The Laramie Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Western and American Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Thomas Goodman’s book, The Last Man will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Laramie contest page year ’round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!
The 2023 Laramie Winners were announced at the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!
Join us in celebrating the 2023 First Place Laramie Winners!
Barbara Salvatore – The Trail to Niobrara
1847- Magghie is forced to flee her home after a cholera outbreak ravishes her village. She travels west with her teams of draft horses, and in the company of a Mormon family, but they soon disagree on the best way forward. When her fellow travelers turn on her, tragedy strikes during a flash flood. She must forge ahead on her own to find the place that has been haunting her dreams.
T.K. Conklin – Promise of Spring
When Eastern aristocrat True Tucker left her lush way of life in Charlotte to travel to the untamed western town of Rimrock to spend the winter with her sisters, she never imagined where the trip would lead. Events beyond her control force her to find refuge in a small mountain cabin with a devilishly handsome man and his young daughter. She knows her life is about to change forever when her feelings for him make her forget she is promised to another man. After a few nights in his strong arms, True suddenly questions where she belongs.
Sam Barkley had long ago given up on finding love after the death of his wife and he certainly didn’t expect to find the beautiful blond woman lost in the mountains. After she saves his daughter’s life at the risk of her own, he can no longer fight the growing love he has for her. Just one taste of her untamed passion leaves him craving more and he can’t let her go. Sam has until spring to convince True to stay in Rimrock with him, because he knows that’s exactly where she belongs.
Elizabeth Woolsey – The Travels of Dr. Rebecca Harper: A Matter of Time
It’s 1981, and Rebecca’s life is going exactly according to plan: a veterinary degree, a husband and daughter, and her first veterinary clinical position. She is set for life. But then the unexpected happens …
Disoriented and desperate after a freak riding accident, she stumbles into the nearby town, which strongly resembles the set of a beloved Western television show from her childhood … and it’s 1857!
Injured and alone, she’s afraid to share where and when she’s from. How will she survive in a world where women are second-rate? Now trapped in another world, she embarks on a desperate quest to return to her husband, daughter, and career.
Rebecca uses her 20th century veterinary skills, knowledge, and modern values to make a new life for herself—and to survive. Her travels across the United States lead to encounters with historical people and events, including the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Jr., Mark Twain, and Clara Barton.
Daniel Greene – Northern Dawn (Northern Wolf Series Book 4)
War takes guts and luck to survive…but will it be enough?Wolf’s been promoted. He’s helped bring down one of the South’s greatest generals. Yet his country still has more to ask of him and the costliest war in America’s history rages on. Sheridan’s cavalry raids west to destroy Confederate infrastructure and divert attention from Grant’s movement south of the killing fields of Cold Harbor. Yet Wade Hampton and his rebel forces have something else in store for the Union Cavalry Corps. Wolf quickly finds himself in the hot seat of the largest all-cavalry battle of the war near Trevilian Station. Isolated and surrounded can they survive the coming Southern storm? Or will they be overrun and annihilated, a mere footnote in history?
K.S. Jones – Tastefully Texas
No matter where one travels in Texas, at practically any time of the year in cities large and small, some things remain constant: livestock shows, rodeos, and football—and Chef Mia Ellis rejected them all. With a culinary arts degree as proof that a cosmopolitan lifestyle awaited her, Mia left everything behind in favor of New York City.
But when an emergency brings her back home, Mia finds herself completely unprepared for the town and the people she’s outgrown. Even with cooking—the only thing that has ever separated her from her hometown roots—and her on-hold job in N.Y.C. anchoring her to salvation, Mia has to find a way to earn money while she’s in town. Unfortunately, a dishwashing gig at an out-of-the-way bar and grill is all that’s available.
It isn’t until Mia reconnects with Jace, her old high school sweetheart and heir to Texas Century Ranch, that she realizes she may still have a taste for Texas after all.
Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2023 Laramie First Place Winners!
Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!
Got a great Fiction Book? The 2024 Laramie Book Awards are open through the end of September until the date changes online!
Award-winning author Barbara Salvatore brings human foibles, horse traits, and herbal lore together through a young teenage girl’s eyes in her historical fiction novel, 
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