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The 2025 Journey Short List for Overcoming Adversity in Narrative Non-Fiction
The Journey Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Overcoming Adversity in Narrative Non-Fiction and Memoir. The Journey Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring true stories about adventures, life events, unique experiences, travel, personal journeys, global enlightenment, and more. We will put books about true and inspiring stories to the test and choose the best among them. See our full list of Non-Fiction Divisions here.
These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2025 Journey Non-Fiction Long List to the 2025 Journey Book Awards SHORT LIST. Entries below are now in competition for 2025 Journey Semi-Finalists. Finalists will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC26).
The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 28 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.
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 SEMI-FINALISTS of the 2025 Journey Book Awards novel competition for Overcoming Adversity in Non-Fiction!
Join us in celebrating the Long List authors and their works in the 2025 CIBAs.
- Amanda Carrasco – Becoming the Brave One
- Amy Mackin – Henry’s Classroom: a Special Education in American Motherhood
- Ana Hebra Flaster – Property of the Revolution: From a Cuban Barrio To a New Hampshire Mill Town
- Anne Abel – High Hopes
- Anselm Ezemson – Chasing Closure: a Life on the Edge of Belonging
- Baldur Einarsson – Ice and Fire: Thawing a Murderer’s Heart
- Barbara Jenkins – So Long As It’s Wild
- Beth Granger – Born and Razed: Surviving the Cult Was Only Half the Battle
- Brandi Dredge – Girl Uncoded: a Memoir of Passion Betrayal and Eventual Blessings
- Brian J. Quattlebaum – A Mad Box of Rain
- Carl Gorham – My Life in a Garden: Love, Loss, and Mulch: a Single Dad Seeks Answers in Nature
- Carol Odell, LICSW – Girl Groomed: a Therapist’s Memoir of Trauma
- Carolyn Saletto – One Hazel Green Eye
- Casey Mulligan Walsh – The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted Everything I Feared
- Chanchal Garg – Unearthed: the Lies We Carry & the Truths They Bury
- Cheryl Landes – The Best I Can Do: A True Story of Navigating the Complexities of Mental Illness and Homelessness
- Christine Amoroso – Bare Naked in Public: a Memoir
- Cynthia Moore – Dancing on Coals: a Memoir of an Overperformer
- Cynthia Waine Brandt – Song of the Cardinal: a True Story of Miracles and Magic After Heartbreaking Loss
- Damien Thompson – And Then I Would Fly
- Debbie Hartung – The Factory of Maladies: Seven Days on a San Francisco Psych Ward
- Deborah M. Foster – What’s So Bad About Being Poor: Our Lives in the Shadows of the Poverty Experts
- Diane C Pomerantz Ph.D. – Lost in the Reflecting Pool: Surviving Narcissistic Emotional Abuse
- Emily Sayre Smith – Smartass: Memoir of a Mouthy Girl
- Franke James – Freeing Teresa: A True Story about My Sister and Me
- Gavin O’Donnell – Father’s Day
- Heidi Yewman – Dumb Girl
- Hendrika De Vries – Open Turns
- Jacquelyn Dickey – The Dash
- Jane Cafarella – Cleaved: a Story of Loss, Legs, and Finding Family
- Janine Kovac – The Nutcracker Chronicles
- Jennifer Celeste Briggs – Watching Sarah Rise a Journey of Thriving with Autism
- Julie Randall – Patient 71: an Inspiring True Story of a Mother’s Love That Fueled Her Fight To Stay Alive
- Kathy Sechrist – Sara’s Redemption: A Journey of Courage Resilience and Hope
- Kelly-Anne Kerley – Breaking Up with My Wheelchair
- Lucie Frost – How the Hell Did I Not Know That: My Midlife Year From Couch To Curiosity
- Marti Tote – Can You Ride a Raindrop To the Ocean
- Mary Garden – My Father’s Suitcase
- Mary Jumbelic M.D. – Speak Her Name
- Mia Bolton – As We Bloom: Wisdom From Extraordinary Everyday Women & Gender Nonconforming People
- Mitchell Raff – Little Boy I Know Your Name
- Nin Mok – Suddenly Silent and Still
- Peter Flom – Twice as Weird: A Memoir about Twice Exceptionality
- PJ Hamilton – From the Piney Woods 2nd Edition
- Robert Carney – Unscarred
- Robert Macauley – Because I Knew You: How Some Remarkable Sick Kids Healed a Doctor’s Soul
- Ryan Mcdermott – Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet
- Sondra R. Brooks – Not Good Enough Girl: A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter
- Stacey Hettes – Dispatches From the Couch
- Steven Simmons Shelton, MA, JD – Memoir of a Mangled Mind: How Concealing My Dissociative Identity Disorder Unleashed Multiple Personalities
- Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee – Pushing Miles: A chronicle of Motorcycles, Mayhem, and Mettle
- Wilma Macliver – Life Behind the Masks
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!
