The Gertrude Warner Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Middle Grade Fiction. The Gertrude Warner Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring Contemporary Middle Grade, SFF & Paranormal Middle Grade, Mystery Middle Grade, Historical Middle Grade, Adventure Middle Grade, and Graphic Novels. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them. For Young Adult Fiction see our Dante Rossetti Awards here and for Children’s Literature see our Little Peeps Awards here.
1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Murray Richter on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.
This is the OFFICIAL 2022 LIST of the GERTRUDE WARNER BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the GERTRUDE WARNER Grand Prize Winner.
Congratulations to all!
Alex Paul – The King’s Armada, (Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals) Book 6 of 6
J.K. Pinsel – KAZI
Didem Saracel – Story of Universe
Ted Neill & Suzi Spooner – Mystery Force Volume 1: Books 1-3 of the Mystery Force Series
Ben Gartner – People of the Sun
U. W. Leo – ARKO: The Dark Union
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 GERTRUDE WARNER Awards is:
MYSTERY FORCE, Volume 1
by Ted Neill and Suzi Spooner
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!
Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!
This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.
Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Facebook and Twitter handle is @ChantiReviews
Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.
A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting inJune. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items.
To ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.
Grand Prize Division Winners will receive a customized digital badge. When we receive it from our graphic artist, we will also post here and in the Grand Prize Division Winners Official Posting.
Thank you for participating in the 2022 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.
The Clue Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Suspense and Thriller Mysteries. The Clue Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
Chanticleer International Book Awards is seeking the best books featuring suspense, thrilling adventure, detective work, private eye, police procedural, and crime-solving, we will put them to the test to discover the best! (For lighter-hearted Mystery and Classic Cozy Mysteries please check out our Mystery & Mayhem Awards, and for High Stakes Suspense Novels please check out our Global Thriller Awards).
1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Ted Neill on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.
This is the OFFICIAL 2022 LIST of the CLUE BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the CLUE Grand Prize Winner.
Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.
Marie Sutro – Dark Obsessions
Michelle Cox – A Spying Eye
Jodé Millman – Hooker Avenue
Alexandrea Weis – Have You Seen Me?
Kevin G. Chapman – Dead Winner
Arthur Herbert – The Bones of Amoret
Brenda Stanley – The Still Small Voice
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CLUE Awards is:
Have You Seen Me?
By Alexandrea Weis
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!
Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!
This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.
Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Facebook and Twitter handle is @ChantiReviews
Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.
A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting inJune. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items.
To ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.
Grand Prize Division Winners will receive a customized digital badge. When we receive it from our graphic artist, we will also post here and in the Grand Prize Division Winners Official Posting.
Thank you for participating in the 2022 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.
Hello Chanticleerians and we hope you are enjoying your Three Day Weekend for Labor Day!
For many of us who write, it’s a full time job on top of the day job we already have. And, as writing is a full time business, we deserve a little recognition for all the work we put in on top of any other labor we already do. Let’s look at the history of Labor Day and some stories that remind us how far we’ve come, and others that show us possibly how far we may be able to go!
First off, while Grover Cleveland officially signed Labor Day into law in 1894, people aren’t sure if it was Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire, the cofounder of the American Federation of Labor and a secretary of the Central Labor Union respectively, who actually began the holiday. While there are more Maguires there than in the new Spiderman movie, there is no confusion on why Labor Day started. You can learn more from the Department of Labor here.
While Tobey Maguire was a great Spiderman, that’s not who were talking about here.
Labor Day is a celebration of the achievements, both social and economic, of workers in the United States. The holiday recognizes the contributions these workers make to the nation’s prosperity and well-being. Now, more than ever, it’s clear that our essential workers deserve recognition, celebration, and a thriving wage.
In describing the need for Labor Day, History.com says:
People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks.
Remembering Labor Day is a great way to remind ourselves that conditions can always be better for workers across the board.
The Ferengi Rom facing down his brother Quark and forming a union in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s episode “Bar Association”
When we think of the history of labor in this country, ways people can make a difference right now, and where we might be going, there’s a whole world of books that opens up to us! Here are just a few that we recommend!
Working Fiction
Infants of the Brush By A.M. Watson
A little boy is sold into an apprenticeship as a chimney sweep in eighteenth-century London, and soon learns the horrors of that profession.
