Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: chanti

The 2024 M&M Hall of Fame for Cozy and Not-so-Cozy Mysteries!

Curl up with a Cozy Mystery Today!

Agatha Christie in front of the TARDIS, as played by Fenella Woolgar in the Dr Who episode The Unicorn and The Wasp.

Fall is the best time to enter the M&M Book Awards

You have until September 30th to share your Novel with us and enter the 2024 CIBAs!

This Division is dedicated to one of the most Well-known Mystery authors, Dame Agatha Christie. Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, and so much more.

WWI Nurse, Writer, Playwright (and record holder of longest running Stage Play, The Mousetrap which opened in 1952), and Archaeologist, the latter of which contributed greatly to her novels.

When she wasn’t busy writing, She spent quite a good amount of her life working on excavations in Egypt and Iraq with her 2nd Husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan.

But enough about Christie. The Hall of Fame features the Grand Prize Winners of the Mystery and Mayhem Award who we are proud to have in the Chanticleer Family!

A Haunting at Linley: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel
By Michelle Cox

In this seventh book of the series, Clive and Henrietta return to England to find Castle Linley in financial ruin. When Clive’s cousin, Wallace, invites an estate agent in to assess the home’s value, the agent is later found poisoned, throwing all of the Castle’s guests into suspicion. Clive and Henrietta are soon drawn into an investigation, which is slowed by an incompetent local inspector and several unexplained phenomena—the cause of which many, especially the frail Lady Linley, believe to be the workings of the ghost of a hanged maid.

Meanwhile, Gunther and Elsie have begun life on a farm in Omaha. Circumstances are difficult, but they are content—until Oldrich Exely appears, proposing an option Elsie finds difficult to ignore. Melody Merriweather, still masquerading as a nun to aid Elsie’s escape, likewise finds it difficult to ignore a letter with tragic news from home, while Julia, on the other hand, receives a very different sort of letter from Glenn Forbes.

Back in England, Clive is called away to London on suspicious business, leaving Henrietta to carry on with the investigation alone. When she is mysteriously locked in the study one night, however, things take on a more deadly, supernatural feel, leaving her to fear that Lady Linley’s “ghost” might just be real after all…

Order it today!

A Spying Eye: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel
By Michelle Cox

Brooding Château du Freudeneck, just outside Strasbourg, France has villains in the drawing rooms, stolen art hidden in the cellars, and bats in the belfry – all the best elements for a 19th-century Gothic mystery.

However, in Michelle Cox’s novel, A Spying Eye it’s the 20th century. The Great War is passed, but the next war already looms on the horizon. The people of Strasbourg feel the growing conflict sharply, at the heart of Alsace-Lorraine, a fertile region that has been contested between France and Germany since time immemorial.

Which means those bats are in the unfortunate head of the elderly Baron Von Harmon, the current lord and master (as much as he’s still able to be, at least) of the Chateau, while the stolen art is pursued by both the villainous Nazis and the only slightly-less villainous agents of Britain’s MI5.

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Ophelia’s Room
By Michael Scott Garvin

Ophelia’s Room by Michael Scott Garvin begins with a bang – and a child’s whimper.

A frantic, distraught father pounds on a bolted chapel door in a small country hospital…. A tiny, two-day-old infant cries in peril…. A deranged grandfather sees demons in every shadowy corner.

The opening scene read like something out of a young parent’s nightmare. Will their child be healthy? Will they grow up to be successful? Will the child be safe in their grandparents’ arms? Questions that any new mother and father ask themselves. In Garvin’s Ophelia’s Room, the answers are terrifying.

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The Discovery
By Patrick M. Garry

Patrick M. Garry’s The Discovery encompasses a narrative that traverses a family legal case jigsaw puzzle toward a discovery of self by exploring the ghost of ancient regrets, basic human desires, and questions of faith.

Frank Horgan, a former lawyer at one of Minneapolis’ largest firms, now practices small-case litigation in the little community of Basswood Hills. Frank, a victim of his own follies, has one more chance to restore his career to its former glory. But not before a huge legal matter comes knocking on his door at his father’s diner. This case kicks off the legal drama, bringing in several main and secondary characters to play their parts in the ultimate discovery of buried contentedness and eventually a scandal that breaks into the national newspaper.

Meanwhile, Frank comes upon the case of the most prominent McCorkle family in Basswood Hills.

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Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery
By Vee Kumari

A complex murder mystery always requires a little spice. In Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery, that extra seasoning is provided by the casting of an Indian American woman as the amateur sleuth, despite her realistic fears for her personal safety.

Professor Rekha Rao is no Bollywood Mighty Girl. She’s a whip-smart American-born 32-year-old college instructor who must deal with her own PTSD after the murder of her father and her unstoppable passion for releasing the man wrongly convicted of her father’s slaying. That obsession is the reason Rekha was dismissed from her old teaching position. The scene is set for deep, personal involvement in the murder of a colleague, a fellow professor who is killed. And a rare, centuries-old statue excavated from an archeological dig in India is the murder weapon.

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A Promise Given
By Michelle Cox

With a much-anticipated wedding is in the works, but family complications and entanglements threaten the celebration, when is love A Promise Given, and when is it a compromise taken?

Amidst tribulations of friends and family, the smart and beautiful Henrietta, and the intense Inspector Clive Howard say, “I do.” Now the loving couple will learn how to be Mr. and Mrs. Howard on their honeymoon in England with his relatives at Castle Linley, where intrigue and mystery await their arrival.

