Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: claire-fullerton

Somerset Maugham is featured on the Spotlight for 2021 SOMERSET Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The Somerset Awards: Understanding Literary Fiction

Ah yes, literary fiction, often thought of as the highest form of writing. If only people could define exactly what it means.

Here are a few of Somerset Maugham’s work that typify literary fiction:
- Of Human Bondage
- The Razor’s Edge
- The Moon and Sixpence
- And far too many to list here.
Let’s start with some writing tips from Somerset Maugham himself.
- There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
- Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
- I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.
- The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
- To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
- Impropriety is the soul of wit.
- When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
- We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
- I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.
- If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
- Submit here to Chanticleer’s Somerset Book Awards before the end of November!
We may have made one of those up…

What a start! We still need to figure out this Literary Fiction business though. Before we dive into that, if you want to read more about Somerset Maugham, consider looking out our previous spotlight here where we discuss him at length!

To read more about the time he wrote in, click here.

So What is Literary Fiction?

The easiest way to attempt to answer this question is to start with what Literary Fiction is being defined in opposition to. Literary Fiction is not Genre Fiction.

So what’s Genre Fiction?

Genre Fiction is written for people to enjoy it generally. It often follows a formula that uses conventional storytelling. The stories are meant to entertain, are plot driven, and they usually have a happy ending. As a result, there’s almost never a question of how to market genre fiction, making it easier to sell.

So, if we take the opposite of all those and apply them to literary fiction, what do we get?
- It doesn’t follow a formula
- Uses unconventional storytelling
- Examines what it means to be human
- It can be difficult to read
- Character focused (not plot)
- Endings vary or can even be uncertain
LIterary Fiction isn’t an exact science

That’s a tough sell! Of course, not all of these elements need to apply

Many literary fiction books are the kinds that stay with us for years after we read them. Chances are the longtime favorite that changed your life is a literary fiction book, or at least possesses some elements of it.

Here’s some contemporary Literary Fiction you may have heard of:
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
- The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
The NY Book Editors has this to say about Literary Fiction:

The term “literary fiction” is controversial and for good reason. As more “literary” writers venture into genre fiction, the lines of distinction have blurred. Sometimes, it’s not always clear. Perhaps, it is genre fiction that’s just pushing its own boundaries.

It’s clear that Literary Fiction is a complex genre, worthy of being written and read. We’re happy to say that we’ve done our fair share here at Chanticleer! Check it out below!

HARD CIDER
By Barbara Stark-Nemon
Grand Prize Winner in Somerset Awards

Abbie Rose Stone is a woman determined to follow her newly discovered dream of producing her own craft hard apple cider while navigating the ups and downs of family life with her grown sons and husband.

Abbie Rose knows how to deal with adversity, and dives headfirst into this new chapter of her life with energy and passion. She describes her early adulthood years of infertility struggles and the hardscrabble way she built her young family through invasive medical procedures, a surrogate attempt, and adoption barriers.

Continue Reading

MARTHA
By Maggie St. Claire
First Place Winner in Somerset Awards

In the unique and compelling voice of an aging woman teetering on the edge of financial ruin, Maggie St. Claire’s debut novel, Martha, takes the reader from affluent residential areas of Los Angeles to its urban streets of despair, shadowing a 71-year-old, retired bank teller as she comes to grips with the challenges and adversities that threaten her existence.

This is the story of Martha Moore, many years divorced, estranged from her only child, and living a lie, as she enters her golden years. The most important things in her life, outside her pride in her desirable Hancock Park bungalow, are her book club friends. She attends their meetings dressed in her finest, projecting what she hopes is the image of a well-educated, well-to-do, Los Angeles dowager. The three wealthy women who comprise the remainder of the group are her best, perhaps only friends, and sometimes that’s a stretch.

