Miss Annabel Bradley needs a husband before she is officially an old maid. At the ripe age of twenty-five, she has been virtually “shelved” by the ton. Anna is eager to begin a family, and though she’s been reared on a healthy diet of adventure novels, she is willing to settle for any suitable match as long as she can begin the family she has always wanted. Anna knows exactly with whom she wants to share her life, her lifelong friend Lane Mason. Growing up on neighboring estates, Anna and Lane couldn’t be more perfect for each other, and even though they both know their marriage would provide an easy companionship, Lane has a secret that forces him to keep Anna at arm’s length. Despite loving Anna since they were teenagers, he can’t in good conscience marry her without first finding a solution to his problem. Anna isn’t willing to wait forever, and when another lord of the peerage shows interest in her, Anna must decide whether to follow her heart or take what might be her only chance for a family, but after Lane and Anna are kidnapped, both make life-changing decisions that seal their fates.
Love’s Misadventures has all the hallmarks of a romance lover’s dream. The wealthy, most-desired gentleman of the season, Lord Devon is the hunky blonde heartthrob, unafraid to come to the rescue of his lady love but sensitive enough to pack the perfect picnic. Annabel embodies the smart, ahead-of-her-time heroine who doesn’t want to settle for a loveless marriage but will do whatever she must to protect her family, and even though the novel has that comfort-food feel, it gives the reader with one huge surprise. Lane is a virgin. Not only is Lane inexperienced in the ways of love, but he also isn’t even sure he can perform his “husbandly duties.” While it is entirely typical to find this trait in the female protagonist, seeing it in the hero makes this novel a standout.
The friendship between Lane and Annabel will leave the reader touched and a little envious. So often, the plot of romance novels has lust that evolves into love, but Love’s Misadventures begins with friendship, a lasting friendship, that is put through so many challenges. Like a horse in a race, Lane doesn’t realize how fortunate he is to have found the love of his life in his best friend until he stands to lose her to another man, and Anna will sacrifice respectability to find love in the arms of the man who knows her better than anyone in the world.
In Cheri Champagne’s first novel in the Mason Siblings Series, readers will find the love and fire they expect from a historical romance but with refreshing twists that make the novel all its own.
Love’s Misadventures won First Place in the CIBA 2017 CHATELAINE Awards for Romantic fiction.
One woman unwittingly enters into a deadly game of obsession. What must she pay to regain her body and soul?
Between classes and her part-time job, Zara Logan doesn’t have much time for socializing or even the horror movies she loves and hates, but when Dorian Hatch moves in next door, her life quickly shifts from familiar routine to chaos. Dorian is drop-dead gorgeous. He’s the stuff that dreams are made of – and that becomes a bit of a problem for Zara.
It’s a deadly game, the pursuit of Dorian. Zara doesn’t set out to be possessed body and soul by her neighbor, but obsession is a tricky web. What begins as spying on the hot guy next door quickly becomes so much more. Zara knows her need for Dorian is unhealthy at its most innocent and destructive at its most dangerous, yet she cannot rid herself of the burning desire for him. She sees her identity slipping away, knows it’s consuming her, but nothing matters, not even when Dorian asks what she is willing to “stake” to be with him.
Zara’s attraction to the mysterious Dorian turns up a few thousand notches to an undeniable blazing heat, full-on obsession. Her relationships with her Aunt Cynthia (who raised her) and her best friend suffer when she begins lying so that she can secretly spend time with Dorian. Aunt Cynthia and Rachel try to make Zara comprehend their concerns, but Zara believes she is under control.
But who can fight a supernatural dark force? Zara soon experiences some rather strange physical symptoms such as blackouts and nightmares, and an all-out need for the man. Zara is far from being in control. She’s stuck in an all-consuming compulsion to be near him, but with every move closer, she senses absolute darkness surrounding him and knows it’s only a matter of time before she can no longer find her way back to herself.
Meg Evans doesn’t let up on her main character but pours on the heat and throws Zara into one sensuous scene after the other until Zara feels used up and strung out. The author manages to craft a tale that is simultaneously a steamy romance and an uncomfortable portrayal of what it is to be genuinely obsessed. Indeed, it isn’t until much later that Zara realizes how much of a Dorian-junkie she has become. He is the fulfillment of her greatest dreams and the embodiment of her worst nightmare. She feels the humiliation of her neediness but can’t pull away from the way Dorian makes her feel. How does he do it? What is this power he holds over Zara?
