Canada Day: Let's celebrate the Canadian authors!

Brittani
Jul 1
3 min read

Updated: Jul 15

It's Canada Day! I am such a proud Canadian girlie, and while I will always celebrate Canadian authors, no matter the time of year, I also think Canada Day is the perfect time to highlight a few here for you now.

Check out the list below for some of my favourite Canadian mystery/thriller authors and just a handful of the books I've read by them (and the ratings I've given them!).

Kelley Armstrong

I LOVE Kelley Armstrong, and I've been reading her books since I was a teen. Kelley lives in Elgin County in Southwestern Ontario.

Some of my favourite KA books:

Death At A Highland Wedding is part of her "Rip Through Time" series, and I gave it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I'll Be Waiting is one of Kelley's standalone horror/thriller books that now come out every fall, and I gave this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

City of the Lost is thee start of Kelley's Rockton series, which I loved! Now it even has a spinoff series, Haven's Rock. This book got ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Summoning is the first novel in Kelley's Darkest Powers series for teens/young adults. I read this when I was in high school, and it's one of the books that made me love reading again. Though I wasn't giving books star ratings back then, it has stuck with me all of these years.

Louise Penny

So I have a funny story with Louise Penny and her books. Back in 2020, I read All The Devils Are Here. I rated it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Little did I know that this was book #16 in her Chief Inspector Gamache/Three Pines series!

So, finally, in 2025, I started reading the series from the very beginning. Below are some of my favourite books from the series so far.

How the Light Gets In is book #9 in the series, and I gave it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. If I could give it 16,000 stars, I would. I think it may be my favourite of the series yet.

Bury Your Dead is book #6 in the series, and it is another ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ winner from me. Why is it that all of the covers with winter/snow scenes get five stars from me? Might have to look into that...

Now, even though Still Life only got ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me, there's no way I could be talking about this series without showing the very first book. The one that started it all! And with a beautiful 20th anniversary cover, to boot.

Shari Lapena

I have always had a soft spot for Shari Lapena, because she has the same spelling of "Shari" that my mom does. It's actually rarer than you think! But it also helps that Lapena's books are great. Here are a couple I really like:

An Unwanted Guest was actually the first Shari Lapena book that I read, and it's probably still my favourite to this date. I rated it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ back in 2019.

Everyone Here is Lying is actually a book that my husband and I listened to the audiobook of, and we rated it ⭐️⭐️⭐️ in 2024.

Maxie Dara

Maxie Dara is a newer Canadian author, and I've read both books she's published! My husband has a new tradition of buying these books for my Christmas present, and Maxie has already told us that book #3 will be coming out in Nov. 2026! So the Christmas tradition will continue.