Alberta Book Awards 2025 - Shortlisted Fiction and PoetryLike this list

17 items

• Mordecai Crow. 2, Quid Pro Crow

  Slavin, Bill

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  Set 100 years in the future, Mordecai and Podd’s dystopic cli-fi adventure picks up from volume 1’s Secrets of Jarrow. Mordecai is searching for long lost family in a climate-ravaged wasteland – and the journey takes the friends deep into hazardous…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Shout, Kill, Revel

  Hartnell, Jarret

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  Set in the ‘Dark West’ following the American Civil War, Shout Kill Revel draws fantasy, horror and western themes into bold, thrilling illustrations. Reluctant and anxious hero Helmina struggles to break the grip of a cruel cult set against hope.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wheetago War. Roth. Book 1

  Van Camp, Richard

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  Weaving traditional stories with zombie themes, this richly illustrated adventure sees Ross fighting to keep his humanity after suffering a Wheetago bite. The problem? Edmonton is swarming with Wheetago who surround the city and his family, who are…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Carpe Noctem

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  Carpe Noctem is an anthology concerned with creatures of the night! In a twist, it structures its twenty-two mysterious and chilling tales around an exclusive solo-roleplaying game. We recommend having some dice and pencil/paper handy as you work…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Tongue Trade

  Martineck, Michael J.

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  Linguistics meets a dystopian detective story in this gritty sci-fi thriller that sends Private Interpreter William Kirst into the middle of a high stakes murder investigation where words can be deadly. This book is shortlisted for the Douglas…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Art of Camouflage

  Stories

  Power, Sara

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  This debut collection of stories looks at the complicated lives of girls and women who are involved in Canadian military life, and how they weather toxic masculinity and impermanence. The book is shortlisted for the Trade Fiction Book of the Year…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Hiroshima Bomb Money

  Watada, Terry

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  This novel explores the hopes, dreams, and fears of three siblings living in Hiroshima, Japan during the period of 1930 to 1945. Each sibling takes a different path – one emigrating to Canada with a brutal passage into internment, one joining the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Rubble Children

  Seven and a Half Stories

  Kreuter, Aaron

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  This collection of 7.5 interlinked stories centers on lives surrounding a fictional Reform synagogue, Kol B’Seder, set in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill. The stories explore themes of Jewish belonging, Zionism and anti-Zionism, love, and cannabis…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• We Are Already Ghosts

  Dobson, Kit, 1979-

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  Set in the summer of 1996, this playful and witty book is a turn-of-the-millenium family epic that follows the Briscoe-MacDougall family as they return to their lakeside cabin in five year intervals. Changes in world events are the texture for other…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Juiceboxers

  a Novel

  Hertwig, Benjamin, 1985-

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  Juiceboxers is a powerful and well-crafted novel following four Edmonton teenagers who join the Canadian military after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Friendships and conflicts shape each soldier in different and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Every Night I Dream I'm a Monk, Every Night I Dream I'm a Monster

  Tarnopolsky, Damian

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  This collection of stories artfully takes readers through a psychic puzzle of family history – exploring timeless themes like love, art, consciousness, and death with comic and chilling connections. The book is shortlisted for Book Design of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bronco Buster

  Devlin, A. J.

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  The fourth entry in A.J. Devlin’s Hammerhead Jed mystery series, comedy and intrigue abound as wrestler turned PI “Hammerhead” Jed is pulled into a case involving a lumberjack games competitor’s mysterious death – by axe? By pool? – at the Colossal…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Call of the Void

  Siemens, J. T.

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  Newly fledged PI Sloane Donovan’s newest case draws her from Vancouver’s lights into the world of disappearing girls, illegal narcotics, and family history. This one is fast-paced and hard-boiled. The book is shortlisted for the Mystery & Thriller…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Deviant

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  This collection of confessional poems of love, fear, grief, and exploration of the intimate violence that men are capable of in gay relationships. From coming of age to later experiences with partner violence and the justice system, the reflections…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Attic Rain

  Poems

  Jones, Samantha (Poet)

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  This debut poetry collection tackles themes of resilience, self-compassion, awareness and honesty as the author grapples with the childhood and adulthood impacts of obsessive-compulsive disorder - from big life events to small mundane moments. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Moving to Delilah

  Owen, Catherine

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  When the author moves from coastal Vancouver to Edmonton, she purchases a centenarian house named Delilah. Sharing stories of renovation, previous inhabitants, and the concept of neighbourhood – the poems give a sense of the passage of time, of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• That Audible Slippage

  Christakos, Margaret

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  This collection of poems invokes the ideas of listening, sound, and environment – especially what is heard and unheard – through a series of reflections that consider our external soundscape, the grief of lost loved ones set in a place and more. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation