Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Action

Spotlight on the June Book Awards! Cygnus, Journey, Dante Rossetti, and Chatelaine!
The Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Are already receiving record submissions!

Fresh off the Chanticleer Authors Conference, there’s never been a better time to be an author!

Embark on extraordinary adventures and explore thrilling frontiers!

These Sizzling Book Awards are starting summer out right!
Note: We have recently revised our Book Award deadlines according to feedback from both authors and our readers! The hope with the new deadlines is that authors will be able to receive information faster and readers will be more able to read steadily without interruptions are sudden influxes. Thank you for your patience as we adjust to the new schedule.

These are four of our longest running and most competitive Book Award Divisions.
Don’t hesitate to join the authors who have already submitted to the CIBAs!

The tiers of achievement for the CIBAs with $30,000+ awarded annually, as well as expert long tail marketing to maximize your digital footprint

The Chanticleer Int’l Book Award lists provide excitement and energize author reader bases each time one of them are released. From Long List to Overall Grand Prize Winner, there are a myriad of opportunities for debut and experienced authors to promote their work through the CIBAs.

Summer is the perfect season to get ahead of the game and submit, but we should also pause to enjoy some of the excellent work that’s been submitted to Chanticleer.

Journey Book Awards for Non-Fiction Memoirs that Overcome Adversity

A FRACTION STRONGER: Finding Belief and Possibility in Life’s Impossible Moments
By Mark Berridge

Author and businessman Mark Berridge, through the lived experience of himself and others after traumatic injuries, gained a wide understanding of overcoming disaster, and how to rehabilitate not only one’s body but mind and spirit as well. In sharing his wisdom, A Fraction Stronger is a must-read for anyone facing physical, emotional, or mental barriers.

On March 10, 2019, Berridge, due to embark on a work-related flight from his Australian home to the US later that day, went on a bike ride with some buddies. Following the group around a corner, he fell, striking his head; conscious, but unable to move his feet and legs. Hospitals would become his world as he dealt with spinal injuries and the long road to rehabilitation – relearning how to sit, stand, and walk.

Read more here.

BETTER OFF BALD: A Life in 147 Days
By Andrea Wilson Woods

There exists a bond between sisters, and often that bond becomes a connection so strong that time cannot erase the love and the longing for the other. Andrea Wilson Woods defines such a bond in Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days.

Woods details the choreographed life she lives with her sister Adrienne, who has been diagnosed with cancer. Together they begin their dance, pirouetting around IV ports and long lists of medications. Sisters in life, love, and an all-out war against liver cancer.

Read more here.

Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction

The LUNA MISSILE CRISIS
By Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle

Authors Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle come together to tell the tale of alien first contact gone awry in their epic science fiction release, The Luna Missile Crisis.

The year is 1961, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is set to become the first man in space. But when Yuri, snug inside the Vostok 1, is launched from the cosmodrome and into the coming night, he’s met with a collision that changes the course of history. The Vostok 1 crashes into an oncoming alien starship. Assuming the collision was actually a missile fired from Russia’s space race opponent, the United States, the soviet nation quickly launches an arsenal of nuclear warheads in response. But those warheads never make it to their target. Instead, they detonate against the hidden starship, sending a wave of nuclear destruction over eastern Europe.

Read more here.

FUTURE’S DARK PAST: Time Forward Trilogy, Book 1
By J.L. Yarrow

A time travel epic, Future’s Dark Past is the creative endeavor of J.L Yarrow, husband and wife duo of John and Leanne Yarrow. The time-hopping action begins in the year 2355, in a world virtually uninhabitable outside a few city pods where food is scarce and violence a certainty.

Caught sneaking into a city pod with nowhere else to go, Kristen Winters agrees to join the Time Forward Project, a group from which no volunteers have ever returned. Kristin’s new superiors send her to fight a deadly battle for the fate of humanity. In 2025, Hunter Coburn becomes an important piece of the puzzle after he gets accidentally connected to Kristen’s time jumps. Initially on opposite sides, they must figure out how to work together as the plan to save the future becomes increasingly unstable.

