments.But there is one problem - They don't know what kind of music Dog Band should play!So they enlist their assortment of animal friends (from dogs to frogs!) to help them figure it out.

Like pesky wasps buzzing circles around us, people who act as if they''re the sole expert on a subject put us on edge. We bristle at their arrogant, rigid certainty and refusal to change their minds in the face of abundant evidence that should give reason to pause.Thief of Reason opens with a gripping scene of rising tension during a family dinner conversation. Polarized viewpoints spark a heated argument between an intolerant, dogmatic father and his son, Rick, a bright, twenty-eight-year-old university student who''s determined to understand his fractured relationship with his father and capture the heart of his new love-a political neophyte who, unlike himself, is devoutly religious.With a lively injection of humour, Johnson skillfully contrasts closed-minded characters with those who are more open-minded, respectful, and inclusive-those who get second dinner invitations. Readers will think of people they''ve met or are related to, partners they''ve loved and left, bosses and coworkers they''ve endured, or candidates they''ve unwittingly voted for.Compelling, insightful, and unforgettable, Thief of Reason peers through a powerful psychological lens that''s delightfully original and life-changing.

Ernie Kippett never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, so he took his sorry soul back to his little hometown. And hallelujah! It was just in time for the state marijuana laws to change. But the commercial production of medical marijuana doesn''t come without challenges. Over at the new legal grow-op it''s mostly mayhem and ever-inflating construction costs. Lydia Rosemore, the fabulously rich widow who funds the operation, doesn''t have a clue. And Caldwell Porter, who might have only ever been a con man, is determined to produce the finest weed in America, not to mention grab all the power in the company he can. Staff turnover never stops and nepotism is rampant, though perhaps not as rampant as the technical glitches and infestations. Then there''s the budding war between the horticultural specialists and the master grower from Colorado. Given the constant chaos and the changing regulations issued by a state determined never to be mistaken for the local dealer, will the healing product ever make it to the shelves?

When legendary Hollywood actress Dana Montgomery throws a party, murder is on the menu. Combine Dana's husband, actor and womanizer Blaine Jeffries, her son, Mark Lathem, Mark's fiancée, Mark's ex-girlfriend, her current fiancé, the District Attorney, the Chief of Police, two homicide detectives, some Hollywood hotshots, and a butler with a backstory. Add Mercy Wilde, the couture-wearing, stiletto-sporting private investigator, her husband, suave Beverly Hills attorney Joseph Luce, and her mother, award-winning actress Francesca Wilde. Mix in a couple of inappropriate crushes, a few fragile egos, an addiction or two, and a cast of Hollywood's "beautiful people." What possibly could go wrong? Plenty, of course. It's Hollywood! Join Luce and Wilde as they investigate murder in Tinseltown. The Case of The Stained Stilettos is the first in the Luce and Wilde Hollywood Mystery Series.

Marilyn Carr’s family arrived in Deep River, Ontario in 1960 because her dad got a job at a mysterious place called “the plant.” The quirky, isolated residence for the employees of Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories was impeccably designed by a guy named John Bland. It’s a test-tube baby of a town that sprang, fully formed, from the bush north of Algonquin Park, on the shore of the Ottawa River. Everything has already been decided, including the colours of the houses, inside and out. What could possibly go wrong?Nowhere like This Place is a coming-of-age memoir set against the backdrop of the weirdness of an enclave with more PhDs per capita than anywhere else on earth. It’s steeped in thinly veiled sexism and the searing angst of an artsy child trapped in a terrarium full of white-bread nuclear scientists and their nuclear families. Everything happens, and nothing happens, and it all works out in the end. Maybe.

It’s late winter, 2020, and Nick has been pulled out of the CIA’s Kabul office and sent to Paris for what sounds like a simple assignment. Posing as a graduate student at a local polytechnical institute, his task is to build a case against Abdul Haqq, a brilliant engineering student suspected of building bombs for Hezbollah. What should be an open-and-shut case soon becomes a tangled mess as Nick finds himself drawn into a friendship with the charismatic young engineer, then falls hard for Abdul’s adopted sister, the beautiful but troubled art student with a tragic past, Gabrielle. As tensions in his personal life rise against a distant backdrop of geopolitical conflicts in Russian-dominated parts of Ukraine, Nick soon finds himself struggling to balance his passion for Gabrielle and his friendship for Abdul with his growing sense that something is rotten at the highest levels of the American government. At the center of a hornet’s nest of political malfeasance and unbridled greed is a figure known only as the professor, an insidious Intel boss whose sick ambitions threaten not only Nick and Gabrielle but the entire planet.A powerful political novel ripped from the headlines and wrapped in a love story, The Parisian Professor explores the roots of state-sanctioned corruption and the scourge of dictatorship in America and beyond.

