Toronto! It’s not just a place on a map. In so many stories, it feels like a character itself. I love when a book lets me see the city I know, or maybe a version I’ve never imagined, come alive on the page. Perhaps you feel the same way.
Here are some novels where Toronto takes centre stage or plays a really memorable part. Get ready to explore the city through different eyes and different times!
Imagine Toronto after an economic collapse, cut off from the world. That’s the scene in Nalo Hopkinson’s “Brown Girl in the Ring.” We follow Ti-Jeanne, who has her own troubles. She must also face a city overrun by crime lords and powerful spirits drawn from Caribbean folklore.
It’s a raw mix of future-shock, magic, and survival as Ti-Jeanne discovers her own power in this broken urban landscape. The rich blend of traditions with a tough, dystopian future.
Step back into 1960s Toronto with Margaret Atwood’s first novel, “The Edible Woman.” Meet Marian MacAlpin. She works at a market research company and is engaged to a seemingly perfect guy, Peter. But something feels deeply wrong.
As her wedding approaches, this unease shows itself strangely. She literally cannot stomach certain foods anymore, starting with meat. The story uses dark humour and sharp details about life in Toronto back then to look at identity and the pressures on women.
Travel to Victorian Toronto in Maureen Jennings’ “Except the Dying,” the first Detective Murdoch mystery. It’s winter, 1895. A young housemaid is found frozen and half-naked in a snowy laneway. Detective William Murdoch takes the case.
His investigation reveals the stark class differences, hidden secrets, and questionable relationships within the city’s society. The gaslit streets and working-class struggles of 19th-century Toronto provide a rich background.
Mordecai Richler’s “The Incomparable Atuk” brings Atuk, an Inuit poet, from Baffin Island to the bustling city of Toronto. He instantly becomes a sensation.
Through Atuk’s experiences, the novel offers a hilarious critique of fame, cultural appropriation, and city life’s absurdities. Atuk navigates Toronto’s elite circles. His journey reveals the hypocrisies and flaws of the people he meets.
It’s a sharp and funny story that targets urban pretensions.
In Margaret Atwood’s “The Robber Bride,” three Toronto women—Roz, Charis, and Tony—share a complicated history. The manipulative and possibly dead Zenia has deeply affected each of their lives. They meet regularly for lunch.
Each recalls how Zenia betrayed her trust, ruined her life, or damaged her relationships. The novel moves between their past encounters with the destructive Zenia and their present lives. It examines friendship, betrayal, and power against a clear Toronto backdrop.
“Adult Onset” by Ann-Marie MacDonald focuses on Mary Rose, or MR. She is a successful author of young adult books who lives in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood. One week, while her partner is out of town, she cares for her two young children alone. Daily frustrations mount.
Memories of her own difficult childhood and past traumas resurface. She must confront this buried pain while she handles the intense demands of motherhood. The story looks closely at family, identity, and the echoes of the past.
This fascinating book starts with a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo in a Toronto bar. Would animals be happier if they had human consciousness? To find out, they grant human intelligence and language to fifteen dogs staying at a nearby veterinary clinic.
The story follows these dogs. They form a new society, grapple with poetry, love, and death, and explore their changed reality within Toronto’s High Park and beachfront neighbourhoods. It’s a thoughtful and sometimes sad tale about what it means to think and feel.
David Rotenberg’s series introduces Decker Roberts. He lives in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood and has an unusual, sometimes unwanted, talent: he always knows when someone is lying. This ability makes him a target for powerful corporations and government agencies.
They want to use or control his skill. The series sets thrilling situations against the urban landscape of Toronto. Truth becomes a very dangerous commodity.
Deborah Ellis’s “Looking for X” gives us Khyber, an eleven-year-old girl in Regent Park, a tough Toronto neighbourhood. She’s fiercely protective of her twin brothers who have autism. Her mother works nights as an exotic dancer.
Life gets more complicated after trouble at school. Khyber needs help and searches the streets for her friend X, a mysterious homeless woman who sometimes sleeps in the park. The book shows us Toronto from Khyber’s perspective, full of challenges but also resilience.
