Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: anna-castle

  • June SPOTLIGHT on CHAUCER AWARDS – Early Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Romantic Fiction, Crusades, Medieval

    June SPOTLIGHT on CHAUCER AWARDS – Early Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Romantic Fiction, Crusades, Medieval

    Pre 1750 Historical Fiction Award

    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.”

     

    Click here to find out more. 

    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!

    Pre 1750 Historical Fiction Award

     

    The 2018 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize Winner:

    The SERPENT and The EAGLE  by Edward Rickford 

     

     

    2018 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners:

     

     

     

     

     

    The 2017 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize:

    The Traitor’s Noose: Lions and Lilies Book 4 by Catherine A. Wilson and Catherine T. Wilson

    2017 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners:

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The 2016 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize Winner:

    (Chaucer Book Awards was the Historical Fiction division until we divided it for the 2016 CIBAs into two divisions because of the number of entries:

    Goethe Book Awards for post-1750s Historical Fiction and Chaucer Book Awards for pre-1750s Historical Fiction).

    The Towers of Tuscany by Carol M. Cram

     

    2016 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners:

             

             

             

             

             

             

            The 2015 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize Winner:

            (Chaucer Book Awards was the Historical Fiction division until we divided it into two divisions for the 2016 CIBAs because of the number of entries:

            Goethe Book Awards for post-1750s Historical Fiction and Chaucer Book Awards for pre-1750s Historical Fiction).

            Valhalla Revealed by Robert A. Wright

            Valhalla Revealed by Robert A Wright

             

            2015 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners:

             

             

             

             

             

            The 2014 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize:

            (Chaucer Book Awards was the Historical Fiction division until we divided it into two divisions because of the number of entries:

            Goethe Book Awards for post-1750s Historical Fiction and Chaucer Book Awards for pre-1750s Historical Fiction).

            The Love of Finished Years  by Gregory Erich Phillips

            2014 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners

             

            The 2013 Chaucer Book Awards Grand Prize Winner:

            Propositum - Front Cover 2

            Propositum by Sean Curley

            2013 Chaucer Book Awards for Pre-1750s Historical Fiction First in Category Winners:

            • Adventure/Young Adult:  I, Walter by Mike Hartner
            • N.A. Western:  Crossing Purgatory by Gary Schanbacher
            • World War II (European):  Deal with the Devil by J. Gunner Grey
            • Adventure/Romance/YA: “Lady Blade” by C.J. Thrush
            • Nordic History:  The Jøssing Affair by J.L.Oakley
            • Regency:  Traitor’s Gate by David Chacko & Alexander Kulcsar
            • Women’s Fiction/WWII: Wait for Me  by Janet K. Shawgo
            • Medieval/Dark Ages: Divine Vengeance by 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! 

            Don’t delay! Enter today! 

          • SPOTLIGHT on M&Ms – Mystery & Mayhem AWARDS CIBAs – Cozy Mysteries, Amateur Sleuths, and more!

            SPOTLIGHT on M&Ms – Mystery & Mayhem AWARDS CIBAs – Cozy Mysteries, Amateur Sleuths, and more!

            Welcome to our SPOTLIGHT on the CHANTICLEER INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS (the CIBAs): the MYSTERY & MAYHEM Awards Deadline is upon us!

            We are seeking the best novels featuring “mystery and mayhem,” amateur sleuthing, romantic suspense, light suspense, travel mystery, classic mystery, British cozy, hobby sleuths, senior sleuths, or historical mystery. We will put them to the test and discover the best among them. (For thrillers, action suspense, detective, crime fiction see our Clue Awards)

            The APRIL 30th deadline for the Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem Awards (aka M&Ms) has been extended until May 31, 2020 due to many requests for an extension due to these unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

            In just a few short days, we go to work to uncover the hidden secrets, the lost key, the answer to the question, Whodunit?

            The 2019 Mystery and Mayhem FINALISTS were posted on April 30, 2020.