Zara’s stress is nearly her undoing, but this pain is nothing compared to the escalating obsession that consumes and drives her, leaving her to wonder if she is losing her mind. It’s all tied tightly together, which promises to leave readers enthralled and desperate for more.
Remember to pre-order your copy of Enthrallment right here!
The Nellie Bly Book Awards is a new division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Non-Fiction Works. The Nellie Bly Book Awards recognizes journalistic works and investigative pieces.
Nellie Bly is the the pseudonym of Elizabeth Cochran. She was born May 5, 1864 at the end of the American Civil War and the beginning of the cross-country railway systems. She died January 27, 1922. She was an American journalist who was known for her ingenuity and concern for others. She was instrumental in the Suffragist Movement in the U.S.A. reporting on the events and the vagaries that women suffered in their struggle for the right to vote.
Women were finally granted the right to vote after decades of protest, civil disobedience, marches, lectures, and lobbying on August 18, 1920—only one hundred years ago. And Bly was there to report on it and interview prominent individuals who lead the movement such as Susan B. Anthony and others.
Nellie Bly began her career by responding to a newspaper article titled ” What Girls Are Good For” (apparently not much from the article). The editor was impressed by her angry rebuttal that he gave her her first job at a newspaper.
Bly then began writing articles exposing the working girls of Pittsburgh, the living conditions of slums, sweatshops, the immigrant experience, and more stories on the human condition in the US during the “Robber Baron” era of the late 1800s. She also traveled to Mexico in 1886-1887 where she reported on the corruption of the Mexican government and the horrible conditions of the poor. Her sharply critical articles of Mexican officials caused her expulsion from the country.
What Nellie Bly is most famous for is her expose on the deplorable conditions and the horrific treatment of patients at an insane asylum by feigning insanity and having herself committed. This 23-year-old was institutionalized for 10 days. It took quite a posse of layers from the New York World paper to have her released. Her exposé lead to vast improvements in the asylums. An added note, is that many of the “patients” were there because they were immigrants and could not understand what was being said and could not communicate.
However, we should not forget how incredibly difficult it was for Bly to find work. She had to rely on her wits and had to take chances with her very life and limb and her reputation to pursue a journalistic career. Bly is known to be a pioneer in her field and she is credited with launching what is now known as investigative journalism and undercover journalism.
So without further ado, please join us in cheering on the following authors whose works comprise the FINALISTS of the first Nellie Bly Book Awards for Journalistic Non-Fiction.
Congratulations to the Nellie Bly Book Awards Finalists!
T.S. Lewis – The Why of War: An Unorthodox Soldier’s Memoirs
Maya Castro – The Bubble: Everything I Learned as a Target of the Political, and Often Corrupt, World of Youth Sports
Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral – And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown
Ted Neill – Two Years of Wonder
Anthony Suarez – Politically Indicted: The Real Story Behind the Jersey Sting
Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D. – Shaping Public Opinion: How Real Advocacy Journalism Should Be Practiced
John Egenes – Man & Horse: The Long Ride Across America
Patrick Hogan – Silent Spring – Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War
Gordon Cross, Robert Fowler, Ted Neill – Finding St. Lo: A Memoir of War & Family
John Hoyte – Persistence of Light
This new division is in response to the request from the Chanticleer International Book Awards judges to acknowledge the many outstanding works that were entered into the Instruction & Insight Book Awards and the Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-fiction. After reviewing the comments from the judges along with their suggestions, we decided to recognize these works and create a more fitting division in the CIBAs that recognizes investigative and long form journalism.
Congratulations to the Semi-finalists whose works have advanced to the Premier Finalists Level of Achievement in the 2019 CIBAs!
The 16 divisions of the 2019 CIBAs’ Grand Prize Winners, the First Place Category Position Award Winners, and all Finalists and Semi-Finalists will be recognized at the postponed (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards Annual Gala, now re-scheduled for September.
Join us at theChanticleer Authors Conferenceat the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. or VIRTUALLY via ZOOM (more info to come!)
Use our link above to register now for this exciting event!
We are now accepting submissions into the 2020 Nellie Bly Book Awards. The deadline for submissions is November 30, 2020. The winners will be announced in April 2021.
