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The 2023 FINALIST CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division. Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Genetic Modification, Aliens, Super Humans, Interplanetary Travel, Climate-Fiction, and Settlers on the Galactic Frontier, Dystopian, our judges from across North America and the U.K. will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2023 CYGNUS Science Fiction Semi-Finalists to the 2023 Cygnus Book Awards Finalists. These entries are now in competition for the 2023 Cygnus 1st Place and Grand Prize Winners. FINALISTS will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, CAC24.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These are the FINALISTS of the 2023 Cygnus Book Awards novel competition for Science Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!

Good Luck to All!
- Lou Dischler – The Rising
- E.T. Gunnarsson – Abandon Us
- E.T. Gunnarsson – Remember Us
- J.L. Birchwood – The Southron Deception
- Alexandra Almeida – Unanimity
- S.G. Blaise – Proud Pada
- Diane Lilli – The Last Invention
- N. John Williams – In the Shadow of Humanity: A Novel
- Julia Tvardovskaya – Identifiable
- Gareth Worthington – Dark Dweller
- Michael Simon – Extinction
- Timothy S. Johnston – The Shadow of War
- Howard Berk and Peter Berk – TimeLock
- Jeanne Hull Godfroy – Midgard
- Rob Brownell – Invention Is a Mother
- Dylan McFadyen – Oblivion’s Cloak
- Donald Firesmith – Hell Holes: A Slave’s Revenge
- Stu Jones – The Zone: A Cyberpunk Thriller
- Nikki Kallio – Finding the Bones: Stories & A Novella
- Sarena Straus – ReInception
- Melissa Gowdy Baldwin – The Marriage Wars: Book One
Good luck to all as your works move on to the last rounds of judging.

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

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Congratulations once more to the 2022 Cygnus Grand Prize Winner

The Last Lumenian

By S. G. Blaise

Click here to see the full list of 2022 CYGNUS Book Award Winners for Science Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2024 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Screenwriter Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and coach and inspiring Mark Berridge, with more to be announced. CAC is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author and achieving your publishing goals.

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!
February 4, 2024
ITALIANS In The PACIFIC NORTHWEST by Tessa Floreano – American History, Immigrant History, Pacific Northwest History

Tessa Floreano’s Italians in the Pacific Northwest is an inviting pictorial narrative featuring both ordinary and extraordinary individuals of Italian heritage who helped to create and develop Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Concentrating on the decades from 1880 to 1950, Floreano begins by referencing the earliest Italian explorers of the Pacific Northwest Territory, then quickly moves to the efforts of those who sought a better life through hard work and new opportunities on American shores.

Floreano’s research shows through the fascinating details of this book.

She includes stories, photographs, and memorabilia to highlight both the struggles and triumphs of these pioneering Italian Americans. From the backbreaking labor of building the road and rail infrastructure that connected this new land, to working in the coal mines, logging and milling the giant cedars, farming the soil, fishing the waters, and becoming savvy entrepreneurs, these people proved a hearty, steadfast bunch.

Floreano investigated the formation of fraternal organizations and social groups that helped with assimilation, housing, health, and employment concerns. She emphasizes the vital role of the established Italian churches in the Northwest communities, recognizes the importance of military service, and notes the Italians’ contributions to the fields of sports, music, and entertainment.

A volume of black & white photos is complemented by well-detailed narrative captions.

Here, images depict the likes of immigrants arriving in the US along with passports that had to declare their literacy and early records of naturalization. With the popularity of the Church, there are snapshots of weddings, communions, Parish School students, altar boys, clergy, and church buildings that help showcase their religious faith.

During wartime, unfortunately, Italian citizens 14 and over were considered enemy aliens and treated as such. Men often volunteered for service in order to prove their loyalty to their adopted homeland.

Whether considered captives or allies, POW identification cards were issued to over 50,000 Italians captured in North Africa in WWII. One 1940s photo portrays Italian prisoners of war “well-suited and booted,” though they still had to maintain their own lodgings.

Audiences are further entwined with little-known facts that brought recognition to this Northwest Territory.

