Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: chanti

FRUIT Of The POISONOUS TREE: Spider Green Mystery Thriller Series Book 1 by Norm Harris – Global Thriller, International Mystery, Action Adventure

A string of riddles awaits Military heroes in Fruit of the Poisonous Tree – a mystery that unravels into an adventurous and jarring epic of divergent national issues by Norm Harris.

JAG officer Faydra “Fay” Green opens a new investigation when Marine war hero Simon Lee is charged with the murder of Navy SEAL Paul Charma. Fay tries to demonstrate her worth as an investigator and prove that she is more than just the daughter of a former United States President. As she works her way through this challenging case, she will reveal a shady picture of government and military intrigue.

Despite Fay’s duty restricting her investigation, she can’t leave any inscrutable stone unturned.

Fay, believing Linn to be a victim of circumstance, turns to a clandestine mission to discover the true murderer. Constant roadblocks prove that forces are pushing back against her questioning Simon’s guilt. Among other mysteries, Fay couldn’t get her hands on Charma’s autopsy records and his remains are released by a Navy personnel who does not appear in any records.

On another canvas of the thriller, the sinking of the frigate USS Jonathan Carr in North Korean sea territory shakes the peace between the two countries; one sailor died under questionable circumstances.

In the midst of unraveling the Charma case, Fay becomes embroiled in this other investigation. Several questions loom as she departs for Seoul to examine the “accidental” death of the sailor: what was that ship doing in North Korean waters? And how is this incident related to the escalation of biological warfare between multiple nations? As Fay struggles to make sense of two mind-boggling cases, the question arises: Are these cases somehow connected?

Across the sea, Egan Fetcher, Navy sailor and commander of Nalon Vet, the Navy’s ghost ship, is on sea trials for 28 days, unaware of the storm that awaits him. As Fetcher’s journey intersects with Fay’s, the hazy fate of the ghost ship becomes obvious. They embark on a voyage that will decide the peace of nations on the verge of war, among intrigue, shady politics, and death threats.

Fay is a modern-day heroine.

In her bearing, she displays strength and determination with a powerful independent streak that adds to her knowledge and confidence. Clever, charming, and lovable as well as professional, Fay strikes a personal balance. In advancing the book’s theme, she faces the dystopian elements of today’s world, where power triumphs over truth, and the daunting struggle against it.

Author Norm Harris offers a detailed picture of military personnel’s style and demeanor, reflecting his experience in military service.

This thriller’s tone is as exciting as it is serious. Its plot comprises a casual sequence of behind-the-scenes dark deals under an outwardly tranquil civilization, with complex politics, rackets, and black ops agreements. However, this mixture of mystery, political intrigue, and crime thriller does not obscure the plot’s humorous and romantic undertones. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree features the delicate romance between Petty Officer Pearce and Navy Captain Fletcher, as well as Fay’s delightful and hilarious relationship with her sister, offering refreshing and cheerful moments.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a nail-biting military thriller that will captivate enthusiasts of national conflicts and military operations. Its intricate plot resembles George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in its themes of control of information and diabolic misuse of technology.

November 21, 2022
THE EXCURSION by T.O. Paine – Horror, Thriller, Suspense Action

The Excursion by T.O. Paine is a horror thriller with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most jaded reader.

Two people tell this story. Charly, a woman in her 30s, faces her emotionally damaged family. Randall, meanwhile, works as an agent of Zaroff Excursions, a hunting club for the uber-wealthy with an interest in an extreme form of hunting where the prey is much more intelligent than a deer or bear.

On a cold Thanksgiving weekend, Charly and a few other members of her family travel to an isolated cabin in the mountains above Denver. Her car gets stuck in a snowdrift, leaving her stranded, but that’s only the start of her trouble. She finds that the cabin has been rented by Randall’s company for that same weekend, forcing her family to share the lodge with strangers.

Charly is there for a complicated family reunion.

Along with her autistic brother Jacob, whom Charly has taken care of all her life, she deals with two cousins: Amanda, who must win everything in her life at any cost, and Cal, who Charly fears might be a psychopath.

Randall has come for his “excursion,” well paid for his work, and confident that this weekend will prove his superiority to his boss. A self-styled alpha male, a hunter-cum-master-of-the-universe, he is in control of every detail of what happens in this ultimate form of hunting. Joining Randall in the cabin are Barry, the wealthy hunter who has signed on for this excursion, and Barry’s gaggle-headed girlfriend Kennedy.

