BOOKS TO FALL FOR

Fall is a booklover's dream! There's no better time to cozy up with a great new read, and we've got plenty to offer. This September we're celebrating two exciting new releases, and we've been non-stop celebrating the rest of our 2025 titles with launches, readings, and special appearances!

Read on to find out what we've been up to this month, and where you can find us the rest of the season...

In this issue:

  • New Releases & Upcoming Events (what's out now and where to catch us this Fall!)
  • Big News (exciting updates!)
  • Breakwater Buzz (reviews, interviews, and more!)
  • Have You Heard? (the latest on Breakwater in our community!)
  • Coming Soon (our next Fall titles to hit the shelves!)
  • From The Vault (not-to-be-forgotten backlist features!)
  • Photo Album (catch up on the latest happenings!)
  • Keep Connected (follow us on social media!)

NEW RELEASES & UPCOMING EVENTS

Two new releases set sail from Breakwater Books this month! First, we launched Ship Moms, a collection of true tales telling real-life stories about connections below deck that result in real-life babies.

Then, we are celebrating the release of The Hunt, a fast-paced thriller set in the vast and rugged Yukon wilderness. The Hunt follows an unlikely duo on an exhilarating journey as they battle the terrain and race against the clock to solve a murder — before they become victims themselves. 

  The lives of cruise ship crew members don’t stop when they are below deck. Ship Moms is a collection of behind-the-scenes stories about the relationships that bloom between crew members and all the wonderful mixed-nationality babies being brought into the world as a result, representing nearly forty countries and ten cruise lines. Here are the stories of these ship moms—stories of their strength, their endurance, and their tenacity. Beautiful and complicated, this collection spills the dirt on the ship life experience.

Available now on our website and at our Duckworth Street store!

 

  Ben Matthews is less than thrilled when he is posted to Canada from Washington, but he doesn't have time to sit in his disappointment. His diplomatic credentials are still fresh when he is drawn into an urgent assignment: locating an American VIP who vanished on a Yukon hunting trip. Seeking help from the local Mounties, he finds himself paired with Lee Sawchuk, an RCMP sergeant at ease in the challenging terrain of the Yukon environment. Faced with a cryptic warning found in the remote Yukon mountains, all Matthews and Sawchuk know for sure is that the clock is ticking - and they only have four days left.

Available on our website and in stores on September 30th!

 

SAVE THE DATE

  • October 10th: We're so excited to host Newfoundland Quarterly's annual prize draw at our Duckworth Street location! We'll be celebrating and picking the winner with NQ editor Joan Sullivan at 4:00PM.
  • October 18th-19th: Coles in the Avalon Mall is hosting another Local Author Showcase! Catch Breakwater authors Kevin Tobin, Debbie McGee, and Karl Wells on Oct. 18th, and Jen Winsor, Nick Wilkshire, and Ray Critch on Oct. 19th!
  • October 19th: Attention Halifax friends! Angela Antle will be reading from The Saltbox Olive at the RBC Learning Centre in the Halifax Central Library from 2:00-3:00PM! 
  • October 22nd: Join us at The Rooms for a thrilling crime and mystery panel, featuring Kevin Major (Six for Saint-Pierre), Ray Critch (The Beltane Massacre), and Nick Wilkshire (The Hunt)! This is a free event, but you must reserve your tickets here!
  • October 22nd-26th: Check out Breakwater Books at Christmas at the Glacier!
  • October 24th: Susie Taylor, author of Vigil, is featured on a panel at the Ottawa International Writers Festival called "One Life to Live." More information is available here!
  • November 1st: Celebrate the grand opening of our location at 263 Duckworth Street! Stay tuned for more details.
  • November 12th: We're back at The Rooms for a scintillating talk between two of our most recent non-fiction authors, Debbie McGee and Jen Winsor, chatting about what it means to write about their own experiences (including the light and the dark!). Stay tuned for a link to reserve tickets!

 

BIG NEWS

Readings, Launches, and More!

We were very excited to host many opportunities to meet and greet our authors this September! We kicked it off with the latest iteration of our reading series at The Rooms, with a conversation between Heidi Wicks (author of Here) and Angela Antle (author of The Saltbox Olive), moderated by the fantastic Trudy Morgan-Cole. Next, we headed down to the Newfoundland Embassy Pub to launch Fly on the Wall, Kevin Tobin's latest book collecting the best-of-the-best from his 40 years as a cartoonist. And on September 28th, we set sail with Ship Moms during the official launch party for Jen Winsor's debut book at Theatre Hill Cafe at the Majestic Theatre!

We loved seeing three of our powerful female authors in conversation at The Rooms!

 

Kevin Tobin was kept very busy signing books during his launch!

 

It was a full house at Theatre Hill for the launch of Ship Moms, and we can't thank Stephanie O'Brien enough for hosting and chatting with Jen!

 

 

Celebrate the GRAND OPENING of our storefront!

Now that we've settled into our new storefront at 263 Duckworth Street, we're very excited to announce that our grand opening will be held Saturday, November 1st! It has been such a joy to move back downtown and reconnect with our thriving community of readers, authors, and supporters. A full schedule of events is still to come but for now, save the date to celebrate our new space with us! 

 

Celebrating en français!

On September 22nd, we were so happy to be visited by the translator of Mon Indien, the new French translation from Bouton d'Or Acadie of Breakwater's title My Indian. Sheila O'Neill, author of the original English version, joined us, and we had a lovely crowd where we also celebrated the launch of our new selection of French books from Bouton d'Or Acadie! Copies of Mon Indien are available at our Duckworth Street store, along with a selection of other French titles!

