Okay, so winning the Not the Booker Prize is not like, well, winning the Booker, but we’re sure Victoria, B.C. author Mathew Hooton is pleased as punch anyway. His debut novel, Deloume Road, published by Knopf Canada last spring, was just named co-winner of the Guardian‘s annual consolation prize (determined by online vote), tying with U.K. author Lee Rourke’s The Canal. According to Guardian blogger Sam Jordison:

Deloume Road is a novel with real, haunting power. I’m still puzzling over its strange, unsettling conclusion, still delighted by its evocation of the Vancouver Island wilderness. Alone on our shortlist, it has been greeted with warmth by almost everyone who has read it.