Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: steve-lundin

  • SOMERSET Book Awards Hall of Fame – CIBAs, Literary Book Awards

    SOMERSET Book Awards Hall of Fame – CIBAs, Literary Book Awards

    The 2019 Grand Prize Winner of Somerset Awards is

    Donna LeClair for The PROPRIETOR of the THEATRE of LIFE

    A MANUSCRIPT

    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. ~ Carrie M., Chanticleer Editorial Team

     

    The 2019 Somerset First in Category Winners are: 

    • Carl Roberts for The Trial of Connor Padget
    • Judith Kirscht for End of the Race
    • Patrick Finegan for Cooperative Lives
    • Santiago Xaman  for After Olympus
    • Claire Fullerton for Little Tea
    • Maggie St. Claire for Martha
    • Jamie Zerndt for  Jerkwater
    • R. Barber Anderson for  The Sunken Forest, Where the Forest Came out of the Earth

     

     

    Here is a listing of the Somerset Book Awards Hall of Fame Grand Prize winners!

    Hard Cider by a novel by Barbara A. Stark-Nemon

    Stay at home mom turns entrepreneur, but without her husband’s support, and continunually needing to manage her three adult sons, Abbie Rose Stone’s dream of producing her own craft hard apple cider faces a world of adversity in Barbara A. Stark-Nemon’s Hard Cider.

     

     

     

    The Rabbi’s Gift by Chuck Gould

    Babylonian astrology and Jewish mysticism combine with Roman history to create a timeless story of passion and fate in Chuck Gould’s The Rabbi’s Gift.  Babylonian astrology and Jewish mysticism combine with Roman history to create a timeless story of passion and fate in Chuck Gould’s The Rabbi’s Gift.

     

     

     

    The UglyThe Ugly by Alexander Boldizar 

    Words thrown as hard as boulders are easy to catch – if you’ve had practice. Just ask our hero, Muzhduk the Ugli the Fourth…In the great tradition of existentialism, Boldizar brings us a book that is hard to classify. It has aspects of the existential with a fair amount of satirical wordplay and a bit of theater of the absurd thrown in.

     

     

     

    Alexandrite by RIck LenzThe Alexandrite by Rick Lenz

    Marilyn Monroe, time travel, second chances – all steeped in mid-Century Hollywood history, culture, and magic.

     

     

     

     

    The Manipulator by Steve LundinThe Manipulator by Steve Lundin

    With a fast-paced storyline and a rich cast of characters, this award-winning winning novel offers a uniquely hilarious, but scary, perspective on the how the businesses of public relations and marketing can take technology to its precipice to take advantage of a media addicted public.

     

     

     

    Individually Wrapped by Jeremy Bullian

    Individually Wrapped tells us the bizarre tale of Sam Gregory’s descent over the condensed course of a couple of days. Set in a 21st-century futuristic city, technology has permeated every aspect of the city dwellers’ lives… Self-delusion is an interesting state of mind because everyone can see it except yourself, as it propels you ever deeper into oblivion, where not even technology can save you.

     

     

    We would be amiss by not featuring and recognizing Judith Kirscht, our very own Pacific Northwest Somerset inspired author. Judith specializes in family sagas and societal issues.

    Judith Kirscht – Somerset Hall of Fame Author

    Judith was born and educated in  Chicago during the Great Depression and then WWII. She taught school during the upheavals of the Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement. Later in life, she found herself in California, divorced and with two daughters. Judith taught creative writing at universities of very different cultures: University of Michigan and U of California, Santa Monica. Her novels continuously are awarded CIBA First Place Category ribbons for the Somerset Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

    The Camera’s Eye  by  Judith Kirscht

    In a world where too many rocks are thrown at those who represent anything other than the norm in middle-class white America, two friends decide to take matters into their own hands and stand up to the hatred with which they are targeted in order to save their home and ultimately their lives.