Welcome to the SPOTLIGHT on post-1750 Historical Fiction novels… in other words,
Welcome to the GOETHE Book Awards!
Why do we like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe so very much? It’s simple! He’s the guy who wrapped up everything we believe in with this simple sentence:
“Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” – Goethe
Of course, this was also said about Goethe (Super Goethe by Ferdinand Mount) that “…[his] company could be exhausting. One minute he would be reciting Scottish ballads, quoting long snatches from Voltaire, or declaiming a love poem he had just made up; the next, he would be smashing the crockery or climbing the Brocken mountain through the fog.”
So…, moving on… Goethe was also a very cool guy. In his lifetime, he saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 through Mary Shelley’s publishing of Frankenstein in 1818 – and everything in between! Check out the list of what happened during those nearly seventy decades at the end of this post – you will be A-Mazed!
Now, Welcome to the GOETHE Hall of Fame!
We wish to congratulate 2018’s Goethe Book Awards Grand Prize Winner –
Billy Battles is as dear and fascinating a literary friend as I have ever encountered. I learned much about American and international history, and you will too if you read any or all of the books. Each is an independent work, but if read in relation to the others, the reader experiences that all too rare sense of complete transport to another world, one fully realized in these pages because the storytelling is so skillful and thoroughly captivating. Trust me; you’ll want to read all three volumes. Chanticleer Reviewer’s Note
Mr. Ronald Yates not only won Grand Prize in the CIBAs 2018 GOETHE Awards – he won OVERALL GRAND PRIZE!
To learn more about Ronald E. Yates, please click here.
Congratulations to the 2018 Goethe Book Awards First Place Category Winners!
Submit your manuscript or recently released Historical Fiction (post-1750s) to the Chanticleer International Book Awards!
Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Goethe Awards is June 30, 2020.Enter here!
Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2019 will be announced during our 2020 conference, #CAC20.
The Grand Prize and First Place for 2020 CIBA winners will be held on April 17, 2021.
Any entries received on or after June 30, 2020, will be entered into the 2021 Goethe Book Awards that will be announced in April 2022.
As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your historical fiction deserves! Enter today!
The GOETHE Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
The 2020 winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony during #CAC20. All Semi-Finalists and First Place category winners will be recognized, the first-place winners will be whisked up on stage to receive their custom ribbon and wait to see who among them will take home the Grand Prize. It’s an exciting evening of dinner, networking, and celebrations!
Goethe
Some events that occurred during Goethe’s lifetime:
1750 – The Industrial Revolution began in England
1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg Austria
1761 – The problem of calculating longitude while at sea was solved by John Harrison
1765 – James Watts perfects the steam engine
1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany
1774 – Goethe’s romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, propels him into European fame
1774 – Goethe’s play Gotz von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang premiers in Berlin
1776 – America’s 13 Colonies declare independence from England. Battles ensue.
1776 – Adam Smith publishes the Wealth of Nations (the foundation of the modern theory of economics)
1776 – The Boulton and Watt steam engines were put to use ushering in the Industrial Revolution
1783 – The Hot Air Balloon was invented by the Montgolfier brothers in France.
1786 – Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart premiered in Vienna
1789 – George Washington is elected the first president of the United States of America
1780 – Antoine Lavoisier discovers the Law of Conservation of Mass
1789 – The French Revolution started in Bastille
1791 – Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man 1792 – Napoleon begins his march to conquer Europe
1799 – Rosetta Stone discovered in Egypt
1802 – Beethoven created and performed The Moonlight Sonata 1802 – A child’s workday is limited to twelve hours per day by the British parliament when they pass their first Factory Act
1804 – Napoleon has himself proclaimed Emperor of France
1808 – Atomic Theory paper published by John Dalton
1811 – Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro publishes a hypothesis, about the number of molecules in gases, that becomes known as Avogadro’s Law
1811 – Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously. It was critically well-received
1814 – Steam-driven printing press was invented which allowed newspapers to become more common
1818 – Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein 1832 – Goethe’s Faust, Parts 1 & 2 are published posthumously (March 22, 1832)
In 1830, Eugene Delacroix created Liberty Leading the People to epitomize the French Revolution. The movement officially began with the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, a day that is still celebrated in France. The French people were rebelling against the extreme wealth of the French royal family who overtaxed and underpaid the people of France to the point where they could not even feed themselves and had nothing to lose by going to battle. They were starving to death. The uprising of 1830 was featured in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862)
Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s (1980s) musical can look at Delacroix’sLiberty Leading the Peopleand hear the lyrics of the song that serves as a call to revolution:
Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people. Who will not be slaves again.
Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix, 1830. On display at the Lourve, Paris.
Imagine a fearless, hard-as-nails contract surgeon hired by the Union Army who often works 48-hour shifts in battlefield medical tents amputating limbs, healing previously inoperable gut wounds, sewing up children’s hare lips, and diagnosing what we now call PTSD as critical in military patient care as patching physically wounded bodies.
Meet Dr. Abby Kaplan. And yes, she’s a woman.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Abby stands six feet tall and exchanges her dresses for breeches, totes a gun on her hip, engages in military defensive maneuvers, and is wounded multiple times for her efforts. Dr. Kaplan takes no guff from anyone and uses the language of soldiers appropriate to the situation. In a time when men are in charge and women are not, she wins the respect of her male colleagues in the most gruesome medical cases, winning over even those who could not fathom a woman examining a man’s most private parts.
Even more remarkable, despite the prejudices of her times, she finds ways to celebrate her Jewish heritage and even finds a man unafraid of her enough to become her occasional lover, but virtually only at her request.
A woman as strong, complex, and dedicated to medicine probably existed somewhere during that time. A small number of women doctors did work on soldiers during the Civil War. Richard Alan develops his lead with guts and gumption, so much so, that readers will likely fall in love with Dr. Kaplan.
A Female Doctor in the Civil War pays little attention to romance or sentimentality. Dr. Kaplan’s issues in pre-suffrage America are more about stopping male prejudice from interfering with her work than self-conscious screeds about being a female in a man’s world. We learn little about her past. Her more reflective moments are about the medical debacle she sees as she stitches and saws and mends the broken bodies that fill her medical tents, as well as her reflections on how much more the minds of these soldiers need to be treated during the war.
When she does find a lover, he is a momentary respite from the battlefield, not a “rescuer.” Their discussions about the differences between men and women are by two adults who respect each other. Others in that period of our history may see Dr. Kaplan’s sex and religion as problems. She sees them at worst as inconveniences that sometimes prevent her from doing her job as well as she thinks she can. Her one weakness, the nightmares that keep plaguing her after her work is done, are those any adult would suffer after working in the carnage she witnesses that is her life.
In other words, Dr. Abby Kaplan is a strong, capable, and uniquely modern physician working within the social and medical limitations of her time. She is there to do a job only a handful of doctors have the stomach to undertake.
A Female Doctor in the Civil War won First Place in the CIBAs 2018 Laramie Awards for American Fiction.
Do you have a Y/A Fiction manuscript or recently published novel?
Enter it today in the CIBA 2020 DANTE ROSSETTI Awards! Let us decipher the best of the best.
If you know anything about Chanticleer International Book Awards, you know that we never stop sharing the good news and accomplishments of our authors! Never!
What that means is we believe in book promotion, highlighting our winners, standing on our platforms, and telling the known world all about YOUR BOOK!
The Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction are named for the British painter and poet,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Chanticleer has chosen Dante Rossetti as the namesake of our young adult fiction awards, because of Rossetti’s strong connection to works of beauty and emotions as swift as the changing seasons. Both aspects embody what it means to be young. We feel that the sentiment expressed by the Pre-Raphaelite movement exemplifies what inspires many authors to pick up their proverbial pens to express their emotions and their observations of the visceral dynamics of living.
Besides, he was a rock star. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an exclusive group in the mid-nineteenth century which garnered as much fame and attention as equatable to the Game of Thrones cast today.
The Love Song by Sir Burne-Jones who was mentored and influenced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
You won’t regret it – Just ask the following authors who did enter, and won!
The 2018 DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards GRAND PRIZE:
Whispers by Yvonne Moon
WHISPERSbyLynn Yvonne Moon
2018 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners
Here’s a little more about our Dante Rossetti … (can we claim him as our own?)
Rossetti’s paintings, in particular, were characterized by the long and wavy hair of young women. It is this youthful beauty that has been immortalized in his work and captures the immovable spirit of adolescence which is so fraught with changing emotions. These women he painted are often quite romantic. His wife would often model for the paintings or the wives of his friends in the Brotherhood. It was rumored that Rossetti had several lovers…
Visitors today can view Rossetti’s work at the Louvre or the Met. In addition to painting, he was also a writer. Several of his poems address emotions and feelings in all of their complexity, similar to his painted works.
