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  • redirect: Young Adult Novels Writing Competition-2013

  • Picking Up the Pieces by Wendy Dewars Hughes awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Inspirational Romantic/Suspense Category

    Picking Up the Pieces by Wendy Dewars Hughes awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Inspirational Romantic/Suspense Category

    Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media is pleased to announce that Wendy Dewars Hughes has won 1st place in the INDIE Awards, Inspirational Romantic/Suspense Category (a division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Writing Contests).

    Picking Up the Pieces by Wendy Dewars Hughes

     [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Editor’s Note: This gripping novel is well-crafted, well-plotted and  suspenseful. It is not your typical “inspirational” novel. Hughes successfully blurs  genres with her well-honed story telling abilities. ]

     

    Chanticleer Book Review Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Contests recognize outstanding books and manuscripts.

    We are honored to announce the INDIE Awards First Place Blue Ribbon winning novels and their authors.

    Each winning INDIE  novel was judged for the following qualities:

    • Compelling-ness of story
    • Professionalism of editing & formatting
    • Characterization
    • Continuity of story-line
    • Satisfying ending (not necessarily “happy”)
    • Intriguing opening
    • Uniqueness of story
    • Writing craft

    CBR Blue Ribbon Award 1st Place category winners, Self-published Novels Division, will be awarded:

    • a CBR 1st Place Blue Ribbon embossed with the winning title’s name, author’s name and category
    • a Chanticleer Book Review Package
    • Digital CBR Blue Ribbons to use in online promotion

    Book Sticker

    • 1st Place CBR adhesive stickers to use on books and in promotion
    • Goodies and promotional opportunities for the winning title and author
    • Automatically entered in CBR’s GRAND PRIZE annual awards contest 2013

    For a full list of all winners, visit Chanticleer Book Reviews website at chantireviews.com.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

  • “Deadly Addiction” by Kristine Cayne awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Romantic/Suspense Category

    “Deadly Addiction” by Kristine Cayne awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Romantic/Suspense Category

    Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media is pleased to announce that Kristine Cayne has won 1st place in the INDIE Awards, Romantic Suspense Category (a division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Writing Contests).

    Deadly Addiction by Kristine Cayne, 2nd in the Deadly Vices series.

    [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Editor’s Note: Be prepared to read this gripping novel in one sitting–this is not your typical “romantic suspense story.”]

    Chanticleer Book Review Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Contests recognize outstanding books and manuscripts.

    We are honored to announce the 1st Place winners of the  INDIE Awards for Self-published Novels.

    Each winning INDIE novel was judged for the following qualities:

    • Compelling-ness of story
    • Professionalism of editing & formatting
    • Characterization
    • Continuity of story-line
    • Satisfying ending (not necessarily “happy”)
    • Intriguing opening
    • Uniqueness of story
    • Writing craft

    CBR Blue Ribbon Award 1st Place category winners, Self-published Novels Division, will be awarded:

    • a CBR 1st Place Blue Ribbon embossed with the winning title’s name, author’s name and category
    • a Chanticleer Book Review Package
    • Digital CBR Blue Ribbons to use in online promotion

    Book Sticker

    • 1st Place CBR adhesive stickers to use on books and in promotion
    • Goodies and promotional opportunities for the winning title and author
    • Automatically entered in CBR’s GRAND PRIZE annual awards contest 2013

    For a full list of all winners, visit Chanticleer Book Reviews website at chantireviews.com.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

  • “The Grave Blogger” by Donna D. Fontenot awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Murder/Suspense Category

    “The Grave Blogger” by Donna D. Fontenot awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Murder/Suspense Category

    Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media is pleased to announce that Donna D. Fontenot has won 1st place in the INDIE Awards, Murder/Suspense Category (a division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Writing Contests).

     

    The Grave Blogger by Donna D. Fontenot

    [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Editor’s Note: Nothing like a murder mystery story set in a small town in the Deep South. Find yourself transported.]

    Chanticleer Book Review Blue Ribbon Awards Writing  Contests recognize outstanding books and manuscripts.

    We are honored to announce the INDIE Awards First Place Blue Ribbon Award winning novels and their authors.