But Randall brought one more person. Tyler sits caged in the boathouse near the cabin, kidnapped to serve as the designated prey. Randall didn’t expect his perfectly planned hunt would include Charly and her family, or Barry’s girlfriend, but he sees an opportunity in them. He has delicious, final plans for everyone at the cabin.

What can go wrong for the hunter who has everything perfectly under control?

A hidden pleasure here is the literary “Easter eggs” the writer has planted. For example, Charly’s last name is Highsmith, certainly a reference to celebrated mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. And Randall may well be related to Steven King’s protagonist in his best-selling The Stand. Does the unusual spelling of “Charly” have its roots in the science-fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon?

The Excursion grips you from the first page. Its march through dense snowdrifts and mountains will leave you yearning for waterproof boots, or, better, a blanket to hide under as you dig further into this twisty, unrelenting story. If you’re a fan of satisfying horror novels, this is one not to miss.

November 18, 2022
Navigating Narrative Non-Fiction | November Deadlines for the CIBAs
Demystify Your Non-Fiction with Chanticleer

In Fiction, genre boundaries can sometimes seem so clear, scifi has aliens and mysteries have a murder, but how do we organize Non-Fiction?

Chanticleer offers a wide variety of Non-Fiction Book Awards, and here we’ll focus on the Narrative Non-Fiction Divisions.

These Divisions are:
The Original*

The Journey Awards came first. These awards shine bright as the lodestar of quality for the others. As more Non-Fiction submissions came in, the number of Non-Fiction Divisions expanded to fill the need. Right now, the Journey Awards focuses primarily on stories Overcoming Adversity. Often tear-jerkers, these stories highlight the resiliency of being human.

The 2021 Grand Prize Winner for the Journey Awards was Better off Bald by Andrea Wilson Woods.

There exists a bond between sisters, and often that bond becomes a connection so strong that time cannot erase the love and the longing for the other. Andrea Wilson Woods defines such a bond in Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days.

Woods details the choreographed life she lives with her sister Adrienne, who has been diagnosed with cancer. Together they begin their dance, pirouetting around IV ports and long lists of medications. Sisters in life, love, and an all-out war against liver cancer.

Woods retells her story with compassion and a rational eye for detail while embracing all the deep emotions that ravage her as she records every one of the 147 days after the initial diagnosis.
Their confusion about how this could have happened and their hope that they can beat this “thing” growing inside Adrienne are present on each page. Woods makes note of the doctors by name, the nurses by nicknames, and the hospital visits by hours spent waiting, waiting, waiting for help to come and rescue them from the nightmare that cancer has made of their lives.

Read more here.

*Note: The Journey Awards deadline has already passed, but the 2023 Journey Awards are open now!

Putting in the Research

Following the Journey Awards, it became clear we needed Awards focused on Journalism and Reporting. Enter the Nellie Bly Awards, named for reporter Nellie Bly whose journey around the Earth inspired the story Around the World in 80 Days. These books can back up all their facts with hard dates and maybe even an appendix at the end. They tell the stories that call out for their place in history.

The 2021 Grand Prize Winner for the Nellie Bly Awards was America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor by Nicole Evelina.

After being forgotten for nearly 130 years, the “Mother of Suffrage in Missouri” and her husband are finally taking their rightful place in history.

St. Louisans Virginia and Francis Minor forever changed the direction of women’s rights by taking the issue to the Supreme Court for the first and only time in 1875, a feat never eclipsed even by their better-known peers Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Yet despite a myriad of accomplishments and gaining notoriety in their own time, the Minors’ names have largely faded from memory. In 1867, Virginia founded the nation’s first organization solely dedicated to women’s suffrage—two years before Anthony formed the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA). Virginia and Francis were also the brains behind the groundbreaking idea that women were given the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment, a philosophy the NWSA adopted for nearly a decade.

Read more here.

Opening up Personal Narratives

As the Journey Awards began filling up, it became difficult to recognize both the uplifting and inspirational work as well as the work that looked at the darker side of what people overcome in their life. To try and highlight this warmer tone of writing, the Hearten Awards were introduced, so this “chicken soup for the soul” style of book could be brought to the forefront.