Read more here.

Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Young Adult Fiction

TARO: The Legendary Boy Hero of Japan
By Blue Spruell & illustrated by Miya Outlaw

Adventure, classic tales, fantasy, and exciting action combine in TARO: Legendary Boy Hero of Japan, a well-poised debut novel by award-winning author Blue Spruell.

In the turbulent final decades of the sixteenth century, feudal Japan reeled in mayhem as the central hereditary dictatorship collapsed, and tyrannical powers fought to control the empire. TARO: The Legendary Boy Hero of Japan is the story of how one man revolutionized a nation by taking its reigns and forging a new destiny through his depths of compassion and determination.

Read more here.

The BEST WEEK THAT NEVER HAPPENED
By Dallas Woodburn

Dallas Woodburn’s debut novel The Best Week that Never Happened is a roller-coaster ride through Hawaii and the mysterious depths of its briny deep, sparkling with unreal magic, a poignant romance, and incessant hope.

Tegan Rossi, a freshly graduated eighteen-year-old, awakens in the secretive hideout she discovered with Kai Kapule as two eight-year-old children on her first trip to Hawaii Island. She needs to make amends with Kai as they had a major squabble over something very important that she now oddly forgets. When Tegan catches up with Kai in Hawaii, she enters her best week yet – the Best Week That Never Happened.

Read more here.

Chatelaine Book Awards for Romance Fiction

OPERATION MOM: My Plan to Get My Mom a Life and a Man
By Reenita Malhotra Hora

Master storyteller Reenita Malhotra Hora’s YA romance Operation Mom: My Plan to Get My Mom a Life and a Man takes us on a charming journey through the life of one teen, Ila Isham.

Hora introduces Ila and her best friend Deepali, two boy-crazy teens on a summer quest. Readers will fall in love with the smart, sassy, angst-filled, rebellious Ila. A typical teenage girl, Ila lives in Mumbai with her mom and Sakkubai, their house manager. Ila’s mother calls her obsessed, but that seems unfair. Is she obsessed just because her every waking minute is spent thinking of Ali Zafar, famous pop icon, singer, and heartthrob? Or is she obsessed with fellow classmate Dev?

Read more here.

The LONG DESERT ROAD
By Alex Sirotkin

Alex Sirotkin’s debut novel, The Long Desert Road, navigates the emotional arcs of life in contrast with the greater expanse of the cosmos. Here a young woman must face her addictions while the people around her try to move beyond her backlash.

We meet Henry Spinoza, a 44-year-old quirky science writer. He ponders his life as half over, looks for the right woman, and wonders if there isn’t more to existence.

Read more here.

Your book deserves to be discovered

First Place and Grand Prize Authors at the Chanticleer Authors Conference

Thank you for celebrating these Chanticleer Grand Prize Winners with us!

Remember, if you have a great book in the following genres, you should submit today!
The world needs good books now more than ever
June 2, 2023
The 2022 SOMERSET CIBAs Finalists for Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The SOMERSET Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2022 Somerset Literary and Contemporary Fiction Semi-Finalists to the 2022 Somerset Book Awards FINALISTS. Winners will be selected from the Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the First Place and Grand Prize Winner of the 2022 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.
- Conon Parks – Everything That Was
- Michael Richard – Chosen’s Beautiful Heart
- Linda Moore – Attribution
- Datta Groover – The Reluctant Visionary
- Robert Tucker – The Discontent of Mary Wenger, Paper Dolls, Book 1
- Patricia Sands – The Secrets We Hide
- Julia Tvardovskaya – Identifiable
- Ellen Sherman – Into the Attic
- Fran Hawthorne – I Meant to Tell You
- Leslie Kain – Secrets In The Mirror
- Patricia Averbach – Dreams of Drowning
- Tom Stewart – Immortal North
- Jeffrey Dale Lofton – Red Clay Suzie
- John Hansen – Hired Hand
- Jo Deniau – Stiff Hearts
- Dianne C. Braley – The Silence in the Sound
- Maggie Smith – Truth and Other Lies
- Susan Lynn Solomon – Raising Kane
- Lynn Byk – The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch
- Morgan Sloan – Scars and Honey
- Harriet Cannon – Exiled South
- Ann Marie Stewart – Out of the Water
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Somerset Awards is Lies in Bone by Natalie Symons

