Congratulations to Elizabeth on the grant she received from the City Artist Corps, a New York City group sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Elizabeth used the proceeds of the grant to publish NEW YORK: Give Me Your Best or Your Worst. The grant recognize the contributions of New York based artists. We couldn’t be happier for her!
You can see some of her Award Winning photography in her book Give Me Your Best or Your Worst: an Anthology and Celebration of the Big Apple, which is currently entered for competition in the Shorts Award (deadline 12/31/21).
Give Me Your Best or Your Worst features photos of and stories and writing from people such as Reed Farrel Coleman, Richie Narvaez, Barbara Krasnoff, Tom Straw, Steven Van Patten, Charles Salzberg, Marco Conelli, Randee Dawn, R.J. Koreto, Triss Stein, and, of course, Elizabeth Crowens. It’s a truly incredible portrait of Crowens’ vision of New York told in photos, fiction, and the perfect amount of poetry. You can find it here.
Crowens with Chanticleer
When not working on art photography books, Crowens writes Hollywood suspense and speculative Fiction, and her book, Silent Meridian, won first place in the Chanticleer Goethe Awards.
You can see her books reviewed by Chanticleer right here:
In addition to being a First Place Winner for the Goethe Awards, Crowens also took home a First Place Blue Ribbon for the 2020 Mark Twain Awards for her book Dear Bernie, I’m Glad You’re Dead.
Currently, she’s on the following Long Lists for the 2021 CIBAs:
Join our Newsletter and keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter as all authors continue to advance, and stay tuned to hear more about our Shorts Awards!
Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Spotlight Article on Elizabeth Crowens.
Have a Book that deserves to be discovered? See our 24 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Divisions here and Editorial Book Reviews here!
The 2020 Overall Grand Prize Winner was Rebecca Dwight Bruff for her book Trouble the Water
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 availablehere.
And we do editorial consultations for $75. Learn morehere.
Our 10th Anniversary Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22) will be June 23-26, 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!
We are deeply honored and excited to continue to announce the 2020 Winners of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs) with our second of three official postings.
The winners were recognized at a special CIBAs ceremony held on June 5th, 2021 in-person and by ZOOM webinars based at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether, Bellingham, Wash.
The CIBA announcements were made LIVE with Chanticleerians participating and interacting from around the globe and North America.
We cheered on the CIBA Premier Finalists with our bubbly of choice from wherever we were Zooming!
Btw, Kiffer’s favorite Champagne!
We want to thank all of the CIBA judges who read each and every entry and then comment, rate, and rank within each of the 24 CIBA Divisions. Without your labors of love for books, the Chanticleer International Book Awards would not exist. THANK YOU!
We want to thank all of the authors and publishers who participated in the 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards (the CIBAs). Each year, we find the quality of the entries and the competitiveness of the division competitions increasing exponentially. We added a new level to the judging rounds in 2020—the premier Level of FINALIST per each CIBA Division. The CIBA judges wanted to add the Finalist Level of Achievement as a way to recognize and validate the entries that had outstanding merit but were not selected for the very few First Place Award positions within each genre division.
This post will recognize the First Place and Grand Prize Winners for the Laramie, Chaucer, Goethe, Hemingway, Chatelaine, Mark Twain, and Somerset Awards.
Coveted Chanticleer Blue Ribbons!
We are honored to present the
2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards
Grand Prize Winners
The 2020 CIBA Winners!
The LARAMIE Book Awards for
American, Western, Pioneer, Civil War, and First Nation Novels
The Grand Prize Winner is
TROUBLE THE WATER, A NOVEL by Rebecca Dwight Bruff
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please email us at Chanticleer@ChantiReviews.com We will try our best to respond within 3 business days.
Thank you for joining us in celebrating the 2020 CIBA Winners! – The Chanticleer Team
The MARK TWAIN Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Humor and Satire Fiction. The Mark Twain Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
The 2020 Mark Twain Book Awards for Satire Fiction, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards is the first year that this division is offered as a book awards competition division in the CIBAs. Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring satire, humor, political ideology, parody, fantasy, and allegory or fable. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. These books have advanced to the Premier Level of Achievement in the 2020 CIBAs. (For contemporary and literary fiction see our Somerset Book Awards.)