Read More Here

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Hearten Winners is to Enter Today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

You know you want it…

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

September 29, 2024
The 2024 Chaucer Hall of Fame for Early Historical Fiction

Looking for a sense of History?

Look no further! The Chaucer Awards are here to bring stories from anytime before 1750.

You have until September 30th to submit your story and enter the 2024 CIBAs!

Named for Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales (and Name giver of a certain rooster named Chanticleer), This Division was our first Historical Fiction category.

Not much belonging to the author in question still survives. Although in 2023, a document in the British National Archive was determined to be written in his own hand. The document dates from Chaucer’s 12-year stint as the controller of the London Wool Quay, and is a note asking King Richard II for time off of work. Read more about that in this article from the Guardian

The note, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, spelled Geffray Chaucer in the text, rediscovered in the British National Archives

The Most famous thing associated with him though, has to be Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey. The corner dedicates memorials to some of the best of British writers. Poets corner is centered around the Tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer himself, which was erected in 1559, as his actual burial is known to be somewhere in the area, but is unmarked. Writers such as Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and more are buried or have memorials surrounding Chaucer’s.

In this years Chaucer Award posts, we are also highlighting some of the often overlooked female writers of the past. This time, Christine De Pisan. Writing in the early 1400s, she was rather prolific in her work. Poetry, Novels, Biographies and more, including the only French-language work about Joan of Arc written in her lifetime. Christine is the first known women to actually make a living on her own writing.

Christine De Pisan from Harley MS 4431, held in the British Library.

The fact she was able to support herself and her children off of her writing in this era is remarkable. Her most well known work, The Book of the City of Ladies and its sequel The Treasure of the City of Ladies, written in about 1405, collecting biblical, mythological and historical female figures together, and using them as the ‘building blocks’ for a theoretical idealized city as a commentary on the world she lived in. Her book argues that women actually had a valued place and meaning in society and should be educated the same as men were. Her biography of Joan of Arc in 1429, is her last known piece of writing, as she disappears from written history after that.

And with that, Lets Take a look back in more recent history at the Grand Prize Winners of the Chaucer Award!

The Merchant From Sepharad
By James Hutson-Wiley

Joshua Ibn Elazar, the eager son of a Jewish merchant, travels to al-Andalus (the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule) to prove himself in his father’s business. But he finds an unwelcoming, degrading society waiting for him, and begins a journey of misfortune and anger in James Hutson-Wiley’s historical fiction novel, The Merchant from Sepharad.

Shortly after arriving in the city of Lishbunah, al-Andalus, Joshua is tricked out of the gold for his living expenses. Worse yet, he learns that Jews in Lishbunah suffer under oppressive laws, holding far less status than Muslim citizens. He can only find help in Lishbuna’s Jewish community, meeting Rabbi Hiyya al-Daudi and his son Yaish, who house and feed him.

They tell him that his father’s colleague, Essua, who was to help Joshua manage a shipment of flax and sugar, has been arrested. Though Essua is eventually released, Joshua fails to secure storage for his goods, as the makhzan (warehouse) he rented is given to a Muslim merchant instead. In his fury at the city’s prejudice, he sets fire to the makhzan, and is forced to flee.

Read More Here!

Daughter of Hades
By Mack Little

Mack Little’s historical fiction novel Daughter of Hades explores the lives of slaves during the age of pirates.

Little’s research shines in her thoughtful presentation of the Caribbean islands, the escaped slaves who found freedom amongst them, the lives of buccaneers and maroons, and their daring and dangerous exploits.

On the first page, Little introduces us to Geraldine, or “Dinny”, running for her life from her owner, Owen Craig, who has just raped her.

Dinny’s father had arranged for her to be removed from the plantation before Craig molested her, but he’d miscalculated Craig’s lust. Dinny is rescued by her twin brother, Jimmie, and Leixiang, and taken to the Hades, a pirate ship captained by the buccaneer Duff.

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Too Soon The Night
By James Conroyd Martin

Too Soon the Night by James Conroyd Martin shows the thrilling heights to which Empress Theodora rose and the crushing depths to which she fell, in the latter half of her life. This story picks up from Fortune’s Child, the first volume of this epic duology.

This half of Theodora’s incredible journey opens at its close – as she succumbs to the cancer that drove her to dictate the record of her life. She left the task of recording her meteoric rise from actress to empress in the hands of the scribe and historian Stephen, even though she imprisoned him for several years out of fear that he would reveal her greatest secrets.

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Bird in a Snare
By N.L. Holmes

Politics is a deadly game in the days of Kings and their competing 14th-century B.C. Egyptian factions. Official diplomat, Lord Hani, is on a royal assignment when he discovers even the king’s motives are suspect. Hani begins to fear for the welfare of his family and himself, as he gets a sinking feeling that the hunter has become the hunted. He’s the live bait, the Bird In A Snare.

Can Lord Hani find out who is responsible for the mysterious assassinations and the shifting armies’ alliances before becoming the one they target next?

Read More Here

Fortunes Child
By James Conroyd Martin
2019 Overall Grand Prize Winner

James Conroyd Martin brings to life one woman we should all know better in his multi-award-winning, epic novel, Fortune’s Child: A Novel of Empress Theodora.

Like Cleopatra, Empress Theodora was a legend in her own time. And also, like Queen Cleopatra before her, Empress Theodora’s life and accomplishments were distorted and maligned by the male historians of her own time. Even after death, men who couldn’t bear or couldn’t believe that a woman, particularly a woman of the lower classes as Theodora was, could possibly have accomplished the things she did or wield the power she had.