Early immigrants farmed a sustaining vegetable, later to be known as the Walla Walla sweet onion. Corno’s Food Market, part of Portland’s “Produce Row”, was popularized in a scene from Burt Reynold’s 1989 film “Breaking In.” Famed father of nuclear science, Enrico Fermi, spent time in Hanford, WA developing the atomic bomb.

With her Italian heritage, Floreano’s work is undoubtedly a labor of love. For those interested in a reveal of the history and people that helped develop this part of the country, this book should prove an enjoyable read. In particular, for those of Italian descent, “Italians in the Pacific Northwest” lives up to the motto the author ascribes to these feisty and determined immigrants, “Per aspera ad astra” – through hardship to the stars. A truly informative tribute.

February 2, 2024
The M&M 2023 Short List for Cozy and Not-So-Cozy Mysteries
The M&M Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Cozy and not-so-Cozy Mystery & Mayhem. The M&M Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).

Chanticleer Book Reviews is looking for the best books featuring “mystery and mayhem,” amateur sleuthing, light suspense, travel mystery, classic mystery, British cozy, hobby sleuths, senior sleuths, or historical mystery, perhaps with a touch of romance or humor. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them. (For suspense, thriller, detective, crime fiction see our Clue Awards.)

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 M&M Book Awards LONG LIST. These entries are now in competition for 2023 M&M Semi-Finalists. The Finalists will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists. The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBAs divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles have advanced to the SHORT LIST of the 2023 M&M Book Awards for Mystery & Mayhem

Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.
- Trish MacEnulty – The Whispering Women
- Susan Rogers and John Roosen – Dead Man’s Pose
- Craig H. Bowlsby – The Cyrano Solution
- Ruud Richardson – The Girl Who Never Was
- B.T. Polcari – Fire and Ice
- B.T. Polcari – Against My Better Judgment
- Tawn H. Skousen – Seashells and Scoundrels
- Jeremy Gluck – Face Value
- Ron Destro – The Starre, the Moone, the Sunne
- Liese Sherwood-Fabre – The Adventure of the Purloined Portrait
- Gail Grant Park – We Are Shadows: An Irish Ghost Story
- Rebecca Olmstead – Dreams and Illusions
- Charlotte Stuart – In$ured to the Hilt
- Anna St. John – Doomed by Blooms
- Elizabeth Crowens – Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles
- Topper Jones – All that Glisters
- Patrick E. Craig – The Quilt That Knew
- A.J. McCarthy – A Stranger in the Family
- Traci Andrighetti – Tuaca Tan
- Marlene M. Bell – Copper Waters
- E. W. Finke – Coyote’s Wail
- Mary Seifert – Fishing, Festivities & Fatalities
- Sharon Michalove – At the Ready
- Liz Larson – Fireflies and Zeroes
- Michel Prince – Always a Groomsman
- M.K. Dean – A Corpse in the Condo
- Kate Hallock – Nine Ways to Die: An Enneagram Murder Mystery
- Steven Mayfield – The Penny Mansions
- Cindy Sample – Birthdays Are Murder
- Nancy J. Cohen – Star Tangled Murder
- Carolyn Summer Quinn – Cloudy with a Chance of Answers
- Michelle Cox – A Haunting at Linley
- Charlotte Whitney – The Unveiling of Polly Forrest
- Kim Herdman Shapiro – The Raven’s Cry
- Lori Roberts Herbst – Negative Reaction
- Lori Roberts Herbst – Photo Finished
- Joni M Fisher – East of Evil
- D.R. Ransdell – Party Wine
- Connie Berry – The Shadow of Memory
- Hadley K. Knox – Murder Sundae
- Christine Knapp – Murder on the Widow’s Walk
- Christine Knapp – Murder at the Wedding
- M. A. Monnin – Death In The Aegean
- Paisley Summer – Walk in the Light
- Patricia Sorg – Habits that Haunts Me
- Erica Miner – Aria for Murder
- Wendy Bayne – Guilds and Gunpowder
- Matthew Cost – Velma Gone Awry
- Jule Selbo – 9 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery
- Amy S. Peele – Hold
- Kim Davis – Buttercream Betrayal
- Kamille Roach – A Matchbox Full of Pearls
- D. J. Adamson – With a Vengeance
- Lyn Squire – Immortalised to Death
- Jeffrey Matthews – The Case of the Disappearing Beaune: A Sherlock Holmes Christmas Story
- Brigitte Goldstein – Death of a Diva–From Berlin to Broadway
- Eleanor Tatum – Countess of Change
- Kim Davis – Muddled Matrimonial Murder
- Brandon Lawniczak – Riding in Circles
- J. Ivanel Johnson – Just A Stale Mate
- Mary Seifert – Santa, Snowflakes & Strychnine
- T.K. Sheffield – Vintage Model, the Backyard Model Mysteries Book 1
Good Luck to All as Your Works Compete to Advance to the Next Level of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

