Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: chanti

STOP WORRYING ABOUT MONEY by Jacqui Clarke – Financial Planning, Personal Finances, Money Management

Stop Worrying About Money by Jacqui Clarke serves as a lucid and candidly insightful guide to understanding the cornerstones of financial literacy, whether for a working professional, business owner, or anyone seeking to better manage their savings and investments.

This practical and insightful approach to financial awareness endeavors to decode the mystifying fundamentals of financial freedom, wealth management, and money psychology. Rather than merely presenting facts on numbers and investments, it adopts a holistic perspective, covering principles of earning, understanding, and wisely managing money.

Written by an experienced professional and fiscal guardian to many, Clarke’s Stop Worrying About Money paves a clear and accessible roadmap for navigating the often-chaotic terrain of financial planning.

The book begins by exploring how upbringing and personal experiences shape a person’s financial habits.

Clarke underscores that financial literacy extends beyond earnings. From highlighting the benefits of early planning and discipline to acknowledging the commonality of financial mistakes—spending to impress, neglecting financial planning, and remaining unaware of personal expenses—Clarke’s real-life anecdotes add credibility to the book’s insights.

Stop Worrying About Money introduces the concept of building a personal financial support system, or “finance village,” where trusted voices collaborate.

Warning against the perils of blind trust, the text advocates for thorough verification, transparency, and the application of logic and research when assembling a financial network. The infamous Melissa Caddick Australian financial fraud case described in the book strengthens the argument for planning finances with a trusted advisor.

Clarke’s perspective on financial freedom as a journey rather than a destination encapsulates the book’s core message.

She equates financial freedom not merely with a bank balance but with a mindset rooted in conscious financial decisions, cautioning against lifestyle inflation where increased income leads to increased expenses. Clarke further emphasizes the importance of estate planning with a robust financial strategy to ensure the optimal utilization of future wealth.

This timely guide gives due attention to the impact of financial issues on personal relationships.

Exploring concepts such as financial infidelity and financial abuse, the text offers advice on fostering transparency and setting shared financial goals. It also highlights the value of side hustles as a means of securing long-term financial stability, illustrating how a well-planned sabbatical can serve as a reset for both mental health and career growth.

The book culminates in a prudent approach to financial literacy, including advice for parents to instill financial wisdom in their children.

By blending theoretical financial advice with pragmatic applications, the writing embraces simplicity and relatability, incorporating real-life examples, case studies, and interactive exercises. This approach transforms an otherwise dry subject into an engaging and accessible discourse, making financial literacy digestible.

Stop Worrying About Money by Jacqui Clarke is an informative resource free from convoluted financial jargon. Whether for beginners or seasoned professionals, it provides a foundation for understanding and taking control of personal finances. Ultimately, the work is more than a financial guide—it is a journey in self-awareness that reaffirms money as a means of living, rather than the ultimate objective of life.

March 10, 2025
Diving Into New Adventures in Writing – Kim Hornsby’s path to becoming an award-winning screenwriter

Fearing the unknown isn’t something that weighs on author Kim Hornsby’s mind. Throughout her adventurous life, she has found herself in the most unusual environments–scuba diving with whales and dolphins, performing in front of an audience as a singer, and writing her first book while overseas to adopt her daughter.

Kim Hornsby is unstoppable!

An Adventurous Spirit

Hornsby’s path to becoming a writer is one many of us are familiar with. A family event—in this case, the adoption of her daughter—created an opportunity for writing that was seen by her group of friends and family through emails sent out as updates on the adoption process. Encouraged by the reception of her missives, she was prompted by friends to write a book about the process. Hornsby did write about their adoption story but chose to write it as a fictionalized version of what they experienced. This led to a career path that has taken her novels to bookshelves all around the world and screenplays that have been made into Hollywood movies!

Diving deep into this new adventure, Hornsby wrote her first novel for publication. The Jumper’s Promise kicked off The Dream Jumper series, and Hornsby hasn’t stopped since! Today, she’s the author of multiple standalone novels as well as several series with themes as diverse as light romantic, police procedural, paranormal, and suspense thriller. Hornsby’s books have been on the USA Today and Amazon bestseller lists, and her award-winning screenplays have been made into movies for television.

