The Somerset Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best new books featuring contemporary stories, literary themes, adventure, magical realism, or women and family themes to compete in the Somerset Book Awards (the CIBAs). We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the first look rounds from all 2025 Somerset entries to the 2025 Somerset Book Awards LONG LIST. These entries are now in competition for the 2025 Short List. The Short Listers will compete for the Semi-Finalists positions. FINALISTS will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, CAC26.

We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 18th, 2026 in beautiful Bellingham, WA sponsored by the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference. 

These titles are in the running for the SHORT LIST of the 2025 Somerset Book Awards novel competition for Literary and Contemporary Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works!

• Adam Strassberg – December on 5C4
• AG Flitcher – Wasp Oil
• AK Logan – Masks of Silence
• Allie Cresswell – The Cottage on Winter Moss
• Anna Binder Reardon – Wethersfield Road
• Anne Freeman – The Time After Now
• Anne Heinrich – Violet Is Blue
• Art Young – Downeyoshun
• B.E. Kennedy – County Kildare
• BL Smith – The Unpleasantness on Orchard
• Brian Hackett – Leaving Naples
• Bruce J. Berger – Forgiven a Novel
• Carolyn Summer Quinn – The Mystery From Way Back When
• Catherine Matthews – Roadside Sisters
• Chadwick Wall – The Fertile Crescent
• Cheryl Grey Bostrom – What the River Keeps
• Chip Jacobs – Later Days
• Christopher Woods – Some Rainbow
• Chuck Locklear – Being Hope
• Curtis Andrew Burton – Bloom a Novel
• Dan Schorr – Open Bar a Novel
• Daniel Oakman – Fire in the Head
• Dave Pearce – Fighters of Fire
• David Galef – Where I Went Wrong
• Debz Hobbs-Wyatt – If Crows Could Talk
• Dennis D. Skirvin – The Gentlemen’s Club and the Great Ferris Wheel
• Elizabeth A. Tucker – The Pale Flesh of Wood
• Elizabeth Conte – Life of Her
• Francis-Adrien Morneault – The Light of Faded Stars
• George Petersen – The Summer of Haight
• Gregg Brandalise – The Death of Us All
• Isaac Thorne – Tab’s Terrible Third Eye
• J.J. Cheng – Phoenixa the Nest a Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy
• Jacci Turner – Love Virus
• Jane Ward – Should Have Told You Sooner
• Jimmy Cela – Hotel Bahnhof
• Jude Berman – The Vow a Novel
• Judith Jackson-Pomeroy – Weight of a Woman
• Julie Hammonds – Blue Mountain Rose a Novel in Five Acts
• Kathleen Stone – Missing From Me
• Kipling Knox – How To Love in a World Like This
• Leslie A. Rasmussen – When People Leave a Story of Love Lies and Finding the Truth
• Linda Paul – Fabricated
• LK Quinn – The Toffee Man and the Kingdom of Ends
• Lya Badgley – The Thirty-Fifth Page
• Magdalena & Ashe Stevens – Fragments
• Mark A. Gibson – Roses in December Hamilton Place Book II
• Mark Mustian – Boy with Wings
• Maxsense Maximus – Two Euro Candles a Memoir of Faith Trauma and Quiet Miracles
• Michelle Daniel – A Scarlet Mind
• Natia Khaduri – I Forgave You
• Peter Gooch – Seren
• R. B. Shifman – Paper Airplane Broken Bones
• Radu Guiasu – The Faraway Mountains
• Rick Lenz – Mit Out Sound
• Robert L Jones – 1911
• Robert L Jones – Hope
• Robert L Jones – Hopeless
• Robin Merle – A Dangerous Friendship
• Ruby Soames – Homewrecked
• S.E. Beathan – Nothing Lost
• Sam Martin – Bitterblue
• Sarah E. Pearsall – The Summer Knows
• Shawn Hays and Stephen Hays – What Light Was
• Steve Schlam – The Harvesting of Haystacks Kane
• Su Chang – The Immortal Woman
• Susan Ellison Busch – Chance at Life
• Susan Poole – Out of The Crash
• Suzanne Uttaro Samuels – Seeds of the Pomegranate
• Terri Hanauer – The Lightness of Rain
• Thomas Trabulsi – The Fire Service of Sachem City
• Tong Ge – The House Filler
• Trisha T Pritikin – Then Came the Summer Snow an Atomic Age Hero’s Journey
• Tudor Alexander – The Last Patient
• Wendy J. Dunn – Shades of Yellow

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS! 

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We will also be promoting this list in our Newsletter, which you can sign up for here!

Congratulations once more to the 2024 Somerset Grand Prize Winner

Vermilion Harvest

By Reenita Malhotra Hora

Click here to see the full list of 2024 Somerset Book Award Winners for Literary Fiction.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2026 Somerset Book Awards.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2025 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2026 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 17 – 19, 2026! Save the Date for Registration!