This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, it is easier for us to tag authors when they have Liked and Followed us.
Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE.
We will also be promoting this list in our Newsletter, which you can sign up for here!
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2024 JOURNEY Awards is:
Unfollow Me
By Kathryn Caraway
See the full list of 2024 First Place Journey Winners here!
We are now accepting submissions into the 2026 Journey Book Awards for Overcoming Adversity in Narrative Non-Fiction.
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 and discover why!
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HEAT Of PARIS by Peter Breyer – Historical Romance, Social Upheaval, 1950s Paris
Welcome to 1951, a time still reeling from the violence of World War II. Heat of Paris by Peter Breyer takes us into that world to experience a touching love story amidst the city’s first stirrings of social revolution.
Against this tumultuous backdrop, two young Americans meet abroad by chance. Franz is a 26-year-old white man from rural New York. Christie is a 24-year-old Black woman from Harlem. A relationship ignites between them, both deeply personal and reflective of the social upheavals to come.
Seeking renewed purpose in his life, veteran Franz arrives in Paris as a freelance writer for a magazine. He is keenly observant and soulfully wounded by war. Christie, a vibrant intellectual, is a master’s student researching George Sand, a pioneering 19th-century French novelist and feminist icon.
Their unexpected connection is marked by beautiful passion and heartfelt pain. This combined intensity is challenged by the complexities of race and cultural differences.
Franz and Christie share a journey of growth through a tender and adventurous love story. Instead of romantic clichés, Breyer portrays their emotions with poignant honesty. Their relationship is layered, capturing both the intimacy of their bond and the societal tensions that shadow it.
The city of Paris becomes a character in its own right. Breyer’s Paris is a gritty, postwar metropolis teeming with uncertainty and artistic rebellion.
The city’s streets and smoky jazz clubs echo the characters’ own turmoil and hopes. Its people tackle race relations, postwar trauma, gender roles, and the early stirrings of social justice movements. Christie’s experience as a Black woman in Paris offers a compelling lens to examine global dimensions of racism, and Franz’s struggle with guilt and identity reflects the disillusionment of a generation caught between war and peace. Here, there are no easy resolutions.
Breyer’s writing excels in its combined focus on literary fiction and historical realism, with language vibrant in metaphor and emotional texture.
Heat of Paris mirrors its characters’ personal reinvention with cultural upheaval.
Franz and Christie’s intimate romance is emblematic of a shifting global consciousness. It’s a story of longing. Through richly drawn scenes, Breyer explores how love, literature, and identity intersect in a Paris still haunted by war yet pulsing with intellectual life. The novel’s emotional texture is layered with quiet defiance, historical resonance, and the personal ache to become something new while the world is still healing.
Peter Breyer’s Heat of Paris will stoke a lasting fire of empathetic curiosity through its thought-provoking human experiences in this pivotal time.
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The 2025 Collections and Anthologies Long List
The Collections and Anthologies Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Short Story Collections. The Collections and Anthologies Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).
