Galleon Books

Shamefully (!) we forgot to crow a little (a lot) about our first award-winner —Nelson Keane’s Nachzehrer, which back in late May won the 2024 Mrs Dunsters Award for Fiction (best novel in New Brunswick, Canada). Nelson was shocked, but that’s fitting for such a shocking little novel, blacker than any crow (not true, there’s some light). Said author Michelle Butler Hallett, the prize’s adjudicatrix:

“By turns terrifying and beautiful, sometimes both at once, Nachzehrer is a deep study of war and evil’s toll, of perhaps tall tales, of ghouls literal and figurative, and of empathy, nudging us and then shoving us to consider what it means to be human in even the most dire circumstances.”

We were also pleased to see Jerrod Edson’s The Boulevard featured (with several other titles) on the popular Life On Books podcast, listed as one the books YOU HAVE TO READ before the end of the year (mentioned at the 55:12 mark):

And yes, guys, it’s a very ambitious novel.

There have also been two fabulous reviews of Jake Swan’s Oliver Bell and the Infinite Multiverse. First, by Steven Mayoff at the Riverstreet Writing (blog):

“As a follow-up to Grantrepreneurs, his wickedly witty 2023 debut novel, Jake Swan raises the stakes and widens his scope with Oliver Bell and the Infinite Multiverse (Galleon Books, 2025). This detailed and often dense melding of science fiction and demonology is liberally sprinkled with Swan’s trademark caustic social commentary. Comparisons to Douglas Adams may be inevitable, but add a dash of Tolkien and a pinch of Pynchon to this cosmological smorgasbord of a novel and you’ve got yourself one engagingly volatile page-turner.”

And secondly, by Ian Colford at The Seaboard Review:

It takes a special kind of imaginative superpower to create an entirely original universe, populate it with quirky, one-of-a-kind characters who seem to belong naturally to that world, and to do so both persuasively and entertainingly. Jake Swan accomplishes this feat in his madcap romp of a novel, Oliver Bell and the Infinite Multiverse [.]

And not ones to rest on our laurels, we are currently setting up three new titles: Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl, by Tom McGauley (poetry); Animals, by Jerrod Edson (fiction novella); and Downey, by Leo LaFleur (a short, all-ages fable).

Finally, The Secret Lives of Public Servants should arrive from the printer shortly! Anne Lévesque is planning a launch on August 7 at the Arts Centre in Inverness, Cape Breton.