Six-year-old Egan lost his father from an accident at sea, and now, may lose his little sister from illness. The only way his penniless mother can save her daughter is to sell Egan into an apprenticeship in order to purchase medicine. As a small boy, he will make an ideal “broomer;” a businessman named Armory gladly takes Egan into the fold. Under Armory’s absolute dictatorship he will sleep with other wretched boys on soot sacks, eat gruel, get bloody beatings for the slightest infraction, and risk his life almost daily.
The Selah Branch By Ted Neill
First Place Winner in Cygnus Awards
The Selah Branchcombines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.
It begins with a ripped from the headlines feel, diving deeply into issues of race, class, poverty, and hopelessness in Selah Branch, WV. A town whose brighter future of uplift, integration, opportunity, and prosperity was wiped out one summer night in 1953 when a chemical explosion destroyed the promising university town and replaced it with a hazardous waste site. Like Chernobyl, only with a smaller footprint and chemical residue substituting for nuclear waste. But just as deadly.
The story views Selah Branch through the eyes of Kenia Dezy, an African-American public health student on a summer practicum. She’s to determine if a simple app can steer people towards healthier food choices and better health outcomes in a town empty of jobs, filled with poverty and hopelessness, marooned in the middle of a food desert.
Beyond Balancing the Books By George Marino, CPA, CFP
George Marino, a practicing CPA and Mindfulness Coach, explores the possibilities for sustainable positivity in one’s work-life through mindfulness principles and practices in his new book,Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life.
It would be difficult to find a profession more fraught with detail, deadlines, and distress than a typical CPA. Applying to that particular realm the idea of mindful meditation is a challenge that author Marino has taken on because it is a process he has lived. He opens his book by comparing two CPAs and their approaches to life and work-life.
Thomas Wideman, the author of this dynamic self-help manual,Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing, rose from poverty and dismay to a life of security and personal achievement through techniques he shares with readers who can incorporate them into their own life plans.
Wideman came from an impoverished African American family wracked by confusion, chaos, and, at times, criminality. His mother had three sons by three fathers, and he would come to know his own father only peripherally, eventually learning that the man murdered people and subsequently died in prison. The boy grew up in tough neighborhoods and ate “welfare cheese” (a block of pre-sliced heavy American cheese that supposedly melted well). Every month, making ends meet became more and more difficult. In an early chapter of this finely woven chronology, we see him taking food from trains parked along the railroad tracks and running from the authorities. In this, as in each new chapter, he speaks of confronting severe issues and finding ways to resolve them. In the case of the theft and other childhood incidents of fighting, experiencing bullies, and battling racism, he speaks of making up his mind that “my circumstances need not be my limitation.”
A colorful fable resonates with contrasting modalities of mysticism and social action, exploring how culture and religion can separate us or bind us together.
Narada is a traveler and a stranger when he first meets the lovely Hohete and her people in the ancient city of Ja’Usu. Given water, food, and shelter by Hohete’s family, Narada is sharply questioned by village elders who are stymied by his forthright statement that he is a representative of a deity named The Great Mystery. So they conspire to remake him as a storyteller, to reduce his power and profit from his talent for spinning yarns by selling refreshments to his audience.
Have a great story about workers and overcoming adversity?
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.
If you’re confident in your book, consider submitting it for a Editorial Book Reviewhereor to one of our Chanticleer International Awardshere.
Also remember! Our 10th Anniversary Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22) will be April 7-10, 2022, where our 2021 CIBA winners will be announced. CAC22 and the CIBA Ceremonies will be hosted at the Hotel Bellwether in Beautiful Bellingham, Wash. 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 third 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!
Raising our glasses to cheer the CIBA Winners!