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The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 Mystery & Mayhem Awards is:

A Spying Eye

A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel

by Michelle Cox

Here is the link to the 2022 M&M Book Award Winners!

We are now accepting submissions into the 2024 M&M Book Awards for Cozy-And-Not-So-Cozy Mysteries!.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!
February 1, 2024
The 2023 HEMINGWAY Book Awards Short List for 20th Century Wartime Fiction
The Hemingway Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works for 20th Century Wartime Fiction. The Hemingway Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

The Hemingway Book Awards competition is named for Ernest Hemingway who was born July 21, 1899.

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring 20th Century Wartime Fiction in Historical Fiction; Romance and Romantic Fiction; Mysteries, Thrillers, and Suspense Fiction of the time; Literary works and Satire and anything else that author imaginations can dream up for the HEMINGWAY Book Awards division. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

For Post-1750s Historical Fiction, see our Goethe Awards here. For other Historical Fiction categories, please see more details here.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 Long List to the Hemingway SHORT LIST. Entries below are now in competition for the 2023 Hemingway SEMI-FINALISTS. Finalists will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA division Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the SEMI-FINALISTS of the 2023 Hemingway Book Awards novel competition for 20th Century Wartime Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Linda Joy Myers – The Forger of Marseille
- Elaine Aucoin Schroller – Dare Not Tell
- Elaine Aucoin Schroller – The Bravest Soldiers
- William McClain – Alice’s War
- J.L. Oakley – The Brisling Code
- Gary Baysinger – Margaret’s Last Prayer
- Patricia Wilson – An Island Promise
- Glenn Dyer – Trust No One
- Kathryn Gauci – In the Shadow of the Pyrenees
- Michael J Cooper – Crossroads of Empire
- Kathryn Brown Ramsperger – A Thousand Flying Things
- Lou Dischler – The Last Newsreel
- Martin Roy Hill – Codename: Parsifal
- Trish MacEnulty – Secrets and Spies
- Marina Osipova – The Drau River Flows to Siberia: The Victims of Victory
- Donald Willerton – Teddy’s War
- J.A. Wright – Eat and Get Gas
- Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee – The Long March Home
- Jacek Waliszewski – Midnight in Syria
- Linda Stewart Henley – Kate’s War
- Jodi Lea Stewart – The Gold Rose
- Richard LaMotte – Follow His Lead
- Ivan Luiz Hernandez – Isla Vulnerable
- Richard Bareford – Veterans Key
- Jeff Schnader – The Serpent Papers
- Jerena Tobiasen – Tsarina’s Crown
- John Winn Miller – The Hunt for the Peggy C
- Suzanne Trauth – What Remains of Love
- Robert L. Decker – Not to Reason Why
- Kevin Miller – The Silver Waterfall: A Novel of the Battle of Midway
- Shirley Miller Kamada – No Quiet Water
- Kathryn Gauci – The Song of the Partisans: A Powerful and Unforgettable Novel of Resistance
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

Click here to see the 2021 Hemingway Book Award Winners for 20th c. WartimeFiction.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 Hemingway Book Awards is:

Running with Cannibals

by Robert W. Smith

See the full list of 2022 Hemingway Winners here!