The 2020 MARK TWAIN Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the MARK TWAIN Grand Prize Winner were announced by Sarah Stamey on Saturday, June 5, 2021 at the Hotel Bellwether and broadcast via ZOOM webinar and Facebook Live.
It is our privilege and profound honor to announce the 1st in Category winners of the 2020 MARK TWAIN Awards, a division of the 2020 CIBAs.
This is the OFFICIAL 2020 LIST of the MARK TWAIN BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the MARK TWAIN Grand Prize Winner.
Congratulations to all!
Congratulations to the 2020 1st Place Winners in the MARK TWAIN Book Awards!
Charlie Suisman – Arnold Falls
Lenore Rowntree –Cluck
Wayne Edmiston –UNfatally Dead: to thaw or not to thaw?
Haris Orkin –You Only Live Once
Elizabeth Crowens –Dear Bernie, I’m Glad You’re Dead
Alex J. Tremari –Dragoncast
Matt Tompkins –Odsburg
J.P. Kenna –Toward A Terrible Freedom
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2020 Mark Twain Awards is: Charlie Suisman for Arnold Falls
This is the first awarding for a Grand Prize in the MARK TWAIN Division
The 2021 MARK TWAIN Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC22 on April 10, 2022. Save the date for CAC22, scheduled April 7-10, 2022, our 10 year Conference Anniversary!
Submissions for the 2021 MARK TWAIN Book Awards are open until the end of November. Enter here!
A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in July. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. We thank you for your patience and understanding.
October helps us understand why campfires are a good idea, why it’s never safe to go down into the cellar alone on certain nights of the year, and, among other things, why it’s prudent to know the history of a house before you buy it.
In October, strange things happen when these bits of wisdom are ignored.
I’ve said it before, and I am going to reaffirm it now, October is my favorite time of year. I love the goblins, ghosts, monsters of the dark as much as the next person (okay, maybe more) and so it’s no surprise that I love October because October means Halloween! I can even put it into a mathematical formula:
And this year’s a little different. In a very real sense, we all are living in a global nightmare because of a horrible virus that supposedly came from (wait for it!) BATS.
We know what it’s like to be afraid, to be brave, to yearn for companionship, and not be able to hug our loved ones. We know what it’s like to run out of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. And we wonder when things will get better.
Still, I am a BIG fan of horror. Why? Because fiction helps us here. Especially horror. Between the pages of the scariest novel, we see our own humanity, our own hopes, and our own fears. Our defeats – and also our victories. It is cathartic to dip into an imaginary world where things are falling apart and monsters are real. It gives us a sense of control. A sense that even though things are bad, they will get better (and then worse…). Yes, we’re in a major pandemic here. People are sick and things are confusing, but the vampires haven’t risen from the grave yet, and Frankenstein’s Monster is not coming to dinner. Ghost stories are simply that. Stories.
Ghostbusters
So gather around (while you’re social distancing) the campfire and tell us your favorite spooky stories. Because, I don’t know about you, but I could sure use some fictional horror in my life… Are you ready?
Welcome to the PARANORMAL Book Awards!
Send us your stories of dark places, alien abductions, magic and magical beings, the supernatural, vampires & werewolves, angels & demons, fairies & mythological beings, weird otherworldly tales… and gothic horror stories. We will put them to the test and discover the best among them for the 2018 Paranormal Book Awards, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
But don’t wait too long. The deadline for the Paranormal Awards is October 31, 2020. Enter here, and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Travel with me through the Paranormal Awards Hall of Fame…
The 2019 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grand Prize for Supernatural Fiction is:
The 2018 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grand Prize for Supernatural Fiction is:
Joy Ross Davis, Paranormal Grand Prize Book Award Winner
The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove “One man searches for the truth in the quiet hamlet of his childhood, only to uncover the terrifying reality. Thrilling and spinetingling! Joy Ross Davis knows how to keep you up at night! Highly recommended.”
Joy Ross Davis is more than an eloquent storyteller. A college professor, mother, daughter of Irish descent whose family settled in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, Joy loves all things Irish, including the Green Isle itself.
2018 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels:
The 2017 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grand Prize for Supernatural Fiction is:
Van Ops – The Lost Poweris a story in which “Alexander the Great’s obscure Egyptian weapon has been lost for eons. Can Maddy Marshall and covert agent Bear Thorenson find the ancient weapon in time to stop fragile post-Cold War peace from being forever shattered?”