            Congratulations to these authors whose works have advanced to this new achievement level of the  Chanticleer International Book Awards in the Mystery and Mayhem Book Awards division.

             

            Michelle Cox won the 2018 GRAND PRIZE for Murder and Mystery for A Promise Given (A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Series, Book 3)

             

            The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2018 are:


             

             

            Carl & Jane Bock are the M&M Grand Prize winners in 2017 for Coronado’s Trail: An Arizona Borderlands Mystery

            The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2017 are:

             

            Alice K. Boatwright is the MYSTERY & MAYHEM Grand Prize winner in 2016 for Under an English Heaven!

            The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2016 are:

             

             

            Wendy Delaney is the  2015’s M&M Grand Prize Winner for There’s Something About Marty

            The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2015 are:

             

             

             

             

            Bernadette Pajer of the Professor Bradshaw Series — Fatal Induction took home the 2013 M&M Grand Prize

             

             

            Pamela Beason won GRAND PRIZE in 2012 for The Only Witness 

             

             

             

            Is your amateur sleuth suspicious of the little old lady who lives next door? Is there something wrong in Mayberry and your hero is going to find out what it is – no matter the cost? Are the stakes so high for your heroine, she succumbs to the hot, sexy delivery man who happens to be the guy with forty bodies buried in his basement? Is your character’s cat helping him solve the latest crime?

            If so, have we got the contest for you!

            Mystery & Mayhem

            Your book could earn a place in our M&M hall of fame for 2020!

            All you have to do is enter.

            And due to these unprecedented times, we have extended the deadline from April 30, 2020 to May 31, 2020.

            Unpublished Manuscripts and recently Published (Indie, Traditional, Hybrid) Novels (after Jan. 1, 2018) are accepted.

            Our Mystery & Mayhem Awards are the Chanticleer International Book Awards search for today’s best cozy mystery fiction books!

            Cozy Mystery Fiction Award

            Do not hesitate – or stop to solve a crime –

            the M&M Awards extended deadline is MAY, 31, 2020!

            Click here to enter – and good luck!

             

             

             

          • A PROFESSOR and MRS. MORIARTY MYSTERY: Moriarty Takes His Medicine, Book 2 by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery

            A PROFESSOR and MRS. MORIARTY MYSTERY: Moriarty Takes His Medicine, Book 2 by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery

            In Anna Castle’s British historical, cozy mystery novel, Moriarty Takes His Medicine, we find James Moriarty and his new bride, Angeline, struggling with their exciting, new relationship once the dust settles, so to speak.

            James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, is a man who cares deeply for his wife, so much so, that he is driven to distraction and embraces the help of his former foe as an ally to help rescue Angelina from grave danger.

            Sound like a melodrama? It is. Melodrama at it’s best, with strong women characters from the 1880s in several roles, providing a 2020 twist to the male-dominated period. That being said, Castle is no slouch when it comes to providing accurate historical details. She’s done her research and offers it up in an engaging and entertaining novel. The health spas and health tonics of the time provides an impressive backdrop to the mystery she develops, as Sherlock Holmes comes to Moriarty for help on a curious case, the death of a beloved aunt whose nephew suspects foul play. Together Moriarty and Holmes uncover a plot of devious mischief by medical professionals at a high-end spa/hospital where several elderly women and wealthy wives have stayed, only to die unexpectedly at home. Castle begins with the death of one woman.

            Moriarty, Holmes, and Watson find that many of the women’s deaths went unchallenged because they all died at home after their stay, pointing to their own negligence and not that of the hospital, a devious plan, to say the least. Dr. Watson plays a small but crucial role at the beginning of their investigation as he uncovers the meaning behind “the Clennam treatment,” referring to a character from Little Dorritt, a Charles Dickens novel. And so, as Holmes is want to say, the game’s afoot.

            Angelina’s past as a performer, a vocation she sorely misses, provides her with a means to help when she realizes her sister is being sent to the notorious spa for “the Clennam” treatment, code for “kill her.” Angelina takes on the most dangerous role of her life when she finds herself under the “Clennam” treatment.