Coming Full Circle

Hornsby’s writing career has come full circle with the publication of her screenplay, Braving Rapids (movie released in 2024). It’s a child’s story of her own adoption told through her adoption of an abandoned wolf cub. It’s a beautiful full circle story that illustrates the fact that love doesn’t have to born into the family. Love can be welcomed into the family with all the intense emotion that is needed to claim one’s heart.

The Jumper’s Promise also completes a full circle for Hornsby, with the movie version of her first published book currently under production. The story revolves around her experience as a scuba diving instructor, combining dark supernatural suspense elements with the excitement and adventure she experienced as part of Maui’s scuba diving scene. To be able to adapt this compelling story into a producible screenplay is a monumental achievement for an author’s first published novel, and it perfectly illustrates Hornsby’s ability to create stories that resonate on the page as well as on the screen.

Sharing Her Specialized Knowledge with Authors

After years of focusing on her own work, Kim Hornsby is now sharing the knowledge she’s gained with other authors through two writing advice books, Book to Screenplay – Writing the Adaptation: A Guide for Beginner Screenwriters and Christmas in Whistler/Slippery Slope Christmas – Novel and Script: The Adaptation of Book to Screenplay. Both provide valuable information, with the former offering a comparison of her novella with the screenplay that was based on the book, along with explanations of how the story evolved to be more cinematic.

Kim is presenting a workshop on Plotting and Writing a Movie – From First Idea to the Last Page

Are you a storyteller? Have you ever wondered how to write a movie? It’s easier than you think.

It all starts with an idea and a main character. In this romp through storytelling, produced screenwriter Kim Hornsby will teach you the surprisingly simple process of movie storytelling from the opening shot on the big screen to when the credits roll.
Learn the art of crafting your story while comparing movie writing to book writing. By the end of the class, you will have the opening scene to your screenplay with a clear idea of how to continue with the rest of the story using the ten essentials of screenwriting.

Write a screenplay! You know you want to.

Kim Hornsby is a USA Today Bestselling Author and Produced Screenwriter known for adapting her novels to screenplays. With 16 novels and as many screenplays Kim is also a movie producer, with Braving Rapids, a Family Adventure and Secret Life of My Other Wife, a Lifetime Thriller slated to release early ’25. Comfort & Joy starts filming for a Christmas ’25 release as well as Christmas in Crystal Creek. She teaches her method of adapting from book to film at conferences nationally including Chanticleer, the RWA and PNWA. Her Christmas Romance novels and Suspense Mystery novels have sold over half a million books and she’s thrilled write happy-ending stories for her readers.

A mother, dog owner, kayaker, painter, and avid adventurer, Kim loves to travel but when home she writes from a desk overlooking her forested acreage on an island off Seattle conjuring up entertainment with gutsy heroines amongst diverse and inclusive characters to represent real life.

www.KimHornsby.info

As her reputation as a superb author rises, we see Kim Hornsby taking on new adventures at every opportunity. It is the continuation of a sense of adventure that permeates her life, and I feel encouraged in my own writing career to take a leap of faith, too.

Chanticleer is thrilled to bring Kim Hornsby back to the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC2025) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, to share her knowledge with Chanticleer authors.

Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from author and screenwriter Kim Hornsby!

Register now! Space is limited!

Follow this link to reserve your spot at this special event!

March 7, 2025
BECOMING CRONE: Book 1 of The Crone Wars by Lydia M. Hawke – Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Occult Fiction

There’s a darkness rising from the Otherworld in Lydia M. Hawke’s Becoming Crone, and only the Morrigan’s Crones can send it back. But For Claire Emerson, her first challenge is accepting the fact that she is a Crone.

On Claire’s sixtieth, friends and family come to celebrate her milestone birthday. But with her daughter-in-law Natalie giving out advice more suitable for an 80-year-old, her neighbor Jeanne’s annual gifting of a garden gnome, and her best friend Edie cracking wise and irreverent, Claire’s milestone is more like a millstone around her neck. Fresh off a divorce, in a funk, and seeking purpose in her life, her day is only brightened by her grandson Braden gifting her an antique pendant.