The Chanticleer International Book Awards program discovers today’s best works. The Collections and Anthologies Awards discovers the Best New Short Form Collections in Fiction, Narrative Non-Fiction, Poetry Collections and Multi-Author Anthologies. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.
These titles have moved forward from all of the 2025 Collections and Anthologies entries to the 2025 Collections and Anthologies Awards LONG LIST. These entries are now in competition for the 2025 Collections and Anthologies Award 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 at the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference.
These titles are in the running for the SHORT LIST of the 2025 Collections and Anthologies Book Awards novel competition!
Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!
- Aj Watson – False Sight
- Brittany Micka-Foos – It’s No Fun Anymore
- Carol Van Den Hende – Dear Orchid
- Chad Boles – Adrift in Skinny Water
- Charlie Steel – Three Days Under the Sun and Other Tales of the Old West
- Christy Matheson – The Horned Women and Other Stories Contemporary Retellings of Irish Fairy Tales
- David Bush – General Jack and the Battle of the Five Kingdoms
- David C. Metz – Nick and Lorraine Were Lovers Stories
- Dreena Collins – Life Lines and Other Stories
- Jalyn Renae Fiske – Side Quest Stories
- Janet K. Shawgo – My Sister’s Quilt
- Jason Colpitts – The Meaning of Beauty and Other Short Stories Anthology
- Jess Anselment – Strong Heart a Story of Coming Home
- John Bukowski – Shadows and Dust
- Jude Berman – Shot a Dictionary of the Lost
- Julia Marie Davis – Catbird
- Kat Farrow – Dark Threads a Gathering of Dark Fantasy Tales Vol. 1
- Lee Orlich Bertram – Insistence Persistence and Resistance
- Linda Lee Keenan – Dancing with Angels True Stories of the Unexpected
- Lisa Clute – Monsters Under the Magnolias
- Maggie Enriquez – The Rebirth of a Phoenix
- Mary Paula Hunter – Can I Have a Hug First
- Nancy Joie Wilkie – The River Keeper and Other Tales
- Natia Khaduri – And You Cannot Tell Me Why I Must Not Love You Anymore
- Olga Podoprigora – The Banana From Space and Other Stories From Riverstone
- Paris Rosemont – Barefoot Poetess
- Radu Guiasu – A Good Day and Other Mostly Humorous Stories and Lists
- Rich Elliott – The Secret History of Famous People
- Stephen C. Pollock – Exits
- Theresa Griffin Kennedy – We Learned To Live in the Castle Stories
Congratulations once more to the 2024 SEA Shorts Grand Prize Winner
Dream Rut
By Dr. Yumiko Shimabakuro
Illustrated by Jieyu Deng
We are now accepting submissions into the 2026 Collections and Anthologies Book Awards for Short Fiction and Non-Fiction Collections, Poetry Collections, and Anthologies!
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 as we enter our second decade and discover why!
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JUSTICE And EQUALITY: Using My Word Power: Advocating for a More Civilized Society, Book 3 by Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D. – Long-Form Journalism, Social Justice, Political Advocacy
Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D’s USING MY WORD POWER: Advocating For A More Civilized Society, Book III: Justice and Equality chronicles America’s social history and asserts that every society can change the course of their destiny with conscious humanitarian efforts rather than letting the unchallenged tide of political inertia drag vulnerable people down.
Justice and Equality, Book III in the Real Advocacy Journalism® series, roots itself as memoir and manifesto, blending the author’s struggles for civil rights with her responsibility as a journalist. Real advocacy journalism here serves as a tool for fact-based writing, balancing support for a cause with dedication to fact and direct accounts, an antidote to the venom of propaganda media.
Dr. Ellis’s unrelenting voice fills Justice and Equality with the real-world basis for her advocacy. Her experiences as a black woman fighting for civil rights in Mississippi reverberate across the text. All that she witnesses fuels both her personal resilience and a broader call for justice.
Across four parts, Justice and Equality weaves a vision of America’s moral and social future.