Click here to see the 2021 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Somerset Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2022 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 27-30, 2023! Register Today!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!
March 22, 2023
The 2022 SOMERSET CIBAs Semi-Finalists for Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The SOMERSET Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2022 Somerset Literary and Contemporary Fiction Short List to the 2022 Somerset Book Awards SEMI-FINALISTS. Entries below are now in competition for 2022 Somerset Finalists. The Semi-Finalists will compete for the Finalist positions. Winners will be selected from the Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FINALISTS of the 2022 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.
- Conon Parks – Everything That Was
- Michael Richard – Chosen’s Beautiful Heart
- Karla Huebner – In Search of the Magic Theater
- Maggie St. Claire – Into the Wind
- Vee Kumari – ANKANAM
- Linda Moore – Attribution
- Kathleen Stone – Tell Me You Love Me
- Datta Groover – The Reluctant Visionary
- Rebecca Miller – Touch
- Robert Tucker – The Discontent of Mary Wenger, Paper Dolls, Book 1
- Patricia Sands – The Secrets We Hide
- Meredith Berlin – Friends with Issues
- Frances Howard-Snyder – A Willow Cabin at Your Gate
- Julia Tvardovskaya – Identifiable
- Michael Chatlien – Northern Lights
- Julia Brewer Daily – The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch: A Modern Ranch with an Ancient Secret
- Ellen Sherman – Into the Attic
- Fran Hawthorne – I Meant to Tell You
- Jeff Hartman – The End Of The War
- Leslie Kain – Secrets In The Mirror
- Patricia Averbach – Dreams of Drowning
- Tom Stewart – Immortal North
- Jeffrey Dale Lofton – Red Clay Suzie
- Brenda Stanley – The Still Small Voice
- John Hansen – Hired Hand
- Jo Deniau – Stiff Hearts
- Dianne C. Braley – The Silence in the Sound
- Maggie Smith – Truth and Other Lies
- Susan Lynn Solomon – Raising Kane
- Lynn Byk – The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch
- Edward Pontacoloni – The Rookery
- Lee Bukowski – A Week of Warm Weather
- Betsy Withycombe – The Murder of Sarah Grosvenor
- Morgan Sloan – Scars and Honey
- Harriet Cannon – Exiled South
- Ann Marie Stewart – Out of the Water
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Somerset Awards is Lies in Bone by Natalie Symons