The owner of the antique shop, her neighbor Gilbert, wants to buy it back. Claire refuses for Braden’s sake and finds the pendant proves to have a value stranger than money. Other strange occurrences happen as well, including a strange, angry man, and protective crows. Determined to resolve this new mystery, Claire sets out to find the address.

And find it she does, after a long trek down a disused, heavily wooded, bramble-entangled road.

It’s a stone cottage, guarded by two beings destined to teach and protect her: a female gargoyle named Keven, and Lucan the rather charming werewolf. After much resistance—not to mention an attempt on her life—Claire agrees to stay the night.

At this point Claire is chalking up her fantastical experiences to a seemingly sudden onset of dementia. Despite her disbelief, Claire is sharp and likable, with an engaging voice and a gift for wry witticisms. “Not quite what I’d envisioned as a retirement plan,” she tells herself when she finally agrees to learn magick from Keven.

And she needs to learn magick fast! When the mages attack, the stakes become astronomic.

Claire collects her cat and moves into the cottage to begin her lessons. She finds her long-ago dabbling in Wiccan spells proves she already has the magick in her, but she needs to learn to control it. To Claire’s and Keven’s surprise, she finds she can tap into Air, Fire, Earth, and Water magick. Each Crone controls only one element, which means that Claire is the fifth and ultimate Crone, the Crone of Spirit.

As her training continues, she learns the evil she’s seen began in Arthurian times, when a Slavic god named Morok possessed the wizard Merlin and began disseminating darkness and deceit upon the world. Only the Morrigan and her Crones are capable of stopping him. But each time they try to rid themselves of him, a little of the world also falls with him.

Hawke ties this god of deceit to the lies and disinformation our world experiences today—a quiet reality check that helps ground the story. Morok’s mages even use bots to crawl the internet in search of the five pendants that, when used together, would destroy him forever.

Becoming Crone takes its time getting through Claire’s misgivings about turning sixty before it sets her on her true path, but Hawke has created such a lively cast of characters within a fluid and vivid environment, and the story never fails to intrigue.

Claire’s attraction to Lucan, and Edie’s disappearance, leave unanswered questions, and readers can look forward to both characters returning in the second installment of The Crone Wars series – A Gathering of Crones.

Women readers in particular will enjoy Becoming Crone for its dynamic representation of older female characters. After all, as Keven tells Claire, “All women are witches. Or at least, they have the capacity to be so.”

Becoming Crone by Lydia M. Hawke won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Paranormal Awards for Supernatural Fiction.

March 5, 2025
The Doctor Is In – Christine Fairchild’s Craft Skills are coming to CAC25

Most authors know that editing means getting out your literary scalpel and finding those things that drag a story down. For a former journalist and current book doctor like Christine Fairchild, the search for what works and what doesn’t is just the kind of operation she loves.

Christine Fairchild always had a love of storytelling. As a young reader, she gravitated toward stories about animals—Black Beauty and Where the Red Fern Grows were favorites. When she saw the fascination and rapt attention of her fellow 3rd grade classmates when reading her own essays, she knew she had a gift. Innately, she understood story structure, how to build invisible worlds, what makes a character compelling (especially animal characters), and the power of the imagination.

The moniker of “storyteller” followed her through her school years and into a journalism program, earning a B.A. in English from U.C. Berkeley—the top English department in the US at that time. After graduating, she worked as a professional copyeditor, speechwriter and freelance reporter, honing her skills at dissecting a written work to make the story pop and the information clear. Fairchild has served as writer and editor for publications like XFiles and SciFiMall.com, and has provided executive communications, marketing, branding, and press releases for corporate giants, like Microsoft, AT&T, and DHL. This professional environment gave her an understanding of the psychology of language and communications design with a focus on women consumer behavior and trends, adding more specialized tools to use when operating on her next writing assignment.

The Doctor is Calling

Fairchild’s various roles with high-profile clients informed her writing style and her tactical editing approach, giving her the sharp edge to refine a story and elevate it for her readers. With the skill of a surgeon, she looks for those problems that can muddy the text and slow down the reader when she puts a novel under the microscope to find those areas that need to be cured or cut from a story to get it to its most healthy state.

