Literary Worlds That Keep Readers Coming Back for More
The Series Awards Hall of Fame Celebrates Multi-Volume Excellence
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The greatest series don’t just tell stories—they create literary universes that readers never want to leave. From epic fantasy realms to historical journeys that span generations, from paranormal adventures to deeply personal family sagas, the Book Series Awards Hall of Fame showcases authors who’ve mastered the unique art of sustained storytelling across multiple volumes.
These Grand Prize Winners prove that exceptional series require more than just writing multiple books—they demand the vision to build worlds worth revisiting, characters complex enough to evolve across volumes, and the skill to maintain quality while keeping readers surprised. Each series represents a different approach to the challenge of creating literary experiences that grow richer with every installment.
A Vengeful Realm by Tim Facciola
The Scales of Balance (book 1), 2023 Overall Grand Prize Winner
The Scales of Balanceopens with an amnesiac gladiator, a queen certain her husband must die for the sake of the kingdom, and a prince who will do anything to save his father. Tim Facciola’s first novel in the high fantasy seriesA Vengeful Realmis threaded through with plots of assassination and political intrigue, all fueled by a divine struggle for dominance.
A Vengeful Realmis a study in richness. Its characters, setting, and world-building, the vital elements for a strong fantasy, pull the reader into the land of New Rheynia where the most valuable currencies are loyalty and power.
Facciola excels at characterization, beginning with an engaging tapestry of backgrounds.
The gladiator Zephyrus’ first memories are in a temple hearing the words of a prophecy that he can’t understand. Depending on the interpretation, he could bring peace or destruction. His only guide is his iron morality, which he hopes is enough to bring him back to who he once was.
While Facciola builds epic fantasy worlds filled with gods and gladiators, historical fiction proves equally powerful for series storytelling…
Ghosts Along The Oregon Trail by David Fitz-Gerald
A Grave Every Mile (Book 1)
Each day’s trumpet blasts the predawn quiet of the sleeping wagon train, demanding that its migrating families face what’s ahead, whether incredible scenery or mortal danger, in David Fitz-Gerald’s A Grave Every Mile.
This beautifully told story mixes adventure, survival, community, and history, all shown through the eyes of Dorcas, a feisty mother of four. She’s dreamed of hitting the trail to the storied West for so long, but much about this trip and their destination remains unknown.
Another wagon travels alongside hers. Who are they? Will they remain strangers, or become friends? Now that Dorcas stands with her family at the trail’s starting point and on the brink of changing their lives forever, a tremor of doubt surfaces about what lies ahead. Is her family strong enough to face their future? Will it be everything she and her husband hoped for? That future is 720,000 turns of the wagon wheels away, and there may be A Grave Every Mile. It all starts with that first pull by the team of oxen.
The action starts on page one when an intense fistfight breaks out amid a crowd of people stocking up their wagons.
Lighten The Load (Book 2)
Once on a grand adventure to a new life with her husband and young family, Dorcas suddenly finds herself the sole shepherd for her children into the unknown, in David Fitz-Gerald’s historical fiction novel, Lighten the Load.
Owner of a fully loaded wagon, in a train of travelers on the truly wild western trail, Dorcas must give every decision her full attention. She faces immediate life-altering choices, some threatening her own safety and others putting her children at terrible risk. The expedition rolls forward over a mystery yet to be solved and an underlying paranormal mystique.
On this dangerous venture west, Dorcas is called upon often to help and comfort her fellow travelers. As she and her family face escalating dangers and devastating catastrophes, can she learn to Lighten the Load and accept help when she desperately needs it?
Stay With The Wagons (Book 3)
The wheels roll relentlessly westward. In Stay with the Wagons, book 3 of David Fitz-Gerald’s Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail series, the families upon those wheels must face not only the consequences of the trail behind them but also new dangers that lie ahead.
Dorcas, the resilient mother, widow, and adventurer will need to summon forth all her remaining strength– physical and emotional– to survive these new challenges. Especially with her children to protect. Their community of waggoneers have supported each other through great hardship, but cracks are growing between them.
Amongst its incredible beauty, the country they travel through contains great danger, wild animals, and a hidden evil energized by greed and violence. There is a promise, a hope of happiness on the trail west if you Stay With The Wagons, but nothing is guaranteed.
Snarling Wolf (Book 4)
In Snarling Wolf, David Fitz-Gerald’s fourth installment of an adventurous migration to Oregon, wagon wheels sidewind along and through the serpentine Snake River.
It’s summertime, hot and dangerous on the cross-country trails. Wild animals, and the titular Snarling Wolf, ominously share the wilderness with a caravan of travelers. The group has become accustomed to their daily routines, but their remote destination seems almost mystical, moving always farther away, taunting and driving them toward madness.
Widowed Dorcas Moon is determined to do anything it takes for her beloved children to survive and thrive in a new life in a new land. But this difficult trip takes its toll on her family in surprising ways, and will leave them forever changed.
Dorcas Moon deeply fears an animal attack on their unprepared people.