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MOURNING DOVE
By Claire Fullerton
First Place Winner in Somerset Awards

Camille Crossan appears to be living an idyllic life in Claire Fullerton’s poignant, evocative novel, Mourning Dove. Living in a superbly appointed mansion in “magnolia-lined and manicured” Memphis during the 1960s and 1970s, Camille’s family life shimmers with Southern charm. Her mother, Posey, usually outfitted in a Lily Pulitzer shift, Pappagallo shoes, and a signature shade of pink lipstick, is a beauty with the wryest sense of humor and steel determination.

As a young girl, Camille, known as Millie, sees how those in her mother’s social orbit are captivated by her aura, how men are easily seduced by her flirtatious charm. Society is a game played by those who know its rules, and Posey means to win. Every time. She, however, isn’t even the charismatic one in the family – that’s Finley, Millie’s older brother, who brims with intelligence, startling good looks, and messianic magnetism. A peek beneath the shiny surface of gracious Southern living, however, reveals enormous cracks in the foundation of the Crossan family. One of the first things the adult Millie tells us about her brother is that he is dead. She takes the reader back, though, to their childhood and coming of age, a tumultuous journey that both binds and separates the siblings.

Continue Reading

JETTY CAT PALACE CAFÉ
By Judy Keeslar Santamaria

Judy Keeslar Santamaria’s skillfully crafted debut novel, Jetty Cat Palace Café, takes the reader from the sophisticated urban areas of Washington state to its remote cranberry coast, accompanying professor Morgen Marín on a life-altering quest.

Like a present-day recipient of a DNA test gone wrong, when 34-year old Morgen, celebrated pianist and music professor, leaves after visiting her elderly grandmother Eleanor, her mind is spinning. Eleanor, preparing for the inevitable, shared family history, documents, and longstanding questions, which blindsided her granddaughter.

Continue Reading

JOEL EMMANUEL
By J.P. Kenna
First Place Winner in Somerset and Clue Awards

Set in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, Joel Emmanuel by JP Kenna rewards its readers with the story of a boy coming of age and how he understands the changes around him. Kenna’s style echoes the English novels of the 19th century.

Young Joel Emmanuel Webber, named for a Wobbly executed long ago in 1915, lives with his mother, Nance Raindance, in a cabin on the Skagit River near Seattle before it was a technopolis. Their world is antiquated even for the 1970s and defined by farming, fishing, and basics like a woodburning cookstove, kerosene lamps, and candles. Joel calls his mother by her given name, doesn’t know his father, and lives an open life free of school and, even occasionally, clothing. He is sensitive and easily succumbs to tears.

Continue Reading

Have a story that breaks the mold? Submit by the end of November for the 2021 CIBAs!

See the 2020 Somerset Winners here!

When you’re ready, did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services? We do and have been doing so since 2011.

Our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, Simon Schuster, etc.).

If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or Sharon at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or SAnderson@ChantiReviews.com for more information, testimonials, and fees.

We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with our team of top-editors on an on-going basis. Contact us today!

Chanticleer Editorial Services also offers writing craft sessions and masterclasses. Sign up to find out where, when, and how sessions being held.
- A great way to get started is with our manuscript evaluation service, with more information available here.
- And we do editorial consultations for $75. Learn more here.
- If you’re confident in your book, consider submitting it for a Editorial Book Review here or to one of our Chanticleer International Awards here.
And remember! Our 10th Anniversary Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22) will be April 7-10, 2022, where our 2021 CIBA winners will be announced. Space is limited and seats are already filling up, so sign up today! CAC22 and the CIBA Ceremonies will be hosted at the Hotel Bellwether in Beautiful Bellingham, Wash. Sign up and see the latest updates here!

Writer’s Toolbox

Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox article.

Writers Toolbox Helpful Links:

The Prolific Writer W. Somerset Maugham

Somerset as a Fin de Siècle Author

What is Literary Fiction?

The traditional publishing tool that indie authors can use to propel their writing careers to new levels? The Seven Must-Haves for Authors – Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Publishing Series by Kiffer Brown
November 14, 2021
LITTLE TEA by Claire Fullerton – Southern Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Cultural Heritage Fiction

Author Claire Fullerton’s skillfully crafted fourth novel, Little Tea, weaves bits and pieces of the human condition into a timely story.