    Each winning INDIE novel was judged for the following qualities:

    • Compelling-ness of story
    • Professionalism of editing & formatting
    • Characterization
    • Continuity of story-line
    • Satisfying ending (not necessarily “happy”)
    • Intriguing opening
    • Uniqueness of story
    • Writing craft

    CBR Blue Ribbon Award 1st Place category winners, Self-published Novels Division, will be awarded:

    • a CBR 1st Place Blue Ribbon embossed with the winning title’s name, author’s name and category
    • a Chanticleer Book Review Package
    • Digital CBR Blue Ribbons to use in online promotion

    • Book Sticker

      1st Place CBR adhesive stickers to use on books and in promotion

    • Goodies and promotional opportunities for the winning title and author
    • Automatically entered in CBR’s GRAND PRIZE annual awards contest 2013

    For a full list of all winners, visit Chanticleer Book Reviews website at chantireviews.com.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

  • Cathy Greenfeder, author of “Sacred Fires”

    “I was thrilled to receive my 1st Place Blue Ribbon for my book, Sacred Fires.”

    “Wow! I greatly appreciate the review and the award.”

  • Saving Hope by Liese Sherwood-Fabre

    Saving Hope by Liese Sherwood-Fabre

    It is a frigid night in Siberia in the year 2000. In their small apartment, Alexandra Pavlova is jerked awake by the sound of her small daughter’s struggled breathing. The mother’s tender caress of her forehead reveals a raging fever. Quickly Alexandra wakes her husband Yuri, and the parents bundle up Nadezhda for the drive from their city, bearing the Soviet-style name of Stop-100, to the regional hospital, 100 kilometers away.

    With expensive medicines that her parents must buy, Nadezhda (Hope, in Russian) recovers from this bout, but the doctor tells them that the girl desperately needs surgery in one of Moscow’s major hospitals. The loving mother is a lioness in her fierce determination to do whatever it takes to help her child, born with a heart condition that leaves her vulnerable to life-threatening infections. She guiltily fears that her earlier employment as a microbiologist in a Soviet biological warfare institute may have led to Nadezhda’s condition. Now she vows to save her life.

    Vladimir, a friend of both Yuri and Alexandra since childhood, willingly provides money for the trip to Moscow, and Yuri begins selling car parts to earn extra money. Alexandra gratefully accepts the secretarial job offered by Vladimir, who eventually confesses his lifelong love for her and his pain and even jealousy when she married Yuri.

    It is hard to see how this story is to evolve into the exciting spy novel that Saving Hope has promised to be, but author Sherwood-Fabre isn’t about to disappoint her readers. She comes through with flying colors, creating her cliffhanging thriller not only with literary skill and authenticity regarding life, crime, and medicine in Russia (Sherwood-Fabre lived and worked there), but also with great emotion and story-telling ability.

    We learn that the hard-working father and the generous friend have hidden their true characters—not only from us, but also from Alexandra, and even from each other. Even Alexandra, an unemployed microbiologist, is drawn into the nefarious Russian underworld that entices her with offers of a high salary and good medical care for Nadezhda.

    These activities do not go unnoticed by the Russian Federation’s intelligence arm, the FSB (successor to the former Soviet KGB). Agent Sergei Borisov tries to recruit Alexandra to help in his investigation by telling her how she has been betrayed. She is devastated as well as desperate, feeling there is no one she can trust. She is soon to discover that her fears—not just for herself and Nadezhda, but for the safety of the world—are well grounded. The deadly race is on.

    This reviewer’s heart was pounding as the final pages of this book flew under her fingers at 2:30 in the morning. Surely the evil that is encompassing her life and threatening the world must not reach fruition unchallenged, but what or who is going to stop it? Saving Hope is a great read, and not just to find out how it ends. There are sub-stories and sub-sub stories, built around characters I didn’t even mention in this review, that add depth and texture to this spy novel.

    Saving Hope by Liese Sherwood-Fabre is the Chanticleer Book Reviews 1st Place Blue Ribbon Award winner for the Suspense/Thriller category, Published Novels division.

  • Virtues of War by Bennett R. Coles

    Virtues of War by Bennett R. Coles

    A sci-fi thriller of physical and psychological combat, Virtues of War sends readers hurtling through space to find that our warlike nature has survived intact into the 26th century. This is no Star Trek mission of exploration, and there are no aliens: only long-established colonies in the Centauri system rebelling against Terran rule. Humankind’s technological evolution may have continued at breakneck speed, but social evolution has yet to catch up.

