Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: deen-ferrell

  • DANTE ROSSETTI SPOTLIGHT – Young Adult Novel Book Awards, #CIBAs

    DANTE ROSSETTI SPOTLIGHT – Young Adult Novel Book Awards, #CIBAs

     

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

     

    Do you have a Y/A Fiction manuscript or recently published novel?

    Enter it today in the CIBA 2020 DANTE ROSSETTI Awards! Let us decipher the best of the best. 

    If you know anything about Chanticleer International Book Awards, you know that we never stop sharing the good news and accomplishments of our authors! Never!

    What that means is we believe in book promotion, highlighting our winners, standing on our platforms, and telling the known world all about YOUR BOOK! 

    Sound good to you? 

    Enter your Y/A Fiction Novel TODAY into the CIBA 2020 DANTE ROSSETTI Awards. 

     

    The Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction are named for the British painter and poet,
    Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

    Chanticleer has chosen Dante Rossetti as the namesake of our young adult fiction awards, because of Rossetti’s strong connection to works of beauty and emotions as swift as the changing seasons. Both aspects embody what it means to be young. We feel that the sentiment expressed by the Pre-Raphaelite movement exemplifies what inspires many authors to pick up their proverbial pens to express their emotions and their observations of the visceral dynamics of living.

    Besides, he was a rock star. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an exclusive group in the mid-nineteenth century which garnered as much fame and attention as equatable to the Game of Thrones cast today.

    The Love Song by Sir Burne-Jones who was mentored and influenced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

     

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

     

    You won’t regret it – Just ask the following authors who did enter, and won!

    The 2018 DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards GRAND PRIZE:

    Whispers by Yvonne Moon

    WHISPERS by Lynn Yvonne Moon

     

    2018 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction
    First in Category Winners

    • Climb, Run, Drown by Cheryl G. Bostrom
    • Tookan Attack by Alex Paul
    • Reality Gold by Tiffany Brooks
    • 2nd Gen by Andrea and William Vaughan
    • Change of Chaos by Jacinta Jade
    • Sneaking Out by Chuck Vance
    • Soul Sacrifice by Susan Faw   

    Here’s a little more about our Dante Rossetti … (can we claim him as our own?)

    Rossetti’s paintings, in particular, were characterized by the long and wavy hair of young women. It is this youthful beauty that has been immortalized in his work and captures the immovable spirit of adolescence which is so fraught with changing emotions. These women he painted are often quite romantic. His wife would often model for the paintings or the wives of his friends in the Brotherhood. It was rumored that Rossetti had several lovers…

    Visitors today can view Rossetti’s work at the Louvre or the Met. In addition to painting, he was also a writer. Several of his poems address emotions and feelings in all of their complexity, similar to his painted works.

    La Viuda Romana, 1874 by our fav guy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

     

     

     

     

    The 2017 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    SLAVE to FORTUNE  by D. J. Munro

     

    2017 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

     

    The 2016 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    SEER of SOULS by Susan Faw

     

    2016 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2015 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    The GIRL and the CLOCKWORK CAT by Nikki McCormack

     

     

    2015 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2014 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    LEGACY: Biodome Chronicles Book One by Jesikah Sundin

    2014 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2013 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    The BOREALIS GENOME by Thomas & Nancy Wise

     

     

    2013 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Dante Rossetti Awards is June 30, 2020. Enter here!

     

    Do your works have what it takes to make it through the CIBA judging rounds?  Submit manuscripts and published works into the Chanticleer International Book Awards – Click here for more information about The CIBAs! 

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

    The last day to submit your work is June 30, 2020. We invite you to join us, to tell us your stories, and to find out who will take home the 2019 CIBA prizes at CAC20  in September.

    The deadline for  2020 YA submissions is June 30, 2020. Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2020 will be announced on April 18, 2021.

    Any entries received after June 30, 2020, will be entered into the 2021 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Young Adult Fiction. The Grand Prize and First Place for 2021 CIBA winners will be held on April 2022.

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

    The DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.

    The winners will be announced at the 2019 CIBA  Awards Ceremony in September 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 celebrations! 

    Don’t delay! Enter today! 

  • SPOTLIGHT on DANTE ROSSETTI Awards — Young Adult Fiction

    SPOTLIGHT on DANTE ROSSETTI Awards — Young Adult Fiction

    The Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction are named for the British painter and poet,
    Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

     

    Do you have a Y/A Fiction manuscript or recently published novel? Enter it today in the CIBA 2020 DANTE ROSSETTI Awards! Let us decipher the best of the best. 

    If you know anything about Chanticleer International Book Awards, you know that we never stop sharing the good news and accomplishments of our authors! Never!