Prepare to visit Fullerton’s Deep South, where, like the tropical storms from the Gulf, the southern mystique engulfs the land and its people. Beneath the genteel manners and tradition are whirlpools of passion, unrelenting memories, and behaviors that ebb and flow to and from the edges of conscious thought, leaving behind a sense of anxious anticipation.

From when Celia Wakefield agrees to meet her high-school friends, Renny Thornton and Ava Cameron, to spend a long weekend at Renny’s lake cabin in Arkansas, she’s been uneasy. She hasn’t gone “home” for more than ten years—it’s too painful. She first met Renny and Ava before her life inexorably changed. They were thirteen years old – newly-minted adolescents eager to spread their wings and take on the world. Besties ever since, Renny and Ava are a part of Celia’s present and unthinkable history. Celia needs their friendship, but the past floats just below the surface, like a ‘gator waiting for prey.

But now she must go.

Ava, the fey sprite, the dream spinner, needs her help. She’s having a mid-life crisis and has reached out to her and Renny for support.

Celia agrees to fly to Memphis, meet Ava at the terminal, travel to Renny’s ranch in Olive Branch, Mississippi. From there, they will proceed to Renny’s lake house over the border in Arkansas for a long weekend of intervention and renewal. It’s all about Ava’s issues—not hers. It’s what good friends do.

That weekend, while Ava grapples with her discontent, alcoholism, and re-connects with her first love, Celia finds herself revisiting her own agonies. Her painful past, sublimated for so long, surfaces and demands resolution.

Little Tea resonates on many levels.

This modern-day drama juxtaposes the traumas of contemporary issues with unresolved traumas from history, where, for so many, the safe, secure, and predictable world of childhood innocence was ripped away, replaced by the unthinkable.

For the reader who not only enjoys an engaging story but values skilled writing, Little Tea fits the bill. Fullerton’s use of lyrical language, imagery, and authentic dialogue capture the feel of the south. Her characters are believable—everyone knows an “Ava.” Fullerton uses setting as a nuanced character, always nearby, influencing without being intrusive and, her pacing and word choices are exemplary.

Like many modern, provocative novels, Little Tea ends not by tidying up anything. Fullerton leaves her readers with an open door, so to speak, that allows readers to venture out onto the porch, sit down on the old wicker rocker, and ponder what the characters might do next. In this trusting the reader, Fullerton gifts us with latitude for interpretation.

If you’ve never spent time in the south or wish to revisit, Little Tea will take you there. All in all, Fullerton has given readers a story that engages both the mind and the heart. Little Tea won First in Category in the 2019 Somerset Awards for literary fiction.

April 5, 2021
Spotlight on the SOMERSET Book Awards
In our last Somerset Hall of Fame, we discussed the origin of the contest’s name, and mentioned the success of William Somerset Maugham’s first book Liza of Lambeth, (published 1897) which propelled him to become one of the highest paid authors of his time, but not without first finding himself struggling with poverty after leaving the medical profession as a fully qualified doctor. Somerset wrote the story while working as a medical student and obstetric clerk in working class London.

W. Somerset Maugham (1897 – age 23 years)

In the publication of this book, Somerset joined an extensive body of work in line with many fin de siècle authors such as Wilkie Collins, Richard Marsh, Matthew “Monk” Lewis, Bram Stoker, and Charles Dickens.

In Somerset Maugham’s story, Liza, like many women in novels of this era, has her life dictated by the men who surround her, unable to break free of the desires and expectations that surround her, ultimately leading to her death. This examination of consent and the harmfulness of denying women agency can be seen reflected in the urgency of the suffrage movement, which passed its 100 year anniversary in August 18, 2020.