    Lt. Katja Emmes, fast-attack strike leader of the small but pivotal warship Rapier, leads her troops into a hot zone on Cerberus—a minor operation to target a Centauri spy. It’s her first mission, and it leads to her first kill. It also leads to a full-on war between Terran Astral Forces and Centauri’s colonies which, despite an outwardly peaceful existence, have developed robotic killing machines far beyond Terran expectations.

    Thus begins a narrative of nonstop action, swift pacing, and near-constant tension. Drops from space through planetary atmosphere are vicarious thrill rides that get the reader’s heart pumping, and battle scenes are wrought with suspense.

    The author, Bennett R. Coles, an officer with plus 15-years experience in the Canadian Navy, demonstrates a crisp writing style, an impressive knowledge of military tactics and techno jargon, and an imagination crossed with a study of physics that has produced believable weaponry and space travel of the future.

    Although action is clearly his strong suit, Coles has created an engaging set of characters. Katja Emmes has a chip on her shoulder placed by a cold-hearted father, and she’s constantly trying to prove herself against his Army bias. Lt. Cdr. Thomas Kane, Rapier’s captain, has a big heart, but he’s easily swayed by the promise of promotion and even more so by the scheming, power-hungry Lt. Charity “Breeze” Brisebois, a vixen of a villain. And sub-lieutenant Jack Mallory, whose disfigurement early on fails to dampen his sunny optimism, enjoys a steady climb in respect as his superior intellect transcends his boyish charm.

    The Astral Forces are filled with assorted men and women at every level of rank, and each, though briefly drawn, are clear individuals. War may still be ever-present in a society that is now intergalactic, but at least equality between the sexes has been achieved.

    Well into the story, exemplary soldier Katja ponders the incredible civilian death toll and the necessity of war. It is a potential turning point, and she nearly takes the next step into a desire for peace that one hopes could resound throughout humankind. But, luckily for Virtues of War readers, this is the first in a series, and such a step will take many more battles—both military and societal—before that possibility can be achieved.

    Virtues of War has earned the Cygnus Awards 2013 GRAND 2013-CygnusPRIZE for SciFi and Speculative Fiction Category,  a division of the Chanticleer Book Reviews Novel Competitions.

  • Nardi Point by Nancy LaPonzina

    Nardi Point by Nancy LaPonzina

    Love among the ruins: in this case, an archaeological dig at a new subdivision in North Raleigh, where rolling pastures and woodsy farms are giving way to housing developments such as Nardi Point. Here Laurinda Elliot and her live-in fiancé, Dan Riser, plan to buy a home and start a family—or at least, that is Laurinda’s intention, even as she watches Dan once again run “away from her gentle attempts to grow their lives.” Still, she presses on, seeing a family as the missing piece to her otherwise successful life: a high-level IT position, a silver Porsche and designer wardrobe, beauty to spare.

    Those pieces begin to break apart when Laurinda visits the construction site at Nardi Point with her closest friend. A highly sensitive Reiki practitioner, Leyla Jo Piper pokes around in the red-clay mud where Laurinda’s house will soon be built and finds pottery shards.  A vision of a Native American woman carrying an earthen pot, plus a flashback to her own orphaned childhood, drives her to contact the State Archaeology Office.

    Colson Mitchell, the construction company’s handsome supervisor, reacts differently. He’s aware of the scorched-earth mentality of his employer, but he’s also concerned that standing up to him could mean losing his job, causing hardship for the love of his life: three-year-old daughter Annabel. Initially, he fights the two women’s increasing concern about building on what may have been a camp or burial site for the area’s ancient peoples, but as his feelings for Laurinda intensify, he finds his own ethics in conflict.

    Dan, the brilliant technology geek Laurinda is living with, on the other hand, sees no conflict in taking the path of least resistance or being opportunistic when situations present themselves—especially those that he thinks will improve his social standing. And being with Laurinda has certainly improved his social standing. This pattern of over-riding selfishness soon has him leading a double-life.

    Once Leyla Jo engages Dr. Hal Jared, state archaeologist, in the pottery find, the richness of the narrative deepens. The author spent time as an archaeology office volunteer, and her knowledge shows: the details of the meticulous work of unearthing and classifying artifacts, along with the struggle between building for the future and learning from the past, makes for a fascinating read, and the discoveries play perfectly against the uncovering of Leyla Jo’s family history, which ultimately explains her visions.

    Nardi Point develops into a lovely, nuanced tale with the layers of relationships uncovered like strata of earth, revealing harsh truths and personal epiphanies. In the end, the pieces of Laurinda’s life finally fit together like the ceramic shards that touched off her journey, and from this vessel pours love and fulfillment.