Avanti Centrae is the author of the international award-winning VanOps thriller series. Her work has been compared to that of James Rollins, Steve Berry, Dan Brown, and Preston/Child’s Pendergast series.
2017 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels:
Almost Mortal “Blending the high-octane thrust of a contemporary legal thriller with the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Almost Mortal” cleaves a new, inventive niche in the legal thriller genre. This fast-paced legal thriller will leave the reader hungering for more. A terrific read!”
Christopher Leibig is a novelist and a criminal defense attorney. He thinks about Fiction like this…”Fiction, while by its definition invented, need not tell that lie. In fiction, the devil is everywhere. And everyone has their story.”
2016 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels :
The Aurora Affair(retitled asMobius) “… is a story about a skeptical heroine who discovers that her love affairs are the key to harnessing her own power to influence the world—for better if she does it right, or for worse if she fails.”
Carolyn Haley “… is a freelance writer and editor who lives in rural Vermont. I write a mix of commercial copy, articles for regional and national publications.” She writes award-winning novels in her spare time.
2015 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels :
An Ex to Grind in Deadwoodis a wickedly funny paranormal mystery romance series that takes place in its namesake city in South Dakota.
Ann Charles, USA Bestselling Author
Ann Charles“…lives in the beautiful Northern Arizona mountains with her clever husband, charming kids, and an incredibly sassy cat. After many years and several colleges, she managed to obtain her Bachelor’s Degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing from the University of Washington.”
2014 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels:
The Watcher is a story where “…ancient history is only the beginning.”
Lisa Voisin “… spent her childhood daydreaming and making up stories, but it was my love of reading and writing in her teens that drew her to Young Adult fiction.”
2013 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels:
Sacred Firesis a well written and crafted romantic paranormal novel with elements of intrigue and suspense along with a story set in a lush locale with mystic Aztec undercurrents. Greenfeder has succeeded in writing a fast-paced romantic suspense novel that is refreshingly different.
Catherine Greenfeder “… continues to pursue her dream of getting her work published. To date, she has had five novels including a western historical, two adult paranormal novels, and two young adult paranormal novels published. She anticipates a few short stories and another young adult novel published in the near future.”
Our 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBAs) feature more than $30,000.00 worth of cash and prizes each year!
The 2020 PARANORMAL Grand Prize Winner is namedChanticleer ReviewsBest Supernatural Fiction Book of the Year and goes on to compete for the Chanticleer Overall Grand Prize Best Book of the Year
The Overall Grand Prize Winner is namedChanticleer Reviews Best Book of the Year and awarded the$1000 prize
All winners receive a Chanticleer Prize Packagewhich includes a digital badge, a ribbon, and a whole assortment of goodies detailed below (winners outside the US pay a shipping & handling fee)
That’s more than $30,000.00 worth of cash and prizes! The Fine Print.
~$1000 for one lucky Overall Grand Prize Winner
~$30,000+ in reviews, prizes, and promotional opportunities awarded to Category Winners
Currently accepting entries. Deadline: Oct. 31st, 2020.
What are you waiting for? Enter today!Who will win the PARANORMAL Book Awards Blue Ribbons for 2020?
Submit your works today!
The last day for submissions into the 2020 Paranormal Book Awards is October 31, 2020.
Chanticleer Book Reviews is seeking today’s best books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, we will put them to the test and choose the best among them.
Find out more about the stunning beauty that Dante Rossetti painted, Jane Morris, at the end of this blog post.
Do you have a romance novel or manuscript ready for readers?
Do you want to see how it stands up to others in its category?
Then don’t delay! The CHATELAINE Book Awards division is accepting submissions from both recently published and complete manuscripts in romance and romantic fiction. But this year we’ve moved our deadline – to keep you on your toes!
The new deadline for the Chatelaine Awards is AUGUST31, 2020!
That’s right, the last day for submissions into the 2020 Chatelaine Book Awards is August 31, 2020. So, if you love Piña Coladas – and getting caught in the rain… I mean, if you like writing about those things, and other things having to do with matters of the heart, including these:
Insiders’ Tip: Other genre divisions of the Chanticleer International Book Awards have romance categories as well. Multiple submissions of the same work to a variety of CIBA writing competitions divisions are accepted. Check out our divisions here.