We are now accepting submissions into the 2024 Hemingway Book Awards for 20th c. Wartime Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

For our other Historical Fiction Awards, please see the following:
Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!
February 1, 2024
THE SHERIFF: Book Three of The Druid Chronicles by A.M. Linden – Historical Fiction, Medieval England, Mystery

The Sheriff, the third installment of A.M. Linden’s Druid Chronicles series about 9th-century life in Anglo-Saxon England, fully immerses readers in that distant era with all of its joys, conflicts, and hardships.

Trained from his youngest years in the military, Stefan has learned both battle skills and leadership, with the ability to approach a situation without causing it to get out of hand. He is fiercely loyal, but continually denied a larger role in the kingdom’s army. His latest indignity came with the king assigning him as sheriff of Codswallow, a paltry village. With a retinue of less than 10 people including his slave, he has to collect taxes and keep the peace.

The novel shows two major episodes. The first follows his Codswallow days, including his relationship with Jonathan, owner of the Three Dragons Inn. Stefan learns that Jonathan is paying protection money to keep bandits away from the inn, and carries out a series of plans to discover who is, what we could call, the crime boss.

But Stefan stirs up yet more trouble in Codswallow.

A Druid priestess and her niece, relatives of Jonathan, take refuge in the Three Dragons Inn after their sacred shrine is discovered. The niece may actually be Jonathan’s child by his marriage to the queen’s sister, and things get complicated when Stefan, unhappily married with three children of his own, sets his eyes on her.

Before he can act on his romantic impulse, Stefan is summoned to track down a princess who went missing on the day she became betrothed to the ruler of a neighboring kingdom, possibly being abducted by that king’s enemies, or even killed. The possibility that she ran away to avoid being wed to the notoriously cruel king, was barely a consideration. It would take a person of Stefan’s many skills to find her and reunite her with her king, whether she wanted to or not.

Overall, The Sheriff is a well-rounded character study of Stefan himself.

We see him as a child, and when his warm family is torn apart by a searing dispute between him and his father. He is apprenticed to the military and is trained by Matthew, a devout Christian who sees in the youth the makings of a leader, later becoming his most loyal soldier.

Stefan shows his disappointment in the king not assigning him to the post that he deserves, but he handles trouble effectively, diffusing potential conflicts and becoming a careful investigator. He doesn’t reflect on himself, instead focusing on the problems of those around him.

This book takes time to fully establish the world and people of its stories.

Of the large cast, many characters have detailed backgrounds, some connected to previous books in the series. Thankfully, a detailed character glossary makes it easy to keep up with everyone.

The Sheriff succeeds most in its feel of authenticity.

While life in early England cannot be fully known, The Sheriff gives the reader enough granularity to help them imagine what it would be like to live there. It isn’t about the battles that often dominate history, but rather the regular people who could be our family, friends, and neighbors even though they exist in a time so far gone.

Readers who enjoy being taken away to the distant past, feeling as though they could breathe the air of something different from what they know, will find The Sheriff a fascinating and satisfying read.

January 31, 2024
The 2023 CLUE Book Awards Semi-Finalists for Suspense/Thrillers
The Clue Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Suspense and Thriller Mysteries. The Clue Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is seeking the best books featuring suspense, thrilling adventure, detective work, private eye, police procedural, and crime-solving, we will put them to the test to discover the best! (For lighter-hearted Mystery and Classic Cozy Mysteries please check out our Mystery & Mayhem Awards, and for High Stakes Suspense Novels please check out our Global Thriller Awards).