The 2021 Grand Prize Winner for the Hearten Awards was DAWGS: A True Story of Lost Animals and the Kids Who Rescued Them by Diane Trull & Meredith Wargo

We can all make a difference. Elementary-school teacher Diane Trull’s life-defining moment happened when her fourth-grade reading class saw a photo of a cardboard box overflowing with homeless puppies. Trull was no stranger to rescuing abandoned animals. She and her husband, Mark, had made it their mission to find permanent homes for stray dogs and cats. Now her young students were determined to save these lost pups and others like them. And in that moment, the Dalhart Animal Wellness Group and Sanctuary-known as DAWGS-was born. How Trull and her fourth graders started their own animal shelter is a story of dedication, commitment, and perseverance. In this eye-opening, deeply personal book, Trull describes the challenges they faced, from rescuing and caring for the animals to teaching children about compassion and responsibility, to facing local interests opposed to having a shelter in their town. She shares inspiring stories about animals and animal lovers of all ages in this moving story of hope and compassion. DAWGS is a testament to how love and a strong measure of determination can offer second chances-one animal, one child, and one day at a time.

Read more here!

The Newest Division from Chanticleer

The Military and Front Line Awards are close to our heart at Chanticleer. We’ve often wanted enough submissions for this to be its own Division as we all have family who has served in the military. However, we wanted these Awards to represent all walks of life that provide Service to Others like firefighters, teachers, medical workers, and the family of those who work to make our world a better place.

The 2021 Grand Prize Winner for the Military and Front Line Awards was Dear Bob by Martha Bolton with Linda Hope

For five decades, comedian, actor, singer, dancer, and entertainer Bob Hope (1903-2003) traveled the world performing before American and Allied troops and putting on morale-boosting USO shows. Dear Bob . . . : Bob Hope’s Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II tells the story of Hope’s remarkable service to the fighting men and women of World War II, collecting personal letters, postcards, packages, and more sent back and forth among Hope and the troops and their loved ones back home.

Soldiers, nurses, wives, and parents shared their innermost thoughts, swapped jokes, and commiserated with the “G.I.s’ best friend” about war, sacrifice, lonely days, and worrisome, silent nights. The Entertainer of the Century performed for millions of soldiers in person, in films, and over the radio. He visited them in the hospitals and became not just a pal but their link to home. This unforgettable collection of letters and images, many of which remained in Hope’s personal files throughout his life and now reside at the Library of Congress, capture a personal side of both writer and recipient in a very special and often-emotional way. This volume heralds the voices of those servicemen and women whom Hope entertained and who, it is clear, delighted and inspired him.

Read more here.

A huge thank you to these incredible authors.

Keep Writing. Truth matters now more than ever.

Have an excellent Non-Fiction Narrative that deserves recognition? Submit now to our Non-Fiction Book Awards by the end of November!*

Note: The Journey Awards Deadline has already passed

Your book could be next!

Looking to up your game? Check out the traditional publishing tool that indie authors can use to propel their writing careers to new levels.
November 17, 2022
FISHING For LUCK by Murray Richter – Middle Grade Fiction, Family & Friendships, Coming of Age

During the pre-internet era of 1980, Kevin and his friends just want to enjoy a good fishing adventure, but troubles from the past come back to complicate their carefree boyhood in Murray Richter’s novel, Fishing for Luck.

As the group prepares their fishing raft for its maiden voyage, Kevin tries to solve these problems himself before anyone else knows of them, but no matter what he tries, the situation only gets worse. His parents seem on the verge of a divorce, his mentor struggles to find his long-lost love, and his sister just wants her bike back already. As Kevin takes on more and more responsibility to avoid what seem to be inevitable consequences, will he be able to see that this is all too much for one kid to handle and ask those he trusts for help?

Fishing For Luck is a wild ride of pre-teen hijinks reminiscent of the golden age of coming-of-age comedies and sitcoms we all know and love. Our young main character gets into a situation where everything goes wrong, and scrambles to fix it before anyone notices. Kevin’s predicament becomes engrossing with an extra dose of danger.

Rudy and Preech, Kevin’s friends, make a close-knit group with him that loves fishing, pranking each other, and learning from their mentor, Preech’s uncle.

Kevin cares deeply about his friends and family, and part of his desire to solve his problems on his own comes from a wish to protect them. He faces the dilemma that if he tells anyone, then the people he cares about will face harm. During the parts of the story where he’s with Rudy and Preech, but can’t share what is going on, they still manage to cheer him up because they’re great friends who understand each other.

Fishing For Luck shows that we don’t always give kids enough credit.

They are smart and can have great ingenuity, yet they may not have thought fully about the consequences of their actions. However, Kevin and his loyal gang face the problem head-on and try to find a solution.

Author Murray Richter creates a funny and creative middle-grade story that people of all ages can enjoy. Kevin is a relatable character with a big heart and strong beliefs, dealing with a spiral of misfortune. Don’t miss out on this story of kids taking on the world in Fishing For Luck.

