Guest Author Anne C. Kelly

Today, it is my extreme pleasure to welcome Nova Scotia author Anne Kelly to my blog to tell us a bit about her first published novel, Jacques Escape. If you are not familiar with her work, here’s a bit about Anne.

Anne Kelly’s first published novel is Jacques’ Escape, released by Trap Door Books in 2019. But she has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember. She got her first taste of sharing her writing in grade four, when she wrote a class newspaper with a friend. Anne is an avid reader, and especially enjoys reading historical fiction, crime novels and stories from Atlantic Canada. As well as being a writer, Anne is an English teacher at heart. She taught English-as-an-Additional-Language (EAL) to adult newcomers to Canada for over twenty years, and loves learning about different cultures and traditions. She currently works as a language assessor with Learn English Nova Scotia.

Without further ado, here’s Anne.

My novel, Jacques’ Escape, is the story of a fourteen-year-old Acadian boy, Jacques Terriot, whose family is deported in 1755 from Grande Pre to Massachusetts. I first learned about the Grand Derangement (or the Expulsion of the Acadians) when I was in Grade Four. I began to wonder what happened to the families after they were put on the ships and sent away. Most of the Acadian stories and histories I read focused on the time period before and during the deportation. So I decided to dig a little deeper. With the help of the Centre D’Etudes Acadiennes at the University of Moncton and the Boston Public Library, I began to piece together what life was like for the Acadians who landed in Massachusetts. I spent a week on the ground doing research in Boston, including a visit to the Massachusetts Archives. It was both exciting and touching to hold in my hands actual letters and documents written by real-life Acadians in the months following their arrival. And to finally find the answer to the question asked by my nine-year-old self!

Thanks so much for sharing this with us Anne and so interesting to read about how this stayed with you from childhood. I am looking forward to reading it and have added it to my TBR pile. Jacques Escape can be purchased from

NevermorePress– (https://atlanticbooks.ca/books/jacques-escape/

Nimbus Publishing– https://nimbus.ca/store/jacques-escape.html)

Atlantic Books.ca—https://atlanticbooks.ca/books/jacques-escape/

Posted by Laura Best on November 26, 2022

https://lauraabest.wordpress.com/2022/11/26/guest-author-anne-c-kelly/