Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Prairie Fontier

  • Short Listers for the LARAMIE 2017 Book Awards for Western, Civil War, and Prairie Fiction

    Short Listers for the LARAMIE 2017 Book Awards for Western, Civil War, and Prairie Fiction

    Western Pioneeer Civil War Fiction Award

    The Laramie Book Awards FIRST IN CATEGORY sub-genres  are: Western Romance, Adventure/Caper, Classic, Civil War, Contemporary, Western YA, Drama, & Prairie.

     

     

     

    The following titles will compete for the FIRST IN CATEGORY Positions and Book Awards Packages for the 2017 Laramie Book Awards.

    NOTE: This is the Official List of the Laramie 2017 SHORT LIST.

    The Finalists Authors and Titles of Works that have made it to the highly competitive Short-List (aka The Semi-Finalists) of the Laramie 2017 Book Awards are:

    • Kiki Watkins – Grasshoppers at Dusk
    • David Watts – The Guns of Pecos County
    • J.L. Oakley – Mist-chi-mus: A Novel of Captivity 
    • J.D.R. Hawkins – A Rebel Among Us
    • John Simons/David Simons – Sacrificial Lions
    • Michelle Rene – Hour Glass 
    • Jerry E. Bustin – Arizona Lawmen, Renegades, and Prickly Pear Jam
    • Nick K. Adams – Away at War: A Civil War Story of the Family Left Behind 
    • John Hansen – A Bad Place To Be
    • T.K. Conklin – Threads of Passion
    • John C. Horst – Roosevelt’s Boys
    • Michael Aloysius O’Reilly – Desertion
    • Heather Starsong – The Purest Gold 
    • Frank S. Johnson – Recapturing Lisdoonvarna
    • Bruce Wilson – Death in the Black Patch
    • Sharon Shipley – Sary’s Gold

    The 2017 Laramie Short Listers will compete for the Laramie First-In-Category Positions, which consists of Seven Judging Rounds.  First Place Category Award winners will automatically be entered into the LARAMIE GRAND PRIZE AWARD competition.  The CBR Grand Prize Genre Winners will compete for the CBR Overall Grand Prize for Best Book and its $1,000 purse.

    All Short Listers will receive high visibility along with special badges to wear during the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala.

    As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, concerns, or suggestions at Info@ChantiReviews.com. 

    Congratulations to the Short Listers in this fiercely competitive contest! 

    Good Luck to each of you as your works compete for the Laramie Awards  First Class Category Positions. 

    The Laramie Grand Prize Winner and the Five First Place Category Position award winners along with all Short Listers in attendance will be announced at the April 21st, 2018 Chanticleer Book Awards Annual Awards Gala, which takes place at the Chanticleer Authors Conference that will be held in Bellingham, Wash. 

    Sara Dahmen awarded Laramie Grand Prize for DR. KINNEY’S HOUSEKEEPER

    We are now accepting submissions into the 2018 Laramie Book Awards writing competition. The deadline for submissions is March 31st, 2018. Please click here for more information. 

  • DOG SOLDIER MOON by McKendree Long – Historical Post-Civil War Western

    DOG SOLDIER MOON by McKendree Long – Historical Post-Civil War Western

    In this second novel of McKendree Long’s Western trilogy, the adventures of Thomas “Dobey” Walls and Jimmy “Boss” Melton continue, taking in the turbulent post-Civil War years on the Western frontier. An unforgettable read!

    The year is 1866, and the Gray Army has long since surrendered to the Yankees. Dobey and Boss’s friend, Jimmy Ridges, having recently ridden with General Stand Watie’s Confederate Cherokees, travels to Canadian Fort in north Texas, hoping to meet up with his sweetheart Amanda Watson. Along the way, Jimmy spends the night in a Cheyenne hunters’ camp and receives a gift from Chief Black Kettle, a woman named Serenity Killer. Aptly named, the young Cherokee has the potential to cause Jimmy all manner of problems with his lovely bride-to-be.

    Thus McKendree Long begins his second novel, Dog Soldier Moon, reuniting readers with the memorable characters of No Good Like It Is. We ride along with Dobey and Boss and their families as they struggle to make a life for themselves in post-Civil War Texas. Back East, the war may be over, but out West, resentments still run high. Divided loyalties during the war have now hardened into feelings of anger, resentment, and betrayal. Memories of wartime atrocities and injustices are festering wounds in the mind of Boss Melton and others.

    As with No Good Like It Is, Long goes far beyond the simplistic notion of the Civil War as told in American history texts to accurately portray the daily challenges faced by homesteading families, freed slaves, American Indians robbed of their ancestral lands, and ex-soldiers who face the disrespect of the Union army. Heart-warming and at times hilarious adventures are juxtaposed with gritty and emotionally wrenching moments such as Custer’s 1868 attack on Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne camp at Washita.

    In Dog Soldier Moon and its prequel No Good Like It Is, author McKendree Long displays a natural gift for storytelling that will delight aficionados of the Western genre and have them anxious to read the next in the series.