The Goethe Hall of Fame
Celebrating the Best Late Historical Fiction with the Goethe Awards!
**Send Us Your Story by the end of August!**
One of our many Historical Fiction Categories, Named after German Writer, Scientist and Playwright Johan Wolfgang Van Goethe (1749-1832), Considered to be one of the most Influential and Greatest Writers of the German Language.
This Award Division covers anything after 1750, so there can be anything from The American Revolution, to the 1930s.
For our other Historical Fiction Divisions, See the Chaucer Award for Pre-1750, Hemingway for 20th & 21st Century Wartime and Laramie for Western and Americana
Let’s take a look at some of our Grand Prize Winners and Discover your next great read!
Abigail’s Song
By Alina Rubin
Our review for the newest Grand Prize Winner is forthcoming. In the meantime, here is what some GoodReads readers have been saying:
“Abigail’s Song is a powerful novel about Jewish/Gentile relationships set in 1800s England. The novel’s protagonist Abigail is a sixteen-year-old orphan who is taken in by a Jewish family after becoming severely ill on the streets. Abigail is skeptical of Jews at first but soon realizes that her prejudices were wrong and that she has been taken in by a family who genuinely loves and cares for her.
The novel offers great chemistry between Abigail, David, and the rest of David’s family. Rubin has a penchant for writing sharp dialogue and an excellent eye for detail when observing Jewish customs.” -Eric
“ABIGAIL’S SONG is a tender, heart-warming novel about young Abigail, an impoverished Catholic orphan in early 19th century England. Her path to happiness and fulfillment is blocked by death, neglect, prejudice, and ignorance, but in an almost true-Dickensian turn-of-events, she is found and adopted by a devoted, talented, and close-knit Jewish family.
Acceptance, love, music, and even romance, comes Abigail’s way, and through the course of the novel she blossoms from a needy child into a young woman who not only knows how to harness her emotional strength, but can help others do the same.” -Ana
If Someday Comes
By David Calloway
David Calloway’s moving historical fiction, If Someday Comes: A Slave’s Story of Freedom, tells the true story of his great-grandfather George Calloway, born into slavery on January 8, 1829. in Cleveland, Tennessee.
It is a tale of determination, perseverance, and achievement before and during the Civil War. If Someday Comes covers George’s final years in slavery; detailed accounts of the Civil War and its impacts on George and his family, both Black and White.
It is a family saga of survival and endurance.
The story begins in Cleveland, Tennessee, March 6th, 1857. We meet George and his family, his wife Elizabeth, their infant daughter Baby Caroline, and the stratified world of slavery in which they live. Thomas Howard Calloway (Marsa Thom), is their White owner who owns the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, the South’s only copper mines, and the local bank. He is one of Cleveland’s prominent town leaders.
After The Rising & Before The Fall
By Orna Ross
Award-winning Irish author Orna Ross has created a volume comprising the first two novels of The Irish Trilogy, drawing from her Irish birth and upbringing for a special grasp of the country’s history, how its wars and political strivings have affected its people directly, personally, over multiple generations.
Her two books take on a span of time rooted in the early 1920s and delve deeply into the interlocking fate of the extended family and ancestry of Jo Devereux. Jo, the book’s central narrator, leaves Ireland in her twenties, only returning in her forties in 1995 when she learns that her mother is near death.
The journey back will draw her into the family’s complex relationships, and reacquaint her with Rory, her former, and perhaps only, true love.
The Aloha Spirit
By Linda Ulleseit
In Linda Ulleseit’s novel The Aloha Spirit, we meet the plucky heroine, Dolores, as her father leaves her.
“Dolores’s father deemed her useless when she was seven. Neither he nor her older brother, Pablo, ever said that, but every detail of their leaving told her so. Papa had tried to explain the Hawaiian custom of hānai to her. All she understood was the giving away, leaving her to live with a family not her own.”
Her story starts in 1922; the place, multi-ethnic, multilingual Hawaii. Papa, a sugar cane cutter from Spain who worked in Hawaii, decides to take his son Pablo with him to seek his fortune in California. His wife died five years earlier. He leaves 7-year-old Dolores with a large family on Oahu in an arrangement called hānai, an informal adoption. Dolores doesn’t know the family well. She feels abandoned, with no idea when or if her father will send for her or return.
Peccadillo At The Palace: An Annie Oakley Mystery
By Kari Bovee
Kari Bovée’s Peccadillo at the Palace, the second book in the Annie Oakley Mystery series, is a historical, mystery thriller extraordinaire. Fans of both genres will thrill at Bovée’s complex plot that keeps us guessing from its action-packed beginning to the satisfying reveal at the end.
The book opens with the Honorable Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show to England on a voyage to perform for Queen Victoria. They are not on the high seas long, when Annie’s beloved horse, Buck, jumps overboard. Her husband and the Queen’s loyal servant, Mr. Bhakta, jump in to save the horse, or was Mr. Bhakta already dead before he reached the water? Thus, begins the mystery of who killed Mr. Bhakta, leaving all to wonder, is the Queen safe?
Someone wanted the Queen’s man dead, and he is, but was it a matter of racism, intrigue, or an accident? Annie’s search for clues points her in several directions, but is it the doctor, or the woman dressed in rags with the posh accent, or the crass American businessman and his floozy wife? All have motive. Even Annie’s husband has motive with his Irish background and ties to the Fenians and the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Thank you for celebrating our Goethe Hall of Fame Winners with us!
Remember to add your next reads to your StoryGraph or Goodreads account! Now that you’re set on your next five reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Goethe Winners is **Send Us Your Story by the end of August!**
Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!
Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians!
Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com