Please join us in congratulating and reading these top works in this diverse range of all reads Chatelaine: Romance, Chick-Lit, Women’s Fiction, Inspirational, Suspenseful, and, of course, Steamy and Sensual in the
CHATELAINE HALL of FAME!
Jane Austen Inspired:Pulse and Prejudice by Colette Saucier
Paranormal:Crimson Flamesby Ashley Robertson
Christian Inspirational Romance: Chasing Charlieby C. M. Newman
Restorative: A Path through the Gardenby Nancy LaPonzina
Classic Bodice Ripper:To Dare the Duke of Dangerfieldby Bronwen Evans
Who will win the CHATELAINE Book Awards Blue Ribbons for 2020?
The judging rounds will commence in August! Submit your works today!
The last day for submissions into the 2020 Chatelaine Book Awards is August 31, 2020. Winners will be announced at our CAC21 conference – scheduled for April
And remember our Insiders’ Tip: Other genre divisions of the Chanticleer International Book Awards have romance categories as well. Multiple submissions of the same work to a variety of CIBA writing competitions divisions are accepted. Check it out here!
A little information about the Chatelaine Book Awards icon:
We feel that Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Pre-Raphaelite painting of Jane Morris (muse and wife of William Morris) in aBlue Silk Dress captures the many moods of the Chatelaine division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Jane Morris (nee Jane Burden—little is known about her childhood but that it was poor and deprived) was known for her keen intelligence. William Morris fell in love with her when she sat for him as a model. She was privately tutored to become a gentleman’s wife upon their engagement. It is said that she was the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw’s character Eliza Dolittle of My Fair Lady fame. The Blue Silk Dress was painted in 1868 by Rossetti and it currently resides in the Society for Antiquaries of London. She was 29 when Rossetti painted it. Rossetti and Jane Morris became closely attached until his death in 1882. To read more about the fascinating Jane Morris, click on this Wikipedia page.
Welcome to the SPOTLIGHT on post-1750 Historical Fiction novels… in other words,
Welcome to the GOETHE Book Awards!
Why do we like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe so very much? It’s simple! He’s the guy who wrapped up everything we believe in with this simple sentence:
“Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” – Goethe
Of course, this was also said about Goethe (Super Goethe by Ferdinand Mount) that “…[his] company could be exhausting. One minute he would be reciting Scottish ballads, quoting long snatches from Voltaire, or declaiming a love poem he had just made up; the next, he would be smashing the crockery or climbing the Brocken mountain through the fog.”
So…, moving on… Goethe was also a very cool guy. In his lifetime, he saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 through Mary Shelley’s publishing of Frankenstein in 1818 – and everything in between! Check out the list of what happened during those nearly seventy decades at the end of this post – you will be A-Mazed!
Now, Welcome to the GOETHE Hall of Fame!
We wish to congratulate 2018’s Goethe Book Awards Grand Prize Winner –
Billy Battles is as dear and fascinating a literary friend as I have ever encountered. I learned much about American and international history, and you will too if you read any or all of the books. Each is an independent work, but if read in relation to the others, the reader experiences that all too rare sense of complete transport to another world, one fully realized in these pages because the storytelling is so skillful and thoroughly captivating. Trust me; you’ll want to read all three volumes. Chanticleer Reviewer’s Note
Mr. Ronald Yates not only won Grand Prize in the CIBAs 2018 GOETHE Awards – he won OVERALL GRAND PRIZE!
To learn more about Ronald E. Yates, please click here.
Congratulations to the 2018 Goethe Book Awards First Place Category Winners!
Submit your manuscript or recently released Historical Fiction (post-1750s) to the Chanticleer International Book Awards!
Want to be a winner next year? The deadline to submit your book for the Goethe Awards is June 30, 2020.Enter here!
Grand Prize and First Place Winners for 2019 will be announced during our 2020 conference, #CAC20.
The Grand Prize and First Place for 2020 CIBA winners will be held on April 17, 2021.
Any entries received on or after June 30, 2020, will be entered into the 2021 Goethe Book Awards that will be announced in April 2022.
As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your historical fiction deserves! Enter today!
The GOETHE Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
The 2020 winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony during #CAC20. 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!