     

     

     

    Hawkins Lane CBR Review

     

     

    Hawkins Lane by Judith Kirscht

    Hawkins Lane is excellent and, ultimately, a redemptive story about the heart-wrenching tragedies a family can survive, and about the healing powers of nature and friendship. The characters and the story will linger long after the last page is read and you will be captivated from the first page.

     

     

    The Inheritors by Judith Kirscht

    “The Inheritors” by Judith Kirscht is a novel of one woman grappling to find her cultural and personal identity. Tolerance of others and the need for communication is required from each of us is an overriding theme in this latest work of Kirscht that explores the complexities of human nature and family bonds.

     

     

     

     

    Home Fires by Judith Kirscht

    “Home Fires” is an intelligently written, fast-paced family drama that unfolds into a suspenseful page-turner. Although this novel masterfully renders the emotional hardships and tragedies that are sometimes part of dysfunctional relationships, it is not a depressing read.

     

     

     

     

    Nowhere Else to Go by Judith Kirscht

    “Nowhere Else to Go” is a tightly woven and insistently engaging novel about racial prejudice and the blackboard jungle of the 1960s.

     

     

     

     

    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, 2020. 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! 

  • THE MANIPULATER by Steve Lundin, a near-future darkly humourous satire

    THE MANIPULATER by Steve Lundin, a near-future darkly humourous satire

    In the very near future, as portrayed in Steve Lundin’s darkly comic satire, The Manipulator, the marketing industry has taken over the world by turning it into a data-driven surveillance ruled technocracy. Jack Vance, Lundin’s protagonist, is the product of this high-tech environment that is socially and morally bankrupt. A smart and worldly guy, Jack prides himself in the kind of quick thinking that can keep him a nanosecond or two ahead of his enemies and competitors.

    Jack was on the fast track to becoming the brightest star in New York City’s media universe until a critical lapse in judgement crashes his career and his reputation. However, Jack’s back. This time in Chicago, with his own company and a plan.

    As a self-diagnosed sociopath, Jack will be the first to tell you that he’s more than qualified to tangle with the best of this brave new world’s hidden persuader elite. He lives to sell, to conjure up that next bigger and better promotion from which he can get a fix for his addiction to the thrill of closing a deal. And Jack has just taken on the ultimate deal. His new venture, Blowfish, is a winner-takes-all marketing firm run on the premise that the higher the risk the higher the return.

    Lundin, the author, draws from his background as a journalist and marketing expert to weave an ultra-contemporary and entertaining story of greed, excess, and the insatiable nature of the human condition. From Jack’s self-designed corporate “War Room” – a “Glen Garry Glen Ross” style employee think-tank where jobs are constantly on the line – to his drug and alcohol-induced decision-making processes, Jack is every inch the anti-hero that readers love to hate, but don’t. Think “Mad Men’s” Don Draper on Ritalin-enhanced premium vodka with an arsenal of the latest black-market techno gizmos, access to the freshly minted data, and, of course, while being smartly attired at all times.

    With his Blowfish team grinding numbers and probabilities in the background, Jack devises a scheme to launch their client’s mobile network onto the world stage by using the audience draw of the Super Bowl. In Jack’s mind, pitting the surefire new hit “Some Will Die,” a hyper-reality show– Jack’s brainchild – in which morbidly obese contestants sign on to lose half their body weight in a short period of time, or die trying–against the much “tamer” SuperBowl can’t miss. Or can it? It is a risky gambit that will either put Jack and his staff on the streets, or set them up for life,

    Yes, winners receive riches and fame, but it’s the losers, along with the show’s Russian task-master host, Vlad Berber, who provide the entertainment fodder for the show’s twisted audience.

    With a fast-paced story line and a rich cast of characters, this award-winning winning novel offers a uniquely hilarious, but scary, perspective on the how the businesses of public relations and marketing can take technology to its precipice to take advantage of a media addicted public. Lundin’s clever blending of fact and fiction alternately tempts and taunts the reader with Vlad’s prophetic question, “Are you comfortable with the edge?” Highly recommended.