Fortune’s Child, the first book of a projected duology, Theodora, near death, determines to leave behind an accurate chronicle of her life and work. She’s desperate to get a step ahead of the official biography already being written by a man who hates her, everything she came from, and everything she stands for.

Read More Here

The Serpent and The Eagle
By Edward Rickford

In The Serpent and the Eagle, Edward Rickford details Hernan Cortes’ 1519 expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization, fleshing out known facts with the human factor—it is, to the typical depiction of Cortes’ exploration of the Yucatán peninsula, what a chorus is to a solo or a tulip to a bulb. Primarily narrated by individuals who were actual members, or may have been members, of this expedition, Rickford has crafted a fascinating tale of intrigue, love, lust, greed—essentially all seven of the deadly sins—within two diametrically opposed political and cultural systems.

Read More Here

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Chaucer Winners is to submit today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

September 28, 2024
The 2024 Clue Book Awards Hall of Fame For Suspense/Thriller!

Who’s at the door at this late hour?

It’s the Clue Awards closing at the end of September!

The Clue Awards features the best suspense and thriller books, including both fiction and true crime! We are delighted to feature these amazing authors from the last five years of Clue Grand Prize Awards!

Here is the official Hall of Fame for the Grand Prize Winners of the Clue Awards!

The Other Murder
by Kevin G. Chapman

In The Other Murder by Kevin G. Chapman, two ambitious journalists find themselves at the knife’s edge as they seek to uncover the entire truth of a gruesome double homicide.

“An error does not become truth because of multiplied propaganda, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” –Mahatma Gandhi

Hannah, a journalist with the American Cable News network, is pulled away from a date by her editor to cover the breaking news of a shooting in Washington Square Park. The victim is Angelica Monroe, a White girl from Westchester County and a sophomore at NYU. She was shot at a close range, as shown by the dark hole above her left eye.

The murder becomes much more mysterious and complicated when Paulo, a reporter for a small community newspaper, makes a connection between Angelica’s murder and the shooting of a Latino teen, Javier Estrada, on the other side of the park on the same night.

Read More Here

The Vines
By Shelley Nolden

Shelley Nolden’s debut novel, The Vines, embraces multiple genres as it chills, fascinates, and horrifies, from historical and magical realism to fantasy and horror.

Nolden has melded fanaticism, medical anomalies, and the frailties of human behavior together with a historic setting, creating a narrative Kudzu vine that grows rapidly and spares nothing in its path. This particular vine consists of two main branches that intertwine, bridging time and linking parallel realities, one past, one present.

The Gettler men of Long Island, New York have shepherded a secret medical research project for generations, with the exception of Finn, the youngest man in the family.

Read More Here

A Venomous Love
By Chris Karlsen

Detective Rudyard Bloodstone is facing the most bizarre crime spree of his career as a copper on the Victorian streets of London. Someone is using a poisonous Cape cobra as a weapon.

What begins as a simple robbery scheme turns deadly when a wealthy businessman is killed via cobra attack, the crimes go from strange to deadly. Rudyard (Ruddy) and his partner, Archie Holcomb, have few clues and no idea what would cause such a change in the criminal’s behavior.

When the criminal returns to the estate and attacks the victim’s daughter, Ruddy’s suspicions are confirmed.

Read More Here

Salvaging Truth
By Joanne Jaytanie

Famed marine biologist and researcher Claudia Rawlings is presumed dead. When Claudia’s research vessel goes down, her daughter Riley goes on a desperate search to discover what happened, eventually turning to Dagger Eastin, co-owner of Hunters and Seekers a marine salvage business. Dagger soon realize this isn’t a simple search and reclaim mission when someone takes a shot at him during an exploratory dive with Riley.

Former Navy SEALs, Dagger, and his partners Kaleb LaSalle and Stone Garrison are the definitions of relentless, and they quickly become embroiled in the investigation that has caught the attention of some very influential people, all seeking Claudia’s important research. And while Riley learns that her mother has left behind clues to her missing research, the Hunters and Seekers pull out all the stops to help and protect her. The wild scavenger hunt sends Dagger and Riley on a trip to discover the truth, but Russian spies, big oil cronies, and psychopathic hitmen lurk around every corner.

Read More Here

California Son
By Timothy Burgess

California Son, the second installment in the Liam Sol Mystery series by Timothy Burgess, presents another action-packed mystery for protagonist Liam Sol to solve. Honorably discharged after his tour of duty in Vietnam, Liam returns to his primarily Hispanic neighborhood of Baja La Bolsa, a coastal town near LA, California, where trouble finds him.

In his role as a journalist, Liam takes interest in the daily pleas of a Hispanic mother to find her son’s murderer, pleas that the mostly white La Bolsa Police seem to ignore. After an article he writes in hopes of renewing interest in the case appears in La Bolsa Tribune, the mother is found dead in her apartment. No stranger to death or violence, Liam soon finds himself on the personal side of a hunt for the killer of not only the son but also the mother.

Read More Here

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Clue Winners is to Enter Today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

September 27, 2024
WHEN WALLS TALK by Geralyn Hesslau Magrady – Contemporary Fiction, Family Saga, Family Relationships

Toni has the chance to start her own business in the building of her family’s old bakery. But history waits within those walls. In Geralyn Hesslau Magrady’s novella, When Walls Talk, Toni and her father uncover secrets they could never have expected.

The Russo Bakery, with its 1920s architecture had been the family business since the four Russo brothers first opened its doors. Decades later, Toni and her widowed father plan a complete redesign of what their ancestors made to fulfill her dream of owning a bookstore. As the walls fall around the Russo family business, a long-hidden truth brings about profound personal changes for Toni.