La Viuda Romana, 1874 by our fav guy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl by Andre Swartley
Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Dante Rossetti Awards is June 30, 2020. Enter here!
Do your works have what it takes to make it through the CIBA judging rounds? Submit manuscripts and published works into the Chanticleer International Book Awards – Click here for more information about The CIBAs!
The last day to submit your work is June 30, 2020. We invite you to join us, to tell us your stories, and to find out who will take home the 2019 CIBA prizes at CAC20 in September.
The deadline for 2020 YA submissions is June 30, 2020.Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2020 will be announced on April 18, 2021.
Any entries received after June 30, 2020, will be entered into the 2021 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Young Adult Fiction. The Grand Prize and First Place for 2021 CIBA winners will be held on April 2022.
As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your work deserves! Enter today!
The DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
The winners will be announced at the 2019 CIBA Awards Ceremony in September 2020, which will take place during the 2020 Chanticleer Authors Conference. All Semi-Finalists and First Place category winners will be recognized, the first-place winners will be whisked up on stage to receive their custom ribbon and wait to see who among them will take home the Grand Prize. It’s an exciting evening of celebrations!
Raven Hunter should be happy. In fact, with her super-successful, twelve-year career as a pop singer and her million-dollar condo in Seattle, she should be unstoppable, but the world can’t see who she really is: a recently divorced, domestically abused, broken woman. No longer in her twenties and facing a world of artificiality, she just wants to hide from everyone. But when her best friend, Que, and her twin brother, Wyatt, convince her to take an extended vacation to Hawaii to reconnect with herself, she reluctantly agrees.
Only wanting to rid herself of the taint of her former husband/manager, Donovan, Raven is NOT looking for romance, despite Que’s urging. It isn’t until she sees Finn Taylor, marine biologist plus savior of monk seals all over the islands, that she thinks there may be more to this vacation than she imagined.
Finn isn’t looking for love–a one-night stand definitely–but never love. He’s too busy with his research and his quirky grandmother, Dee, to be burdened with a permanent lady in his bed. But Raven seems to be everywhere he goes, and more importantly, she is rapidly becoming a fixture in his mind. Neither can deny the connection they feel almost immediately, nor the odd dreams both are having. When Dee begins to tell them a strange tale of gods and goddesses, prophecies, and destruction, they must decide if there truly is more to their romance than a holiday fling.
The mythology around which the novel rotates is a beautiful addition to what is already a great romance. Any lover of mythology will devour this novel. Cronus’ defeat and the Olympians’ plotting all make for fun as author Jenny Heckman recreates the lore for her spicy romance.
When Raven and Finn meet, the wheel of fate begins to turn, bringing forth Themis herself to tell Dee the prophecy. Only after both Raven and Finn discover and overcome their weaknesses will they find the path to each other and bring the gods to life.
Self-discovery and self-truth dominate this novel. Raven is terrified to start over. Without the urging of her brother and best friend, she would never have found the courage to go to Hawaii alone, but once there, she began to reconnect to the part of herself she gave to her wretched ex-husband. With a rented piano and a legal pad, she forges ahead, writing herself into her songs, the very songs Donovan never would have let her play and sing, songs that tell her truth. Having lost her parents at a young age and growing up in the foster home from Hell, Raven learned the hard way to keep herself hidden.
Finn must face some ugly truths when his uber machismo gets in the way of his feelings for Raven. With his trident tattoo, stunning looks, and bad-boy attitude, he always gets what he wants from women, and he tries to become the very thing Raven is escaping. His need to control everyone and everything gradually collapses in the presence of the beautiful Raven. Heckman delivers a strong, sexy, and smart first in series Paranormal Romance that will definitely hook readers.
The Sea Archer won First Place in the CIBA 2018 Paranormal Awards.
The OZMA Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Fantasy Fiction. The OZMA Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The #CIBAs).
Chanticleer International Book Awards discovers the best books featuring magic, the supernatural, imaginary worlds, fantastical creatures, legendary beasts, mythical beings, or inventions of fancy that author imaginations dream up without a basis in science as we know it. Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, Dragons, Unicorns, Steampunk, Dieselpunk, Gaslight Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, or other out of this world fiction, they will be put to the test and the best selected as winners of the prestigious CIBAs.