With these skills, Fairchild has grown her reputation as a bona fide “Book Doctor” and claimed her place in the literary world helping authors fine-tune their work to prepare it for publication. Her The Editor Devil’s Guide to CHARACTERS and The Editor Devil’s Guide to DIALOGUE gives writers a look inside her medicine bag where they learn the lessons she learned over the entirety of her professional writing career so they can become their own literary surgeons. Today, you can find Christine Fairchild sharing her knowledge with other writers by teaching classes and leading workshops on how they can become better editors of their own work and giving them an inside peak at the surgical equipment that has shaped her multifaceted career.

Chanticleer is proud to host Christine Fairchild at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, where she will be giving a Masterclass that will guide authors in their quest to elevate their novels.

Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from Christine Fairchild, the “Book Doctor!”

Registration for Christine’s Master Class only on Thursday is available – Limited Seating

Discounted Seats available for those who have registered for CAC 25.

Register now! Space is limited!

Follow this link to reserve your spot at this special event!

March 3, 2025
YOU HAVE To BE PREPARED To DIE BEFORE YOU CAN BEGIN To LIVE: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America by Paul Kix – Black American History, Long-Form Journalism, Civil Rights

Paul Kix shows readers the bloody front lines of the civil rights movement in his novel You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America.

This historical nonfiction novel explores in-depth the Birmingham, Alabama campaign known as Project C. Kix dives deep into the minds of dozens of key historical figures who helped orchestrate the campaign, such as Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Despite an overwhelming fear of failure, Project C needed to catch the attention of the nation.

When the brutal murder of George Floyd sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, Kix and his wife were faced with the difficult task of explaining racism to their children. Kix, who is white, and his wife, who is Black, chose not to shield them from news coverage of the deaths and the protests that followed.

The jarring footage of Floyd’s death paralleled another startling image: that of a 15-year-old boy being attacked by a German shepherd handled by the Birmingham police.

Kix was fascinated by the photo. As a journalist, he began to spot connections between the events his family was living through in 2020 and the Birmingham marches in 1963.

Choosing to march in Birmingham was a desperate attempt by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—a major player in the civil rights movement—to push for desegregation. They hadn’t made any real impact since the Montgomery bus boycotts nearly a decade ago and their recent Albany campaign had flopped.

Running out of money, and with the Kennedy administration refusing to enact civil rights legislation, the SCLC decided they needed to venture into the heart of segregated America.

Birmingham refused to desegregate, and often turned violent towards its Black citizens. The incredibly active KKK bombed the homes of activists, castrated Black men, and upheld the city’s moniker “the Murder City of the World.” Even facing reluctance from the city’s Black citizens, a lack of funds, and thinly veiled threats from mayor Bull Connor, the SCLC pushed forward. Kix brings to life the tension, inspiration, and determination that fueled Project C.

Kix’s detailed writing brings readers into the midst of vivid historical scenes, from extravagant fundraisers in New York to the desolate conditions in a Birmingham jail.

His writing gives due credit to many lesser-known participants in the project and shows how each individual overcame their own battles to contribute to a larger movement.

This novel includes enough nuance and historical analysis to keep any history buff engaged. By seamlessly introducing important context, Kix also makes sure even readers with limited knowledge know not only what is happening, but why it’s happening.

Kix’s background as a journalist shines through in the book’s factually rooted events and thoughtful commentary.

He offers insight into the rhetorical choices behind sermons, comments from the government, and King’s infamous Letter from Birmingham Jail. The only potentially dramatized aspect is occasionally heated dialogue, though most quotes come directly from newspapers, press conferences, or memoirs by those involved. Kix’s choice of quotes and his analytical comments don’t drag down the pace of the novel at all. Instead, they add a fiery authenticity to the story, which moves quickly from dramatic event to dramatic event.

The infamous marches in Birmingham are now more than sixty years in the past. As time moves on, it is important not to forget Project C and how it contributed to legislation that still protects Americans’ rights today.

Authors like Paul Kix help preserve America’s history by bringing it to life in the minds of readers. His unique insights, comprehensive research, and captivating characterization honors the stories of leaders that changed history. You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live is a worthwhile educational read that illustrates why these stories are essential to understanding our present.

You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live by Paul Kix won Grand Prize in the 2023 CIBA Nellie Bly Awards for Journalistic Non-Fiction.