The first part covers women’s struggles and intersectionality, tracing from the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to #MeToo; this section underscores the stubborn nature of gender inequality that is reinforced by institutional resistance to change.
Part two exposes racism and systemic discrimination, where education becomes ground zero for cycles of privilege and deprivation. This part presents the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as testimony to the larger structural nature of police brutality and racial profiling.
The third part covers children, framing their treatment as a litmus test of a society’s humanity and character. This part impels urgent attention, lest domestic violence, mass shootings, healthcare crises, and educational inequality become the new ‘normal.’
Part four argues that education is the great equalizer. It shows how censorship like book banning and history denial snatch away the chances for dialogue and learning, threatening democracy.
The message of the book is sharp and urgent: America must confront the ugly underbelly of racism, sexism, classism, and censorship.
Dr. Ellis’s language presents these injustices in a graspable narrative, avoiding heavy statistics. She doesn’t shy away from the darkness of her subject matter, but rather than leaving readers in hopeless despair, her writing impels one to stand up and motivate change.
Articles included from the 1970s feel evergreen, fitting perfectly in a contemporary context. Dr. Ellis diagnoses these issues affecting the American body politic as chronic diseases—the symptoms of which keep appearing as the underlying illness is never cured. This perspective calls for foundational changes to the systems that marginalize people, rather than mere treatments for their impacts.
Justice and Equality is for readers interested in a reflective approach to the bigger inequities of society.
For students and young adults, it helps in understanding the systemic inequalities and social justice movements around them. For teachers and guardians, Justice and Equality encourages deep reflection on the flaws in the education system. Most of all, it extends a practical lens to activists and social workers, who can relate America’s complex institutional injustices to the context of their own advocacy.
Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D’s USING MY WORD POWER: Advocating For A More Civilized Society, Book III: Justice and Equality calls upon every individual to see that ignoring the real essence of society’s ills means running away from responsibility to one’s nation and humanity. The book aligns with Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” resonating beyond the context of America’s problems to remind us that these issues in discussion are universal. The intention is clear: there is no room for complacency in the pursuit of justice and equality for all.
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Chanticleer Book Reviews at the Author Nation 2025
Chanticleer at Author Nation 2025: Connection, Community, and Craft
I’ll say it until my dying day—Authors are the best people to hang out with! – Dena Weigel
This past November, the Chanticleer team attended Author Nation in Las Vegas—and once again, we were reminded why authors are the best people to spend time with.
Author Nation 2025 drew hundreds more attendees than the previous year, filling ballrooms with writers eager to learn, connect, and grow their careers. Over 120 classes, workshops, and panels covered every aspect of the writing life: craft development, the publishing process, advertising and marketing, the business side of authorship, and emerging trends shaping the industry’s future.
For Chanticleer, the week offered valuable opportunities to reconnect with established members of our community and welcome new authors into the fold.
Familiar Faces and New Connections
We kicked off the week at the Vendor Expo. We loved having the chance to catch up with authors who have become valuable members of our Roost community. Authors such as D.D. Black, T.K. Conklin, David Fitz-Gerald, and Terrel of the Once Upon A Dance children books all stopped by to say hello and give us an update on their current projects and writing life.
We also met dozens of new authors curious about Chanticleer’s services and what makes our community different. Many arrived seeking practical support—editorial reviews, award recognition, editing services—but discovered something equally important: a place to ask questions, share milestones, and find encouragement from fellow writers navigating similar paths.
Here are some highlights from Author Nation 2025
Learning From Industry Leaders
Between booth shifts, the Chanticleer team attended sessions led by publishing professionals with decades of experience. The presentations covered essential topics for author-entrepreneurs: building effective marketing strategies, assembling professional support teams (legal, financial, editorial), and establishing sustainable business foundations.
One recurring message stood out: successful authors don’t work in isolation. They build teams of advisors and professionals who help them reach their goals of getting stories into readers’ hands.