    Nardi Point was awarded a First Place Blue Ribbon for Contemporary Women’s Fiction, Romance Category in Chanticleer Book Reviews’ 2012 Published Novels contest.

  • APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

    APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

    APE is the how-to compendium for today’s self-publishers.

    Authors will find APE an indispensable resource. Guy Kawasaki passes along his publishing experience in his “no-shitake,” but affable manner. Imagine having an extremely successful uncle in the publishing biz who also has a tech-wizard pal (co-author Shawn Welch) of digital publishing magic. Fortunately for us, this dynamic duo decided to share their publishing know-how.

    APE’s premise is that publishing is a parallel process “that requires simultaneous progress along multiple fronts.” Hence, self-publishers are challenged with how to: market, brand, design, promote, publish, distribute, and finance a book–all at the same time. Oh, and don’t forget the time required for actually writing the book. Indisputably, each self-publisher is an: Author, Publisher and Entrepreneur.

    Reading APE is like taking a condensed survey course in publishing; it addresses the range of topics that authors must know about self-publishing. APE covers aspects from the existential question of “Should I write a book?” to advice on how to create foreign language versions of your book, to guerrilla marketing techniques, and ideas for financing.

    Traditional publishers have long prided themselves on their art form and on their discernment abilities. Readers have come to expect and appreciate their expertise. APE’s tactics and techniques will enable self-published authors to deliver to readers books that will meet these time-honored and well-justified expectations.

    Kawasaki and Welch challenge self-publishers to take up the mantle of “artisanal publishing”—where authors who love their craft must dedicate the time and resources to “control every aspect of the process from beginning to end.” If authors engage this philosophy, their books should have a much improved chance on separating themselves apart from the chaff of the expected two million new titles that are expected to hit the English language market in 2013.

    APE admonishes that self-publishing isn’t easy or a way to get rich quick. But if you want a realistic, tactical, and, relatively, slim (300-pages) self-publishing guide that is profuse with handy resources and links (which actually work—this reviewer checked them) on how to do it right, then APE is the go-to guide for you.

    An additional remark from the reviewer:

    APE should be on every author’s desk or e-reader right along with The Chicago Manual of Style and The Copy-editor’s Handbook. As with the latter guides, it is one that you will refer to often as you find your way in today’s era of the Wild, Wild West of Publishing. It also addresses the particular formatting hurdles that non-fiction writers must clear when self-publishing.

     

  • Announcing the FINALISTS of CBR’s Blue Ribbon Awards for Manuscripts — 2012

    Announcing the FINALISTS of CBR’s Blue Ribbon Awards for Manuscripts — 2012

    It is our pleasure and honor to announce the FINALISTS  of the Round One and Two of Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media Blue Ribbon Awards for Unpublished Manuscripts, 2012.  The next rounds will determine the First Place Category Winners.

    The purpose of this CBR Blue Ribbon Awards contest  is to recognize outstanding works of Un-published Manuscripts. These works could not be under a publishing contract at the time of entry into the contest. Works that have been accepted by agents but are not under contract are allowed to enter the CBR Unpublished Manuscripts  Contest.

    Entry Deadline for the Manuscript Division was September 30, 2012.  Announcement of Finalist posted on November 26, 2012.

    Finalists for Unpublished Manuscripts Writing Contest by Chanticleer Book Reviews

    Drum-roll please…  

    Mainstream/Contemporary/Womens Fiction

    • The Cannibals on Easy Street by Frank Faso
    • Rain Shine Secrets by Alice T. Robb
    • The Crone Clones by Alice T. Robb
    • Vanessa’s Curve of Mind  by Kirk Smith

    Historical Fiction

    • Lick Creek by Deborah Lincoln
    • The Jossing Affair by J.L. Oakley

    Mystery Suspense/Thriller and Cozy Mystery

    • Shadow Games by Jeanette-Marie Mirich
    • Corporate Insanity by Tom Pors
    • New Smyrna Swing by D.D. Queens
    • Made in China by Mark Reutlinger
    • Mrs. Kaplan in the Soup; The Matzoh Ball of Death by Mark Reutlinger
    • Murder Strikes a Pose, A Downward Dog Mystery by Tracy Weber

    First Place Categorical Titles will be announced before January 31st, 2013.

     

     

     

Chanticleer Book Reviews