March 3, 2025
NEW: The 2024 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards (CCDAs) Finalists for Non-Fiction
The Chanticleer Cover Design Awards (The CCDAs) for Non-Fiction recognizes artistic excellence across genre in great cover design. The CCDAs are a new Award Division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Our design is inspired by books designed by the incomparable Coraline Bickford-Smith. Her simple, beautiful, and evocative designs do so much to make the book work as a visual ambassador, capturing the essence of story and compelling potential readers to pick it up, click on it, or share it with others. A well-designed cover signals professionalism, sets expectations for your genre, and serves as a powerful marketing tool to stand out in both digital and physical spaces.

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring clear genres, audience, time periods, typography, and longevity across genres of Non-Fiction.

These titles have moved forward from the Short List of the 2024 CCDA Non-Fiction Awards to the 2024 CCDA Non-Fiction FINALISTS. These entries are now in competition for the 2024 CCDA Non-Fiction First Place and Grand Prize Winners. FINALISTS will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, CAC25.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 5th, 2025 in beautiful Bellingham, WA at the Bellingham Yacht Club sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FIRST PLACE and GRAND PRIZE WINNERS of the 2024 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards novel competition for Non-Fiction Books!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!
- Anne Gately – Sunburnt a Memoir of Sun Surf and Skin Cancer
- Marianna Marlowe – Portrait of a Feminist a Memoir in Essays
- Linda M. Lockwood – Sky Ranch Reared in the High Country
- Meredith Wargo – Dawgs a True Story of Lost Animals and the Kids Who Rescued Them
- Kathryn Caraway – Unfollow Me
- Genét Simone – Teaching in the Dark a Memoir
- Kathleen Watt – Rearranged an Opera Singers Facial Cancer and Life Transposed
- Kasey Claytor – Finding the Light
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!

Who will be the First Grand Prize Winner for the Fiction CCDAs?

Stay Tuned to find out!

Click here to learn more about the Cover Design Awards.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2025 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards for Fiction.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2024 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 3 – 6, 2025! 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!
February 27, 2025
Monsters in the Closet, Thrills on the Page – Bestselling Author J.D. Barker is coming to CAC25!

As a boy, J.D. Barker was drawn to the shadows. He imagined monsters in his closet and wrote stories about the witches and ghosts he was certain lived in the woods outside his home. His active imagination kept him awake at night—it also turned him into a New York Times and international best-selling author.

Today, the award-winning author has an ever-growing list of spine-tingling thrillers, including several co-authored books with James Patterson and praise from the master of horror, Stephen King.

Barker’s work encompasses elements from several genres, presenting them in what has been broadly described as suspense thrillers. Horror, crime, mystery, science fiction, and the supernatural all have a role to play in his books, bringing the same level of intensity his mentors incorporate into their novels. The monsters that scared him as a child are now captured in the pages of his stories.

A Young Author Drawn to the Shadows

Mysteries were the first to grab Barker’s attention, reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series as a child, but eventually he moved onto the classics and found his home in the works of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Edgar Allen Poe. Soon, he was writing his own stories, exploring the depths of his fear and producing tales of the monsters he imagined were living under his bed.

The literary life continued to call for Barker, even after receiving a business degree. When an article he wrote for a college assignment ended up in the hands of Paul Gallotta from the pop culture magazine, The Circus, he was invited to join the staff of 25th Parallel Magazine, an American lifestyle periodical. This unexpected path led him to interview celebrities for popular magazines, such as Seventeen, TeenBeat, and other national and local publications, and it wasn’t long before he had his own syndicated newspaper column called Revealed which centered around the investigation of haunted places and supernatural occurrences.

These early endeavors served as a crash course in writing, and he began working as a book doctor and ghostwriter, helping others fine tune their writing and readying it for publication. The experience proved invaluable. It taught him what works and what doesn’t in today’s popular fiction, and it led to his first venture into writing a novel of his own.