Toni takes this giant leap into the unknown, unsure if she’s even prepared to own a business. But the bookstore is the key to her hope for a better future, her only path to escaping a past tragedy.

In the face of death and loss, Toni is crippled with a feeling of powerlessness. Fighting to never feel that pain again, she builds walls high within her spirit to shut out joy in her life, knowing that openness will only lead to more pain.

The life Toni leads now is reduced to mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other, until a heartfelt promise, a secret, pushes her to act on her dream. The decision will demand more of her than she expects, and she’s not ready for the emotions she’ll face, but the promise compels her forward.

Magrady draws readers immediately to Toni and her father Paulie, their conflicts a careful reflection of the human struggle we all share. Their friends are likewise compelling, bringing the periphery of their lives forward in the storytelling.

Paulie eagerly joins his daughter’s project, working to manage the tension and strain that had once existed between them. Family ties have driven Paulie his whole love, paired with pride in his Italian heritage.

Neither Toni or her father expected or wanted to learn the secrets they stumble across about their family, but history cannot be undone. They have each other and friends new and old to help absorb what the bakery-turned-bookstore has to say. As the walls tumble down, one can only hope Toni will find her own happiness, because the message heard When Walls Talk is a powerful one.

Award-winning author Geralyn Hesslau Magrady gently weaves an emotional story of despair, surrender, and a glimmer of hope. When Walls Talk provides an insightful look at the human spirit, what it must face, and whether it can endure.

The Chicago neighborhood comes to life as a character itself, artfully depicted with the Bakery as the heart of the story.

When Walls Talk invites readers into a world where family secrets can forge new beginnings. The novella brings the loss, legacy, and uplifting power of hope in a family into beautiful relief. A perfect pick for anyone who relishes stories of resilience and indomitable spirit.

September 27, 2024
RUNNING AWAY From The CIRCUS: Confessions of a Carnie Kid (Who Tried to Become a Priest) by Nove Meyers – Memoirs, Coming of Age, Religion & Spirituality

Debut author Nove Meyers breathes life into the big tent of human aspirations and desperations, from his birth into a raucous circus atmosphere to his diligent study for Catholic priesthood.

Running Away from the Circus is a vibrant chronicle that opens with a vignette of his grandmother, clad in sequins and flying on a trapeze. She spun like a top to enthusiastic applause under the circus tent, until the fateful day when she included her young child in the act, dropping her thirty feet to the sawdust-covered floor below. But this did not prevent Nove Meyers from being born and having a story to tell.

The boyhood described was as wild as the circus acts. He was encouraged to smoke cigarettes like his father and watched in astonishment as his mother burned up paper money, possibly to protect his uncle, a counterfeiter. Yet despite his unusual upbringing as one of the family’s third generation of circus owners, Meyers was taken regularly to Catholic church services. There, he discovered God, an entity as mysterious as the traveling circus and carnie crowds he was raised among.

While tending to an elephant in the backyard and working alongside tightrope walkers and a “human cannonball,” Meyers was signing on as an altar boy and making his first confession.

At age eight he became determined to become a priest, but there were obstacles. When he took a summer job as a carnie, he discovered he would have to work on the Sabbath. He struggled to convince himself that God would understand. Even these early experiences foreshadowed the life that would slowly chip away at the spiritual armor he tried to don. And there were girls. To become a priest he would have to take a vow of celibacy, perhaps the largest barrier he faced.

In college, after enjoying the companionship of a young woman, he confronted a priest about the celibacy issue, suggesting that celibacy was merely a church-based control mechanism. Advised by the priest to pray, the young Nove lay in bed and talked at length to God, promising to try his best to become a worthy priest, but also asserting that if he met the right girl, he would love and marry her. He wraps up saying, “I hope You’ll understand. Thanks for listening.”

Meyers demonstrates a clear gift for wordsmithing and a flair for storytelling that expertly handles the quick changes and maneuvers he experienced in the parallel worlds of the church and life under the “Big Top.”

Based on the paradox he faced from an early age between religious requirements and human behaviors, he creates an enthralling tale, kept buoyant with wry humor and fascinating behind-the-scenes depictions of circus and carnival life that may startle those unfamiliar with it as it charms those who have shared his experiences.

The choices Meyers made in his progression between the often-enjoyable chaos of the Big Top to the quiet comfort of the religious sanctuary of the church are remarkable, not only for his lively examination of them but for his rational yet spiritually grounded conclusions. Meyers’ dynamic, frank, and amusing saga will have his readers hoping for a second encore to this captivating life.

Running Away from the Circus by Nove Meyers won Grand Prize in the 2023 CIBA Hearten Awards for Inspiring & Uplifting Non-Fiction.

September 27, 2024
The 2024 Hearten Book Awards Hall of Fame for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction

Take a deep breathe and smile

The Hearten Awards are here to bring you joy, and maybe a few tears with some of these excellent books

**Your Story is Worth Sharing**

You have until September 30th to share your uplifting memoir with us and enter the 2024 CIBAs!

Enter by September 30, 2024

Uplifting and heartwarming work is a vanishingly rare thing these days, and we love having an Awards Division that can inspire readers and writers alike. The Hearten Awards seeks true stories about adventures, life events, unique experiences, travel, personal journeys, global enlightenment, and more.

Join us in celebrating the Hall of Fame for Grand Prize Winners of the Hearten Awards

Running Away From the Circus
By Nove Meyers

Debut author Nove Meyers breathes life into the big tent of human aspirations and desperations, from his birth into a raucous circus atmosphere to his diligent study for Catholic priesthood.