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 Clue Suspense/Thriller Fiction Short List to the 2023 Clue Book Awards SEMI-FINALISTS. Finalists will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FINALISTS of the 2023 Clue Book Awards novel competition for Thriller/Suspense Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Roxana Arama – Extreme Vetting: A Thriller
- Nancy Adair – The Appearance of Guilt
- Margaret Mizushima – Standing Dead: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery
- Joanne Jaytanie – Retrieving Remy, The Winters Sisters Book 5
- Chuck Morgan – Crime Scene, A Buck Taylor Novel
- Linda Moore – Five Days in Bogotá
- Jonny Thompson – Atlantis
- Kevin G. Chapman – The Other Murder
- T.O. Paine – The Excursion
- Corey Lynn Fayman – Gillespie Field Groove
- Paty Jager – Damning Firefly
- Charlotte Stuart – Forget or Forgive? NEVER
- Jim Nesbitt – The Dead Certain Doubt: An Ed Earl Burch Novel
- Frederick Douglass Reynolds – Saint Bloodbath
- Joshua Cohen – Past Imperfect
- E. Alan Fleischauer – Sherlock and the Tiger
- J. Luke Bennecke – Echo from a Bayou
- Mark James – Friendship Games
- Steven Mayfield – The Penny Mansions
- Dave Lager – Sniper’s Day
- Daniel V. Meier Jr. – Guidance to Death
- Michelle Cox – A Haunting at Linley
- Anne Moose – When You Read This I’ll Be Gone
- Jode Millman – The Empty Kayak
- Alexandrea Weis & Lucas Astor – River of Ashes
- Kamille Roach – Pine Creek
- Justin M. Kiska – Fact & Fiction
- Melissa L. Berger – What Mae Brings: A Novel
- Mike Van Horn – Controlled Flight
- Decima Blake – Hingston: Smoke and Mispers
- Cathi Stoler – With A Twist: A Murder On The Rocks Mystery
- Richard C. Brusca – The Time Travelers
- Kathryn Lane – Missing in Miami
- Leslie Kain – Secrets In The Mirror
- D. R. Berlin – The Third Estate: Secrets of the Manor
- Lisa Towles – The Ridders
- Rita M Boehm – The Price of Revenge
- Philip Derrick – Saigon Spring
- Martha Crites – Danger to Others
- Raymond Paul Johnson – The Raven Society: Conspiracy Ignited
- Nina Romano – Dark Eyes
- Mary Keliikoa – Deceived
- Robert W. Smith – Long Way From Clare
- V. S. Anderson – Three Strides Out: A Horse Show Novel of Suspense
- Howard Berk and Peter Berk – TimeLock
- T.E. Lane – The Cornbread Letters
- Mary Keliikoa – Hidden Pieces
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.

Please click here to visit our pageto LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CLUE Awards is:

Have You Seen Me?

By Alexandrea Weis

See the Full List of 2022 Clue Award Winners here!

The 2023 CLUE Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC24 on April 21, 2024. Save the date for CAC24, scheduled April 18-21, 2024, our 12-year Conference Anniversary!

Submissions for the 2023 CLUE Book Awards are open until the end of September. Enter here!

Don’t delay! Enter today!

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!
January 29, 2024
THE FOREST by Miriam Verbeek – Crime Thriller, International Mystery, Organized Crime

The Forest, a slow-burning mystery and the second book in Miriam Verbeek’s Saskia van Essen series, follows a young investigator trying to unravel a mystery that sits deep in the core of a private logging organization.

Saskia, a co-owner of International Financial Services, is requested by Tania to help uncover a network of criminal activity in her family’s Australian timber business. After taking over the company as its new director, Tania doubts the legitimacy of their remarkable profits, given high expenses, severe competition, and a substantial reduction in timber production that should have made it difficult to make any substantial gains.

Wasting no time, Saskia travels to Australia, having agreed to investigate possible criminal activity while helping the timber mill restructure.

Shortly after settling in, she identifies a weak correlation between the employment of three people: Daryl in carpentry, Con in flooring, and Peta in finance. More concerning, a huge amount of data ”accidentally” gets lost immediately after her arrival, including crucial due diligence records.

Saskia’s investigation reveals a series of suspicious activities such as fake invoices and massive cash payments for unsold furniture and flooring. Furthermore, she finds that the companies making the purchases are mere shells with complex, disguised ownership. Adrenaline levels rise as her secret pursuit begins to take shape. She tries to exercise caution, but not before a ruthless figure comes after her with everything he’s got.