Fishing for Luck by Murray Richter won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Gertrude Warner Awards for Middle Grade Fiction, and the audiobook, performed by actor/narrator Kirby Heyborne is available now!

November 16, 2022
Understanding Prescriptive Non-Fiction | November Non-Fiction Deadlines!
Looking at the I&I, Harvey Chute, and Mind & Spirit Awards

There are two types of Non-Fiction that we commonly see: Narrative Non-Fiction and Prescriptive Non-Fiction.

Just what is the difference between types of Non-Fiction?

Narrative often makes the most sense, but that doesn’t mean that Prescriptive Non-Fiction deserves a bad rap. Let’s look at some definitions:

Narrative Non-Fiction:

The primary focus is story. Often a beginning, middle, and end, it stands strong with most fiction stories, with the notable difference that it is, in fact, Non-Fiction. Memoir is similar, though obviously focused on one person’s first person experience of their own life.

Prescriptive Non-Fiction:

The primary focus here is conveying a message. Narrative and writing style help convey this message in the same way it conveys theme in a Narrative Non-Fiction. The person writing must be an expert in the subject. How else do you make a full book of it?

While we’re going to focus on three different genres of Prescriptive Non-Fiction, you can always read more about it through resources like this one here.

Three Genres of the CIBAs for Prescriptive Non-Fiction

While you can see our full list of Non-Fiction Genres (including the newest for Military and Front Line Books) here, we consider our I&I, Harvey Chute, and Mind & Spirit Book Award Programs to be closest to Prescriptive Non-Fiction. The main focuses for these three Awards programs are How-To, Business & Finance, and Spirituality and Mindfulness.

There’s a good deal of overlap with the other Awards as sometimes the instructional side of a workbook takes over more than the part that looks directly at financial or spiritual welfare. However, the key here is that you learn while enjoying a book. Maybe the book is framed through someone’s personal experience, their clinical experience, or told in the form of a travelogue, but no matter what it brings you through to a new understanding by the end.

What Does Prescriptive Non-Fiction Look Like?

Examples are always best in these cases. Here are some of our favorite Non-Fiction books that we’ve reviewed recently focusing on How-To, Business & Finance, and Spirituality.

EMOTIONAL MAGNETISM: How to Communicate to Ignite Connection in Your Relationships

By Sandy Gerber

Emotional Magnetism: How to Communicate to Ignite Connection in Your Relationships is a self-help and marketing book in one—in fact, it’s a self-marketing book.

A seasoned marketing professional, author Sandy Gerber uses common elements in marketing theory to aid those who wish to enhance their communication skills and ability to get along with people around them. It’s easy to be misunderstood or unheard, and it’s even easier to be at cross-purposes, leading to frustration and animosity. But using Gerber’s SAVE technique, understanding what we mean and what we need becomes clear.

In this work, we learn what emotional magnetism is, and how well we can communicate when we learn how to harness it. We also learn about how emotional magnetism can be repelled when it’s not done right. But in order to use emotional magnetism, we must first learn what the emotional magnets are, using the acronym SAVE—short for safety (S), achievement (A), value (V), and experience (E)—and how they are reflected in our personalities.

Read more here!

HEALING OUT LOUD: How to Embrace God’s Love When You Don’t Like Yourself

By Sandi Brown & Michelle Caulk

Two writers – friends, and former counselor and client – combine forces to create Healing Out Loud, a dynamic book aimed at understanding and overcoming the deficits that life hands us.

Sandi Brown, a radio personality with more grit than she realizes, seeks professional help. Michelle Caulk’s therapeutic methodology perfectly suits this case. The two offer examples of wishing for and finding true mental health through the development of a remarkable communicative relationship.

Each chapter of the pair’s psychological explorations begins with a memory from Sandi, accompanied by her expanded view of incidents from childhood and beyond. These ruminations are then matched by counselor Michelle’s personal grasp of Sandi’s specific dilemmas, and well-constructed guidelines for a healing process that readers can incorporate into their own lives. Sandi, grappling with low self-esteem, was traumatized as a child when her father left her mother and brother, loudly and finally, with no explanation.

Read more here!

WELFARE CHEESE to FINE CAVIAR: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing

By Thomas Wideman, MBA, PMP

First Place Winner in the Harvey Chute Awards

Thomas Wideman, the author of this dynamic self-help manual, Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing, rose from poverty and dismay to a life of security and personal achievement through techniques he shares with readers who can incorporate them into their own life plans.