Running Away from the Circus is a vibrant chronicle that opens with a vignette of his grandmother, clad in sequins and flying on a trapeze. She spun like a top to enthusiastic applause under the circus tent, until the fateful day when she included her young child in the act, dropping her thirty feet to the sawdust-covered floor below. But this did not prevent Nove Meyers from being born and having a story to tell.

The boyhood described was as wild as the circus acts. He was encouraged to smoke cigarettes like his father and watched in astonishment as his mother burned up paper money, possibly to protect his uncle, a counterfeiter. Yet despite his unusual upbringing as one of the family’s third generation of circus owners, Meyers was taken regularly to Catholic church services. There, he discovered God, an entity as mysterious as the traveling circus and carnie crowds he was raised among.

Read more here!

INNER TREK – a reluctant pilgrim to the Himalayas
By Mohan Ranga Rao

A disinclined traveler journeys into the heartland of the revered Mount Kalash Parikarma in Tibet. Inner Trek by Mohan Ranga Rao follows a voyage that culminates in self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.

Mohan Ranga Rao, a retired Indian businessman, finds himself between a rock and a hard place when a ruthless Bangalore mob boss threatens him to sell his land at a throwaway price. The situation escalates when he discovers that his trusted lawyer has joined forces with the enemy. He can only turn to his wife for solace.

With nothing for him to do about his land, Rao vows to trek around Mount Kailash, a holy Tibetan Mountain. This travel memoir traces his and his wife’s journey to the deified Himalayas, the land of Lord Shiva. Rao shares intimate details of his experience, including the spiritual transformation that he went through during his challenging high-altitude trek.

Read more here!

DAWGS: A True Story of Lost Animals and the Kids Who Rescued Them
by Diane Trull & Meredith Wargo

We love our dogs. We love our cats. But what do we do when people no longer want them, use them for cruel purposes, or release them into the streets with no thought for what will happen to them? Diane Trull’s memoir with Meredith Wargo, DAWGS, shines a light on these questions.

Trull begins the story as a fourth-grade teacher in Dalhart, Texas. One of her young students asks about an article in a local paper showing photos of adorable dogs at a shelter who were up for adoption, wondering what happened to those who weren’t adopted.

Instead of dodging the question, and with great trepidation, she answered it with the truth: those who weren’t adopted would be put to sleep. Her tiny students were understandably shocked. Then one of them said, “I don’t want any of those dogs to die. Isn’t there something we can do to save them?”

Read more here!

Love, Life, and Lucille
By Judy Gaman

Award-winning author, motivational speaker, and podcast host Judy Gaman befriends a fun-loving and feisty centenarian in her CIBA Grand Prize-winning novel, Love, Life, and Lucille.

The list of titles and accolades Judy Gaman has accrued begin to pale when she encounters Lucille Fleming for the very first time. The whole reason for the meet-up with the centenarian was specifically to get her opinions on “aging gracefully,” the featured topic of a new book Judy planned to write. What was scheduled as an hour-long interview turned into an absolutely delightful, near three-hour visit. Lucille turned the tables and began asking questions about Judy’s life with compelling earnestness—something Judy rarely experienced. She was unprepared yet exhilarated.

Judy couldn’t stop thinking about this “dressed to the nines” woman with an ear-to-ear smile and a sturdy, affectionate hug. Her contact with this larger-than-life woman was so infectious, Judy made up an excuse—so that she could see her again. During that second meeting, the two became fast friends as they set Fridays aside as their day to get together. Before their next planned meeting, Judy learned that Lucille had gone into cardiac arrest. She was dead for three minutes before she came back full of vim and vigor as if nothing had happened. Five months later, Lucille was more than ready for TV interviews. With that, Judy made plans to write a second book about Lucille and their relationship.

Read more here!

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Hearten Winners is to enter today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

You know you want it…

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

September 26, 2024
The Historical Resonance of Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week

From left to right we have Michael Shannon as Captain Beatty and Michael B. Jordan as Guy Montag in the screen adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

It’s still here because it still happens

Banned Books Week, celebrated during the last full week of September, brings authors, publishers, readers, educators, and activists together to underscore the importance of intellectual freedom and our constitutional right to access information. It’s an event that serves as a platform to advocate for free expression and to highlight the detrimental effects of censorship.

The Effects of Banning Books

Banning books not only limits access to diverse perspectives but also stifles critical thinking and discussion. When we silence voices, we miss out on the chance to engage with different experiences and viewpoints and leaves underrepresented people isolated and oftentimes ostracized due to a lack of understanding and empathy for the struggles, triumphs, and complexities of others.

Banned Books Week is an annual event first organized by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1982. It shines a light on the many books that have been challenged or banned in schools and libraries, and it reminds us of the vital role literature plays in shaping our understanding of the world and who we are as people. We are still advocating for these rights forty-two years later.

Fighting Book Bans in the Golden Age of Russian Literature

Bans have been used put into place since Biblical times, but a more modern version is found in Imperial Russia. It’s an interesting point in history when skilled authors used fiction as a way to subvert censors and challenge the structure of their societies through the written word.

Russian writers, the great storytellers of the “Golden Age” of literature (18th & 19th century), were masters of observation during a time when their society was rapidly changing. Western ideas brought back with soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars provided Russian citizens the freedom of thought for the first time in their long history as a monarchy. In a matter of a few years the Russian intelligentsia absorbed the knowledge of over three hundred years of Western Enlightenment and became the catalyst for conversations on the rights of man and the role of church and state in the lives of their citizens. Suddenly, a feudal society’s eyes popped open from a deep sleep and they realized their dreams of freedom were real and within reach.