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 2019—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
Six Non-Fiction Divisions:
Journey, Hearten, Harvey Chute, Mind and Spirit, I & I, and Nellie Bly
Leslie Bains – Let’s Take A Hike: 7 Family-Friendly Trails of Nantucket
Carole Bumpus – Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, Book Two
Jill Sherer Murray – Big Wild Love: The Unstoppable Power of Letting Go
The NELLIE BLY Book Awards
for Investigative and Long Form Journalism Non-Fiction
Grand Prize Winner is
PRISON FROM THE INSIDE OUT by William ‘Mecca’ Elmore & Susan Simone
The Nellie Bly First Place Category Winners are:
Ashley Conner and Cierra Camper – Memoirs of Michael: The Hurricane Project
Kris Newby – BITTEN: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons
Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D. – Cause and Civility: Imploring Reason and Respect From An Advocate Journalist, Book I (now, Advancing the Good Society: Real Advocacy Journalism™ in Action, Book I Ethics and Values)
Patricia Martin Holt – EMPOWER A REFUGEE, Peace of Thread and the Backyard Humanity Movement
Gigi Berardi – FoodWISE: A Whole Systems Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Food Choices
Ted Neill – Two Years of Wonder
The HARVEY CHUTE Book Awards
for Business & Enterprise Non-Fiction
Grand Prize Winner is
EDGE: TURNING ADVERSITY INTO ADVANTAGE by Laura Huang
The Harvey Chute First Place Category Winners are:
Gary M. Shiffman – The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism
Susanne Tedrick – Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators
Rachel Thompson – The BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge
Marcus Kirsch – The Wicked Company
Anthony Delauney – Owning the Dash
Tikiri Herath – Your Rebel Dreams: Discover Your Purpose and Passions to Power Up Your Life
Mike D. Kinney – Navigating Your Safety Culture Journey
The MIND & SPIRIT Book Awards
for Spirituality and Enlightenment Non-Fiction
Grand Prize Winner is
EXIT THE MAZE: ONE ADDICTION, ONE CAUSE, ONE CURE by Dr. Donna Marks
The Mind and Spirit First Place Category Winners are:
Cindy Rasicot – Finding Venerable Mother: A Daughter’s Spiritual Quest to Thailand
Nancy Pickard – Bigger Better Braver
Jennie Lee – Spark Change: 108 Provocative Questions for Spiritual Evolution
Anna Carner – Blossom – The Wild Ambassador of Tewksbury
Marianne Ingheim – Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion
Jill Sherer Murray – Big Wild Love: The Unstoppable Power of Letting Go
The HEARTEN Book Awards
for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction
Grand Prize Winner is
LOVE, LIFE, AND LUCILLE by Judy Gaman
The Hearten First Place Category Winners are:
Annerose D. Watts – Blue Plate Journey
Katherine Snow Smith – Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker, Missteps, and Lessons Learned
Rebecca Dwight Bruff will also be awarded $1,000 USD in recognition of her 2020 BEST BOOK of the YEAR – Chanticleer International Book Awards – Sponsored by Chanticleer Reviews & Media.
A Chanticleer Review ofTrouble the Waterwill be featured in the in the SPRING 2022 quarterly edition of the Chanticleer Reviews Magazine (print and epub) along with other promotional and marketing opportunities along with an interview with the author, Rebecca Dwight Bruff.
Thank you Rebecca Dwight Bruff for participating in the 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards. We look forward to receiving future work in our CIBAs.
We look forward to toasting Rebecca in person at our next gathering–hopefully in 2022. We are so happy that she joined us virtually for the CIBA announcements at our special ceremony on June 5th, 2021.
CONGRATULATIONS REBECCA DWIGHT BRUFF!
From all of us at Chanticleer International Book Awards and Chanticleer Reviews.
THANK YOU to VCAC21 SPONSORS and FRIENDS
And to FRIENDS of CHANTICLEER REVIEWS:
Cathy Ace, J.D. Barker, Robert Dugoni, Chris Humphreys, Bradley Metrock, Jessica Morrell, Scott Steindorff, and Paul Hanson of Village Books
We will post more photographs and information. Do check back and subscribe to the Chanticleer Reviews e-news letter.
The video recordings of VCAC21 will be available on VIMEO. More information to come.
We have exciting news for the Chanticleer Community on the horizon so do stay tuned!
You know you want a coveted Chanticleer Reviews Blue Ribbon!
Be sure to register early for the 10th Anniversary 2022 Chanticleer Authors Conference that will start on April 7th, 2021 with the 2022 CIBA banquet and ceremony scheduled to take place on Sunday, April 10th, 2022 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. If we cannot move forward with CAC22 due to the coronavirus, we will host another LIVE and HYBRID Chanticleer Authors Conference and 2021 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards ceremony.
Pivot and Oscillate are the Words for Today’s Challenging Times.
An email will go out to all 2020 CIBA award winners prior to October 30, 2021, with instructions, links, and more information about the awards packages. We appreciate your patience. As stated many times before “One does not need to be present at the CIBA ceremony and banquet to win. But it sure is a lot more fun!” –even if it is virtual!
As always, please contact us at Chanticleer@ChantiReviews.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!
The NELLIE BLY Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in non-fiction for Investigative and Journalist Non-fiction. The Nellie Bly Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring Social Science, Data Driven Reporting, Equality and Justice, Ethics, Human Rights, and Activists Groups. These books have advanced to the Premier Level of Achievement in the 2020 CIBAs.