Gordon Korman’s “Losing Joe’s Place” is pure fun. Three teenage buddies from Owen Sound get to spend the summer in Toronto. They stay in the apartment of Jason’s older brother, Joe, while he’s away. Left to fend for themselves, their summer quickly spins into hilarious chaos.
They must handle eccentric neighbours, find jobs, and face one unexpected disaster after another. It’s a lighthearted story about friendship, growing up, and navigating city life.
Susan Swan’s “The Wives of Bath” transports readers to Bath Ladies College, a girls’ boarding school in Toronto, during the early 1960s. The story centers on Mary “Mouse” Bradford. She is small for her age and painfully shy.
She forms an intense, complex friendship with her larger-than-life, rebellious roommate, Paulie. Secrets, power dynamics, and teenage angst create drama within the school’s confined world.
Kelley Armstrong’s “Bitten” introduces Elena Michaels. She lives in Toronto and tries hard to lead a normal human life. But she has a secret: she is the only known female werewolf. Her past catches up when her pack leader calls her back to their sanctuary in upstate New York.
A dangerous mutt werewolf is causing trouble. Elena must confront the violent politics of her pack and her feelings for the man who bit her. Action and supernatural struggles unfold in both Toronto and the wild.
In “Broken,” Elena Michaels, the unique female werewolf, is back. She and her pack face a dangerous situation in Toronto. They agree to help retrieve a stolen artifact for a powerful supernatural council. But the mission goes wrong.
The artifact unleashes a deadly plague and summons hordes of zombies. Elena fights through Toronto’s streets. She has to protect her loved ones and her unborn child from these new threats. It’s a fast-paced urban fantasy adventure.
Eric Walters’s “Elixir” tells Ruth’s story. She is a twelve-year-old girl who volunteers at a Toronto hospital for the elderly. She loves spending time in the hospital’s old greenhouse. When the hospital administration decides to tear it down, Ruth is determined to save it.
She partners with Mr. Oppong, an elderly patient with a mysterious past connected to the greenhouse itself. Together, they uncover secrets hidden for decades. The story highlights connections between people and places in the city.
Emily St. John Mandel’s “The Glass Hotel” connects the lives of several characters through themes of money, guilt, and unintended consequences. We meet Vincent, a bartender at a remote luxury hotel on Vancouver Island, and her half-brother Paul, a music student in Toronto.
Their lives intersect with Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy financier who runs a massive Ponzi scheme. The story shifts between different locations, including Toronto, New York, and the ocean. It shows how choices ripple outwards and fortunes change in an instant.
André Alexis returns to Toronto with “The Hidden Keys.” Tancred Palmieri is a thief with honour. He befriends Willow Azarian, a heroin addict from a wealthy family. She tells him about her family’s strange inheritance.
Her father left behind five clues, hidden across Toronto, that supposedly lead to a great fortune. Intrigued, Tancred takes on the puzzle. His quest leads him through different parts of the city. He uncovers family secrets and learns about loyalty and greed.
Ausma Zehanat Khan’s “The Unquiet Dead” introduces Inspector Esa Khattak and Sergeant Rachel Getty of Toronto’s Community Policing Section. They investigate the death of Christopher Drayton. He fell from the Scarborough Bluffs. It seems like an accident or suicide.
But the investigation soon reveals Drayton’s hidden past and his possible involvement in the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War. The case forces Khattak and Getty to confront history, secrets, and the long shadow of trauma within Canadian society.
“Amnesia” by Douglas Anthony Cooper is a dark, complex story. Izzy Darlow returns to Toronto after his estranged sister, Katie, dies by suicide. He tries to piece together her life and the reasons for her death.
As he delves into her past and reconnects with people they knew, his own memories become unreliable. His sense of reality starts to fracture. The city of Toronto serves as a moody backdrop to his psychological unraveling.
Tanya Huff’s “Blood Price” is the first book in the Victory Nelson series. Vicki Nelson was a Toronto homicide detective until a degenerative eye condition forced her to leave the force. Now she works as a private investigator.
A series of strange, blood-drained bodies pulls her into the supernatural side of Toronto. She teams up, reluctantly at first, with Henry Fitzroy. He is a centuries-old vampire and the illegitimate son of Henry VIII. Together, they hunt for the dark force behind the killings.