Tapping Into the Mind of the Masters of Horror

Forsaken, Barker’s first novel, was independently published in late 2014. Incorporating horror master Stephen King’s character Leland Gaunt from Needful Things offered Barker the opportunity to get his novel in front of King who granted Barker permission to utilize the character in the novel. The book went on to hit several major milestones. It landed the #2 spot on Audible (Harper Lee with Go Set a Watchman held #1), #44 on Amazon U.S., #2 on Amazon Canada, and #22 on Amazon UK. Forsaken was also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award (Best Debut Novel) and won a handful of other awards, including a New Apple Medalist Award. Soon Bram Stoker’s family reached out to Barker and asked him to co-author a prequel to Dracula utilizing the original notes and journals from Stoker’s own archives, much of which has never been made public. The novel, titled Dracul, sold at auction to G.P. Putnam & Sons, with film rights going to Paramount.

The success of his first novels drew the attention of traditional agents and publishers and in early 2016 his debut thriller, The Fourth Monkey, sold in a series of pre-empts and auctions worldwide, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt set to publish it in the U.S. and HarperCollins in the UK. The book has also sold for both film and television. Barker has since gone on to write numerous titles which have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and is a frequent collaborator with James Patterson. His books have been translated into two dozen languages, sold in more than 150 countries, and optioned for both film and television.

From a child afraid of monsters, to an author who creates them, J.D. Barker has thrived on writing stories that thrill, excite, and scare people who love those mysterious bumps in the night. It’s a full circle journey that has given him a career that continues to thrill his international fanbase.

Chanticleer is proud to present J.D. Barker at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025,

where he will be sharing his expertise in book promotion, digital marketing, and the upcoming changes in the publishing industry!

Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from one of the literary world’s bestselling authors!

Register now! Space is limited!

Follow this link to reserve your spot at this special event!

February 27, 2025
NEW: The 2024 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards (CCDAs) Finalists for Fiction
The Chanticleer Cover Design Awards (The CCDAs) for Fiction recognizes artistic excellence across genre in great cover design. The CCDAs are a new Award Division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Our design is inspired by books designed by the incomparable Coraline Bickford-Smith. Her simple, beautiful, and evocative designs do so much to make the book work as a visual ambassador, capturing the essence of story and compelling potential readers to pick it up, click on it, or share it with others. A well-designed cover signals professionalism, sets expectations for your genre, and serves as a powerful marketing tool to stand out in both digital and physical spaces.

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring clear genres, audience, time periods, typography, and longevity across genres of Historical Fiction, Romance, Literary, Satire, Speculative Fiction, and Youth Reads.

These titles have moved forward from the 2024 CCDA Fiction Semi-Finalists to the 2024 CCDA Fiction FINALISTS. These entries are now in competition for the 2024 CCDA Fiction First Place Category Winners and Division Grand Prize Winners! FINALISTS will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, CAC25.

We will announce the First Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 5th, 2025 in beautiful Bellingham, WA at the Bellingham Yacht Club sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FIRST PLACE and GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the 2024 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards novel competition for Fiction Books!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!
- J. Shep – The December Issue
- Margaret Porter – A Change of Location
- Chris Bennett – The Road To Revolution
- Travis Davis – One of Four
- Abbe Rolnick – The Underpainting
- Ann Philipp – Grand Theft Death
- Lucinda Brant – Their Graces Roxton Foundation Series
- Laura C. Rader – Hatfield 1677
- Kim Gottlieb-Walker – Lenswoman in Love
- Natalie Musgrave Dossett – Sarita
- Mark A. Gibson – A Song that Never Ends
- Gail Noble-Sanderson – The Book of Rules
- C.L. Olsen – Old Crabby Turtle
- Michelle Morningstar – The Space Between the Divine and the Unholy
- R.W. Meek – The Dream Collector Book I – Sabrine and Sigmund Freud
- Deborah Swenson – Till My Last Breath Book One in the Desert Hills Trilogy
- Strider S.R. Klusman – Luna – The Adventures of Rhone & Stone, book 2
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!

Who will be the First Grand Prize Winner for the Fiction CCDAs?

Stay Tuned to find out!

Click here to learn more about the Cover Design Awards.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2025 Chanticleer Cover Design Awards for Fiction.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2024 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 3 – 6, 2025! 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!
February 27, 2025
THE WOLF HUNTER: DESOLATION: Mack Murphy Series Book 1 by Terrence O’Malia – Military Thrillers, War & Military Action, Thriller & Suspense

In The Wolf Hunter: Desolation, Book One of Terrence O’Malia’s Mack Murphy series, staff sergeant Mack Murphy is convinced there are three types of people: sheep, wolves, and hunters.

The sweet, innocent, dutiful sheep are blissfully unaware of the deadly wolves that could strike at any time. But thankfully, the hunters protect the sheep and even seek out the wolves to prevent their attacks on the flock. Mack defines himself steadfastly as a wolf hunter. He loves his family with all his heart and would do anything to protect them.

Mack’s protective nature continues into his military life where he is part of a team based in the mountains of Afghanistan. Just as it is with his family, he pledges his full allegiance to his team.

We follow Mack Murphy as his team engages in battle, though his heart is back home where his wife Renee is on maternity leave from her US agent duties. Mack beams with passion for her, and his heart is full of pride for his newborn twin daughters, but he worries he may not see them again. This battle could be his last. He fights hard and smart but, after witnessing his best friend killed in action, Mack’s despair is matched only by his feelings of guilt for being relieved the bullet missed him.

Tragedy continues to hover on Mack’s horizon. An emergency Red Cross phone call changes his life forever and now the wolves are after his most beloved “sheep”—his wife and children.

Every step along Mack’s military flight home tests his patience, and when he finally arrives, he finds his perfect life has forever been changed. There had been a time when love conquered all. Now that love is shattered by unknown villains, and he vows to find them and bring them to justice.

Mack, who once clung to his brilliant, joyful life, no longer fears his own death. Nothing can break his commitment to find justice. He is The Wolf Hunter.

Terrence O’Malia plunges us into a thrill ride from start to finish. The wolves are prowling, the sheep are helpless, and Mack Murphy, a beleaguered marine with anger issues, is the hunter who vows to end the violence once and for all.

O’Malia, a doctor and retired marine himself, vividly captures the complex life-threatening situations faced by his characters with an incredible range of emotions. The best and worst of human nature is laid bare throughout this hard-to-put-down story. Just like life itself, what will happen next to the wolves, the sheep, and the Hunter is unpredictable, with consequences that will be irrevocable.

Both hope and fear drive the reader to keep turning pages as they accompany The Wolf Hunter on his gripping journey.

February 26, 2025
Ralph R. “Rick” Steinke 10 Question Interview with Chanticleer – Global Thriller, Terrorism, International Mystery & Crime

CHANTICLEER 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES

with Award-Winning Author, Ralph R. “Rick” Steinke

Hello friends, we have another fabulous interview for you today. Rick Steinke took home the 2023 Chanticleer Grand Prize in the Global Thriller Awards for his fascinating novel Jake Fortina and the Roman Conspiracy. Here, he tells us how his Jake Fortina character came to be and the subsequent heights it is now reaching! Take a minute or two and get familiar with Rick. You won’t be sorry!

Chanti: Your books go deep into international intrigue. How did you come to write such high stakes thrillers?

Steinke: I started writing when I was passed over for a senior US government service position that I coveted and thought I’d be a good fit for. Shortly thereafter, I began to write, and it was like pushing through an open door for me. I felt spiritually led in that direction and realized that I very much enjoyed writing!

Chanti: The thriller genre seems to fit right into your professional history, but they include so much more. Tell us about your military background and how you are able craft such authentic environments in your novels.

Steinke: Political and political-military, high stakes global thrillers best describe my genre and work to date. I also love to write suspense stories in general. My almost 42 years of combined service in the US Army and US Department of Defense, as well as 28 years of overseas service, led me to write in the global thriller and suspense genres. While writing is obviously about fiction, I try to keep my work as authentic as possible. As my stories also have US-European settings to them, I also like to write about local culture. Thus far, that has meant a lot of French and Italian culture.

Chanti: How do you come up with the trouble your character, Jake Fortina, faces in your novels?

Steinke: For now, I like the “ripped from the headlines approach,” focused on real world scenarios, particularly when they involve major US national and international security issues or interests. But I’ve also written about national security issues that I’ve come across in my professional experiences. I also try to feature certain professional groups that I’ve served with or interacted with during my public service, including the military, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence communities, as well as US military noncommissioned officers (sergeants) and military families.

Chanti: With your background in the military, are you able to apply the same high discipline to your writing time?