As the beloved, hard-working general manager of a Major League Baseball team in California, "Baseball Wizard" Joe Ciotola has given his life to the sport but lost too much in the bargain. Single, childless, disillusioned about baseball, and swamped with regrets after missing the deaths of both of his parents, the 50-year-old Bronx native quits his job and goes looking for something - anything - more satisfying than a life spent juggling rosters, recruiting players, and balancing budgets. On his way to Anywhere, U.S.A., he stops in a strange place called Salvation, a forgotten desert town where time seems to stand still and where Old Testament values divide the locals between the Saved and the Damned. There, Joe meets Mia, a pitiful creature whose future has been written by the town's leaders, and who can't stay without making the ultimate sacrifice. The choices Joe and Mia make together, and the bonds they create with another woman who emerges from Joe's past, shape their lives forever, revealing the power of connections formed from the ashes of great loss. A baseball book wrapped in a domestic drama, Mia teaches us as much about love and family as it does about the imperfect history of America's beautiful game.

There is a single story amid the extensive oral literature of the Marshall Islanders that uncharacteristically has no ending. Tarmalu leaves her baby in the care of others while she leads her fleet of proa from the shelter of the Wotho Atoll lagoon out into the open ocean to save their craft from the certain destruction of an oncoming typhoon. She is never heard from again. Her son, Lainjen, grows up in an epic search for her and creates a renowned navigational chant to record the seamarks along the way. It is never told if he finds her.Man Shark is the first book of a multigenerational story that attempts to complete this untold tale. In this series, Gerald R. Knight retells many of the classic mythologies translated in Man This Reef, this time in his own words woven into the cultural setting of his novel.

Having retreated to the idyllic Polynesian island of Bora Bora to savour and lament the lost past, Harry Lindstrom finds himself drawn into a strange relationship with a raven-haired, B-list movie actress and her invalid husband. Harry learns from the amiably grotesque Inspector Theophil Queequeg that they are leaders of a virulent religious movement, and that the woman is far more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. Back in Toronto, she reappears with a disturbing capacity to make Harry wonder about the moral justifications for murder. Separately, they travel to England where they challenge the horrific intentions of the cult. Lindstrom Unbound is the final book in a trilogy, following Lindstrom Alone and Lindstrom's Progress.

Joe is the successful screenwriter behind a series of blockbuster movies, but his personal life is in shambles. He hasn't had a date in over eighteen years, and his relationship with the daughter he raised by himself has gone off the rails. Once a sweet and affectionate child, Sofia's personality changed dramatically in her early teens, and her increasingly explosive, irrational behavior has wreaked havoc on Joe's family back home in the Bronx.During a visit with a specialist after experiencing neck pain, Joe meets a Kentucky-born beauty, Jennifer, who is a pediatric oncology nurse, and over lunch they hit it off. Joe soon learns how affable, charming, intelligent, and compassionate Jennifer is, and quickly moves to make room for her in his life. For the first time in decades, he can see the possibility of a real romantic relationship, but it's not long before Sofia's behavior begins to interfere with his one chance at love.As the relationships between the daughter, the nurse, and Joe intertwine, Joe discovers what it means to be a family, and he learns just how dark life can be for those whose families are torn apart by illness and loss. His grasp of what's really important shifts from the make-believe world of the movies to the everlasting hope that we can all make a positive difference for those fighting just to live.

Ryan Chandler, a successful but apathetic student, drops out of university and is soon leading a rudderless existence. Living at home, working a dead-end part-time job, but deeply dissatisfied, he accepts a rare opportunity to pursue his own research project. Soon installed in the German city of Karlsruhe, Ryan throws himself into his project, studying aspects of the first-ever international scientific meeting and focussing on the contributions to that meeting made by one of the delegates, a man who ultimately becomes a famous Italian chemist.Aspects of his project gradually draw Ryan's interest toward Italian unification, the Risorgimento, and some of the charismatic characters involved in that struggle. But he is also attracted to a 160-year-old mystery, and it soon becomes clear that he is not the only one interested. Ryan has stumbled across something treacherous, with unknown depths. A dark violence begins to engulf Ryan's friends, his family, and himself. In Rome, hints appear as to the nature of that violence, which reveals itself in Sicily and follows him back to Karlsruhe.Sicilian Refuge weaves past and present together in a story of personal growth, loss, and retribution.

In February 2004 the first of many U.S. soldiers came to Canada, seeking sanctuary after saying "no" to the war on Iraq. Unlike the Vietnam War when over 40,000 draft dodgers and military deserters successfully struggled to make Canada their home, this new generation of war resisters has been denied refuge by the Canadian government. Now they fight a battle they could not have predicted: to make their home in a country that publicly refused to join the Iraq War and that continues to deport them. Let Them Stay is a book of oral histories, public statements and personal narratives by these soldiers of conscience and their supporters. Collected together for the first time are the declarations of a dozen war resisters, alongside important documents in the legal and political campaign to prevent their deportation to military prison in the U.S. The anthology includes essays and updates by Rachel Brett, Lawrence Hill, Staughton Lynd, Alyssa Manning, Patricia Molloy, Noah Richler, Michelle Robidoux and Michael Valpy.