Women’s Suffragette Movement in the USA – more than 100 years in the making. The 19th Amendment was finally ratified on August 18, 1920 (at the end of WWI – 1914 – 1918)

It bears mentioning that women’s suffrage started out as only being accessible for white women, with Chinese-American women not being able to vote until 1943, native-American women until 1948, Japanese-American women until 1952, and African Americans until 1964—though the 19th Amendment wasn’t even ratified by all states until 1984! To this day, voting and voter suppression remains a contentious issue in the United States. Stories like Somerset’s showed the tension and the injustice taking place at the turn of the century in a way that made it real, accessible, and relevant to the literature published at the time and today.

Wells & Squire marching in 1913 For more information, please click here

Anyone who studies the right of women to vote and writing has to come across Virginia Woolf (born January 25, 1882, London England) with her book A Room of One’s Own. (Published September 1929) In this, she talks about where do we, as authors, have space to write. What do our room’s look like, and is there even a writing room in our house? I always think of Stephen King writing in his laundry room when I first think of trying to find a space to write. Naturally, like voting, this becomes more complicated when you overlay things like ender identity, race, and orientation, causing further variation in the kinds of rooms that are allowed to be called one’s own.

In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Woolf blamed women’s absence from history not on their lack of brains and talent but on their poverty. For her 1931 talk “Professions for Women,” Woolf studied the history of women’s education and employment and argued that unequal opportunities for women negatively affect all of society. Click here to read Britannica’s biography of this extraordinary author.

Virginia Woolf, photographed by Gisele Freund, 1933

In the building of literary fiction, we reflect the world as we see it. Woolf, in her book, follows the fictional Judith Shakespeare, sister of the famous William, and his equal in terms of writing and genius. Like Somerset’s Liza, Judith finds herself beset in a world where her agency is constantly overruled by the masculine presences in her life. In the end, Shakespeare’s sister dies by suicide. In both these narratives, the death of the women provides an implicit critique of the way society tries to control them.

Today, that critique and commentary still resonate. In the last ten years we have had the first Black president ever in the United States, and now we are set to inaugurate the first woman vice president who is also the first Black, south Asian, and Caribbean vice president. This doesn’t mean that discrimination and all the problems faced by Somerset’s Liza have vanished from the world, but it does run in cultural tandem with the mood of publishing seen at the end of the 19th century. It is a longstanding tradition that we continue culturally and politically in the stories we tell.

It is with great pride, in the tradition of uplifting and supporting women and the oppressed, that we award Donna LeClair’s manuscript, The Proprietor of the Theatre of Life, The Somerset Book Awards 2019 Grand Prize Award. LeClair is the first author in the Somerset Awards to have a manuscript win the Grand Prize in this highly competitive division. Huge congratulations!

Below is what our editor had to say about The Proprietor of the Theatre of Life by Donna LeClair (manuscript overview)

This is no ordinary book and the word “extraordinary” can’t begin to do it justice. It’s a gift for anyone fortunate enough to read it and libraries around the globe should add it to their collections. It should be available to everyone. Emma is a highly sympathetic character, an everywoman, in need of answers. The reader learns as much as she does about individual and universal struggles on earth, the lessons to be gleaned from suffering, and the value of sharing our stories.

Presenting these lessons in the format of a novel is ingenious; they’ll be accessible to readers who might not have had a clue how to compile, organize, and synthesize so much historical and spiritual scholarship. So many, too many, are suffering from grave, debilitating effects of PTSD; I wish this book could be gifted to them. It is literary balm. – Carrie M. Chanticleer Editorial Team

Journey as Emma does, through multiple eras, continents, and thresholds embracing the authenticity of diverse ethnicities, life conditions, and testimonies. Entrusted intuition guides storylines plaguing the world today. She encounters visionaries of faith who elevate sensibility while gifting their existence to the survival of this illusion that we call home.

Join her on an exploration of the wisdom bestowed by the existence of those who brought humankind closer to understanding one another and the sacredness of our broader story.

Donna LeClair, award-winning author, mother and grandmother, friend to the Dalai Lama, and amazing woman.