The Value of Industry Connections
Author Nation brings together some of the best service providers working with authors today, and being part of that group means more than just visibility. Connecting with other industry professionals offered insights into current publishing trends and emerging challenges facing authors. These conversations help Chanticleer stay sharp and responsive to what writers actually need.
Looking Ahead
Another Author Nation conference is in the books! We’re already looking forward to working with the many authors we met who see value in Chanticleer’s approach to author support. We expect to see many of them again, whether at next year’s Author Nation or at our own gathering in Bellingham this spring.
Viva Las Vegas!
Join us at the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference &
the 2025 Chanticleer International Book Awards CeremonyThursday – Sunday, April 16 – 19, 2026
Master Classes, Conference Sessions & Panels, Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremony and Banquet, and the BOOKS BY THE BAY BOOKFAIR at Village Books Bookstore, Fairhaven, Bellingham, Wash.
Register Today!
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.
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The 2025 Somerset Long List for Literary & Contemporary Fiction
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!
This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, it is easier for us to tag authors when they have Liked and Followed us on Facebook.
Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.
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!
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THAT KIND Of GIRL by Jacey Bici – Psychological Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Family & Relationships Fiction
A doctor’s life is one of ease and luxury—a big house, nice clothes, and a fancy nanny, right? In Jacey Bici’s latest novel, That Kind of Girl, Opal Collins would disagree.
Opal balances on the constant edge of a breakdown, with her marriage on the rocks and mounting professional pressure.
Fox, Opal’s husband, wants to expand their family and pushes Opal desperately to pursue the hospital administrator position. Opal balks away from breaking the deep bonds she has with her patients. If she leaves her current job, she’ll be leaving behind the very reasons she chose to become a doctor. Besides, she can barely get to work on time in clean clothes now. She doubts she has what it takes to become “the boss.” But Fox’s insistence and the pressure to be a better mother push Opal down a treacherous path.
Ronald Aberdeen, the owner of Doctors Inc, is tired of his life in the corporate world. Having conquered and merged two hospitals, Ronald seems to have it all—power, wealth, and the fear of his employees. But in truth he longs to return to cancer research and his life as a young New York doctor. Ronald sees a path to achieve at least part of his desires in Opal, a woman willing to do whatever it takes to become the medical director of Ocean Hospital. Ronald and Opal want something more from life, each other is the means to that end.
Trying to outrun the past and build a life on lies could lead both Ronald and Opal to complete devastation.
Through Opal, readers will feel many of the struggles mothers face.
She longs to be at every parade, every class party, every early morning and every late night, but the adult world demands ever more of her attention. She worries over the expectation to always have the right clothes and shoes, perfect hair and makeup, and the respect of her coworkers and supervisor. In pursuit of her professional and home life, Opal finds herself floundering under both.
Opal caves to Fox’s pressure and creates a quagmire in which she might suffocate.
Opal begins an affair with Ronald, even as the older man brings up memories of an assault she experienced as a teenager. It’s a trauma that follows her daily as something impossible to push away. Opal believes she can control the situation, but the emotional turmoil begins to overwhelm her.
Opal becomes chained to her bad choices, torn between Fox, her supposed soulmate, and Ronald, who’s more concerned with himself than her.
Jacey Bici’s That Kind of Girl exposes the treacherous balance between personal bonds and career ambition. Both women and men may find themselves in Opal, who tries to make far too many pieces fit into the shape of her life. The emotional and moral tension surrounding Opal’s relationships only grows more complicated, but she keeps trying, as we all must, and might just find a better path through the fog of conflicting obligation.
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It’s Cyber Monday 2025! Save More When You Buy Reviews in Bulk!
Looking to Boost your Book’s visibility in 2026?
Now’s your chance to get a big bang for your buck on Chanticleer Editorial Book Reviews and Children’s Book Reviews!
This Cyber Monday, get the most from your reviews by purchasing more in advance! Save money and plan your marketing strategy to get a head start on the new year! Whether you’re a seasoned author or just starting out, you can market like a pro with these discounts that go beyond your average sale!