Goethe
Some events that occurred during Goethe’s lifetime:
1750 – The Industrial Revolution began in England
1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg Austria
1761 – The problem of calculating longitude while at sea was solved by John Harrison
1765 – James Watts perfects the steam engine
1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany
1774 – Goethe’s romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, propels him into European fame
1774 – Goethe’s play Gotz von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang premiers in Berlin
1776 – America’s 13 Colonies declare independence from England. Battles ensue.
1776 – Adam Smith publishes the Wealth of Nations (the foundation of the modern theory of economics)
1776 – The Boulton and Watt steam engines were put to use ushering in the Industrial Revolution
1783 – The Hot Air Balloon was invented by the Montgolfier brothers in France.
1786 – Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart premiered in Vienna
1789 – George Washington is elected the first president of the United States of America
1780 – Antoine Lavoisier discovers the Law of Conservation of Mass
1789 – The French Revolution started in Bastille
1791 – Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man 1792 – Napoleon begins his march to conquer Europe
1799 – Rosetta Stone discovered in Egypt
1802 – Beethoven created and performed The Moonlight Sonata 1802 – A child’s workday is limited to twelve hours per day by the British parliament when they pass their first Factory Act
1804 – Napoleon has himself proclaimed Emperor of France
1808 – Atomic Theory paper published by John Dalton
1811 – Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro publishes a hypothesis, about the number of molecules in gases, that becomes known as Avogadro’s Law
1811 – Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously. It was critically well-received
1814 – Steam-driven printing press was invented which allowed newspapers to become more common
1818 – Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein 1832 – Goethe’s Faust, Parts 1 & 2 are published posthumously (March 22, 1832)
In 1830, Eugene Delacroix created Liberty Leading the People to epitomize the French Revolution. The movement officially began with the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, a day that is still celebrated in France. The French people were rebelling against the extreme wealth of the French royal family who overtaxed and underpaid the people of France to the point where they could not even feed themselves and had nothing to lose by going to battle. They were starving to death. The uprising of 1830 was featured in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862)
Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s (1980s) musical can look at Delacroix’sLiberty Leading the Peopleand hear the lyrics of the song that serves as a call to revolution:
Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people. Who will not be slaves again.
Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix, 1830. On display at the Lourve, Paris.
October is for OZMA, but of course, it also stands for Ooooooo-Oooooo!
Ghosts and goblins and haunted places. Oh, my!
Welcome to the PARANORMAL Book Awards!
We’re ready. Are you?
Every year during the month of October, we carve faces into our pumpkins, turning them into Jack O’Lanterns and set them burning on our porches to light the way for trick or treaters. We decorate our homes in spider webs and skeletons and all sorts of creepy crawlies. Now is the time of year we binge on all things haunted, possessed, inexplicable, unseen.
Why?
Because we are thrilled by the experience of riding high on candied apples and candy corn and relish being frightened – just a little – especially when we know the thing we’re frightened of is just a story, some tale we tell over and over at this time of year. Because this is the season when it’s perfectly acceptable to scream.
Last year, Joy Ross Davis won the Grand Prize for her manuscript, The Mad Woman of Preacher’s Cove! The story was just that good. We are waiting for the release!
Joy Ross Davis!
Send us your stories of dark places, alien abductions, magic and magical beings, the supernatural, vampires & werewolves, angels & demons, fairies & mythological beings, weird otherworldly tales… and gothic horror stories. We will put them to the test and discover the best among them for the 2019 Paranormal Book Awards, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.
The deadline for the Paranormal Awards is October 31, 2019.
Travel with us through the Paranormal Book Awards Hall of Fame…
The 2018 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grad Prize for Supernatural Fiction is awarded to:
Joy Ross Davis for her manuscript, The Madwoman of Preacher’s Cove.
“Joy Ross Davis is more than an eloquent storyteller! A college professor, mother, daughter of Irish descent whose family settled in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, Joy loves all things Irish, including the Green Isle itself. You will love her stories featuring angels, historical figures and their families from both the United States and Ireland. Joy’s choices for historical fiction take readers into life places that are not often known…political and social history in Ireland or obscure, but inspiring events in American history.”
She was awarded the Paranormal Grand Prize award at the CIBA ceremony by nonother than J.D. Barker himself—the master of suspense.