The great Russian writers–top row from left: Stepan Skitalets, Fyodor Chaliapin, Yevgeny Chirikov; bottom row from left: Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin, Nikolay Teleshov.

The Russian people were in a position to expand their knowledge base exponentially and soon conversations heard in the salons and receiving rooms of St. Petersburg, Russia’s cultural capital at the time, had become passionate with talk of the “rights of man”. Influence the church and state had over the middle class decreased and their power over the people began slipping away. The common man gained the ability to ask his own questions and decide his own fate for the first time in Russian history, and as they sipped their vodka they began to speak of revolution.

And a few wrote.

Government censors, focused solely on traditional news sources, weren’t quick enough to pick up on the messages behind fictional plots and this gave writers a way to move the private conversations they were having out into the mainstream. As a result, Russian literature stands to this day as some of the most important novels in our society, regardless of where your origins lie. By examining the human condition with compelling narratives these great Russian writers succeeded in questioning the way we live and think about our lives, and all under the watchful eyes of those who would have banned those same ideas if presented as non-fiction.

Celebrating the Freedom to Read and Write

During Banned Books Week, libraries, schools, and bookstores host a variety of events to celebrate the freedom to read. Read-alouds and panel discussions highlight the significance banned books, and social media campaigns are now engaging audiences online, encouraging them to share their favorite banned books, quotes, and personal stories.

How You Can Get Involved

Read a Banned Book: Pick up a book from the list of frequently challenged titles. Some notable examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Hate U Give.

Support Your Local Library: Visit your local library and participate in Banned Books Week events. Libraries often provide resources and information about the challenges they face.

Raise Awareness: Use your social media platforms to spread the word. Share posts about your favorite banned books and why they matter to you.

Engage in Conversations: Discuss the importance of free expression with friends, family, and colleagues. Encourage open dialogue about challenging topics often found in literature.

Advocate for Change: Get involved with local advocacy groups that support intellectual freedom. Attend school board meetings to voice your support for diverse literature in schools.

Banned Books Week serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of free expression and the need to protect the right to read whatever we want to read. By celebrating literature that has been challenged or banned, we reaffirm our commitment to fostering an inclusive society that values diverse perspectives. So, let’s turn the page, open our minds, and embrace the stories that challenge us to think critically and compassionately about the world around us.

If you are interested in reading books that challenge beliefs and ideas, we suggest these title:
Tsarina’s Crown
By Jerena Tobiasen
Hemingway Awards First Place Winner

Jerena Tobiasen delivers a sharp, first-rate novel in Tsarina’s Crown,first installment in TheNightingale and Sparrow Chronicles,capturing a precise panorama of Russian politics and British espionage during a delicate period in time.

The year is 1915 and Simon Temple, a young naval officer aboard the RMS Guardian— a British Royal Navy Ship— patrols the North Sea for questionable communications and marine activity. Months later, he is entrusted by the British crown to serve as a liaison on a covert mission in Petrograd, Russia. Simon is careful not to blow his cover as a young aristocrat while he is thrust into the world of international politics, the ruthless Russian Revolution, and becomes caught right in the middle of two powerful royal families.

Read More here…

Remedy for a Broken Angel
Toni Ann Johnson

Remedy for a Broken Angel by Toni Ann Johnson is an intense examination of the troubled personal histories of two beautiful and talented women of color.

Their stories are told in alternating chapters which reveal the mother’s and her daughter’s attempts to reclaim and understand their broken pasts. Each chapter is a revelation into the pain and damage caused by unknown family secrets. Both women struggle with a legacy of shame and self-blame for the price they’re paying for never hearing the truth. Each must learn the lessons found in past years of failure to communicate.

Read More here…

America’s Forgotten Suffragists
By Nicole Evelina
Nellie Bly Awards Grand Prize Winner

Comprehensive in its own right, America’s Forgotten Suffragists by Nicole Evelina is an essential addition to the canon of women’s suffrage and first-wave feminism.

Equal parts local history of women’s right to vote in the nineteenth century and biography of Virginia and Francis Minor, America’s Forgotten Suffragists illuminates the story of a wife-and-husband feminist duo who were the first to fight for women’s suffrage at the Supreme Court level.

Read More here…

Seeing Glory
By Bruce Gardner

Seeing Glory by Bruce Gardner is a sweeping, thought-provoking Christian historical novel of the American Civil War. The novel portrays the critical roles of family ties and religious faith in shaping personal attitudes and actions towards the horrors of slavery and the war itself.

Spanning the era from the famous abolitionist John Brown’s Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 through the end of the war nine years later, Seeing Glory focuses on the gut-wrenching conflicts over slavery and the southern way of life faced by David, Emma, and Catherine Hodge, fictional siblings, raised on a wealthy plantation in Virginia.
Read More here…

She Had Been a Tomboy
By Sandra Bowman

She Had Been a Tomboy: Raising a Transgender Child, a Mother’s Journey by Sandra Bowman is a deeply revealing memoir about a protective mother who watches her sensitive child grow into someone who is familiar, yet new.

This moving narrative tells the story of her two children: how they were born and how they grew. She Had Been a Tomboy hops from one period of the children’s lives to another, showing how the elder child matures and how the female within slowly blooms into being, little by little revealing herself.

But the long journey to realization and understanding of self was not easy, nor was it gentle.

Read More here…

Open a banned book this week and prove you are a champion for the freedom of thought during Banned Books Week!

Thank you for joining us for this Writer Toolbox Article

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September 25, 2024
The Laramie 2024 Hall of Fame for Americana Fiction!