    What that means is we believe in book promotion, highlighting our winners, standing on our platforms and telling the known world all about YOUR BOOK! 

    Sound good to you? 

    Enter your Y/A Fiction Novel TODAY into the CIBA 2020 DANTE ROSSETTI Awards. 

     

     

    Chanticleer has chosen Dante Rossetti as the namesake of our young adult fiction awards, because of Rossetti’s strong connection to works of beauty and emotions as swift as the changing seasons. Both aspects embody what it means to be young. We feel that the sentiment expressed by the Pre-Raphaelite movement exemplifies what inspires many authors to pick up their proverbial pens to express their emotions and their observations of the visceral dynamics of living.

    Besides, he was a rock star. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an exclusive group in the mid-nineteenth century which garnered as much fame and attention as equatable to the Game of Thrones cast today.

    The Love Song by Sir Burne-Jones who was mentored and influenced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

     

     

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

     

    You won’t regret it – Just ask the following authors who did enter, and won!

    The 2018 DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards GRAND PRIZE:

    Whispers by Yvonne Moon

    WHISPERS by Lynn Yvonne Moon

     

    2018 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction
    First in Category Winners

    • Climb, Run, Drown by Cheryl G. Bostrom
    • Tookan Attack by Alex Paul
    • Reality Gold by Tiffany Brooks
    • 2nd Gen by Andrea and William Vaughan
    • Change of Chaos by Jacinta Jade
    • Sneaking Out by Chuck Vance
    • Soul Sacrifice by Susan Faw   

    Here’s a little more about our Dante Rossetti … (can we claim him as our own?)

    Rossetti’s paintings, in particular, were characterized by the long and wavy hair of young women. It is this youthful beauty that has been immortalized in his work and captures the immovable spirit of adolescence which is so fraught with changing emotions. These women he painted are often quite romantic. His wife would often model for the paintings or the wives of his friends in the Brotherhood. It was rumored that Rossetti had several lovers…

    Visitors today can view Rossetti’s work at the Louvre or the Met. In addition to painting, he was also a writer. Several of his poems address emotions and feelings in all of their complexity, similar to his painted works.

    La Viuda Romana, 1874 by our fav guy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     

     

     

     

     

    The 2017 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    SLAVE to FORTUNE  by D. J. Munro

     

    2017 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2016 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    SEER of SOULS by Susan Faw

     

    2016 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2015 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    The GIRL and the CLOCKWORK CAT by Nikki McCormack

     

     

    2015 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2014 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    LEGACY: Biodome Chronicles Book One by Jesikah Sundin

    2014 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    The 2013 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Grand Prize:

    The BOREALIS GENOME by Thomas & Nancy Wise

     

     

     

    2013 Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction First in Category Winners

     

    Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Dante Rossetti Awards is June 30, 2020. Enter here!

     

    Do your works have what it takes to make it through the CIBA judging rounds?  Submit manuscripts and published works into the Chanticleer International Book Awards – Click here for more information about The CIBAs! 

    Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

    The last day to submit your work is June 30, 2019. We invite you to join us, to tell us your stories, and to find out who will take home the prize at CAC20 on September 5th.

    The deadline for 2019 submissions is June 30, 2020. Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2019 will be announced on September 5th, 2020.

    Any entries received after June 30, 2019, will be entered into the 2020 Dante Rossetti Book Awards Young Adult Fiction. 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 work deserves!  Enter today!

    The DANTE ROSSETTI Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.

    The winners will be announced at the CIBA  Awards Ceremony on September 5th, 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! 

  • CRYPTIC SPACES Book Three: DARK EDGE RISING by Deen Ferrell – Young Adult, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure

    CRYPTIC SPACES Book Three: DARK EDGE RISING by Deen Ferrell – Young Adult, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure

    Seventeen-year-old mathematical genius Willoughby has the weight of the world on his shoulders ─ literally. As part of a secret time travel organization known as Observations, Inc., Willoughby and his team, usually silent observers in their travels, are tasked with keeping the balance between control and chaos.

    Yet after the murder of their friend and mentor H.S. a year ago, Willoughby and his team have sought answers to questions they don’t even know how to ask. Everyone on the team has suffered, and Willoughby can’t help but feel he could have done more to help H.S. and more to keep his team, namely his girlfriend and musical prodigy Sydney, safe.

    Willoughby can “see” time code and take advantage of time junctions, he has a natural connection with time and can sometimes even track people throughout the time grid, a skill his nemesis, a man-like creature known as Beelzebub, takes credit for. Unfortunately for the Observations, Inc. crew, Beelzebub can also manipulate time but in a much more advanced way.