We look forward to joining LeClair on her on an exploration of the wisdom bestowed by the existence of those who brought humankind closer to understanding one another and the sacredness of our broader story. This phenomenal story is in the process of seeking representation.

Want more LeClair?

To discover more of Donna LeClair’s award-winning works, please click on the links below that will take you to our reviews:

Immunity, the latest offering by award-winning author Donna LeClair, recounts one woman’s struggles to maintain her sanity during a long nightmarish sojourn among the wealthy and powerful.

LeClair is a prodigious wordsmith who uses the writing craft to good effect. Whether it is a drug-induced temper flare-up, the destruction of a motel room, or a brief erotic interlude, the author weaves a rich tapestry. She has made fiction, it seems, of a painfully recalled set of reminiscences, changing the names to protect the innocent and avoid the wrath of the guilty. She examines the word “immunity” in its many guises: protection from penalty, entitlement of the very wealthy and well-connected, exemption from “an old love,” denial of responsibility, and “declaration protecting honorably truth.”

Waking Reality, a memoir by Donna LeClair

Very engrossing, well-written, engaging, suspenseful and honest. Waking Reality is recommended reading for anyone looking for an engrossing account of a woman’s courageous story growing up in the 1960s. You will want to see that she emerges through the dark tunnel of abuse.

Through engaging and well-written prose, LeClair relates the 1963 murder trial known as State of Ohio v. Bill Bush, a police sergeant who murdered three members of one family. Bush happened to be her uncle and the family he tore apart, hers. Due to the circumstances of the trial, LeClair and her sisters were in protective custody. Chanticleer Review
Three children, five lives, five stories, five human beings whose lives exploded with a pull of a trigger because of a little black book of secrets, lies, and destructions…

One thing I know for sure, for the safety of your own sanity, you must close the haunting of one chapter before you can open the infinite possibilities of another. –Donna LeClair

Want More Somerset Award Winning Novels?

Congratulations to all our 2019 first place category winners for Somerset. You can see some of the reviews for those books below.

…Rarely does a book about the law take you this close into the mindset of an attorney. Carney isn’t a criminal attorney but his ability to think “legal” demonstrates how a well-trained mind can work even in a foreign territory like criminal law. His familiarity becomes our familiarity. This is not a blockbuster case; no mob bosses will fall; no bombastic courtroom duels await. What is showcased here, however, is good lawyering, legal competence, and a writer’s commitment to sharing his love of the law with his readers. – Chanticleer Reviews

The Trial of Connor Padget by Carl Roberts https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/05/07/the-trial-of-connor-padget-by-carl-roberts-legal-fiction-literary-fiction/

How well do people really know their neighbors? More importantly, or perhaps more sinisterly, how well do those neighbors know each other – and each other’s secrets?…this character-driven story is most definitely a work of exquisite literary fiction that uses the exploration of its characters to drive the narrative.

…Finegan does an excellent job of drawing us inside these seemingly tiny lives, and the deeper we go, the more significant these lives seem, and the greater the impact they have on each other as well as those who have been drawn into their well-written and extremely sticky web. – Chanticleer Reviews

Cooperative Lives by Patrick Finegan https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/09/03/cooperative-lives-by-patrick-finegan-literary-fiction-mystery-thriller-suspense-literary-fiction-romance-literary-fiction/

Fantastic magic realism, uncaged and wild, and brilliant in every way! Highly recommended.

In this groundbreaking novel, what is real – and what isn’t – is always the heart of the matter. There are elements of reality in the fantastical, and there are elements of magic realism in the rather ordinary. After Olympus is a novel about characters who don’t just think outside the box; they are outside the box.