Click here to see the 2021 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Somerset Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2022 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 27-30, 2023! Register Today!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!
February 28, 2023
The 2022 SOMERSET CIBAs Short List for Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The SOMERSET Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2022 Somerset Literary and Contemporary Fiction Long List to the 2022 Somerset Book Awards SHORT LIST. Entries below are now in competition for 2022 Somerset Semi-Finalist. The Semi-Finalists will compete for the Finalist positions. Winners will be selected from the Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the SEMI-FINALISTS of the 2022 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.
- Conon Parks – Everything That Was
- Michael Richard – Chosen’s Beautiful Heart
- Karla Huebner – In Search of the Magic Theater
- Maggie St. Claire – Into the Wind
- Vee Kumari – ANKANAM
- Linda Moore – Attribution
- Kathleen Stone – Tell Me You Love Me
- Datta Groover – The Reluctant Visionary
- Ja-ne de Abreu – The Energy Inside Valsin’s Choices
- Rebecca Miller – Touch
- Grace Marcus – Visible Signs
- Robert Tucker – The Discontent of Mary Wenger, Paper Dolls, Book 1
- Patricia Sands – The Secrets We Hide
- Meredith Berlin – Friends with Issues
- Frances Howard-Snyder – A Willow Cabin at Your Gate
- Julia Tvardovskaya – Identifiable
- David B. Seaburn – Give Me Shelter
- Michael Chatlien – Northern Lights
- Julia Brewer Daily – The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch: A Modern Ranch with an Ancient Secret
- Ellen Sherman – Into the Attic
- Fran Hawthorne – I Meant to Tell You
- Antonia Gavrihel – Back to One: Take 2 Ambient Light
- Karen Heenan – Coming Apart: A Novel of the Great Depression
- Jeff Hartman – The End Of The War
- Leslie Kain – Secrets In The Mirror
- Patricia Averbach – Dreams of Drowning
- Tom Stewart – Immortal North
- Jeffrey Dale Lofton – Red Clay Suzie
- Brenda Stanley – The Still Small Voice
- John Hansen – Hired Hand
- Jo Deniau – Stiff Hearts
- Drema Drudge – Southern-Fried Woolf
- Dianne C. Braley – The Silence in the Sound
- Maggie Smith – Truth and Other Lies
- Susan Lynn Solomon – Raising Kane
- Barbara Francesca Murphy – Lucina’s Letters
- Lynn Byk – The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch
- Peter McDade – Songs By Honeybird
- Edward Pontacoloni – The Rookery
- Lee Bukowski – A Week of Warm Weather
- Betsy Withycombe – The Murder of Sarah Grosvenor
- Gloria Mattioni – California Sister
- Morgan Sloan – Scars and Honey
- Harriet Cannon – Exiled South
- Ann Marie Stewart – Out of the Water
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Somerset Awards is Lies in Bone by Natalie Symons

Click here to see the 2021 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Somerset Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2022 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 27-30, 2023! Register Today!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!
February 22, 2023
The 2022 SOMERSET CIBAs Long List for Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The SOMERSET Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2022 Somerset Literary and Contemporary Fiction entries to the 2022 Somerset Book Awards LONG LIST. Entries below are now in competition for 2022 Somerset Short List. The Short Listers will compete for the Semi-Finalist positions. Finalists will be selected from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22).

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the SHORT LIST of the 2022 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.
- Conon Parks – Everything That Was
- Michael Richard – Chosen’s Beautiful Heart
- Karla Huebner – In Search of the Magic Theater
- Maggie St. Claire – Into the Wind
- Vee Kumari – ANKANAM
- Linda Moore – Attribution
- Kathleen Stone – Tell Me You Love Me
- Datta Groover – The Reluctant Visionary
- Theresa Griffin Kennedy – Talionic Night in Portland
- Ja-ne de Abreu – The Energy Inside Valsin’s Choices
- Rebecca Miller – Touch
- Grace Marcus – Visible Signs
- Robert Tucker – The Discontent of Mary Wenger, Paper Dolls, Book 1
- Patricia Sands – The Secrets We Hide
- Meredith Berlin – Friends with Issues
- Frances Howard-Snyder – A Willow Cabin at Your Gate
- Zubin Aibara – Gulliver’s Tramps
- J. F. Alexandria – Children of the Sun
- Julia Tvardovskaya – Identifiable
- David B. Seaburn – Give Me Shelter
- Michael Chatlien – Northern Lights
- Julia Brewer Daily – The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch: A Modern Ranch with an Ancient Secret
- Ellen Sherman – Into the Attic
- Fran Hawthorne – I Meant to Tell You
- Antonia Gavrihel – Back to One: Take 2 Ambient Light
- Karen Heenan – Coming Apart: A Novel of the Great Depression
- John Nicholson – The Parables of Chance
- Terry Tierney – Lucky Ride
- Jeff Hartman – The End Of The War
- Leslie Kain – Secrets In The Mirror
- Patricia Averbach – Dreams of Drowning
- Tom Stewart – Immortal North
- Jeffrey Dale Lofton – Red Clay Suzie
- Brenda Stanley – The Still Small Voice
- John Hansen – Hired Hand
- Jo Deniau – Stiff Hearts
- Drema Drudge – Southern-Fried Woolf
- Dianne C. Braley – The Silence in the Sound
- Maggie Smith – Truth and Other Lies
- Susan Lynn Solomon – Raising Kane
- Barbara Francesca Murphy – Lucina’s Letters
- Lynn Byk – The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch
- Peter McDade – Songs By Honeybird
- Edward Pontacoloni – The Rookery
- Lee Bukowski – A Week of Warm Weather
- Betsy Withycombe – The Murder of Sarah Grosvenor
- Gloria Mattioni – California Sister
- Morgan Sloan – Scars and Honey
- Matthew Marullo – Welcome To Opine
- Robert Steven Goldstein – Will’s Surreal Period
- Karen S. Bell – Like a Lily Among the Thorns
- Harriet Cannon – Exiled South
- Ann Marie Stewart – Out of the Water
PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Somerset Awards is Lies in Bone by Natalie Symons

