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Jaime Burnet and Danica Roache are among the winners of the 2026 Nova Scotia Book Awards and Atlantic Book Awards.
The awards, managed by the Atlantic Book Awards Society, recognize books from Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada including poetry, illustrated children’s books, adult fiction and nonfiction. Both the Nova Scotia Book Awards and Atlantic Book Awards took place during the Atlantic Book Awards Festival, which was from May 28 to June 4 this year.
The provincial and regional awards are collectively worth more than $60,000 and are selected by independent juries.
Burnet’s milktooth won the $30,000 Thomas Radall Atlantic Fiction Award.
milktooth tells the story of Sorcha, a 31 year old growing tired of the wild life of parties and one night stands she lived in her 20s but ends up in an abusive relationship and dealing with isolation.
The jury called milktooth “a breathtaking account of the insidiousness of intimate partner abuse and the immense strength and difficult untangling required to escape,” and said “Burnet has incredible skill, building momentum from the first page, and reaching a narrative climax that is extremely moving. Sorcha’s first steps toward freedom, despite her fear and doubt, are stunningly captured on the page.”
LISTEN | milktooth also made the long list for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction:
Mainstreet NS9:58‘milktooth’ author Jaime Burnet on novel’s success
Burnet is a writer, musician and labour and human rights lawyer based in Mulipj’kejk/Herring Cove, Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia. She is also the author of the novel Crocuses Hatch from Snow.
Roache’s Five Seasons of Charlie Francis won both the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction) and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.
Five Seasons of Charlie Francis tells the story of Charlie Francis, a mixed-ancestry Mi’kmaw woman struggling to reconcile with the life she’s living as her master’s thesis grinds to a halt, her relationship falls apart and her uncle dies unexpectedly.
Roache is a member of Glooscap First Nation and is a mixed-ancestry writer living in Punamu’kwati’jk (Dartmouth). Five Seasons of Charlie Francis was also shortlisted for Prose in English at the 2026 Indigenous Voices Awards. In 2012, her poem Building a Home was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.
LISTEN | Danica Roache talks about being nominated for the book awards:
Atlantic Voice26:12Writing the mixed ancestry experience
The complete list of winners for the 2026 Atlantic Book Awards are:
- Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award: milktooth by Jaime Burnet
- Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature: The Newest Gnome by Lauren Soloy
- J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award: Future Howl by Sue Goyette
- Atlantic Independent Booksellers Readers’ Choice Award: The Austens by Sarah Emsley
- Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction: Here by Heidi Wicks
- APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award: Erica Rutherford by Pan Wendt
- The Atlantic Legacy Award: Stephen Kimber
The 2026 Nova Scotia Book Award winners are as follows:
- Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction: Five Seasons of Charlie Francis by Danica Roache
- Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Fiction): Five Seasons of Charlie Francis by Danica Roache
- Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction): Service and Sacrifice by Ken Hynes
- Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award: The Golden Daughter: My Mother’s Secret Past as a Ukrainian Slave Worker in Nazi Germany by Halina St. James
Many of the winning 2026 titles are available in accessible formats via the Centre for Equitable Library Access website.
Previous winners include authors Michael Crummey, Tyler LeBlanc, Alison Taylor, Ami McKay, Marina Endicott and David Huebert.