            Castle introduces the tonic as one in a series of archaic and debunked methods of treatment. She also explores aspects of electric shock therapy, and “the rest cure,” a popular method of treating a nervous and perhaps unruly woman to a treatment that did nothing to cure the root cause of their ailments. Alas, at that time, the men knew best even when they were wrong.

            Castle turns this male-dominated society on its head. Women display their strength and ability to problem solve as they help to resolve this crime, and they do it with the full support of their men. A very satisfying twist on the social norms of the time, which brings us to a satisfactory conclusion.

            In the end, we have something akin to a Shakespeare “comedy,” all the “good” characters live, all the lovers end up happily together, and all the villains fail and are doomed to suffer.

            As the second novel in a series, this book could stand-alone. This romp through the beloved world of Sherlock Holmes will surprise you at every turn and please Sherlockians as well as lovers of British cozy mystery fans.

            Moriarty Takes His Medicine won First Place in the 2018 CIBAs for Mystery and Mayhem.

          • DEATH by DISPUTATION: A Francis Bacon Mystery by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery, Suspense/Thriller, Literary

            DEATH by DISPUTATION: A Francis Bacon Mystery by Anna Castle – Historical Mystery, Suspense/Thriller, Literary

            Bartholomew Leeds interrupts the young men’s studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University in 1587 when he is found hanging from a roof beam. Is it suicide or murder? He sent warnings to His Lordship about the rising Puritan rebel underground. Were his communications intercepted somehow? Thomas Clarady, a spy in their midst assigned to investigate the Puritans, must now ponder and debate this Death by Disputation by author Anna Castle. Fascinating suspects abound at the college, and beyond its borders.

            Philosopher, statesman, orator, and spymaster Francis Bacon is anxious to determine and jail the instigator, the suspected head of the Puritan rebels, as well as track any connection to “Barty” Leeds untimely demise. He’s impatient for resolution and demands daily, written updates from Tom Clarady, his recruited spy. Posing as a student, Tom methodically follows clues while chased by three enamored women, dogged by well-meaning friends, diligently turning in his homework, and risking his own life more than once. Tom is enthusiastically determined to catch a killer, and to solve the mystery, as he plunges into this grand adventure. But this mystery has ominous layers, uncovering one leads to a more dangerous set of clues.

            As Tom follows leads, he finds that the victim had interesting curricular and extracurricular activities, any of which could make him a target. Tom takes his undercover duties to heart as he masks himself as a student who is swayed by Puritan ways and infiltrates the local group. He decides “in order to stop them he has to become one of them.”  But will they discover his de facto assignment? He becomes such an ardent follower that the apparent changes in his personality and lifestyle concern his friends and even his spymaster. Tom treads carefully, but has he gotten in over his head? As he examines clues and analyzes suspects, the reader participates in working out theories and ultimately guessing a villain.

            The delightful dimension to this mystery is the fascinating characters the author showcases. Along with the smart spy who sleuths along a tightrope between warring factions, the highlight is the fictionalized historical figure of Christopher Marlowe, a treasured rogue. Marlowe’s loyalties are continuously in question, but his wry humor and dramatic actions hit their marks. The three romantic women also particularly surprise with their hidden skills, knowledge and vibrant personalities. References to the historical period setting naturally weave into the plot and dialog, and enhance rather than detract from the pacing of this thrilling spy tale.

            For author Anna Castle, writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning. She chose the Elizabethan period for her Francis Bacon series, seeing it as one of the most colorful periods of all times and places. Retired from one of the world’s great research libraries, the University of Texas at Austin, the author enjoys the extensive research she does for the series and the details of the historical period that she shares with her readers.

            There’s no debate – Anna Castle brings to life a page-turning thrill of a mystery where “there are hazards other than jail or bodily harm” in Death by Disputation.

             

            Death by Disputation is the 1st Place Winner in the 2015 Chanticleer International Book Awards in Chaucer, the Early Historical Fiction category.