 


BREAKWATER BUZZ

Want to know more about our books, our authors, and what we're up to? We have new reviews and new interviews to dig deeper into the story behind your favourite recent reads:

  • "'Til Gangway Do Us Part." Check out Jen Winsor's interview on CBC's Atlantic Voice about ship life and her new book Ship Moms! Listen here.
  • "This book is a must-have for Newfoundland-Labradorians, and for mainlanders as well! It is an impressive array of work and like a quilt, the collection being more than the sum of its parts. No flies on Kevin!" Read Dawn Mockler's review of Fly on the Wall in The Seaboard Review here!
  • For a glimpse into Breakwater's history and the story behind our new downtown location, check out this article on All Lit Up!
  • "Cautiously Pessimistic is unblinkingly honest about love and death and the messy clarity born of two people building a life together over four decades." Read Lisa Moore's review of Cautiously Pessimistic for Riddle Fence here!
  • For our bilingual audience, check out this article about Mon Indien in Le Gaboteur! 
  • Listen to Kevin Tobin discuss his long career and his body of work as a cartoonist on CBC's Weekend AM!
  • Six for Saint-Pierre made CBC's list of 50 Canadian fiction books to read this Fall! Check out the rest of the list here.
  • Debbie McGee was a guest on The Wahl Show with (fellow Breakwater author) Dr. Mike Wahl! Listen here!

 

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Breakwater Books is an eBOUND Digital Certified Publisher!

eBOUND Digital Certification is a Canadian grown ‘whole file health certification’. This certification includes the auditing of accessibility features to the highest standards and reviewing the availability of content on retail sites. This means our digital eBooks are easily accessible for all readers, and we make it as easy as possible for readers seeking accessible content to find our books!

ACP Launches Certified Canadian Publisher Program!

 The Association of Canadian Publishers has launched an exciting new initiative: the Certified Canadian Publisher program! Canadian-owned publishers that support Canadian jobs, champion Canadian talent, strengthen our communities, and boost our economy can now be identified by a certified Canadian Publisher seal.

Breakwater Books is proud to be a Certified Canadian Publisher, connecting conscientious readers with the stories they love. Keep an eye out for this new identifying seal when browsing for books! 

 

COMING SOON!

As we look ahead in October, we have two more exciting releases coming your way! The highly-anticipated sixth instalment of Kevin Major's award-winning Sebastian Synard mystery series hits shelves on October 14th. Then, at the end of October, in partnership with Memorial University Press we're excited to launch an anniversary collection of some of the best of Memorial University's E. J. Pratt lectures, coinciding with MUN's 100th anniversary. 

About Six for Saint-Pierre: History and mystery blend together as Sebastian Synard and his partner Mae travel to Saint-Pierre to visit his son Nick, who is spending a semester immersed in French culture and language. However, their visit to this charming yet peculiar overseas territory of France quickly takes a bad turn. Nick’s budding relationship with his classmate Zach is shattered when Zach’s body is discovered on a deserted shoreline. Sebastian finds himself entwined in the mystery, caught between the competing aims of the local gendarmerie, the RCMP, and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. His search for answers leads him to Martinique, where his relationships are tested to the extreme. What will it take for the trio of police units to come around to Sebastian’s perspective? What will repair the breach with Mae? A violent assault, blackmail, and more questions than answers keeps Synard dodging as he tries to find the truth.

About The E.J. Pratt Lectures: For more than fifty years, Memorial University’s E. J. Pratt Lecture Series has invited eminent critics and artists to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to speak on the topics that lie at the heart of their work. This special edition, published to coincide with Memorial’s 100th anniversary, gathers a selection of the Lectures, beginning with the one that inaugurated the series in 1968, Northrop Frye’s “Silence in the Sea.” George Elliott Clarke, Stan Dragland, Seamus Heaney, and Ursula K. Le Guin are among the E. J. Pratt Laureates represented in the volume, which culminates with Madeleine Thien’s 2025 Lecture. An album reflecting a changing discipline, the volume is filled with a half-century of luminous writing and trenchant insights into poetry and poetics.   

Both of these titles are available for preorder on our website now! Head over there to shop new releases and pre-order our entire Fall catalogue.

 

FROM THE VAULT

ARCHIVE AND BACKLIST HIGHLIGHTS

All the way from the Newfoundland History Series, meet The Ice Hunters by Shannon Ryan: a detailed account of the seal fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador from the early 1800s to WWI.

"The Ice Hunters is a superb resource history as well as the history of a society and its people and their identity in political terms through Colonial, putative Dominion, and Canadian Province." - George M. Story, 1994

Featuring some of the province's most powerful voices, Us, Now weaves together stories that span the globe and converge in Newfoundland and Labrador; joyous, tender, hilarious, and heart-wrenching. This poignant and timeless collection, edited by Lisa Moore, is available online and in-store!

From the archive: The Ice Hunters

From the recent backlist: Us, Now

 

 

PHOTO ALBUM

Check out even more snaps from our busy September below!

Kevin Tobin was a featured guest at the inaugural St. John's Comics Arts Fest! 

 

 

 Jen Winsor stopped by our Duckworth Street store on the release day of Ship Moms to sign some copies for our shelves!

Allison Graves read from Soft Serve during the final presentation of the Stories and Songs series at the Theatre Hill Bar and Cafe!

 
 We were excited to attend the season premiere of Health Explored, the much-loved television show that inspired the book of the same name! As author Dr. Mike Wahl begins a partnership with Young Adult Cancer Canada (YACC), we're delighted that all royalties from book sales at this event are being donated to their organization.