    Hellbent on finding the Prime Hole Facility, a time hub created by Earth’s historians the otherworldly Atlanteans, Beelzebub wants to recreate history, restructure mankind’s past, and plunge the planet into chaos. He and his Dark Edge Brotherhood will stop at nothing, having already killed Willoughby’s boss and mentor since Willoughby is the key to unlocking a gateway of power, unleashing unlimited control over man. Before he can harness his full potential, he and his team will have to solve millennia old clues while searching for a lost ancient princess and steering clear of the Dark Edge, but very soon, both Willoughby and Sydney will learn the real cost of his power.

    A prevailing idea within the novel is self-discovery. The characters often delve deep within themselves to find that hidden spark, that “push a little harder” mentality to solve the issues thrown at them by forces that want nothing more than to drown creativity, thus ridding the world of enlightenment and plunging it back into darkness. The characters have to stop fear’s subjugation and free themselves enough to look inside for the answers that are quietly waiting for daylight. Through that self-discovery comes growth but only when the characters stop looking to the world to define themselves (a lesson most people need). Only by genuinely finding the power within can Willoughby save humanity, but he can’t do that alone.

    The bond between the characters is not only the key to survival in this high-stakes time game but is also a strength of the novel. Since Dark Edge Rising is the third in the Cryptic Spaces series, the Observations, Inc. team is firmly established; however, this pre-established bond will not keep the reader from enjoying the character interactions. Each team member has their own unique ability or place on the team in this something-for-everyone narrative. Despite their individualism, the characters’ friendship dominates. Repeatedly, the theme of unity saves the day and keeps the plot rolling steadily along. Each member brings something new to the story, and the alternating point of view keeps the story fresh and the reader engaged.

    Cryptic Spaces, Book Three: Dark Edge Rising won First Place in the 2017 CIBAs in the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult novels.

     

  • An Editorial Review of “Foresight” by Deen Ferrell

    An Editorial Review of “Foresight” by Deen Ferrell

    Willoughby Von Brahmer hates high school, feels restless at home, and fumbles awkwardly around girls, yet is fascinated by the charismatic celebrity violinist his own age, Sydney Senoya. He seems like a pretty typical sixteen-year-old. But when the reader begins to untangle the mysterious web of Foresight, it becomes clear that Willoughby’s life is anything but typical. Foresight is Deen Ferrell’s artful and ambitious first Cryptic Spaces novel.

    Willoughby’s quasi-ordinary life begins to unravel during a routine visit to the barber. Not so ordinary, really: Willoughby is a math prodigy who at twelve solved The Riemann Hypothesis, a puzzle that had stumped mathematicians for centuries. His barber, Antonio Santanos Eldoro Chavez, has extraordinary expertise in architecture. All vestiges of routine evaporate when, during his haircut, Willoughby spies a string of glowing numbers suspended in the air in the corner of Antonio’s shop. Then, everything in the shop freezes except Willoughby himself and a skeletal-faced man appears, nods to Willoughby, and then just as quickly disappears leaving Willoughby shaken but intrigued.

    The story picks its way deliberately through Willoughby’s gradual discovery of a secret society of time travelers, Observations, Inc., apparently headed by the brilliant yet cryptic Hathaway Simon (H. S.), with the support of the enigmatic Sam, who Willoughby has known for years as his family’s chauffeur. Willoughby signs on to join a team of handpicked savants who will explore time itself, but soon learns that Observations, Inc. is not alone in the time-travel business – and their competitors are far less benign.

    The story kicks into high gear during Observations, Inc.’s initial team-building exercise on a “cruise” ship with unusual capabilities, where Willoughby and Antonio meet the talented and mercurial Sydney, as well as James Arthur, an aura-reading healer, and T. K., the cabin girl who, like Sam, is more than she seems. Before the cruise ship’s team embarks on their first mission, a gang of supernatural crooks stages a mutiny.

    Ferrell’s gifted descriptions, from Sydney’s music to the experience of time travel, bring the story to life. The cast of characters is deftly drawn and admirably diverse. Some younger readers may find the density of the plot daunting, but others will revel in the richness of the history and science brought to the subject of time travel and prognostication.

    As the Observation, Inc. team’s voyage of exploration becomes a battle for survival, Willoughby, Sydney and their friends realize they are bound together by more than curiosity. They need each other’s talents, commitment, and compassion if they are to get through time and space alive. Foresight is a rich and complex YA sci-fi story.

     Cryptic Spaces: Book One: Foresight earned  a First in Category position in the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction, a division of Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Writing Competitions.