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 annual conference discover why!

Contemporary tales of literary proportions?

Submit to the Somerset Awards by October 31st!

***Submit Your Novel Today!***

Are the pages of your book full of rich literary themes, captivating contemporary narratives, a touch of magical realism, or heartfelt explorations of family dynamics? If so, it’s time to put your work to the test by submitting it to the Somerset Awards! These awards seek to celebrate and honor books that shine with literary brilliance, offering a platform for those that delve into the complexities of human existence through the written word. Whether your work weaves enchanting tales of magical realism, delves into the intricacies of modern life, or delves deep into the bonds that tie families together, the Somerset Awards is your chance to gain recognition and acclaim for your extraordinary storytelling.

For Humorous, Satirical, or Allegorical works, we suggest that you consider the Humor and Satire Book Awards division of the CIBAs.

Let’s take a look at the Grand Prize Winners of the Somerset Awards!

Vermilion Harvest: Playtime at the Bagh
By Reenita M. Hora

Chanticleers 2024 Overall Grand Prize Winner and a Chatelaine First Place Winner!

Reenita M. Hora’s Vermilion Harvest weaves love and liberation into literary gold.

“Why do love and freedom have such a complicated relationship?” This haunting question pulses through every page of Vermilion Harvest, Hora’s breathtaking debut that creates, in one of history’s darkest moments, a luminous testament to the power of love in transcending boundaries.

A star-crossed romance sparks against the backdrop of empire.

Set in 1919 Amritsar, Vermilion Harvest introduces readers to Aruna Duggal, a nineteen-year-old Anglo-Indian schoolteacher caught between worlds—too brown for British acceptance, too white for Indian belonging. Born from violence, raised in the shadows between communities, Aruna navigates life’s margins until she meets Ayaz Peermohammed, a passionate Muslim law student from Lahore. Ayaz’s dreams of Indian independence ignite something revolutionary within Aruna’s heart.

Read More Here

You Can’t Fool A Mermaid
By Judy Keeslar Santamaria

You Can’t Fool a Mermaid by Judy Keeslar Santamaria is a glorious dance of well-intentioned ghosts. In the words of Violet, a twenty-one-year-old pianist, it’s “bewitching as hell.”

Santamaria opens with a tiny mermaid bodysurfing through the gutters of Seattle. College student and pianist Violet Bacon chalks up “gutter-mini-mermaid” to her wildly imaginative mind, but when she stumbles upon a magical theater-turned-piano-rescue with a retinue of shopkeeping cats, the separation between imagination and reality no longer seems as important as discovering her true self.

Violet has been living a lie: keeping up the pretense that she’s dating a woman to make her father angry. She reluctantly goes along with what other people want and pretends she doesn’t desperately need a cat. As she practices a complex Stravinsky concerto, her abiding love for music is all that sustains her.

But Hector Kouris, the proprietor of the theater-turned-rescue, reintroduces Violet to her childhood piano, Bossy.

Read More Here

Everything That Was
By Conon Parks, Chris Sempek, Mike MacNeil and Larry Knight

Everything That Was echoes myriad broken emotions born of the world in turmoil after 9/11, intricate and politically bold, and as disturbing in its brutal humanity as it is satisfying with witty jests.

The 9/11 terrorist attack has shattered the psyche of the American people. A volcanic eruption of questions demands the whys and hows of the attack. From this anger, a massive war on terror begins. This historical fiction reflects the chaos of 9/11 and its ensuing global chaos – resulting in a series of violent endeavors and events. Throughout Everything That Was, one can find a swarm of fragmented ideologies, mini memoirs of war veterans, and witness accounts – all screeching reasons for the attack, the ensuing war, and its consequences: political, ideological, and theological.

Read More Here

Lies In Bone
By Natalie Symons

From the first paragraph of Lies in Bone, Natalie Symons’ debut novel delves into human darkness.

Lies in Bone, set in a factory town in 1986 Pennsylvania after its industrial boom faded, is told from the point of view of a girl who struggles with more than usual teenage angst. Symons relentlessly reveals the fear, ignorance, and poverty which often suffuse a community left behind.

The residents of Slippery Elm, Pennsylvania, were bewildered and ill-equipped to deal with their new reality when the steel mill shut down seven years before, leaving many unemployed and discouraged.

Frances Coolidge, known as Frank, knows the struggle of being left behind.

Read More Here

A Season in Lights
By Gregory Erich Phillips

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.”

Read More Here

Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Somerset Winners is to submit today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

Submit to the CIBAs Today!

Now is your chance to touch the hearts of readers everywhere. Your Contemporary story deserves to be discovered, and you can submit to the 2025 Somerset Awards by the end of the October. Don’t miss this chance to give your book the recognition it deserves.

The Somerset Awards is your chance to shine!