Intrigued? You should be. We don’t see novels like this every day, but this one will find its way into the hands of the most discerning readers. – Chanticleer Reviews

After Olympus by Santiago Xaman https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/10/26/after-olympus-a-work-of-quasi-fiction-by-santiago-xaman-magic-realism-literary-fiction-multi-cultural/

A captivating tale of Industrial Greed and Forest Conservation set against a thrilling backdrop of primeval forest, violence, and sex, international intrigue where one misstep may very well cost you your life.
Sunken Forest: Where the Forest Came Out of the Earth by R. Barber Anderson https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/11/21/the-sunken-forest-by-r-barber-anderson-thriller-suspense-action-fiction-literary-fiction-military-thrillers/

With these award-winning titles, you will understand why the Somerset Book Awards is one of the most competitive divisions in the Chanticleer International Book Awards.

Look for the Chanticleer Reviews of these 2019 Somerset Book Awards Blue Ribbon Winners.

Judith Kirscht for End of the Race

Claire Fullerton for Little Tea

Maggie St. Claire for Martha

Jamie Zerndt for Jerkwater

But Wait! Where’s Satire?
Introducing the Mark Twain Book Awards for Satirical and Allegorical Fiction, a new (2020) fiction division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

As a well-known humorist, Mark Twain employed satire to gently rib his audience and point out inconsistencies in the world as it appeared then, such as when Huck wonders why he would go to Hell for helping his friend Jim escape slavery.

Due to the huge popularity of the Somerset Awards, we’ve had to break Satirical and Allegorical fiction off into a separate division that titled The Mark Twain Book Awards. Keep an eye out on our website for our upcoming spotlight on this new Awards category and why we chose Twain!

Also, click on the Mark Twain Book Awards for classic works in Satire and Allegorical Fiction.

HOW DO YOU HAVE YOUR BOOKS RECOGNIZED? Submit them to the Chanticleer International Book Awards – Click here for more information about The CIBAs!

The last day to submit your work is November 30, 2018. We invite you to join us, to tell us your stories, and to find out who will take home the prize at CAC21 in April.

As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your literary novel deserves! Enter today!

The winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony on April 19, 2021, that will take place during the 2021 Chanticleer Authors Conference. All Semi-Finalists and Finalists will be recognized. The first place winners will be recognized and receive their custom ribbon, and then we will see who among them will take home the Grand Prize. It’s an exciting evening of networking and celebration!

CIBA Ribbons!

First Place category winners and Grand Prize winners will each receive an awards package. Whose works will be chosen? The excitement builds for the 2020 SOMERSET Book Awards competitions and now for the Mark Twain Book Awards.

Our Chanticleer Review Writing Contests feature more than $30,000.00 worth of cash and prizes each year!

~$1000 Overall Grand Prize Winner
~$30,000views, prizes, and promotional opportunities awarded to Category Winners

ENTER NOW!

Don’t delay! Enter today!
November 16, 2020
SOMERSET Book Awards for the Best Contemporary and Literary Novels – 2019 CIBAs
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners and the Grand Prize Winner of the Somerset Book Awards for Contemporary and Literary Novels, a division of the 2019 CIBAs.

The CIBAs Search for the Best in the Somerset Book Awards!

Chanticleer Book Reviews is celebrating the best books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, satire, humor, magic realism, or women and family themes. We love them all.

The 2019 Somerset Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the Somerset Grand Prize Winner were announced at the Virtual Chanticleer Authors Conference that was broadcast via ZOOM webinar the week of September 8-13, 2020 from the Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Washington.

Michelle Rene, author of Hour Glass, Previous Laramie Grand Prize Winner and Overall Best Book Award Winner in 2017 announced the 2019 Somerset Book Award Winners.

This is the OFFICIAL 2019 LIST of the Somerset Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the Somerset Grand Prize Winner.

Congratulations to All!
- Donna LeClair – The Proprietor of the Theatre of Life
- Carl Roberts – The Trial of Connor Padget
- Judith Kirscht – End of the Race
- Patrick Finegan – Cooperative Lives
- Santiago Xaman – After Olympus
- Claire Fullerton – Little Tea
- Maggie St. Claire – Martha
- Jamie Zerndt – Jerkwater
- R. Barber Anderson – The Sunken Forest, Where the Forest Came out of the Earth
- HONORABLE MENTIONS:
  - Beth Burgmeyer – The Broken Road, ms
  - Bob Holt – Firebird, ms
The Somerset Book Awards
2019 Grand Prize Winner is a manuscript:
The Proprietor of Theatre Life by Donna LeClair

The Somerset Grand Prize for the 2019 Award Winner.