Rolling Home (Book 5)
David Fitz-Gerald concludes the Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail series with a grand finale for an eclectic cast of characters, as the long wagon train is finally Rolling Home to their new lives in the wild west of Oregon.
With the end of the trail just out of reach, however, their hopes dwindle and their hunger rages. The rigor of the western environment continues to test their determination and threaten vows of heartfelt romance. These weary people ache and mourn losses, while seeking new ways to survive and pull each other forward in the face of impending winter.
This wagon train of travelers will also face venomous villains who have been lurking in the shadows, outlaws waiting for their best opportunity to pounce.
Historical series can span different time periods and themes, as demonstrated by our next paranormal historical series…
The Curtis Jefferson Series by Vince Bailey
Path of the Half Moon (Book 1)
After being charged with burglary and attempted arson, fifteen-year-old African American boxer, Curtis Jefferson, has been sent to Fort Grant, a juvenile detention area in Arizona in Vince Bailey’s Path of the Half Moon.
All of the creepy stories and whispered warnings about the former US military outpost used by the US cavalry to eliminate the Apache a hundred years ago pale in comparison to the truth Curtis finds there. Curtis faces racism from both inmates and guards, to make matters worse, he is also very aware of the presence of something not of this world. He quickly discovers (though he doesn’t want to admit it) that he is sentient to the fort’s bloody past atrocities. As the site where Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches were slaughtered, the fort seems to be a crossroads where past and present meet. From mournful coyotes to hundreds of circling vultures, Curtis can’t escape the strange visions and events inside and outside the fort. When he attracts the unwanted attention of Harvey Huish, an inmate with unusual abilities, Curtis creates a powerful enemy bent on revenge and humiliation.
Courses of the Cursed (Book 2)
Imprisoned in a boys’ institution for a crime he did not commit, Curtis Jefferson must again face his nemesis, Harvey Huish. In Courses of the Cursed, the second installment of Vince Bailey’s paranormal Curtis Jefferson series, the fight comes with much higher stakes.
Estranged from his constant companion, Randy, Curtis continues his training alone, bewildered as to why Randy believes Harvey to be more than a vicious bully. But as Curtis’s strange visions and dreams increase, he needs Randy more than ever. He begins to question whether Randy has been preparing him for an encounter beyond the violence between boys.
Unbeknownst to Curtis, he isn’t the only one being tortured by the evil of Fort Grant. A local artist, Ray Cienfuegos, has his own date with destiny. As the last male descendant of his family, Ray’s fate is tied to the massacre that occurred near the fort almost one hundred years ago.
Merging Paths (Book 3)
Having escaped unjust imprisonment at the Fort Grant facility for juveniles, Curtis Jefferson is on the run, in Merging Paths, the third installment of Vince Bailey’s gripping, paranormal, Curtis Jefferson Series.
With only a small jug of water and the clothes on his back, Curtis has to cross the Sonoran Desert and find a way back to his mother and grandmother in Jacobs Well. But his trip is plagued by more than thirst, hunger, and fear of animals. A racist sheriff’s deputy, Myron Aycock, is hellbent on finding Curtis not only for the acclaim such an arrest will give him but also for vengeance against the beating he received at the hands of the aspiring boxer.
Trapped and desperate, Curtis is rescued by a mysterious figure and taken to Isabel and Ray Cienfuegos. After hearing Curtis’s unsettling stories about Fort Grant, the two understand that they have all been fighting the same evil forces – under the control of the sadistic Ezra. In a final confrontation, Isabel faces off against the wicked spirit, but just as they believe their problems are over, a new threat arises under the guise of friendship, and Isabel makes a life-changing decision that will mark her forever.
From contemporary paranormal settings, we move to one of literature’s most enduring legendary cycles…
The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy By Nicole Evelina
Daughter of Destiny (Book 1), 2015 Overall Grand Prize Winner
Guinevere asks us, the readers, to listen to her words in the prologue of Daughter of Destiny, book one in The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy. She implores, “I will take back my voice and speak the truth of what happened.” So shall the lies be revealed and Camelot’s former glory restored.”
Daughter of Destiny is the first of three historical fiction novels narrated by Guinevere in the series of Guinevere’s Tale, by Nicole Evelina. Her tale begins during her young turbulent childhood in fifth-century Britain. It is a time of struggling to come to grips with her special powers. She’s studying to become a priestess, competing against her future lifelong enemy Morgana, and coping with the politics and violence ravaging her homeland in England’s fifth century. The novel follows Guinevere as she is separated from her family in Northgallis, during her early years in Avalon. It follows her training in the magical arts and eventual return to her war-ravaged homeland.
Camelot’s Queen (Book 2)
Meet Guinevere: a sage military adviser, a priestess of Avalon, and the mother of a dynasty. In Nicole Evelina’s Camelot’s Queen: Guinevere’s Tale (book two), Guinevere must learn to reconcile her past with her future; what she was with what she must become.