Wideman came from an impoverished African American family wracked by confusion, chaos, and, at times, criminality. His mother had three sons by three fathers, and he would come to know his own father only peripherally, eventually learning that the man murdered people and subsequently died in prison. The boy grew up in tough neighborhoods and ate “welfare cheese” (a block of pre-sliced heavy American cheese that supposedly melted well). Every month, making ends meet became more and more difficult. In an early chapter of this finely woven chronology, we see him taking food from trains parked along the railroad tracks and running from the authorities. In this, as in each new chapter, he speaks of confronting severe issues and finding ways to resolve them. In the case of the theft and other childhood incidents of fighting, experiencing bullies, and battling racism, he speaks of making up his mind that “my circumstances need not be my limitation.”

A math whiz, Wideman found his strengths through schoolwork, striving for A’s instead of merely accepting B’s.

Read more here!

GATHERING PEBBLES: Learning How to Make Your Own Chicken Soup

By David Okerlund

Inuit of the Canadian Arctic are known for creating stone structures used as navigational points and message centers for fellow travelers. Some of these directional monuments provide a spiritual connotation meant to enrich the journey.

Gathering Pebbles is David Okerlund’s own “inukshuk” of sorts, a book filled with stories, recollections, and memorable life events that have become part of his personal road map for living. Okerlund, a world-class inspirational speaker, shares his best stories to help you create your own life-path. He shares this collection of nuggets in the interest of helping others along their chosen path and hoping to encourage their own “gathering” and sharing of valuable knowledge.

Okerlund directs his writing in a casual, user-friendly style. Each of the book’s chapters is highlighted as a pebble gathered on his winding life’s path. Titles are effectively posed as questions to help draw readers into the topic at hand. Each chapter is formatted with a variable mixture of contemplative quotes, poetry, recaptured historical moments, and personal experiences, to showcase qualities such as perseverance, retaining a sense of childhood wonderment, the importance of faith, and following your dreams.

Read more here!

Each of these books does an excellent job navigating their genres (and their cover designs!), making it clear who they appeal to and how they can help the reader.

Have a How-To, Self-Help, or another great Non-Fiction Read that deserves recognition? Submit now to our Non-Fiction Book Awards by the end of November!

Celebrating the 2021 Winners for I&I, Harvey Chute, and the Mind & Spirit Awards!

Your book could be next!

Looking for more great reads?
Looking to up your game? Check out the traditional publishing tool that indie authors can use to propel their writing careers to new levels.
November 15, 2022
MAGGHIE: Big Horse Series by Barbara Salvatore – U.S. Historical Fiction, Women’s Historical Fiction, Horse Fiction

Award-winning author Barbara Salvatore brings human foibles, horse traits, and herbal lore together through a young teenage girl’s eyes in her historical fiction novel, Magghie.

Magghie Wilder has much to cope with, much to learn. She grows up as the only child of Hans and Maye, immigrants from Germany. They make a home in Pennsylvania, in the expanding United States. Hans talks too much, expounding on the simplest issues in grandiose German. He seems to have little time for listening to his curious but often distracted daughter.

But Hans does teach Magghie how to train and handle the big draft horses needed for heavy hauling and farm work. He encourages her to drive her own team and learn the habits of each one. Maye, by contrast, dreams in quiet and calm, and from her, Magghie learns by watching. Maye understands plant lore deeply and elicits in Magghie the revelation that every green growing thing can be helpful and significant.

The three live on a successful large farm in relative isolation. Neither religion nor socializing play a role in their routine.

Things change when Braun, a blacksmith, and his lanky adolescent son, Karl, appear and are kept on as help with horses and farm. Magghie learns a smattering of English from the more worldly-wise visitors. Then, the somewhat chaotic but friendly incursion of a Mormon family follows. Magghie meets the husband, children, and two wives, one of which is pregnant. Maye, recalling the sorrows of losing more than one infant, helps Dora in childbirth. Magghie will watch and come to comprehend why Maye has always seemed so self-enclosed. From the Mormons, Magghie learns something else her parents had resolved never to tell her – the existence of God and the place of religion in human lives.

Salvatore sets her scene, and the plotlines seem poised for positive outcomes. Until someone brings a life-threatening disease to the valley, creating havoc and despair.

Salvatore’s current work includes teaching and consulting in Plant Medicine and Horse Care. Since she was thirteen, she has kept a “Dream Journal” and envisions her Big Horse series as a set of four novels, with Magghie being the second book. Her own interests shine clearly through every page of her story, which she tells in a cozy mix of prose and poetry.