We also are now offering the following CIBA Non-Fiction Divisions:
The Journey Awards for Narrative Nonfiction
The Mind & Spirit Book Awards for Mindfulness and Well-being
The Nellie Bly Book Awards for Investigative and Long-Form Journalism
The I & I Book Awards for Insight and Instruction for How-To, Guide Books, Self-Help, Cook Books, etc.
The Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business, Finance, and Enterprise
The Hearten Book Awards for Uplifting and Inspiring
New in 2021 will be the Military Veterans and First Responders Non-Fiction works.
The 2020 NELLIE BLY Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the NELLIE BLY Grand Prize Winner were announced by Sara 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 NELLIE BLY Awards, a division of the 2020 CIBAs.
This is the OFFICIAL 2020 LIST of the NELLIE BLY BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the NELLIE BLY Grand Prize Winner.
Congratulations to all!
William “Mecca” Elmore & Susan Simone – Prison From The Inside Out: One Man’s Journey from a Life Sentence to Freedom
Ashley Conner and Cierra Camper – Memoirs of Michael: The Hurricane Project
Kris Newby – BITTEN: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons
Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D. – Cause and Civility: Imploring Reason and Respect From An Advocate Journalist, Book I
Patricia Martin Holt – EMPOWER A REFUGEE, Peace of Thread and the Backyard Humanity Movement
Gigi Berardi – FoodWISE: A Whole Systems Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Food Choices
Ted Neill – Two Years of Wonder
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2020 NELLIE BLY Awards is:
William “Mecca” Elmore & Susan Simone for
Prison from the Inside Out:
One Man’s Journey from a Life Sentence to Freedom
The 2021 NELLIE BLY 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 NELLIE BLY 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.
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners and the Grand Prize Winner of the Nellie Bly Book Awards for Investigative and Journalistic Non-Fiction Works, a division of the 2019 CIBAs.
The CIBAs Search for the Best in the Nellie Bly Book Awards!
Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring investigative works, long-form journalism, and reporting/correspondence. The CIBA judges are seeking the best journalistic works in social science, data-driven reports, equality and justice, ethics, human rights, activist groups, crimes and corruption, environmental, whistle-blowers, health and medicine, and politics.We love them all.
The 2019 Nellie Bly Awards First Place Category Winners and the Nellie Bly 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.
Sean Dwyer, author of A Quest for Tears: Overcoming a Traumatic Brain Injury, 2018 Journey 1st Place Category Winner.
This is the OFFICIAL 2019 LIST of the Nellie Bly Awards First Place Category Winners and the Nellie Bly Grand Prize Winner.
2019 is the FIRST year of the NELLIE BLY Book Awards – a non-fiction division of the CIBAs!
Congratulations to These Authors who Inaugurate the Nellie Bly Book Awards!
T.S. Lewis – The Why of War: An Unorthodox Soldier’s Memoirs
Maya Castro – The Bubble: Everything I Learned as a Target of the Political, and Often Corrupt, World of Youth Sports
John Hoyte – Persistence of Light
Judy Bebelaar and Ron Cabral – And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown
Patrick Hogan – Silent Spring – Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War
Gordon Cross, Robert Fowler, Ted Neill – Finding St. Lo: A Memoir of War & Family
The Nellie Bly Awards
2019 Grand Prize Winner is:
Shaping Public Opinion:
How Real Advocacy Journalism Should Be Practiced
by Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D.
How to Enter the Nellie Bly Awards?
We are accepting submissions into the2020 Nellie Bly Awardsuntil November 30, 2020.
All CIBA Division Winners for 2020 will be announced at CAC 21 on April 17, 2021.
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.
The Selah Branch combines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.
It begins with a ripped from the headlines feel, diving deeply into issues of race, class, poverty, and hopelessness in Selah Branch, WV. A town whose brighter future of uplift, integration, opportunity, and prosperity was wiped out one summer night in 1953 when a chemical explosion destroyed the promising university town and replaced it with a hazardous waste site. Like Chernobyl, only with a smaller footprint and chemical residue substituting for nuclear waste. But just as deadly.
The story views Selah Branch through the eyes of Kenia Dezy, an African-American public health student on a summer practicum. She’s to determine if a simple app can steer people towards healthier food choices and better health outcomes in a town empty of jobs, filled with poverty and hopelessness, marooned in the middle of a food desert.