The 2019 CIBAs received an unprecedented number of entries making this book awards program even more competitive. More entries along with more competitive works make the final rounds of judging even more demanding. The judges have requesteda new level of achievementto be added to the rounds to acknowledge the entries that they deemed should receive a high level of recognition.
We decided that this was the time to incorporate the new level – The FINALISTS – as requested by the CIBA judges. This new level will be incorporated into the 2019 CIBAsLevels of Achievement. The FINALISTS were selected from the entries that advanced from the 2019 OZMA Book Awards Semi-Finalists.
Congratulations to the 2019 OZMA Book Awards Finalists!
Porter Huddleston –EL on Earth
Benjamin Keyworth –Superworld
Susannah Dawn –Search for the Armor of God
Elana A. Mugdan –Dragon Blood
Dan Zangari & Robert Zangari –A Prince’s Errand
Tim Westover –The Winter Sisters: A Novel
KC Cowan & Sara Cole –The Hunt for Winter
S.J. Hartland –The 19th Bladesman
Joy Ross Davis –The Singer Sisters
Suzie Plakson – The Return of King Lillian
Alex Paul –The Valley of Death, Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals, Book 5
Mark S. Moore –Rise: Birth of a Revolution
Michelle Rene –Manufactured Witches
Susan Faw –Heart of Bastion
Timothy Vincent –Tower, Sword, Stone and Spell
Elizabeth Isaacs –The Scythian Trials
Noah Lemelson –The Sightless City
These titles are in the running for the limited number of First Place positions of the 2019 OZMA Book Awards for Fantasy Fiction.
Good luck to all as your works move on to the final rounds of judging.
Congratulations to the Semi-finalists whose works have advanced to the Premier Finalists Level of Achievement in the 2019 CIBAs!
The 16 divisions of the 2019 CIBAs’ Grand Prize Winners, the First Place Category Position Award Winners, and all Finalists and Semi-Finalists will be recognized at the postponed (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards Annual Gala, now re-scheduled for Saturday, September 5th, 2020.
Join us at theChanticleer Authors Conferenceat the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. or VIRTUALLY via ZOOM (more info to come!)
Use our link above to register now for this exciting event!
We are now accepting submissions into the 2020 OZMA Book Awards. The deadline for submissions is August 31st, 2020. The winners will be announced in April 2021.
A young infant and a flurry of disturbing information enter Marla’s life in Nancy Cohen’s newest mystery, Hair Brained: The Bad Hair Day Mysteries, Book 14.
Marla Vail’s expectations of bringing in a joyful and prosperous New Year immediately dwindle when she learns that her friends, Tally and Ken Riggs, have gone missing, leaving Luke, their four-month-old son, in the care of the babysitter. Since Marla is listed as guardian of Luke, she and Dalton, her husband, have no choice but to bring Luke to their home. Marla faces the “great unknown” with a ray of hope that she would be hearing from her friends soon. But that never happens.
A trip to the hospital confirms Marla and Dalton’s worst fears. A car accident leaves Ken deceased and Tally in ICU and comatose. Now Marla has to find a way of juggling caring for Luke while running her busy hair salon. Amid the abrupt changes under horrific circumstances, Marla has no idea that there is much more behind the car crash, especially when one of Ken’s colleagues is murdered.
If you haven’t already heard of Nancy Cohen, where have you been? The award-winning mystery author pens unique and fascinating stories about a somewhat underdog mid-thirties hairdresser who has a fetish for detective work. And why not, considering her husband is a police detective? The odd stylist-sleuthing combo makes for fresh and tantalizing reading for a wide-range audience that goes well-beyond mystery aficionados.
Cohen’s writing style is surefooted, and her characters are vibrant and varied (multicultural, racially mixed), as in Hair Brained, the fourteenth installment of her Bad Hair Day Mysteries series. Marla, Cohen’s featured character, may have had her past set of traumatic situations, but that doesn’t seem to stop her when she senses something awry. A feisty woman-of-action, Marla faces fear trembling but determined to win over dark and seemingly unconquerable conditions even with an infant in her arms.
One would think that characters would be commonplace in laid-back Florida, but that’s far from the truth. From warm and caring family members and well-meaning people scarcely eking out a living to an imaginative mix of surly folk, Cohen’s cozy represents folks from various backgrounds befitting amalgamated Floridians. The action builds with a slew of twists, turns, and near nail-biting climactic tension.