Joy Ross Davis, Paranormal Grand Prize Book Award Winner
The First in Category Winners are:
Path of the Half Moonby Vince Bailey
Anthesteria byK.A. Banks
Suburban Vampire Ragnarokby Franklin Posner
Storm Island: A Kate Pomeroy Mystery by Linda Watkins
Peaches and Laceby Joy Ross Davis
The Balance and the Bladeby Olivia Bernard
The Sea Archer –Jeny Heckman
The 2017 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grand Prize for Supernatural Fiction is awarded to:
Van Ops – The Lost Poweris a story in which “Alexander the Great’s obscure Egyptian weapon has been lost for eons. Can Maddy Marshall and covert agent Bear Thorenson find the ancient weapon in time to stop fragile post-Cold War peace from being forever shattered?”
Avanti Centrae is the author of the international award-winning VanOps thriller series. Her work has been compared to that of James Rollins, Steve Berry, Dan Brown, and Preston/Child’s Pendergast series.
2017 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels are:
A Pocketful of Lodestones, Time Traveler Professor Book 2 by Elizabeth Crowens
Dark Waterby Chynna Laird
The 2016 PARANORMAL Book Awards Grand Prize:
Almost Mortal “Blending the high-octane thrust of a contemporary legal thriller with the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Almost Mortal” cleaves a new, inventive niche in the legal thriller genre. This fast-paced legal thriller will leave the reader hungering for more. A terrific read!”
Christopher Leibig is a novelist and a criminal defense attorney. He thinks about Fiction like this…”Fiction, while by its definition invented, need not tell that lie. In fiction, the devil is everywhere. And everyone has their story.”
2016 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels are:
The Aurora Affair(retitled asMobius) “… is a story about a skeptical heroine who discovers that her love affairs
are the key to harnessing her own power to influence the world—for better if she does it right, or for worse if she fails.”
Carolyn Haley “… is a freelance writer and editor who lives in rural Vermont. I write a mix of commercial copy, articles for regional and national publications, and edits diverse projects in fiction and nonfiction.” She writes award-winning novels in her spare time.
2015 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels are:
An Ex to Grind in Deadwoodis a wickedly funny paranormal mystery romance series that takes place in its namesake city in South Dakota.
Ann Charles, USA Bestselling Author
Ann Charles“…lives in the beautiful Northern Arizona mountains with her clever husband, charming kids, and an incredibly sassy cat. After many years and several colleges, she managed to obtain her Bachelor’s Degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing from the University of Washington.”
2014 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels are:
The Watcher is a story where “…ancient history is only the beginning.”
Lisa Voisin “… spent her childhood daydreaming and making up stories, but it was my love of reading and writing in her teens that drew her to Young Adult fiction.”
2013 Paranormal Book Awards First Place Winners for Supernatural Fiction Novels are:
Sacred Firesis a well written and crafted romantic paranormal novel with elements of intrigue and suspense along with a story set in a lush locale with mystic Aztec undercurrents. Greenfeder has succeeded in writing a fast-paced romantic suspense novel that is refreshingly different.
Catherine Greenfeder “… continues to pursue her dream of getting her work published. To date, she has had five novels including a western historical, two adult paranormal novels, and two young adult paranormal novels published. She anticipates a few short stories and another young adult novel published in the near future.”
Who will win the PARANORMAL Book Awards Blue Ribbons for 2019?
Submit your works today!
The last day for submissions into the 2019 Paranormal Book Awards is August 31, 2019.
A musician-turned-time-traveler is in for more than he bargains for during his World War I experiences in book two of Elizabeth Crowens’s The Time Traveler Professor, Book Two: A Pocketful of Lodestones.
John Patrick Scott volunteers for the Royal Scot Army. His life drastically shifts from one of comfort in Germany to misery in no-man’s-land trenches in Belgium and France. Fortunately, he has in his possession his grandfather’s heirloom timepiece (his time-travel device), his journal, and the mysterious red book, which is the essential item that connected him to Arthur Conan Doyle in the first place. Now separated from the famed author, John uses his middle-of-the-night sentry duty to delve into the metaphysical and psychic world, while Arthur does his time-traveling in hopes of finding the red book.