Steinke: A full “writing day” is often a luxury, but I do my best to remain consistent, given the many family and travel opportunities throughout any given year. When traveling, I try to fit my writing into “downtime” as much as possible. I tend to always travel with my laptop, so most days – but not all days – allow for at least one and some days even two hours of writing. If I’m home, I try to get an early start, often rising around 5 a.m. and sometimes as early as 4 a.m., with the goal of getting in 3-4 hours or so of focused writing or editing. If I do much more than that in a day, I feel like I’m less effective.

Chanti: What do you do to grow your author chops? Do you have any authors you turn to learn from?

Steinke: For starters, I keep learning. I believe learning should be a proactive daily and lifelong process. I still occasionally let the passive voice creep into my writing, but thankfully I have an excellent editor who is attuned to it. My best writing investments were in three Master Classes, taught by James Patterson, Dan Brown, and Ken Follett. I would say my writing style tends more to James Patterson’s style than the latter two. I strive to keep my chapters relatively short (3-5 pages, on average) and crisp.

Chanti: What craft books have helped you the most?

Steinke: Without a doubt, Stephen King’s On Writing was the most consequential and revelational “craft book” for me. As Mr. King says, “Don’t write b—s—t.” That concisely sums up his style and wisdom!

Chanti: How do you relax when you aren’t writing? Tell us a little about your hobbies.

Steinke: I love spending time with my family, traveling the world with my wife Susan, going fly fishing, and participating in other outdoor activities like hiking and increasingly, pickleball. I’m trying to get in a bit more snow skiing but I’m not sure how much longer my body will stand up to the wear and tear of the ski slopes!

Chanti: What can we look forward to seeing next from you? Will Jake Fortina be taking on more terrorist groups?

Steinke: Change of Mission, the third book in the Jake Fortina series, was released last summer. Just like the first two books, Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat and Jake Fortina and The Roman Conspiracy, this story is about an ordinary US Army officer who finds himself facing extraordinary national security threats. Thus far, thankfully, Change of Mission has been well received. In it, we follow Lieutenant Colonel Jake Fortina as he decides whether to continue with his same career path or make a change in his life’s mission. Meanwhile, he and his Italian bride, a Carabinieri officer, must confront a confluence of threats from Iranian extremists, as well as the Italian and Russian mafias.

I’m currently more than halfway through writing my fourth book, Vital Mission, A Jake Fortina Series Love Story. Jake Fortina will be called upon by a dear Ukrainian friend to help with the rescue of two Ukrainian children who were abducted from their bombed-out Ukrainian city and taken to Russia. This latest book in the Jake Fortina series is projected for publication in the July-September 2025 timeframe.

Chanti: What is the most important thing a reader can do for an author?

Steinke: Leave a review—and hopefully it will be a good one — on a major book selling or endorsing platform, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, or Audible. In today’s social media world, authors live and die by readers’ reviews.

Chanti: What excites you most about writing?

Steinke: The conceptual challenge and the entire creative journey! It’s like putting a puzzle together, but you must first create the pieces from pretty much a blank slate… or a good outline! I also enjoy entertaining, educating, and even occasionally enlightening readers. I would like them to experience the organizations and professionals out there who keep the United States and our Allies safe, with much of their work done behind the scenes, while we sleep comfortably.

Ralph Richard “Rick” Steinke is the award-winning author of the Jake Fortina global thriller series, including Jake Fortina and the Roman Conspiracy, awarded the Grand Prize for 2023 in the Global Thriller – High Stakes category at the Chanticleer International Book Awards (the CIBAs) in April 2024. The Jake Fortina series, beginning with Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat, was also selected as a Book Series Finalist at the CIBAs.

Steinke has spent a lifetime in US national security roles, including twenty-eight years in the US Army and fourteen in the Department of Defense. His official duties have taken him from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to over thirty countries on the Eurasian landmass, including Afghanistan and Ukraine.

He holds master’s degrees in West European studies and diplomacy from Indiana and Norwich Universities, respectively, as well as post-graduation certificates in national and international security affairs from Harvard and Stanford Universities. His passions include faith, family, fly fishing, and travel.

He can be contacted at Ricksteinke@alumni.harvard.edu.

February 25, 2025