In The Forest, Miriam Verbeek characterizes the cruel world of organized crime.

She exposes crime syndicates’ desperation to put a legitimate face on their riches through careful money laundering.

Her prose keeps readers engaged with the developing mystery, which will change a reader’s view of cash-heavy businesses.

Among the many heroes in this book, Saskin stands out. She shows expert sleuth skills and competence despite her short stature. The problems she encounters are ones that the author has found Australian companies and society also dealing with, and she brilliantly incorporates the input of the NSW police, the Federal Police, and the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forests in fighting these financial indecencies.

This novel shows how money laundering has now moved from the simple transfer of cash into financial institutions to sophisticated systems of layered multi-business transactions.

Money laundering is a worldwide problem, and Miriam Verbeek does a great job emphasizing the need for international law enforcement cooperation. The Forest is an eye-opener for mystery readers and the business world alike.

January 29, 2024
The 2023 GLOBAL THRILLER Book Awards Semi-Finalists for High Stakes Suspense
The Global Thriller Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in High Stakes Thriller Fiction. The Global Thriller Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer Book Reviews is looking for the best books featuring suspense, thrilling stories that put the balance of world power or that will end the world as we know it. We include with Global Thrillers the Lab Lit genre. Lab Lit is when Fiction Meets Real Science and Research or stories that are based on real science and research up to a certain “what if” point.

For other Mystery Divisions see our Clue Awards for Suspense/Thriller Novels and our M&M Awards for Cozy-and-not-so-Cozy Novels.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 Global Thriller Book Awards Short List to the 2023 Global Thriller SEMI-FINALISTS. Finalists will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the Finalists of the 2023 Global Thriller Book Awards novel competition for High Stakes Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- E.S. Ramirez – In the Fangs of Jackals
- Thomas R. Weaver – Artificial Wisdom
- Jayson Adams – Ares
- D. L. Wilburn Jr. – The God Protocol: Dragon
- Glenn Dyer – Trust No One
- Mark James – Friendship Games
- Susan Rogers and John Roosen – Cobra Pose
- Joanne Jaytanie – Retrieving Remy (The Winters Sisters Book 5)
- Randall Krzak – Ultimate Escalation
- Dr. Frank J. Sapienza – The Greater Good
- Hank Scheer – Fade to Blue
- Howard Berk and Peter Berk – TimeLock
- Jacek Waliszewski – Midnight in Syria
- Ron Roman – Of Ashes and Dust
- J. Lee – The Deadly Deal
- Ralph R. “Rick” Steinke – Jake Fortina and the Roman Conspiracy
- David Wickenden – The Home Front
- E Alan Fleischauer – The Doctor is Invisible
- Jeff Sheckter – The Daedalus Protocol
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

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The Grand Prize Winner for the 2022 GLOBAL THRILLER Awards is:

Hybrid Hysteria

By Charlie Robinson
The 2023 GLOBAL THRILLER Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC24 on April 20, 2024. Save the date for CAC24, scheduled April 18-21, 2024, our 12 year Conference Anniversary!

Submissions for the 2024 GLOBAL THRILLER Book Awards are open until the end of October. Enter here!

Don’t delay! Enter today!

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!
January 28, 2024
WHEN YOU READ THIS I’LL BE GONE by Anne Moose – Mystery, Crime Thriller, Psychological Fiction

With unexpected twists, When You Read This I’ll Be Gone by Anne Moose ramps up a kidnapping escapade with a campus tragedy of life-altering consequences.

When You Read This I’ll Be Gone takes us on a gripping book-within-a-book journey. Valerie Hawthorne—an author and college professor—has written a note to her family about the vagaries of her own disappearance. One might even consider the book’s title to be the true opening sentence.

As Valerie recollects the events leading up to the rupture of her marriage and her disappearance, she sucks readers into a meta-narrative that lays the groundwork for Valerie’s published book, which becomes the very book that you are reading.

Through this fascinating narrative approach, the author takes an unfortunately common tragedy of campus rape and re-sensitizes readers to all the reasons why rape survivors find it difficult to come forward about their experiences.