Because of John’s prophetic abilities, he is known by his fellow soldiers as a fortune teller and Le Conteur (storyteller); the latter due to the red book’s magic of creating impending tales (often horrific) veiled in allegory. Strange things occur when John begins seeing soldier ghosts, and the name Aliskiya Lleullne, his future self, pops up in various situations, especially among an enigmatic man who goes by the moniker of Benedyct Boniface. A battlefield accident produces more supernatural weirdness for John. After recuperating, he takes on a military-intelligence position in London, where he and Arthur reunite. The two reignite their time-traveling passion, intending to go back to feudal Japan. Instead, they are in for a big surprise when they end up in London’s Elizabethan era.
Award-winning author, Elizabeth Crowens, opens A Pocketful of Lodestones with an author’s note, explicitly encouraging steampunk readers to read Silent Meridian, book one of the Time Traveler Professor Trilogy, before probing into book two. While Crowens sprinkles aspects of Silent Meridian’s plot, the references are too light and do not offer an in-depth understanding. Thus, her cautionary note warrants merit.
That said, there is a lot more going on in this novel compared to the first book. Having first-hand experience with the horrors of war, John’s arrogance all but disappears. He spends more time meditating on humanity—focusing on the plight of his military comrades—and less on himself, except unresolved issues from his past and future time travels. John also discovers that his penchant for predicting the future and storytelling acts as a healing balm for his struggling troop.
A Pocketful of Lodestones is a meal of a read, which will surely satisfy Sherlock Holmes and history aficionados.
Author, Elizabeth Crowens won 1st Place for her novel in the CIBA 2017 Paranormal Awards.
A budding concert pianist delves into the realms of spiritism, sexuality, and scary foreshadowing through his time travel adventures in Elizabeth Crowens’ steampunk novel, Silent Meridian.
John Patrick Scott, a conservatory student, meets with Arthur Conan Doyle in Edinburgh, Scotland under unusual circumstances because of an elusive and mysterious red book. Arthur, lacking inspiration and tired of his Holmes character, covertly employs John as a ghostwriter. The two also indulge in the transmigration of souls and time travel. The latter topic is of high interest to the young aspiring musician since he has already accrued a handful of time-travel experiences via a mechanism of his creation. Although Arthur introduces John to nightly practices of communicating telepathically, John doesn’t include the beloved author in his time-traveling adventures until years later.
John’s time-traveling skills sharpen to the point that he no longer needs his device and uses his grandfather’s timepiece instead. He becomes particularly fixed on exploring his past, especially his school days at the Underground University; he includes Wendell Mackenzie, his old schoolmate, on his adventures—some of which John escapes just in the nick of time. Over time, John finds it difficult to distinguish between time travel and dreams and seeks the help of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. His adventures take a dark turn when they predict an impending war.
Sherlock Holmes’ enthusiast, Elizabeth Crowens, spins a wild tale riddled with glimpses of stories and themes from the early 20th century. Crowens’ quirky narrative, which covers sixteen years, could easily befit behind-the-scenes to John’s ghostwriting connections to Doyle’s published works: The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, and The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, to name a few.
Scenes regularly flip from John’s music studies and his time-travel quests, and are heavily punctuated with references to prominent historical figures and their thematic connections of the era, such as H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, Jules Verne (fantasy and sci-fi); Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung (psychology); and Aleister Crowley, Theodore Reuss (metaphysical). While sexual identity plays a close second to the last parenthesized theme scenes, providing only innuendos. John continuously processes his particular leanings, weighing his feelings as a woman in some of his time-travel ventures and amid affairs against Doyle’s and Wells’ free-love beliefs.
Crowens balances nonfiction with fiction by incorporating memorable characters, such as Whit, John’s annoying tutor, and Finn (who John dubs Sherlock), John’s “Jiminy Cricket” guide who is only visible to John and comes and goes as he pleases. Sure to be a new favorite for Sherlock Holmes’ aficionados, Silent Meridian’s cliff-hanging closure is a perfect segue to the second book in Crowens’ The Time Traveler Professor series, A Pocketful of Lodestones.
invented, need not tell that lie. In fiction, the devil is everywhere. And everyone has their story
The Watcher is a story where “…ancient history is only the beginning.”
Catherine Greenfeder
Chanticleer Book Reviews is seeking today’s best books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, we will put them to the test and choose the best among them.
