Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: romance

Valentine’s Day 2024 – SWEET READS From Chanticleer with all the Genres of the Heart

Will your book be our Valentine?

At Chanticleer we love Romance Books and we love to show it off with our Chatelaine Awards! We’re currently working as hard as we can to get out the Finalist List for those Awards, and you can see the Semi-Finals for them here! Who will win? Only time will tell.

However, right now we just want to celebrate some of the best romantic books we’ve been able to discover. Like chocolate, romance is one of those extraordinary genres that can go with almost anything! Historical Romance, Mystery Romance, YA Romance, SciFi Romance, Fantasy Romance, the list goes on!

Even better, romance is one of the bestselling genres out there! Being able to add that tag to your book makes it that much more marketable! For our own Chatelaine Awards, we’re always happy to crow about our winners!

Our 2022 Chatelaine Grand Prize Winner was Operation Mom by Reenita Malhotra Hora.

What does Chanticleer have to say about Operation Mom?

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?

No, Ila couldn’t be taken with Dev because he’s one of three young men that her best friend Deepali is juggling in her summer experiment of exploring her “feminine mystique.” This turn of phrase becomes just one of many opportunities for Hora’s humor to shine as Ila remarks, “That’s a book by Gloria Steinem . . . no Betty Friedan.” Deepali’s response? “Yaar. Don’t be so literal.” The delightful balance between Ila’s book smarts versus Deepali’s street smarts carries us through Hora’s expertly crafted story.

Read more here!

Operation Mom also took home a First Place Blue in the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction. We’d love to share other romance books that meet with other genres and why they touch our heart!

A SPYING EYE: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Novel
By Michelle Cox
2023 Overall Grand Prize
Grand Prize for the M&M Awards for Cozy Mysteries

A Cozy Mystery Romance!

Brooding Château du Freudeneck, just outside Strasbourg, France has villains in the drawing rooms, stolen art hidden in the cellars, and bats in the belfry – all the best elements for a 19th-century Gothic mystery.

However, in Michelle Cox’s novel, A Spying Eye it’s the 20th century. The Great War is passed, but the next war already looms on the horizon. The people of Strasbourg feel the growing conflict sharply, at the heart of Alsace-Lorraine, a fertile region that has been contested between France and Germany since time immemorial.

Which means those bats are in the unfortunate head of the elderly Baron Von Harmon, the current lord and master (as much as he’s still able to be, at least) of the Chateau, while the stolen art is pursued by both the villainous Nazis and the only slightly-less villainous agents of Britain’s MI5.

Read more here!

THE LAST LUMENIAN
By S.G. Blaise
2023 Cygnus Grand Prize Winner

A SciFi Romance!

Nineteen-year-old Lilla could have an idyllic life, but in The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise, she comes face to face with a rebellion and their just cause.

Lilla’s father leads the Pax Septum Coalition, a nineteen-planet confederation. As a princess in her own right, she should be enjoying the status and wealth that comes from living on Uhna, the richest planet in the coalition due to the diamond mines found by her pirate ancestors centuries ago. She most definitely shouldn’t be worried about the rebellion brewing right under her father’s nose. However, when Lilla meets rebels in a refugee camp, she thinks she has found her destiny, a true purpose.

Wanting to fight against the injustice and horrific treatment of the refugees, Lilla tries desperately to prove herself, especially after a disastrous first mission where she not only crashes her ship but also ends up in the hands of General Callum, leader of the Teryn Praelium.

Read more here!

NORTH QUEEN
By Nicola Tyche

A Fantasy Romance

Norah Andell, Princess of Mercia and future North Queen, has been missing for three years.

Her father secreted her away to protect her from a prophesied attack in a ten-year war, but he dies shortly after their departure and takes her location to the grave. Alexander Rhemus, Lord Justice to Queen Regent Catherine, Norah’s grandmother, was told by a seer that Norah would be found in the deep forests of the Northern Kingdom, and has searched the woods ceaselessly. Having loved her since they were children, Alexander’s desperation leads him to the Wilds, a legendary and feared area where men often do not return. So opens The North Queen.

To Alexander’s shock, he finds Norah, who has no memories of her former life or even of her own name. At first, she refuses to believe she’s the missing princess, now Queen, and bristles against her newfound world and the restraints it casts upon her.
Norah struggles with a position she doesn’t want, governing a people on the verge of starvation and facing an arranged marriage to protect her people from the Shadow King, a ruthless man hell-bent on taking her kingdom.

Read more here!

A PLACE Of REFUGE: Book Four of First Light
By Linda Cardillo

A Historical Romance

Izzy Monroe has lost herself. Three months after an accident that damaged a portion of her brain, she isolates herself in her parent’s home on Chappaquiddick Island, on the eastern end of Martha’s Vineyard.

She has spent her life in the world of academia, working on a doctorate in literature at Harvard, but now with her short-term memory gone, she has to give up her dreams. Her emptiness and doubt have left her rudderless and deeply depressed.