At first, the current state of Selah Branch and its sharp contrast with the hopefulness of its past confuses Kenia. Then she finds herself there, in that past, with the ability to re-write the history that she sees as already written in her present.
A past that contains not the tragic accident that everyone believes destroyed the town, but instead a deliberate act of sabotage designed to eliminate the beacon of hope and integration, Selah Branch. The participants mostly wanted to obliterate a place where blacks and white really were treated equally. Although some wanted to end a centuries-long family feud by murdering the bodies and the dreams of those they despised.
It is up to Kenia to use her un-schedulable, unplannable trips to that past nexus point to change the future. But there are descendants of that past who are just as willing to kill to maintain the status quo. Even if it only brings them death and destruction.
These are two great plots that shouldn’t blend well together, and yet they do, as all of the action in both the past and the present is seen through Kenia’s sharp eyes. The reader experiences her despair at the conditions in the 21st century Selah Branch and feels both with and for Kenia as she comes to the depressing conclusion that no matter how much she wants to, there are some things she simply cannot do. The situation they are living in is just too big for one person to even make a dent in, no matter how well-intentioned she might be.
And as a well-educated and relatively affluent black woman in a poverty-stricken, rural, mostly white town, Kenia is confronted with the contradiction of her economic privilege and racial and gendered lack of it at the same time.
The reader feels for Kenia’s hopelessness in the present and is swept away with her into a past where there is one desperate chance to make things better. Kenia’s journey in 1953 becomes a dangerous but determined thrill ride, facing enemies at every turn while finding surprising friends along her fast and furious way.
Readers can’t help but be caught up in Kenia’s there and back again quest to change the past and shift the present, to bring about a hope for a brighter future. Readers will cheer for her and despair with her, but they will desire, more than anything, that she succeeds.
The Selah Branch won 1st Place in the CIBA 2018 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction novels.
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division. Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Genetic Modification, Aliens, Super Humans, Interplanetary Travel, and Settlers on the Galactic Frontier, Dystopian, our judges from across North America and the U.K. will put them to the test and choose the best among them.
Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media, L.L.C. retains the right to not declare “default winners.” Winning works are decided upon merit only. Please visit our Contest Details page for more information about our writing contest guidelines.
CBR’s rigorous writing competition standards are why literary agencies seek out our winning manuscripts and self-published novels. Our high standards are also why our reviews are trusted among booksellers and book distributors.
Please do not hesitate to contact Info@ChantiReviews.com about any questions, concerns, or suggestions about the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Your input and suggestions are important to us.
Click here for more information about the Chanticleer Book Reviews International Book Awards.
CYGNUS BOOK AWARDS for Science Fiction, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
We are excited and honored to officially announce the Grand Prize Winner and the First Place Category Winners for the 2018 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction Novels at the annual Chanticleer Authors Conference and the 2018 Chanticleer International Book Awards ceremony. This year’s ceremony and banquet were held on Saturday, April 27th, 2019 at the Hotel Bellwether by beautiful Bellingham Bay, Wash.
We want to thank all of those who entered and participated in the 2018 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
Sean Curley, the author of the previous Cygnus Grand Prize Winner, OVER, announced the First Place Award Winners and the Grand Prize Winner for the 2018 CYGNUS Book Awards at the Chanticleer International Book Awards Banquet and Ceremony. PublishDrive and Hindenburg Systems awarded additional prizes to the 2018 CYGNUS Book Award winners. Thank you!
2018 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction First Place Winners – Best in Category
The Fortune Follies by Catori Sarmiento
It Takes Death to Reach a Star by Stu Jones & Gareth Worthington
Solar Reboot by Matthew D. Hunt
Apex Five by Sarah Katz
The One Apart: A Novel by Justine Avery
The Selah Branch by Ted Neill
Honorable Mention: Ten Directionsby Samuel Winburn
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners of the 2018 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction.
And now for the
CYGNUS BOOK AWARDS
GRAND PRIZE WINNERfor Science Fiction
The Korpes File by J.I Rogers took home the 2018 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction Grand Prize Blue Ribbon.
An email will go out to all First Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Winners with more information, the timing of awarded reviews, links to digital badges, and more before May 31st, 2019 (approximately four weeks after the awards ceremony). Please look for it in your email inbox.
When we receive the digital photographs from the Official CAC19 professional photographer, Dwayne Rogge of Photo Treehouse, we will post the CYGNUS winners on this page.
The Clue Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Suspense and Thriller Mysteries. The Clue Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
The Selah Branch combines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.
