Guernica Editions,Canada

Cyprian Ghezo, crown prince of Dahomey (now Benin), is a student at Sorbonne University. Passionate about history and art, he participates as a worker in the renovation of a historical monument in Paris. This descent into the rubble leads him to the traces of a horrible crime once committed by the Kingdom of France under the Old Regime, and which continues to be kept secret today by the French Republic. The victim was a prince kidnapped from the Kingdom of Dahomey and brought to the court of Louis XIV as a slave. Cyprian’s discovery alarms the secret services of the Republic. At first, they try to use discreet methods to prevent the student from reaching the truth. But Cyprian’s obsession soon leads him to become a target of a real manhunt in Paris.

Set in the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Ley Lines begins in the mythical boom town of Sawdust City, Yukon Territory. Luckless prospector Steve Ladle has accepted an unusual job offer: accompany a local con artist to the unconquered top of a nearby mountain. What he finds there briefly upends the town’s fading fortunes, attracting a crowd of gawkers and acolytes, while inadvertently setting in motion a series of events that brings about the town’s ruin.In the aftermath, a ragtag group of characters is sent reeling across the Klondike, struggling to come to grips with a world that has been suddenly and unpredictably upturned. As they attempt to carve out a place for themselves, our protagonists reckon with the various personal, historical and supernatural forces that have brought them to this moment.A wildly inventive, psychedelic odyssey, Ley Lines flips the frontier narrative on its ear, and heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Canadian fiction.