When her former college roommate, Maria, suggests she intern at Portarello, Maria’s grandfather’s self-sustaining farm in the Italian countryside, Izzy isn’t immediately convinced she can make the journey alone much less work at the successful inn and thriving farm. However, Izzy remembers the peace she felt there on the one visit she and Maria made years ago, and she knows this is her only chance to regain any sense of normalcy.

Read more here!

Thank you for joining us on this adventure of books, and we hope you found a read that caught your fancy!

Looking for more quality time with us?

Join us at

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

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.

We’d love to see you there!

February 14, 2024
ELODIA’S KNIFE by Robert S. Phillips – Historical Fiction, Action/Adventure, Roman Empire

Elodia is a young woman driven by dreadful circumstances to act with deadly force in the Robert S. Phillips novel Elodia’s Knife.

What Elodia hoped would be her leap away from danger instead left her surrounded by perilous threats that now threaten to consume her. Armed with her courage, determination, instincts, and a trusty knife, Elodia faces a hostile world in foreign territory.

Not all are against her though. Allies– even a friend– can be found, if Elodia can summon the bravery to listen to her feelings and own deep wishes.

Young Elodia is unhappily married to an abusive husband. But when he tries to attack her again, she strikes back and kills him.

By her own hand, she is set free from a brutal life, yet not fully liberated. Now her husband’s family pursues her, intent on revenge. Elodia must flee for her life, driven into the unknown, alone across the Danube River. She can never return, but what she finds before her is a crumbling empire on the brink of war. They view her as one of the enemy, to be conquered and enslaved. Refusing to be bound again, she keeps her knife close at hand, and her wits about her at all times.

Elodia is captured upon landing by men who blame Gothic peoples, like her, for the troubles in the Western Roman Empire of the late 4^th century CE. But among them is Caius, who sees her in a different light.

He treats her not as a prisoner, but as a person. Is his compassion genuine? As he oversees the work he orders her to complete, that’s when she first notices his smile. A small smile, and a friendly one. Will Caius become a possible ally? Even someone she could trust? Or possibly more? Elodia allows hope to churn within her. But she cannot dwell on that hope alone. She will need to foster the strength to rise out of slavery in this foreign place.

Elodia takes thrilling actions to seize the day and take control– to lead a Roman city.

Elodia’s Knife surrounds readers with a vivid and riveting time in early history.

Author Phillips shows the fascinating details of how people of those times faced the challenges of life and a complex society. He skillfully weaves the decline of the Roman Empire– a world on the brink of collapse– into the pulse of this exquisite story.

Lives and times change, but human nature is at the heart of it all. The struggles of these characters leap off the page with fervor. Readers will cheer for Elodia as she fights with hope fueling her soul and Elodia’s Knife clutched, at the ready.

January 22, 2024
The CHATELAINE Book Awards 2023 Semi-Finalists for Romantic Fiction
The Chatelaine Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Romantic Fiction. The Chatelaine Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best new books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, and stories that appeal especially to fans of affairs of the heart to compete in the Chatelaine Book Awards (the CIBAs). We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2023 Chatelaine Romantic Fiction Short List to the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards SEMI-FINALISTS. Finalists will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

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 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the FINALISTS of the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards novel competition for Romantic Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Susan Bagby – Christmas Wish Upon A Star
- Douglas Bachmann – Afterlife
- K.S. Jones – Once In a Bluebonnet Moon
- Jeanette Watts – My Dearest Miss Fairfax
- T.K. Conklin – Guarded Hearts
- Morgan Sloan – Stableshoes
- Edie Cay – A Viscount’s Vengeance
- Kathleen Stone – Hey Jude
- Gail Avery Halverson – A Sea of Glass
- Hope Gibbs – Where the Grass Grows Blue
- Alice McVeigh – Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
- Bonnie Rose Ward – Loving Beth
- Catherine Tinley – A Laird for the Highland Lady
- Carmela Dutra – Love Extra Credit
- KB Taylor – Hattie’s Family: Through the Eyes of a Dairymaid
- Suzanne Baginskie – Dangerous Revenge- Book 2 of The FBI Affairs Series
- S.G. Blaise – Proud Pada
- Lynn Yvonne Moon – Fish Scales
- Rose Prendeville – Mistress Mackintosh and the Shaw Wretch
- Wendy Rich Stetson – Heartsong Hills
- Yvonne Korshak – Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
- Marie Jones – Those We Seek
- Eve M. Riley – The Outcast
- Carol Van Den Hende – Always Orchid
- KD Sherrinford – Song for Someone
- Nancy Herkness – Royal Caleva: Gabriel
- Evie Alexander – Love ad Lib
- Kelly Miller – A Dutiful Son
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

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.