Moose takes Valerie and her kidnapper down the remorseful road of “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” that haunt those whose small actions contributed to someone’s silence. Valerie must come to terms with the fact that she can’t go back in time and fix things—her marriage, her interaction with a student—but she can do something to make sure a victim’s story is told and bring to justice in their absence.

When You Read This I’ll Be Gone is equal parts thrilling and sincerely devoted to its premise, “How far will a person go to hold abusers accountable?” There is some question as to how the title itself factors into the story when it comes full circle. The reader is left unsure who it is for if not about Valerie. Is it coming from the victim of sexual violence, or the father seeking revenge on the men responsible for his child’s undoing? Leaving the question open-ended allows the reader to experience the kind of heartache that can be understood in multitudes.

For readers of Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me and Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, Anne Moose’s When You Read This I’ll Be Gone is full of fast-paced suspense that will have you revisiting the beginning to catch what you missed with renewed insight. Which, if we were to ask Valerie Hawthorne, is the point of storytelling all along.

*This book comes with a Content Warning for campus rape, revenge porn, and suicide

January 26, 2024
The Chaucer 2023 Book Awards Semi-Finalists for Early Historical Fiction
The Chaucer Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in pre-1750s Historical Fiction. The Chaucer Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

The Chaucer Book Awards competition is named for Geoffrey Chaucer the author of the legendary Canterbury Tales. The work is considered to be one of the greatest works in the English language. It was among the first non-secular books written in Middle English to be printed in 1483.

Chanticleer International Book Awards is seeking the best books featuring Pre-1750s Historical Fiction, including pre-history, ancient history, Classical, world history (non-western culture), Dark Ages and Medieval Europe, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Tudor, 1600s, we will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 Chaucer Early Historical Fiction Short List to the 2023 Chaucer Book Awards SEMI-FINALISTS. All FINALISTS will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. Winners will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FINALISTS of the 2023 Chaucer Book Awards novel competition for Pre-1750s Early Historical Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Gail Avery Halverson – A Sea of Glass
- Gina Buonaguro – The Virgins of Venice
- Griffin Brady – The Hussar’s Duty
- James Hutson-Wiley – The Merchant from Sepharad
- Regan Walker – The Strongest Heart
- Juliette Godot – From the Drop of Heaven
- Stefan Scheuermann – Kyra
- Kelly Evans – Turning the World to Stone – The Life of Caterina Sforza Part One 1472 – 1488.
- Yvonne Korshak – Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
- Robert S Phillips – Elodia’s Knife
- C.V. Lee – Token of Betrayal
- Rebecca D’Harlingue – The Map Colorist: A Novel
- Rozsa Gaston – Margaret of Austria
- Mary Pat Ferron Canes with JR Foley – Dark Queen of Donegal
- Kerry Chaput – Daughter of the Shadows
- Margaret Porter – The Myrtle Wand
- Anthony R. Licata – Caesar Obsessed: Passion, Conquest, and Tragedy in Gaul
- Rebecca Kightlinger – The Lady of the Cliffs: The Bury Down Chronicles, Book Two
- Adrienne Dillard – Keeper of the Queen’s Jewels: a novel of Jane Seymour
- Brigitte Goldstein – Princess of the Blood-A Tapestry of Love and War in 16th-Century France
- Adam Alexander Haviaras – Sincerity is a Goddess: A Dramatic and Romantic Comedy of Ancient Rome
- K.M. Butler – House Aretoli
- David Tory – Exploration: The Stanfield Chronicles
- A. L. Kucherenko – Knight’s Pawn
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CHAUCER Awards is:

Mack Little, author of

Daughter of Hades

Click here to see the 2022 Chaucer Book Award Winners for Early Historical Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions for the 2024 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Early Historical Fiction. The 2024 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2025.

Please click here to submit to the 2024 Chaucer Awards

For our other Historical Fiction Awards, please see the following:
Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 12th annual conference and discover why!

As always, please contact us with any questions or suggestions at info@ChantiReviews.com.
January 25, 2024

Chanticleer Book Reviews