No longer a young lover with dreams of a home with her former betrothed, Guinevere must quickly learn how to be a queen and to navigate the rocky waters of marriage to the high king, Arthur Pendragon. Over time, Guinevere proves a great success until she cannot give Arthur the heir he needs.
Kidnapped by a ruthless man bent on revenge, Guinevere must find the strength to hold tight to her sanity while regaining her rightful place. Upon returning from her horrific ordeal, she finds her position as queen in jeopardy and her once-strong relationship crumbling as she struggles to hold her growing restlessness and loneliness at bay.
Mistress of Legend (Book 3)
In Mistress of Legend, the enticing finale of Nicole Evelina’s Guinevere’s Tale trilogy, matters are life-and-death by the second sentence, pulling readers deep into Guinevere’s fate in this retelling of Arthurian legend.
We come upon heroine Guinevere in the midst of an ill-fated romance with Lancelot. It’s far from her first troubled entanglement, but the stakes rise as she’s severely injured and faces even more threats, pursued by possible enemies. The novel’s beginning is woven with backstory, which adds suspense to the drama unfolding in Guinevere’s present. This summarizing might be slow for readers familiar with the series, but makes the story accessible for those who haven’t picked up the first two books.
Many more characters appear, waving the web of intrigue Guinevere finds herself caught in.
Legendary retellings showcase one approach to series writing, while historical fiction based on real events offers another profound path…
The Devil’s Bookkeepers Series By Mark H. Newhouse
The Noose (Book 1)
Mark H. Newhouse has created an intense, harrowing, story of love and loyalty surrounding life within the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, established to control a sizeable portion of the Jewish population under Nazi domination in the first book in the series, The Devil’s Bookkeepers: The Noose.
The author’s viewpoint is focused through the lens of Bernard Ostrowski, an engineer who will join three other men chosen for their related skills to report on daily happenings in the ghetto while secretly codifying incidents that the Nazis would not have wished to have recorded. Ostrowski and his cohort – the distinguished but embittered Oskar Rosenfeld, a noted Zionist, Julian Cukier, a journalist, and Oscar Singer, the youngest of the crew and the most impulsive. As Ostrowski opines privately, “Two Jews are a debate. Three, an argument. Four? A war.” Yet the four will co-exist, all trying in their separate ways to fulfill their assignment and please their highly controversial boss, Chaim Rumkowski.
The Noose Tightens (Book 2)
Mark H. Newhouse, son of German Holocaust survivors, includes the very personal and poignant first-hand sourced materials made available to him by the Yale University Press in his important historical fiction series, The Devil’s Bookkeepers. This inclusion lends a ribbon of humanity and compassion that raise the series to premiere status – a study, if you will, of the immutable human spirit. Newhouses’ series should encourage all who read it that hope is a gift and kindness and understanding is the answer to hate. It is a gripping story of love and survival that will haunt you until it’s shocking climax.
From the first day of 1942, the conditions in the Jewish ghetto of Lodz, Poland, deteriorate. In Mark H. Newhouse’s historical fiction novel, The Devil’s Bookkeepers: Book 2, The Noose Tightens, those who thought their situation would get better now wish to survive and save their loved ones, But can they?
The Noose Closes (Book 3)
In The Noose Closes, book three of the award-winning series, The Devil’s Bookkeepers, author Mark H. Newhouse continues the story of his compelling characters and their difficult predicaments in the closing months of World War II in occupied Lodz, Poland.
Newhouse is a gifted writer and educator, born in Germany to Holocaust survivors. His series is a fictionalized account of what happened in the Lodz ghetto, a barbed-wire enclosed slum in Poland during the Nazi occupation. As he deftly utilizes the first-hand accounts of those who were there, we witness the ribbon of humanity and compassion woven through each book. This raises the series to premiere status – an exceptional if sobering examination of the immutable human spirit. His series should encourage all who read it that hope is a gift and kindness is the answer.
These Authors Mastered the Art of Serial Excellence
From Tim Facciola’s epic fantasy trilogy that earned both Series and Overall Grand Prize recognition, to David Fitz-Gerald’s five-book historical saga that transforms a dangerous journey into an unforgettable literary experience, these Hall of Fame winners understand what readers crave: the promise that great characters and compelling worlds will continue to evolve and surprise.
What sets these series apart?
- Character development that spans multiple volumes
- World-building that deepens with each installment
- Consistent quality that rewards reader investment
- Marketing power that builds loyal readerships
Your Literary Universe Awaits Recognition
The Series Awards recognize what publishers and readers already know: successful series create something greater than the sum of their parts. They build communities, generate anticipation, and provide the kind of sustained reader engagement that single volumes rarely achieve.
Whether you’ve completed a trilogy that ties together all narrative threads or launched an ongoing series that promises years of reader investment, the Series Awards celebrate the vision and commitment required to create literary worlds worth revisiting.
Don’t let your series remain undiscovered—submit by July 31, 2025!
Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!
The Shelley Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Supernatural Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Shami Stovall’s book, Time-Marked Warlock will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Shelley contest page year ’round!
KIM HORNSBY – USA Today Bestselling Author, Producer, and Screenwriter