She has appended a lengthy section for her readers, offering further elucidation of the subject matter. This includes the history of Pennsylvania’s settlement, German language usages, extensive notations regarding the Percheron horses used on Wilder’s farm, and further facts about the Mormons’ epic cross-country pilgrimage.

Salvatore’s Magghie has definite cinematic potential. The story ends with an open invitation to the sequel, promised by the author. That’s good news!

Magghie by Barbara Salvatore placed as a Finalist in the CIBAs Laramie Book Awards honoring Americana Fiction, and comes highly recommended!

November 14, 2022
Big Horse Woman: Shónge Tongà Wa’u by Barbara Salvatore – First Nations Historical Fiction, Coming of Age Historical Fiction, Magic Realism

A vivid, mystical tale of a young girl coming of age amidst her people, the Ponca, on the Great Plains, in the early 1800s. This prize-winning novel, Big Horse Woman by Barbara Salvatore, offers poetic imagery and a glimpse of the world seen through the eyes of a gentle healer and powerful seer.

Water Willow is born under a black willow tree, daughter of an enchanting songstress mother, a fearless hunter father, a “seed carrying” grandmother known for her understanding of curative plants, and a grandfather who carries the secret lore of bears. She will inherit properties of all of them. The child bears a visionary gift that will be articulated when she reaches four years of age, so clear then that the whole tribe gathers to listen: enemies are on the way, and all must flee to the yet undiscovered site of a big white sycamore tree. Once there, they find protection and nature’s abundance and can settle in their new home, Planting Creek.

As Water Willow grows, she continues to have visions, some of them too horrible to share.

She sees the inevitable slaughter of a young man who wishes to take her as his wife. Water Willow acquires the secrets of communication with animals, hones her hunting skills, and develops her knowledge for using particular plants for healing. Her name becomes Big Horse Woman when she rescues a colt drowning in a flash flood and tames him even as he grows to great size.

Maturity brings expanded inner sight, making her realize that wisdom can cause pain as well as prosperity.

Big Horse Woman’s people, now under the subtle sway of white men invading their homeland, bringing disease and discord, are less prepared to follow her wise message: “We will not grow tall corn or live long if war is what we seek.”

So Big Horse Woman will take to the wilderness with her Big Horse and her wolfish companion, Ears Up, becoming a loner and absorbing needed knowledge at each turn of her new-made path. Discovering a hidden bag of corn seed on the trail, she begins to realize they are close to their old home, and she must follow the clues as she moves on.

One remarkable feature of Salvatore’s authorship is the diligence, the undeniable effort she has made to create this story.

A lengthy segment following the tale gives a factual underpinning for the Ponca people’s history, language, and the many glowing images that infuse the narrative, a combination of prose and poetry appropriate to the magical universe inhabited in the heart of its heroine. When Water Willow brings home a scrap of beautifully decorated cloth found on the horns of a buffalo, she is unwittingly bringing smallpox to plague herself and her extended family, one of the eerie “legacies” of early white settlement of the West.

A gripping reference to a historically recorded shower of shooting stars on November 13, 1833, heralds the girl’s incarnation. Descriptions of the women’s cures drawn from their natural surroundings will be comfortably recognizable to anyone familiar with herbal remedies in the modern era. With these and other salient references, Salvatore shows her admirable devotion to her setting and her subject. Salvatore’s book is the first in what she has titled the Big Horse Series and will doubtless garner a wide readership for this work and its sequels.

Big Horse Woman won 1st Place in the CIBAs Laramie Book Awards for First Nations Historical Fiction and is one book we highly recommend!

November 11, 2022
November SPOTLIGHT on the 2022 Somerset Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction

November brings insight, reflection, and contemplation of the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. As the year winds down, so, too, we reflect and ponder what we have done, who we are, and who we would like to be.

It’s a perfect time to curl up with a good novel, you know, the type that grabs you and lives with you long after you put it down.

This is why we celebrate novels that are literary, satirical, and contemporary. This is why we celebrate the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards – Somerset Literary Novels Writing Competitions.

We chose William Somerset Maugham because we love his work and love what he has to say about it:

“I am a made writer. I do not write as I want to; I write as I can… I have had small power of imagination… no lyrical quality… little gift of metaphor I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed.” W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham was a British author who wrote plays and short stories and novels. He was a dashing and daring man who did not wish to follow the other men in his family to practice law. Imagine, an individual in the Victorian Era… He was born on January 25, 1874, in Paris (at the British Embassy) and died on December 16th, 1965, in Nice, France.