The Frontier is calling

Submit your Americana, Western or Civil War Novels to the CIBAs!

***Tell your story today***

You have until September 30th to share your Story with us and enter the 2024 Laramie Division of the CIBAs!

Charles M. Russell painted the cowboy seen on Chanticleer’s very own Laramie contest badge. It is one of many such paintings he did that encompassed the Old American Wild West. An advocate for the Native Americans, Charles M. Russell also helped establish a reservation in Montana for the Chippewa people.

Our Laramie Hall of Fame Celebrates the Grand Prize Winners of now and past years!

The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery
By Thomas Goodman

In The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery by Thomas Goodman, four men in a small, depression-era Texas town lay in wait to carry out their unique plan for a holiday heist.

It’s December 23 and a man in a Santa Claus suit walks into a bank. But rather than his bag full of Christmas surprises, he’s brought a gun. With the element of surprise on their side, the robber and his two partners would collect the cash, while another partner waited in the getaway car. It all seemed so simple.

At the time, Texas bankers—in order to deter crimes such as this—promised a $5,000 reward for any dead bandits, “and not one cent” for the capture of a live one. Should anything go wrong, the possibilities for disaster were clear as a Greek tragedy. but what could go wrong?

Full review to come! Buy the book here!

Guarded Hearts
By T.K. Conklin

Guarded Hearts by T K Conklin is a sensual romance in the Wild West, with all the passion and excitement natural to the setting.

Sparks fly between a man with an outlaw past and a woman with a terrifying gift to heal or harm. Strykes is a man haunted both by a violent childhood and his time in an outlaw gang. But he has found a place in Rimrock, where he met LaRisa, an auburn-haired woman whom the townspeople have labeled a “witch” due to her healing herbs and rumors of her “powers”.

LaRisa has kept her distance from people, afraid of her gift of healing touch that can turn dangerous, even deadly. But, when she comes to town to deliver her medicinal herbs, she makes her way to the livery with tasks for Strykes such as shoeing her horse or fixing a spring in her wagon. He is only too happy to oblige the auburn-haired beauty. The attraction between them is instantaneous, yet they both are hesitant to act on it, fearing they would hurt the other– he from his violent past, and she from her “witch” power.

Read More Here

Tom Sawyer Returns
By E.E. Burke

Tom Sawyer Returns is the second book in The New Adventures series by author E.E. Burke.

Readers join a now grown up and far more independent Becky Thatcher as she maneuvers her complicated life in Civil War era Mississippi. Tom has long since left, and Becky is engaged to Union Captain Alfred Temple, who offers her all the safety and security she needs in such uncertain times. But does she love him? Actually love him?

Becky soon discovers that her heart may have other plans.

Read More Here

Trouble The Water
By Rebecca Dwight Bruff
Overall Grand Prize Winner

Robert Smalls’ life should have been one for the history books.

Smalls was born a slave in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1839. When the first shots of the Civil War were fired upon Fort Sumter, Smalls was an experienced helmsman aboard a small cargo ship plying the coastal waters of South Carolina and the neighboring states. Once the war broke out, he found himself working to support a cause that kept him, his wife, and their children locked in chattel slavery.

But in a daring escapade that fell somewhere between a raid and a rescue, Smalls planned, with the help of his fellow crew members (also slaves) aboard the CSS Planter, to abscond with the ship, its cargo of munitions taken from Fort Sumter, and bring their families. The plan was to sail the ship as though its white officers were still on board, pretending to be carrying out their orders—at least until the ship was out of the reach of Fort Sumter’s guns.

Read More Here

Seven Aprils
By Eileen Charbonneau

Disguised gender identities, warfare, and thwarted romance all play a role in this many-layered novel, Seven Aprils, by award-winning fiction author Eileen Charbonneau.

When Tess Barton, a hardscrabble farm girl, saves the life of a man attacked by a panther, she and he little realize how fated this encounter will prove. Ryder Cole, the man she saved, moves on, pursuing a medical career just as the United States seems destined for war. Intrepid Tess will move on, too, when she learns that her widower father sells her in matrimony to an old, brutish shopkeeper. A wise crone cuts Tess’s hair and garbs her in men’s attire. Reborn as Tom Boyde, who will soon, strangely, meet up with Ryder and become one of his “men,” conscripted into Lincoln’s armies. Tess/Tom shows promise as a medical assistant with some undeniable cooking skills, and together with two other conscripts, they make the team in the Union’s army hospital units.

Read More Here

Blood Moon A Captives Tale
By Ruth Hull Chatlien

Ruth Hull Chatlien’s historical novel Blood Moon: A Captive’s Tale shines a light on two worlds trying to coexist in the 1860s Minnesota, that of Westward Expansion and white settlers, and that of the complex network of Sioux tribes dealing with starvation and disease. We follow her protagonist, Mrs. Sarah Wakefield, as she is thrust unwillingly into the midst of the Indian Wars.

Based loosely on the life of real captive, Sarah Wakefield, Chatlien explores both sides of this conflict, through the eyes of our terrified hero, who does what she must to save her life and the lives of her two small children. The first-person narrative in present tense places us in the thick of Wakefield’s narrow escapes, and the presence of the constant threats to her and her children.

Read More Here

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Laramie Winners is to submit today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

September 25, 2024
FINDING The LIGHT, Navigating Dementia with My Son by Kasey J. Claytor – Inspirational Memoirs, Living with Disease, Family & Relationships

Some stories are impossible to look away from, and from its very first sentence, Finding the Light, Navigating Dementia with My Son by Kasey J. Claytor proves itself one of them. “…when my 49-year-old son, Justin, was first diagnosed with a form of early-onset dementia, I was stunned.” Without hesitation, the book draws readers into a saga of family, illness, and resilience.