This is the original badge for the 2018 Somerset Grand Prize Winner – Hard Cider by Barbara A. Stark-Nemon.

How to Enter the Somerset Book Awards?

We are accepting submissions into the 2020 Somerset Book Awards until November 30, 2020. All submissions into this category after November 30, 2020, will automatically be entered into the 2021 Somerset Book Awards

The 2020 Somerset Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC 21 on April 17, 2021.

Don’t delay! Enter today!

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in October. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

If you have any questions, please email info@ChantiReviews.com == we will try our best to reply in 3 or 4 business days.
October 1, 2020
MOURNING DOVE by Claire Fullerton – Southern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, Saga Fiction

Camille Crossan appears to be living an idyllic life in Claire Fullerton’s poignant, evocative novel, Mourning Dove. Living in a superbly appointed mansion in “magnolia-lined and manicured” Memphis during the 1960s and 1970s, Camille’s family life shimmers with Southern charm. Her mother, Posey, usually outfitted in a Lily Pulitzer shift, Pappagallo shoes, and a signature shade of pink lipstick, is a beauty with the wryest sense of humor and steel determination.

As a young girl, Camille, known as Millie, sees how those in her mother’s social orbit are captivated by her aura, how men are easily seduced by her flirtatious charm. Society is a game played by those who know its rules, and Posey means to win. Every time. She, however, isn’t even the charismatic one in the family – that’s Finley, Millie’s older brother, who brims with intelligence, startling good looks, and messianic magnetism. A peek beneath the shiny surface of gracious Southern living, however, reveals enormous cracks in the foundation of the Crossan family. One of the first things the adult Millie tells us about her brother is that he is dead. She takes the reader back, though, to their childhood and coming of age, a tumultuous journey that both binds and separates the siblings.

During her first decade, Millie’s family was living in Minneapolis with her tender-hearted, intellectual father who succumbed to alcoholism. Loss of money and, worse, the accompanying loss of social status, motivates Posey to uproot her children and move them to her childhood home in Memphis, a palatial mansion filled with antiques and portraits of forebears. It’s a volatile time, inside and outside the house, as centuries-old Southern traditions clash with the youth counterculture.

Millie watches as her mother holds court during daily cocktail hours, a prospective second husband soon on the reel, and Finley, a gifted guitarist, plunges into the local music scene. But what role will she play? It’s difficult for her to see herself entirely separate from her brother for whom she has, “…a love devoid of envy, tied up in shared survival and my inability to see myself as anything more than the larger-than-life Finley’s little sister.” Millie will grapple with her identity and question her destiny, whether she’ll be a bride in the Southern belle mode of her mother or if she’ll be the blossom that falls far from the magnolia tree. Meanwhile, Finley’s charisma both explodes and implodes in shocking and dangerous ways as he becomes revered by a group of people with no connection to the gentrified life. Like Millie, the reader is transfixed and apprehensive about where this less-traveled road will take Finley. Although the reader knows his grim fate from the outset of the book, his storyline is so engrossing that no drama is lost.

Author, Claire Fullerton, is an enchantress with prose. The writing in this novel will cause you to stop, reread sentences, savor them, and note their architecture. Scenes sparkle as she masterfully summons moods and atmosphere. The reader can see Millie’s lovely but haunting home, and smell the rich fragrance of dogwood on a soft spring day. Fullerton has a keen ear for witty, authentic dialogue, and she deftly reveals much about personalities via conversation. It’s difficult to take leave of such a vivid, fully realized world. Fortunately for readers, Fullerton has written several books, opportunities to spend more time in her richly crafted worlds.

Mourning Dove won First Place in the CIBA 2018 Somerset Awards for Literary Fiction.

April 24, 2020