The hair-raising, fast and delightful cozy mystery, Hair Brained: The Bad Hair Day Mysteries, Book 14 won First Place in the CIBAs 2018 M&M Awards for Cozy Mystery Novels.
Do you have an early historical fiction manuscript or recently released novel? Submit your work to the CIBA 2019 CHAUCER Awards by
June 30, 2020, and see how your work stacks up against others.
We know you want to – because we never tire of promoting our authors’ achievements!
As in Chaucer’s words in the Nun’s Priest Tale of the Canterbury Tales,
“For crowing there was not his equal in all the land.”
We titled the Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBAs) division for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction the Chaucer Awards, after the English poet and author of the Canterbury Tales, because #CHAUCER.
But seriously, did you know that The Canterbury Tales is considered one of the greatest works in the English language? In fact, it was among the first non-secular books written in Middle English to be printed. So, yeah, #Chaucer
A woodcut from William Caxton’s second edition 0f the Canterbury Tales printed in 1483
Some interesting tidbits about Geoffrey Chaucer
born c. 1342/43 probably in London. He died on October 25, 1400
his father was an important London vintner
His family’s finances were derived from wine and leather
Chaucer spoke Middle English and was fluent in French, Latin, and Italian
He guided diplomatic missions across the continent of Europe for ten years where he discovered the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio whose The Decameron had a profound influence on Chaucer’s later works
He married well as his wife received an annuity from the queen consort of Edward III
His remains are interred in the Westminster Abbey
As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your historical fiction deserves! Enter today!
Welcome to the CHAUCER BOOK AWARDS HALL OF FAME
Click on the links below to read the Chanticleer Review of the award-winning work!
Regency: Traitor’s Gate by David Chacko & Alexander Kulcsar
Women’s Fiction/WWII: Wait for Me by Janet K. Shawgo
Medieval/Dark Ages:Divine Vengeanceby David Koons
Women’s Fiction/World History: Daughters of India by Kavita Jade
What are you waiting for? Before long the CHAUCER Book Award deadline will be history.
Submit your manuscript or recently released Historical Fiction (pre-1750s) to the Chanticleer International Book Awards!
Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Chaucer awards is June 30, 2020. Enter here!
Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2019 will be announced on September 5, 2020.
Any entries received on or after June 30, 2020, will be entered into the 2021 Chaucer Book Awards. The Grand Prize and First Place for 2020 CIBA winners will be held on April 17, 2021.
As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your historical fiction deserves! Enter today!
The CHAUCER Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
The 2020 winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony on September 5, 2020, which will take place during the 2020 Chanticleer Authors Conference. All Semi-Finalists and First Place category winners will be recognized, the first-place winners will be whisked up on stage to receive their custom ribbon and wait to see who among them will take home the Grand Prize. It’s an exciting evening of dinner, networking, and celebrations!
Miss Annabel Bradley needs a husband before she is officially an old maid. At the ripe age of twenty-five, she has been virtually “shelved” by the ton. Anna is eager to begin a family, and though she’s been reared on a healthy diet of adventure novels, she is willing to settle for any suitable match as long as she can begin the family she has always wanted. Anna knows exactly with whom she wants to share her life, her lifelong friend Lane Mason. Growing up on neighboring estates, Anna and Lane couldn’t be more perfect for each other, and even though they both know their marriage would provide an easy companionship, Lane has a secret that forces him to keep Anna at arm’s length. Despite loving Anna since they were teenagers, he can’t in good conscience marry her without first finding a solution to his problem. Anna isn’t willing to wait forever, and when another lord of the peerage shows interest in her, Anna must decide whether to follow her heart or take what might be her only chance for a family, but after Lane and Anna are kidnapped, both make life-changing decisions that seal their fates.
One woman unwittingly enters into a deadly game of obsession. What must she pay to regain her body and soul?
Imagine a fearless, hard-as-nails contract surgeon hired by the Union Army who often works 48-hour shifts in battlefield medical tents amputating limbs, healing previously inoperable gut wounds, sewing up children’s hare lips, and diagnosing what we now call PTSD as critical in military patient care as patching physically wounded bodies.
A young infant and a flurry of disturbing information enter Marla’s life in Nancy Cohen’s newest mystery, 
Women’s Fiction:
