Announcing the 2019 “The Very Best!” Book Award Winners!

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It is time to announce the 2019 winners of The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Awards! It was another great year of reading, and some very good books written by new and established authors found their way into my hands. For 2019, I decided to streamline the awards a bit. There will only one book in each category that will receive an award (except in the case of a tie, which did happen this year. More on that in a moment). I also thought it was high time I acknowledged the many independent publishers here in Atlantic Canada, so I created the “Atlantic Canada Virtuous Love Award for Publishing” (the name came to me in a dream) that goes to a publisher in one of the four east coast provinces for a book (or (books) they have published in the past year. Finally, cover art and design is so much an integral part of publishing that it needs to be acknowledged as well.

Promising Authors

First, I would like to acknowledge several emerging authors whose books didn’t make it to the longlist, but in my opinion, show a lot of promise.

Best Cover Art/Cover Design

  • La Brigantessa by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli, Design by Val Fullard
Colourful and eye-catching! (Photo courtesy of Ms. Battigelli.)

 

Atlantic Canada Virtuous Love Award for Publishing

Now for the Winners

Winner of the Best First Book (Fiction) Award goes to Nicola Davison for In the Wake

Winner of the Best First Book (Non-Fiction) Award goes to Jonathan Rotondo for Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike 

Co-Winners of the Best Short Fiction Award (tie; as there were only two entries this year): Kris Bertin for Use Your Imagination! and Aaron Kreuter for You and Me, Belonging

Winner of the Best Fiction Award goes to Rana Bose for Fog

Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Award goes to Brenda J. Thompson for A Wholesome Horror: Poorhouses in Nova Scotia

(Click the images below to read the reviews)

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A big “Thank You” to all the authors, publicists and independent publishers who make reading good books so enjoyable for so many of us!

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James M. Fisher is the owner and editor-in-chief of The Miramichi Reader. He began TMR in 2015, realizing that there was a genuine need for more book reviews of Canadian literature. It has since become Canada’s best-regarded source for the finest in new literary releases. James has been interviewed about TMR on CBC Radio and other media sites. James works as a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Technologist and lives in Miramichi, New Brunswick with his wife Diane and their tabby cat Eddie.