Click here to see the 2021 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Somerset Book Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2022 Chanticleer In’tl Book Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

IN-Person – April 27-30, 2023! Register Today!

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!
January 26, 2023
THE EXCURSION by T.O. Paine – Horror, Thriller, Suspense Action

The Excursion by T.O. Paine is a horror thriller with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most jaded reader.

Two people tell this story. Charly, a woman in her 30s, faces her emotionally damaged family. Randall, meanwhile, works as an agent of Zaroff Excursions, a hunting club for the uber-wealthy with an interest in an extreme form of hunting where the prey is much more intelligent than a deer or bear.

On a cold Thanksgiving weekend, Charly and a few other members of her family travel to an isolated cabin in the mountains above Denver. Her car gets stuck in a snowdrift, leaving her stranded, but that’s only the start of her trouble. She finds that the cabin has been rented by Randall’s company for that same weekend, forcing her family to share the lodge with strangers.

Charly is there for a complicated family reunion.

Along with her autistic brother Jacob, whom Charly has taken care of all her life, she deals with two cousins: Amanda, who must win everything in her life at any cost, and Cal, who Charly fears might be a psychopath.

Randall has come for his “excursion,” well paid for his work, and confident that this weekend will prove his superiority to his boss. A self-styled alpha male, a hunter-cum-master-of-the-universe, he is in control of every detail of what happens in this ultimate form of hunting. Joining Randall in the cabin are Barry, the wealthy hunter who has signed on for this excursion, and Barry’s gaggle-headed girlfriend Kennedy.

But Randall brought one more person. Tyler sits caged in the boathouse near the cabin, kidnapped to serve as the designated prey. Randall didn’t expect his perfectly planned hunt would include Charly and her family, or Barry’s girlfriend, but he sees an opportunity in them. He has delicious, final plans for everyone at the cabin.

What can go wrong for the hunter who has everything perfectly under control?

A hidden pleasure here is the literary “Easter eggs” the writer has planted. For example, Charly’s last name is Highsmith, certainly a reference to celebrated mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. And Randall may well be related to Steven King’s protagonist in his best-selling The Stand. Does the unusual spelling of “Charly” have its roots in the science-fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon?

The Excursion grips you from the first page. Its march through dense snowdrifts and mountains will leave you yearning for waterproof boots, or, better, a blanket to hide under as you dig further into this twisty, unrelenting story. If you’re a fan of satisfying horror novels, this is one not to miss.

November 18, 2022
November SPOTLIGHT on the 2022 Somerset Awards for Literary and Contemporary Fiction

November brings insight, reflection, and contemplation of the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. As the year winds down, so, too, we reflect and ponder what we have done, who we are, and who we would like to be.

It’s a perfect time to curl up with a good novel, you know, the type that grabs you and lives with you long after you put it down.

This is why we celebrate novels that are literary, satirical, and contemporary. This is why we celebrate the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards – Somerset Literary Novels Writing Competitions.

We chose William Somerset Maugham because we love his work and love what he has to say about it:

“I am a made writer. I do not write as I want to; I write as I can… I have had small power of imagination… no lyrical quality… little gift of metaphor I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed.” W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham was a British author who wrote plays and short stories and novels. He was a dashing and daring man who did not wish to follow the other men in his family to practice law. Imagine, an individual in the Victorian Era… He was born on January 25, 1874, in Paris (at the British Embassy) and died on December 16th, 1965, in Nice, France.

