Best Book

GOLD WINNER

Butter Honey Pig Bread, Francesca Ekwuyasi
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SILVER WINNER

The Last Time I Saw Her, Alexandra Harrington
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BRONZE WINNER

Our Best NS Adventure Journal, Jen Meza
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Francesca Ekwuyasi should, by now, be used to blue-sky phone calls delivering pinch-me good news. After all, her debut novel was a Giller Prize longlister, a critical darling at The New Yorker and Globe & Mail and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Yet, when Ekwuyasi answers The Coast’s phone call to learn Butter Honey Pig Bread has been voted the year’s Best Book, she’s so elated she can barely reply. “I’m so excited and grateful and surprised,” she says, an audible smile forming. Why, exactly, does the book resonate so strongly with readers? “Maybe because it’s just about people being messy? I don’t know. It’s a book about relationships‚ and moving through pain and the hope of reconciliation and peace,” Ekwuyasi hypothesizes. “Or, maybe because one of the main characters is in Halifax and really having a relationship with the city.”