Can’t-Wait Wednesday (Canadian Edition): Kay & Czerneda
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.
In light of the political madness creeping North from the orange tyrant, I’ve been focusing exclusively on Canadian authors this month, so let’s continue the trend with some Canadian SFF royalty in Guy Gavriel Kay & Julie E. Czerneda!
Written on the Dark
by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fantasy
May 27, 2025 by Ace
Both sweeping and intimate, a majestic novel of love and war that brilliantly evokes the drama and turbulence of medieval France
Thierry Villar is a well-known—even notorious— tavern poet, familiar with the rogues and shadows of that world, but not at all with courts and power. He is an unlikely person, despite his quickness, to be caught up in the deadly contests of ambitious royals, assassins, and invading armies.
But he is indeed drawn into all these things on a savagely cold night in his beloved city of Orane. And so Thierry must use all the intelligence and charm he can muster as political struggles merge with a decades-long war to bring his country to the brink of destruction.
As he does, he meets his poetic equal in an aristocratic woman and is drawn to more than one unsettling person with a connection to the world beyond this one. He also crosses paths with an extraordinary young woman driven by voices within to try to heal the ailing king—and help his forces in war. A wide and varied set of people from all walks of life take their places in the rich tapestry of this story.
A new masterwork from the internationally bestselling author of All the Seas of the World, A Brightness Long Ago, and Tigana, Written on the Dark is an elegant tour de force about power and ambition playing out amid the intense human need for art and beauty, and memories to be left behind.
A Shift of Time
by Julie E. Czerneda
Fantasy
July 22, 2025 by DAW
The 4th book in the Aurora Award–winning Night’s Edge series returns readers to a rich and atmospheric fantasy world
Perfect for readers of Charles de Lint, Naomi Novik, and Katherine Arden, A Shift of Time is a charming, heartwarming, hopeful fable
Summer has arrived in Marrowdell, but its wild magic is out of sorts. Bannan, returning from his sister’s home in Vorkoun, steps through Jenn’s special crossing to find the village has disappeared. Something is deeply wrong within the edge—and with the Verge. Soon the youngling dragon Imp returns from that magical realm with a dire message: turn-born are missing.
Deep in the mines of Ansnor, turn-born are being trapped and killed. The rest are in hiding, as each crossing destabilizes the Verge, releasing chaos even the sei cannot control. Time is shifting. Bannan, caught between realms, must accept the help of an ancient power, feared by dragons and greater than sei, but at what cost?
Jenn, meanwhile, rushes to Ansnor to find Bannan and fix what’s breaking in the Verge, but she’s in danger, too. For in the edge, those who hunt magic and those with gifts grow bold, and as the only turn-born filled with pearl and the magic of the sei, Jenn Nalynn is the greatest prize of all.