During the First World War, our Somerset proved his valor by serving with the Red Cross in the ambulance corps (remember his earlier medical training) and was recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service right before the October Revolution in 1917.

Somerset dove into medicine and was fairly good at it until he wrote his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897) and all bets were off. The book flew off the shelves and people were reportedly wrestling in the streets for copies to gift their loved ones. (*Creative license at work – however, you don’t know that this did not happen…) He was known to say, “I took to it (writing) as a duck takes to water.”

At the age of sixty-six, he had to flee with only a suitcase from the encroaching Nazis as they advanced across Europe. He escaped to England and then on to South Carolina, in the U.S. where he continued to work on the screenplay for Razor’s Edge. He moved to Hollywood and then eventually back to France.

Did we mention that W. Somerset Maugham was repudiated to be the highest-paid author of the 1930s?

It’s obvious why we chose Somerset to represent our Literary & Contemporary Fiction Awards!

Submit your novel or manuscript to our Somerset Awards today!

Here is a listing of the Somerset Book Awards Hall of Fame Winners!

The 2018 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

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

Abbie Rose Stone is a woman determined to follow her newly discovered dream of producing her own craft hard apple cider while navigating the ups and downs of family life with her grown sons and husband.

Abbie Rose knows how to deal with adversity, and dives headfirst into this new chapter of her life with energy and passion. She describes her early adulthood years of infertility struggles and the hardscrabble way she built her young family through invasive medical procedures, a surrogate attempt, and adoption barriers.

The 2019 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

The Proprietor of Theatre Life by Donna LeClair

Still in progress, we’re excited to review Donna’s book when it comes out!

The 2020 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

Gregory Erich Phillips for A Season in Lights

Gregory Erich Phillips’ A Season in Lights is a well-crafted, engaging exploration of creatives, each following their heart and trying to reach their dream.

Against backdrops of the 1980s AIDS crisis and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, the story entwines the lives of a 30-something dancer and an older musician as they strive to make their artistic mark in the cultural capital of New York City.

Here in a two-fold unveiling, the story comes to life from the first-person perspective of Cammie, a starry-eyed aspiring dancer from Lancaster, PA, and the third-person reveal of Tom, a more seasoned black pianist. He longs for a classical career but is too often labeled a jazz musician. Cammie first encounters Tom in a studio dance class where he’s taken a job as the musical accompanist. Befriended by the gay dance instructor, Tom heeds the worldly advice offered about surviving in the Big Apple. “All you’ve got to do is convince people that you belong. You’ve got to tell them who you are before they tell you.”

The 2021 Somerset Award Grand Prize Winner was:

Lies in Bone Natalie Symons

A review of Lies in Bone is forthcoming. However, we know you’ll love this intricate story told with beautifully tight control. A mystery lies at the heart of this book that has the feeling of a grown-up To Kill a Mockingbird meets Serial Production’s S-Town Podcast. Highly Recommended.

Will your novel be recognized as the best of the best in the Somerset Awards for 2022? Find out!

Submit your work to the Chanticleer International Book Awards – today!

The last day to submit your work is November 30, 2022. We invite you to join us, tell us your stories, and find out who will take home the prize at CAC23 on April 29th.

As our deadline draws near, don’t miss this opportunity to earn the distinction your literary novel deserves! Enter today!

The SOMERSET Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards – the CIBAs.

The winners will be announced at the CIBA Awards Ceremony on April 29, 2023, which will take place during the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference. All 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!

First Place Winners and Grand Prize winners will each receive an awards package. Whose works will be chosen?

The excitement builds for the 2022 SOMERSET Book Awards competitions.

November 10, 2022
A PORTION OF MALICE by Lloyd Jeffries – Paranormal, Christian Thriller, Action, Suspense

God visits a punishment of immortality on three men in Lloyd Jeffries’ A Portion of Malice, the first in the Ages of Malice series. The leader of these immortals, Cain the first murderer, seeks to even the scales by taking all of God’s children away from Him.