Save more when you sign up for Multiple Reviews!
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We give your book the same high-quality attention we give to any bestselling title. Our editorial reviews include SEO, metadata, tagging, and long-tail promotion to ensure your book gets seen by the right people at the right time.
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Secure your spot and join us April 16-19, 2026 in beautiful Bellingham, WA.
Learn from the Best at CAC26
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Our team is standing by and ready to help with any questions or concerns you may have. Just reach out to info@ChantiReviews.com, and we’ll make sure you’re all set.
Multichannel Marketing
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Use this code upon checkout to receive this $100 discount – our deepest discount for the conference. 6R3PQ7MEV6JV
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As always, please contact us at info@ChantiReviews.com for any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
We are thankful for you, Dear Chanticleerians!
Be well. Stay safe. Keep on Writing Because We Need Good Books More Than Ever!
Kiffer, David, Anya, Scott, Dena, Argus and the Entire Chanticleer Team!
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THE ROUND PRAIRIE WARS by Aden Ross – Historical Fiction, Cold War, Social & Family Issues
On the wind-swept plains of 1950s Nebraska, nine-year-old Jeb Wilder wages a campaign against the boredom that stretches longer than summer days, fends off local bullies, and navigates the uneasy terrain of a family coming apart at the seams. In The Round Prairie Wars, Aden Ross turns these small, familiar struggles into something much larger—a portrait of a childhood shaped by the echoes of distant conflicts.
As Jeb makes sense of her own “wars” at home, the shadow of World War II and the Cold War’s anxious hum linger in the background.
Jeb and Sam, her older brother, play games pretending to be pilots in a crippled WWII dive bomber in an imaginary unit they call “back-to-back.” This metaphor exemplifies their reliance on one another whenever they escape their confined, impoverished life in their small trailer house called Prairie Schooner.
Stories of war grip the parents as much as their children. When the family attends an outdoor showing of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the film acts as a litmus test for the parents’ fears, revealing deep ideological fissures running through their home.
The family’s first Sunday at a Methodist church leaves young Jeb confused and heartbroken at the perversion of the pulpit.
This institution that Jeb had trusted to spearhead faith and hope unmasks itself as a platform for political fear-mongering and hypocrisy. The Reverend’s sermon is less a theological lesson than a diatribe against “godless communists.” Jeb can only seek moral and intellectual guidance elsewhere.
Jeb’s new sanctuary is a place of freedom and acceptance, where books provide truth beyond any sermon.
One such book carries a familiar smell. It reminds Jeb of her brother’s paranoid warning about a key figure in their life who can build far more than just bicycles. Sam’s words cease to be a childish theory and now become a chilling possibility that leaves Jeb unable to trust the assumptions of her small, fragile world. She begins to wonder if the real enemies aren’t out there among the communists, or even the local bullies, but are instead much closer to home.
Ross builds this vivid, complex world upon a deep foundation of metaphor.
The characters are well-hewn individuals, embodying nuanced themes around the ideological civil war of 1950s America. They not only experience their own immediate struggles but are vessels of pain inherited from history, family, and societal trauma—often without being fully understood. The world of the novel is anything but simple, and these characters help chart the complex, universal forces every child must decipher along the path to adulthood.
Ross’s exploration of the Cold War era through the lens of a young child makes the sprawling anxieties of the time into something intimate, tangible, and terrifyingly powerful.
She grounds the story in a confined space with barely any escape from family tensions. This domestic stage plays out the nation’s conflict, where ideological battles and personal trauma clash in whispered arguments.
The Round Prairie Wars by Aden Ross speaks with a voice burdened by echoes from the past. A testament to childhood caught in the gears of history, Jeb’s story honors conflict lived not in headlines but in the hushed, terrified, and wonderfully resilient hearts that endure it. The perfect read for those who cherish history from the ground up, as well as those who seek to capture the true sense of a time of personal and societal uncertainty.
