The Somerset Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best new books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes to compete in the Somerset Book Awards (the CIBAs). We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the first look rounds from all 2025 Somerset entries to the 2025 Somerset Book Awards LONG LIST. These entries are now in competition for the 2025 Short List. The Short Listers will compete for the Semi-Finalists positions. FINALISTS will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, CAC26.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 18th, 2026 in beautiful Bellingham, WA sponsored by the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference. 

These titles are in the running for the SHORT LIST of the 2025 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!

• Adam Strassberg – December on 5C4
• AG Flitcher – Wasp Oil
• AK Logan – Masks of Silence
• Allie Cresswell – The Cottage on Winter Moss
• Anna Binder Reardon – Wethersfield Road
• Anne Freeman – The Time After Now
• Anne Heinrich – Violet Is Blue
• Art Young – Downeyoshun
• B.E. Kennedy – County Kildare
• BL Smith – The Unpleasantness on Orchard
• Brian Hackett – Leaving Naples
• Bruce J. Berger – Forgiven a Novel
• Carolyn Summer Quinn – The Mystery From Way Back When
• Catherine Matthews – Roadside Sisters
• Chadwick Wall – The Fertile Crescent
• Cheryl Grey Bostrom – What the River Keeps
• Chip Jacobs – Later Days
• Christopher Woods – Some Rainbow
• Chuck Locklear – Being Hope
• Curtis Andrew Burton – Bloom a Novel
• Dan Schorr – Open Bar a Novel
• Daniel Oakman – Fire in the Head
• Dave Pearce – Fighters of Fire
• David Galef – Where I Went Wrong
• Debz Hobbs-Wyatt – If Crows Could Talk
• Dennis D. Skirvin – The Gentlemen’s Club and the Great Ferris Wheel
• Elizabeth A. Tucker – The Pale Flesh of Wood
• Elizabeth Conte – Life of Her
• Francis-Adrien Morneault – The Light of Faded Stars
• George Petersen – The Summer of Haight
• Gregg Brandalise – The Death of Us All
• Isaac Thorne – Tab’s Terrible Third Eye
• J.J. Cheng – Phoenixa the Nest a Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy
• Jacci Turner – Love Virus
• Jane Ward – Should Have Told You Sooner
• Jimmy Cela – Hotel Bahnhof
• Jude Berman – The Vow a Novel
• Judith Jackson-Pomeroy – Weight of a Woman
• Julie Hammonds – Blue Mountain Rose a Novel in Five Acts
• Kathleen Stone – Missing From Me
• Kipling Knox – How To Love in a World Like This
• Leslie A. Rasmussen – When People Leave a Story of Love Lies and Finding the Truth
• Linda Paul – Fabricated
• LK Quinn – The Toffee Man and the Kingdom of Ends
• Lya Badgley – The Thirty-Fifth Page
• Magdalena & Ashe Stevens – Fragments
• Mark A. Gibson – Roses in December Hamilton Place Book II
• Mark Mustian – Boy with Wings
• Maxsense Maximus – Two Euro Candles a Memoir of Faith Trauma and Quiet Miracles
• Michelle Daniel – A Scarlet Mind
• Natia Khaduri – I Forgave You
• Peter Gooch – Seren
• R. B. Shifman – Paper Airplane Broken Bones
• Radu Guiasu – The Faraway Mountains
• Rick Lenz – Mit Out Sound
• Robert L Jones – 1911
• Robert L Jones – Hope
• Robert L Jones – Hopeless
• Robin Merle – A Dangerous Friendship
• Ruby Soames – Homewrecked
• S.E. Beathan – Nothing Lost
• Sam Martin – Bitterblue
• Sarah E. Pearsall – The Summer Knows
• Shawn Hays and Stephen Hays – What Light Was
• Steve Schlam – The Harvesting of Haystacks Kane
• Su Chang – The Immortal Woman
• Susan Ellison Busch – Chance at Life
• Susan Poole – Out of The Crash
• Suzanne Uttaro Samuels – Seeds of the Pomegranate
• Terri Hanauer – The Lightness of Rain
• Thomas Trabulsi – The Fire Service of Sachem City
• Tong Ge – The House Filler
• Trisha T Pritikin – Then Came the Summer Snow an Atomic Age Hero’s Journey
• Tudor Alexander – The Last Patient
• Wendy J. Dunn – Shades of Yellow

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS! 

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We will also be promoting this list in our Newsletter, which you can sign up for here!

Congratulations once more to the 2024 Somerset Grand Prize Winner

Vermilion Harvest

By Reenita Malhotra Hora

Click here to see the full list of 2024 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2026 Somerset Book Awards.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2025 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 17 – 19, 2026! Save the Date for Registration!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our annual conference discover why!