In the modern day, Emery, a renowned journalist fallen on personal tragedy, was planning suicide before the immortal Roman Longinus found him. Longinus brings him to meet Thaddeus Drake, a man with the uncanny ability to make peace between warring nations. Drake reveals himself to be the biblical Cain and offers Emery all the money and luxury he could ever need if he simply tells Cain’s story. Emery agrees, and upon seeing the terrible mark on Cain’s hand, can’t deny the truth of his immortality.

Cain and Longinus introduce Emery to their fellow immortal, Igneus. While Emery learns more about these strange men and how Jesus rejected Cain’s begging for forgiveness, earning his eternal rage, he becomes pulled into their far-reaching conspiracy. Cain and his companions long ago formed the secret organization X’Chasei, and over two millennia have become the undisputed masters of the world. However, Cain is not content with this power alone, and as he begins to enact the prophecies of Revelations, Emery realizes how dangerous these people truly are.

The plots of X’Chasei catch Emery in a whirlwind of power, implication, and scripture.

While Cain holds a deep hatred for God, he also understands Him far better than anyone else could; he has walked with God, has heard His voice, and knows the true extent of His word. John the Apostle was also made immortal, given a sacred task by Jesus, and in retribution, Cain exiled him to Patmos and stole a record of divine visions given to John. Cain remains a mysterious figure throughout the story, keeping Emery guessing as to his true plans, and whether there could be any way to stop him.

Longinus and Igneus serve Cain’s plot, though both Emery and the reader only get to see the final, disconnected steps of it. This story becomes a mystery of biblical proportions, with disparate plotlines winding together for the climax.

Even as he orchestrates murder and revolts to get his way, Cain remains a sympathetic character. His companions share that humanity, making a fascinating cast of villains.

For millennia, Cain wandered the Earth as a vagabond, unable to settle in any one place, with the guilt of his brother’s death hanging around his neck. Even so, he sought forgiveness from the son of God. When he’s rebuked, the reader sees the extent of his despair, his suffering, and even some truth to his claim that “God prefers blood.” His fury mingles with a deep longing, a loneliness that defines him. While, two thousand years later, he rejects the idea of God’s forgiveness, he desperately wishes to make amends to his brother Abel.

While Longinus enjoys his place of power over the mortals of this world, he cows to Cain, showing a hint of vulnerability even as he kills for the sake of X’Chasei. However, Igneus is the only one of them who truly connects with Emery. Smaller and prone to fear, Igneus has spent his eternity dwelling on the cruelty he’s surrounded by and finds a kindred spirit in this mortal man brought into their circle.

Author Lloyd Jeffries offers beautiful and painful descriptions of both the modern world and biblical times.

The characters’ emotions become palpable, and they speak to each other with weight behind their words. The climax could have delivered more completely on the themes of Cain’s story, but A Portion of Malice holds a strong tension that will keep readers excited to follow all of these people – mortal and immortal – to the next part of this imaginative series.

November 2, 2022
MISSION: ANGOLA: Xavier Sear Thriller, Book 1 by Randall Krzak – Global Thriller, Action, Suspense

Rescuing the son of an Angolan official turns convoluted and deadly in Krzak’s latest thriller, Mission: Angola.

Peter Mwanga, the son of Angolan cabinet minister Colonel Mwanga, is a doctor at the Christian Aid Mission DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). While he converses with foreign missionaries at a village hospital, a raid nearly overtakes the area, and Congolese Marxist Jonah Alimasi and his rebels kidnap Peter.

Almost four thousand miles north in Lisbon, Portugal, government official João Regaleira calls Xavier Sear—an American ex-CIA operative and the best man in his wedding—inviting him to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. Soon afterward, he receives word from an old friend that Theo Mwanga, Peter’s father, is asking for assistance in negotiating his son’s release. Hours later, the first sign of danger surfaces when João and his wife are accosted by a pair of thugs.

The attackers are apprehended, but the threat is clear. Further conversation with Theo convinces João that he should go to Angola only with Sear by his side.