Although a memoir, Finding the Light is in many ways an instructional text, too. Readers don’t need similar medical situations to draw from Claytor’s lessons of improvement. The conversational, approachable writing style serves this purpose well.

Although it’s in chronological order, this is an unconventional, modern text.

Traditional scene-based paragraphs are offset by poetry, informative sidebars, and even the full text of letters sent throughout Justin’s illness. Claytor deftly shifts between these sections, building a cohesive narrative from which readers can easily learn.

The past is vibrant and immediate: Claytor chronicles events in rich yet simple prose as Justin falls deeper into frontotemporal dementia, or FTD.

Yet Claytor also pauses often to address readers directly with a reflective tone from the present day. This gives welcome context to the book’s main narrative. She uses everything she’s learned to help readers understand Justin’s illness. FTD is a progressive, terminal disease—and a mysterious one, with no known cause. Finding the Light explains FTD patiently, without delving too far into medical details or terminology.

Claytor’s an adept records-keeper, combining her carefully recreated personal experience with thorough research.

The details she offers, from specific dates to particular images (piles of unopened mail, drives along the river road), give the story a tangible quality, as though readers are having this experience alongside her. Yet sometimes, the details come in the stark form of a list or a set of bullet points instead. These breaks from traditional prose offer a sense of the fractured, clinical experience that a terminal illness can become.

At times, Claytor’s emotions burn bright, particularly in her frustrations with the poor training and management at several care facilities. Yet she quickly pulls back from these moments of anger or frustration, letting her present-day self take over with calm reflection instead. She explains her calmness well, however, instructing readers, through example, on the deep value of patience and compassion.

Claytor truly excels at “finding the light,” just as the book’s title suggests.

“Every time I read these words like ‘horrible’ about FTD, it hurts like a paper cut,” she writes. This book offers consistent positivity without the emotional artifice that self-help or instructional books sometimes resort to. Claytor accepts Justin’s changing situation, watching him revert in many ways to his child self, and even finds beauty in this process. She finds true acceptance. And throughout this book, readers may learn how to accept similarly challenging situations in their own lives.

Finding the Light often feels like a long and enthralling conversation over coffee with a friend.

Between its accessible writing style and the unpredictable medical situation, the book becomes impossible to put down. At each turn readers will find a surprising development, such as when Justin contends with COVID, or when he must repeatedly move to new facilities. And each development is carefully contextualized with compassion for Justin, for his caretakers, and for everybody touched by the impacts of FTD. A literary rhythm emerges: touching scene, thoughtful reflection, clear information.

As Justin’s tale with FTD comes to a close, Claytor addresses the reader one last time, with a message for the painful, difficult turns in life.

The final sections of the book are written in the second person, as Claytor wraps up the narrative with a set of clear, actionable takeaways. The last chapter, “7 Survival Tips for Rough Times,” is a welcome reminder that while everyone’s challenges are different, we must all face them. The test is how we navigate these experiences. Thanks to Finding the Light, readers will have a roadmap for travelling through whatever dark paths life has in store with grace, acceptance, and love.

September 25, 2024
UNPAVED by Anthony Horton – Contemporary Fiction, Family Issues, Psychological Fiction

Unpaved by Anthony Horton is a pensive novel of how returning to one’s roots can reveal hints on how to move forward after a lifetime of grief.

Russell Nowak-McCreary is a man whose life has been proudly shaped by formidable women. His mother, Judith, was a prominent cardiac surgeon at the reputable St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. His wife, Anna, thrived as a student of Judith’s and has risen to the top of Boston’s best medical campus. And Russell’s work partner Sarah Westroes joined his company, Datatel, as its CEO with a relentless drive to expand its footprint in the tech industry. His childhood was spent without a father figure, only excepting the fond memories of a single summer at his grandfather’s cabin in the Canadian wilderness.

As he returns to the remote cabin of his youth to set his mother’s affairs in order, Russell takes this time alone to finally process all that he lost.

His mother, Judith, died in her prime from pancreatic cancer. Russell’s only son’s life was taken too soon, and his marriage has fallen apart in the wake of it all. After several dark years enduring grief in compounding waves, Russell comes to wonder how he “felt so incredibly severed from that happy boy who had been satiated with the promise of the future”.

Meanwhile, a corporate and romantic drama unfolds involving Sarah and Datatel. Russell has to reckon with fraud, insider trading, and illicit offshore bank accounts.

While Russell isn’t convinced his lover is the one at fault, he finds it harder to trust Sarah after more of her personal life is exposed. As he ties loose ends on his mother’s will in Toronto, Russell struggles to decide: should he take Sarah’s place as CEO, or leave the company for good?

Anthony Horton’s consistent lyricism gives an engaging rhythm to the story’s slow pace and puddle-hops through time — an arguably welcome reprieve from the typical hustle of an office drama.

The corporate subplot in Unpaved proves to be the most entertaining and propulsive element of the book. Its rare appearance throughout Russell’s pilgrimage to Toronto and Teapot Lake provides the momentum needed to move our protagonist forward as he finds himself venturing into the backwaters of his past.

For readers seeking a novel that sees them in their own grief, Unpaved is a thoughtful work that wades gently into the subject with grace. Horton’s careful prose allows us to take comfort in Russell’s unwavering confidence in the face of uncertainty as he determines how to begin the next chapter of his life on his own.

September 25, 2024