Robert J. Sawyer’s “Calculating God” brings science fiction right into the heart of Toronto. An alien spacecraft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum. A spider-like alien named Hollus emerges and asks to speak with a paleontologist. Hollus belongs to an older species.
They claim to have scientific proof of God’s existence gathered from multiple planets. The novel follows the fascinating conversations between Hollus and paleontologist Tom Jericho.
They debate science, faith, evolution, and the nature of the universe, all against familiar Toronto landmarks.
Robertson Davies offers “The Cunning Man,” narrated by Dr. Jonathan Hullah. He is an elderly physician at Toronto’s fictional St. Aidan’s hospital. Through a series of letters and reflections prompted by a journalist’s query, Dr. Hullah looks back on his long life.
He considers his unconventional diagnostic methods, his deep interest in the connection between body and spirit, his friends, lovers, and the mysterious death of a local priest years ago during a Good Friday service at the nearby cathedral.
It’s a wise, witty exploration of medicine, memory, and Toronto society.
“Gabriel’s Inferno” by Sylvain Reynard introduces Professor Gabriel Emerson. He is a brilliant Dante specialist at the University of Toronto, known for his cold demeanor and mysterious past. Julianne Mitchell is a shy, intelligent graduate student who enrolls in his seminar.
Their connection deepens through a shared passion for Dante’s work. Themes of redemption, forgiveness, and salvation unfold. Parts of their intense and secret romance play out against the backdrop of the University of Toronto campus and the city.
Paul Quarrington’s award-winning “King Leary” celebrates hockey legend Percival Leary. Now elderly and living in a small-town Ontario nursing home, Leary gets a chance to revisit his past. He travels to Toronto to star in a ginger ale commercial with other old-timers.
During the train journey and the shoot, Leary remembers his glory days in the NHL of the early 20th century. He thinks about his triumphs, his rivals like 'Crusher' Killebrew, the camaraderie, and the personal sacrifices.
The novel captures the spirit of old-time hockey with humour and heart, partly set in historic Toronto.
Ken Dryden, the famous goalie, wrote “The Moved and the Shaken.” The novel follows Murray MacArthur, a man in his mid-thirties who lives in Toronto. He teaches high school history and loves hockey. His life feels routine until budget cuts force him out of his teaching job.
He finds work at the Hockey Hall of Fame. This change prompts him to reflect on his identity, his connection to the city, and what truly gives his life meaning. Toronto provides the everyday setting for Murray’s personal journey.
Robertson Davies brings us back to a Toronto university campus in “The Rebel Angels,” the first book of the Cornish Trilogy.
When eccentric collector Francis Cornish dies, his will leaves behind scholarly puzzles and personal entanglements for a group of professors at the College of St. John and the Holy Ghost (Spook).
Maria Theotoky, a beautiful graduate student, Clement Hollier, her advisor, the defrocked monk Parlabane, and Simon Darcourt, a priest and professor, become involved. Love, ambition, hidden manuscripts, and academic rivalry mix in this witty and learned novel.
“Station Eleven” opens in Toronto’s Elgin Theatre. Famous actor Arthur Leander collapses and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. That same night, a devastating flu pandemic begins its rapid spread across the globe.
The story moves between the world before the collapse and twenty years after. It follows Kirsten Raymonde, a young actress in the play who survives.
She later joins the Traveling Symphony, a group of musicians and actors who perform Shakespeare for scattered settlements in the Great Lakes region. The novel explores memory, art, loss, and human connection across time.
It shows how lives intertwine before and after civilization’s fall.
Joseph Boyden’s “Through Black Spruce” tells two connected stories. Will Bird, a Cree bush pilot from James Bay, lies in a coma in a Northern Ontario hospital. His mind drifts through memories of his life, including time spent in Toronto.
His niece, Annie Bird, sits by his bedside. She narrates her own story about her search for her missing sister, Suzanne. Suzanne left their home community for Toronto to become a model but then vanished. Annie’s journey takes her into the city’s darker corners.
The novel contrasts the modern urban world with the traditional life of the Cree people.