João heads out first to meet with Theo, and Sear leaves a day later. Each experiences dangerous situations en route to their rendezvous point. Regrouped, the troupe encounters a heinous scene—a sign of more involvement from perilous political factions, including Russians and a diamond mine.

Sear has no choice but to devise an alternative strategy to locate Peter, one that comes with significant risks. He readies the group, outnumbered by their enemies, their chances of survival from the rescue mission slim at best.

Award-winning author Randall Krzak introduces a new thriller series featuring a spunky yet brusque ex-CIA operative.

Mission: Angola opens with sharp contrast as scenes morph from the horrific massacre of a poor village to the serenity of João and his wife discussing plans for their upcoming 20th anniversary in posh surroundings.

Sear’s entrance comes at the invitation of João, and the remaining cast follows. Krzak envelopes his characters by carefully accentuating nuances of culture, food, and political strife. Using appropriate terminology, Krzak captures the sights, sounds, and smells befitting both Portugal’s beauty and Angola’s rough and hot terrain.

Krzak’s writing style is nothing less than sure.

With a cast covering an array of personas—from well-developed to highly elusive characters, Krzak’s storytelling naturally flows to create short, concise, cliffhanging chapters. Chapters identify locations, such as Fortaleza de São Miguel, Luanda, Angola; Lisbon, Portugal; and the rebel camp in the DRC, to name only a few. Those sites provide readers with behind-the-scene segments between the various factions and Sear’s rescue plan, which build unrelenting tension up to the story’s apex and beyond.

Mission: Angola has enough twists, turns, and suspense to satisfy thriller fans and feed their expectations for the next in the Xavier Sear series.

Mission: Angola by Randall Kzark won First Place in the 2021 CIBA Global Thriller Awards for High Stakes Suspense.

September 14, 2022
Notes and Jottings about Writing from Kiffer Brown, A Chanticleer Writer’s Toolbox Post
Kiffer Brown’s Fall Cleaning Finds Writing Tips!

Found Notes from the Home of Kiffer Brown

We are getting ready to do some long-awaited (no thanks to Covid) and much needed remodeling on our 100-year-old-plus bungalow. A little known fact of our old home is that Edward R. Murrow’s parents lived here and Mr. Murrow visited them often. Below is a photo of Mr. Murrow visiting his parents in the house that I now live in.

A photo of Edward R. Murrow visiting his parents’ house in Bellingham, Wash.

In moving my office (read: organize boxes of notebooks, composition books, and small pieces of paper), I am compelled to go through them and decide which ones I will toss, which ones I will need to consolidate, and which of the aforementioned I will deem worthy of keeping. While I was flipping through these individual journals, I saw the following snippets of note-taking from leaders and top authors in the publishing industry.

How many of you have these in your writing lair?

Writing Notebooks

Without further ado here are a few of the found gems that I found while going through a few of my notebooks:
- Write the slow stuff fast and the fast stuff (aka action scenes) slow to increase tension. In other words, “Tell” the slow stuff and “Show” the Fast Stuff.
- When writing you either need to advance the plot or reveal more about a character.
- Chapters should have arcs to them and cliffhangers to keep the reader turning pages.
- The first and last sentences of each chapter are the most important.
- Dialogue is action. Action is dialogue (Robert Dugoni).
- Only add backstory in on an as-needed basis. Does it advance the story? If not, don’t add it.
- Start scenes with action. End scenes with action.
And, finally, Subplots must be woven in. They are tools for the author to:
- Delay the main plot
- Distract the protagonist
- Heighten mood
- Affect pacing
- Add foreshadowing
- Shows transformations
- Ramp up the main plot
After years of attending conferences and living and breathing the writing world, it’s a joy and a gift to come across these treasures from the best in my home office. I hope you find these jottings as helpful as I have.

Now back to trying to beat back chaos in my office. I will do another post about the jottings and notes that I find during my re-organization.

We’d love to hear from you and your notes and jottings!

Keep on Writing! The world needs good books now more than ever! – Kiffer
September 8, 2022