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"Day Of Epiphany" by Author and Actor Jerome J Bourgault Wins CANREADS Award for Historical Fiction
Day Of Epiphany by Canadian author/actor, Jerome J Bourgault is the recent winner of CANREADS Award for Historical Fiction 2026, available now on Amazon and Indigo. Bourgault’s highly anticipated book is an exploration of a dark chapter in Canadian and specifically Quebecois history: the “Grande Noirceur” (“Great Darkness”) of 1944–1959. The Catholic Church wielded its influence through the provincial government, controlling education, healthcare and orphanages. Day of Epiphany is both powerful and unsettling, as it examines the systemic abuse and scars left by religious institutions. An uncomfortable reminder, some would prefer left alone… Day Of Epiphany delivers why in shocking detail.
Day of Epiphany takes place in 1950s Quebec as the province languishes under the oppressive dual authorities of the Roman Catholic Church and the autocratic government of Maurice Duplessis. In the small town of St-Jolain, young Sister Cassandra Lalonde works tirelessly as a teacher at the Ste-Madeleine (Ste-M) Orphanage. It’s a difficult life for the children, but Cassandra has hope for four of Ste-M’s best and brightest young teens—Suzanne, Hélène, Diane, and Eleanora, with whom she has forged a powerful bond. Day Of Epiphany is their journey. After an explosion closes the orphanage, the nuns and children return to find the rebuilt facility has been re-designated by the Duplessis government as a psychiatric hospital, and the orphans have been “reclassified” as mental patients. To make matters worse, Ste-M has been merged with a notoriously brutal psychiatric hospital from another parish, whose patients and staff are fully integrated with the resident population of the new Sainte-Madeleine Institute. In the living nightmare that follows, Sister Cassandra struggles to recognize God’s hand in such darkness. As casualties begin to mount, Cassandra must resort to increasingly drastic measures to protect those under her care. Bourgault’s Day Of Epiphany is a must-read story of moral complexity, personal resilience, loss and redemption.
Jerome J. Bourgault is a French-Canadian author, actor, visual artist, and educator. His debut novel, The Perpetual Now, was named winner of the 2021 Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) for Science Fiction and the Eric Hoffer Award for Commercial Fiction. Day of Epiphany was named winner of the Whistler Independent Book Award for fiction in 2025 and the 2026 CANREADS Award for Historical Fiction. Jerome holds degrees in Anthropology (McGill University) and Communications (University of Ottawa)
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