During the First World War, our Somerset proved his valor by serving with the Red Cross in the ambulance corps (remember his earlier medical training) and was recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service right before the October Revolution in 1917.

Somerset dove into medicine and was fairly good at it until he wrote his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897) and all bets were off. The book flew off the shelves and people were reportedly wrestling in the streets for copies to gift their loved ones. (*Creative license at work – however, you don’t know that this did not happen…) He was known to say, “I took to it (writing) as a duck takes to water.”

At the age of sixty-six, he had to flee with only a suitcase from the encroaching Nazis as they advanced across Europe. He escaped to England and then on to South Carolina, in the U.S. where he continued to work on the screenplay for Razor’s Edge. He moved to Hollywood and then eventually back to France.

Did we mention that W. Somerset Maugham was repudiated to be the highest-paid author of the 1930s?

It’s obvious why we chose Somerset to represent our Literary & Contemporary Fiction Awards!

Submit your novel or manuscript to our Somerset Awards today!

Here is a listing of the Somerset Book Awards Hall of Fame Winners!

The 2018 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

Hard Cider – a novel by Barbara A. Stark-Nemon

Abbie Rose Stone is a woman determined to follow her newly discovered dream of producing her own craft hard apple cider while navigating the ups and downs of family life with her grown sons and husband.

Abbie Rose knows how to deal with adversity, and dives headfirst into this new chapter of her life with energy and passion. She describes her early adulthood years of infertility struggles and the hardscrabble way she built her young family through invasive medical procedures, a surrogate attempt, and adoption barriers.

The 2019 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

The Proprietor of Theatre Life by Donna LeClair

Still in progress, we’re excited to review Donna’s book when it comes out!

The 2020 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

Gregory Erich Phillips for A Season in Lights

Gregory Erich Phillips’ A Season in Lights is a well-crafted, engaging exploration of creatives, each following their heart and trying to reach their dream.

Against backdrops of the 1980s AIDS crisis and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, the story entwines the lives of a 30-something dancer and an older musician as they strive to make their artistic mark in the cultural capital of New York City.

Here in a two-fold unveiling, the story comes to life from the first-person perspective of Cammie, a starry-eyed aspiring dancer from Lancaster, PA, and the third-person reveal of Tom, a more seasoned black pianist. He longs for a classical career but is too often labeled a jazz musician. Cammie first encounters Tom in a studio dance class where he’s taken a job as the musical accompanist. Befriended by the gay dance instructor, Tom heeds the worldly advice offered about surviving in the Big Apple. “All you’ve got to do is convince people that you belong. You’ve got to tell them who you are before they tell you.”

The 2021 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

Lies in Bone Natalie Symons

A review of Lies in Bone is forthcoming. However, we know you’ll love this intricate story told with beautifully tight control. A mystery lies at the heart of this book that has the feeling of a grown-up To Kill a Mockingbird meets Serial Production’s S-Town Podcast. Highly Recommended.

Will your novel be recognized as the best of the best in the Somerset Awards for 2022? Find out!

Submit your work to the Chanticleer International Book Awards – today!

The last day to submit your work is November 30, 2022. We invite you to join us, tell us your stories, and find out who will take home the prize at CAC23 on April 29th.

As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your literary novel deserves! Enter today!

The SOMERSET Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.

The winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony on April 29, 2023, which will take place during the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference. All Finalists and First Place category winners will be recognized, the First Place Winners will be whisked up on stage to receive their custom ribbon and wait to see who among them will take home the Grand Prize. It’s an exciting evening of dinner, networking, and celebrations!

First Place Winners and Grand Prize winners will each receive an awards package. Whose works will be chosen?

The excitement builds for the 2022 SOMERSET Book Awards competitions.

November 10, 2022
REQUIEM For A QUEEN by Kaylin McFarren – Paranormal Suspense, Action & Adventure, Occult Fiction

To what lengths will a person go when ultimate power is within reach? Requiem For A Queen by Kaylin McFarren explores the depths of greed that propel a daughter to defy her father, the Devil himself.

Lucinda uses evil means to pursue an equally dark end, the crown of Hell. How can this woman be stopped, and an innocent child she’s stolen away be saved? Is there anyone willing to step forward, and muster the strength to stand up against the destructive battle between the Devil and his daughter?

Samara, a hybrid between angel and demon, can only save her abducted son by stepping into that battle.

Though she feels alone and powerless, Samara is determined. She refuses to reveal her location or seek help after escaping brutal imprisonment by the Devil, who raped her. Pregnant, and now in labor, Samara secretly delivers the Devil’s son and remains in hiding. Her baby is the most precious being to her; she’ll do anything to protect him, and she celebrates him as he grows. As she finds happiness, Samara becomes interested in an intriguing, handsome being who rescued her from drowning.

That joy is torn apart the day her son disappears. Lucinda has found him and decides to eliminate the only other living heir to their father’s throne.

Samara has now lost all she loves. She cannot seek help from her own family, or the Devil will execute his threats against them. So, she begins an anguished search alone, but Lucinda is devious and cunning, keeping a step ahead of her.

Samara has a terrible decision to make. Will she return to the Devil, seeking his help to find their son? What life will that leave for them both? Or, as a half-demon herself, she could try to stoke her powers, in defense of her family. Can she find her son and win him back before he is destroyed? Or will he manage to break free on his own?

Author Kaylin McFarren has created an emotional clash of wills in this third installment of the Gehenna series.

In this book, the three fervent opponents fight to win regardless of the consequences. They utilize every weapon available, unwilling to back down, in this incredible fight to discover the true value of family devotion and personal redemption. The reader is thrust into the midst of a page-turning journey, examining the darkest crevices of the nature of evil, particularly in the Devil’s actions.

Yet, Samara is part demon, and Lucinda is the Devil’s daughter. Both women struggle with their emotions, and their choices to act on the powers available to them. McFarren artfully creates a Lucifer who struggles as well, in his case, against glimpses of sweeter desires that do not fit his devilish and demonic self. These characters do not fight only external foes, but also internal forces, creating a compelling story of good versus evil that springs from within as well as from without.

November 9, 2022
NEW: The Military and Front Line Awards from Chanticleer
The Military & Front Lines Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in Narrative Non-Fiction and Memoir, exploring the lives of those who serve their country and others. The Military & Front Lines Service Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).

We have long wanted to hold a Book Award Division for Narrative Non-Fiction that highlights the Service to Others embodied by those in our Military and Front Line Workers. You can enter the 2022 Military and Front Line Book Awards today!

All of us at Chanticleer have family that has served. Kiffer Brown grew up as a military brat with many members of her family serving.

2nd Lt Billy Wayne Flynn, U.S. Army. West Point Graduate

Second Lieutenant Billy Wayne Flynn was killed in action, Vietnam, January 23, 1967. He was 24 years old. Billy Wayne gave to me a book of poetry from his studies at West Point before he left for Viet Nam. He was my cousin. It was my first book of poetry and has his notes. I was in fourth grade. I still have it and treasure it. – Kiffer

Robert Gerard Beaumier Sr. who served in WWII

My father would often tell the story of how his dad, Robert, was in France during World War II. At one point a dog came and wouldn’t stop barking at his unit, no matter how much they told it to go away. Finally, Robert said “Va t’en!” and immediately the dog ran off. Everyone was suitably impressed that the dog spoke French! – David

The new Division honors the following Non-Fiction Narratives:
- Military and Armed Forces Service Narratives
- Medical Stories focused on Nurses, Doctors, Health Care Workers, and other Essential Workers
- Stories of Community Service Workers such as Firefighters and Police
- CARE, Peace Corps, Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and other service organizations
- Work in Agencies that serve their Community and Government
- Families of those who serve in these Community Roles
Recognizing Winners from the inaugural 2021 Military and Front Line Awards

FLY SAFE: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home
By Vicki Cody

Not many people can capture the emotions that coincide with war, but Vicki Cody joins the ranks of those who do in her wartime memoir, Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home.

This powerful memoir shows us the behind-the-scenes lives of the women, children, and families left at home while their soldiers set off for war, bringing us close to their raw vulnerability. Fly Safe fascinates as it informs readers of what one wife experiences as her commander husband leads his battalion to the middle east.

Read more here

DEAR BOB: Bob Hope’s Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II
By Martha Bolton with Linda Hope

During World War II, Bob Hope traveled almost ceaselessly to outposts large and small, entertaining US troops – and inspiring them; Martha Bolton brings the extent of this work to light in Dear Bob.

Writer Martha Bolton worked with and for comedian Bob Hope. Now, with Hope’s daughter Linda, she has gathered and organized the letters written to Bob by the soldiers he helped.

Read more here

Keep Telling Stories – They Are Needed!

Submit Here!

We are always honored to be trusted with any book at Chanticleer. It is a pleasure to highlight these stories with their own division.

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.“–Mark Twain

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” – Maya Angelou

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” —Joseph Campbell
November 8, 2022