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.

the Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CHATELAINE Book Awards is:

Operation Mom:

My plan to get my Mom a life and a man

by Reenita Malhotra Hora

See the full list of Chatelaine 2022 Winners here

We are now accepting submissions into the 2024 Chatelaine Book Awards for Romance Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony, sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference April 18-21, 2024! Register Today!

The Chanticleer Authors Conference

Featuring authors like D.D. Black, Kim Hornsby, book doctor Christine Fairchild, and Mark Berridge, our twelfth annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!

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 12th annual conference and discover why!
January 11, 2024
GETTING To YES by Tim Hunniecutt – Romance, 1970s, Emotional Struggle

As a freshman at Florida State University, Chris should be enjoying the usual 1970s “free spirit” college experiences, a little studying and a lot of partying. In Tim Hunniecutt’s Getting to Yes, Chris dreams of being a poet. His way with words, boy-next-door looks, and an athletic runner’s body means he has no trouble attracting one girl after another. However, Chris wants more than just a fling.

He’s looking for a relationship, a girl who loves him, but the girls he meets don’t seem to want forever. Most of them only want a good time or have boyfriends back home. After a series of failed romances, Chris finds himself depressed, realizing part of the problem lies in the emotional chasm he’s carved within himself after his parents’ disastrous marriage.

Chris’s emotional roadblock began when he caught his mother naked in the arms of a man who was not his father.

He never told anyone, including his father, about the affair, and his parents went on for a while pretending their relationship wasn’t falling apart. Their loveless marriage created in Chris a fear of expressing his own emotions. In his adolescent mind, not revealing the weakness of loving too strongly became normalized. When his father finally broke down and cried to Chris about his mother’s lack of love, Chris’s derision of feelings became cemented in his psyche. Girls were simply pretty distractions. Ironically, the maturity he likely developed because of this situation makes him easy to talk to, and girls flock to him.

It isn’t until he meets Deb, a girl in his class with a terrible home life, that he begins to realize a need within himself to find more than just physical attraction. Though Deb is unattainable, she awakens an “overwhelming hunger” within him, which he sates by dating as many girls as possible in his first year at FSU. He thinks he finds what he’s missing in Colleen, his first girlfriend.

His first attempts at physical love end in failure. When he finally finds physical fulfillment with a girl, he falls immediately in love with her.

Colleen seems perfect for him, but when he discovers she has a boyfriend, he doesn’t try to fight for her. He won’t acknowledge his strong feelings, and he allows her to slip away. Chris vows never to allow his inability to open up get in his way again, and when he returns home at the end of his freshman year, he meets Chloe.

It’s love at first sight–at least for Chris. He falls quickly, offering his heartfelt “I love you” early in their relationship, but Chloe comes with her own issues. Her abusive father left a need for male approval that she seeks in the arms of the wrong boys, and she repeatedly finds herself in loveless relationships in which she is used and tossed aside.

Chris’s pain is palpable in the novel, and his uncertainty is heart-wrenching, creating a strong theme of trust– the kind of trust that comes with allowing oneself to love and knowing the other person will return that love. When Chloe finally allows herself to express aloud to Chris what he desperately needs to hear, she gives herself permission to feel this trust.

Tim Hunniecutt’s Getting to Yes is a tale of a young man searching for his first real love and finding that what he learned from his parents does not have to be his fate. This book is recommended for anyone who wants to explore the complexities of early love though a young man’s perspective as he struggles to overcome the damage of his own parents’ marriage.

December 11, 2023
THE LAST LUMENIAN by S.G. Blaise – Science Fiction, Space Opera, Romance

Nineteen-year-old Lilla could have an idyllic life, but in The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise, she comes face to face with a rebellion and their just cause.

Lilla’s father leads the Pax Septum Coalition, a nineteen-planet confederation. As a princess in her own right, she should be enjoying the status and wealth that comes from living on Uhna, the richest planet in the coalition due to the diamond mines found by her pirate ancestors centuries ago. She most definitely shouldn’t be worried about the rebellion brewing right under her father’s nose. However, when Lilla meets rebels in a refugee camp, she thinks she has found her destiny, a true purpose.

Wanting to fight against the injustice and horrific treatment of the refugees, Lilla tries desperately to prove herself, especially after a disastrous first mission where she not only crashes her ship but also ends up in the hands of General Callum, leader of the Teryn Praelium.

With sparks of humor, the story grips the reader as the stakes are ever-rising with the demands on Lilla building relentlessly.

Known as the “brutes of the Seven Galaxies,” the Teryn army seems hellbent on destroying every world they encounter, but the more Lilla learns about Callum, the less she believes that to be true. When she discovers both she and Callum are concerned about recent murders on Uhna, she realizes their agendas may not be that different. The bodies pile up, and Lilla suspects there will soon be an Era War between the Archgod of Chaos and Destruction and the Archgoddess of the Eternal Light and Order, putting her planet in the middle of two terrifying conflicts.

Eventually, she learns of her identity as the last Lumenian, a creation of the archgoddess to fight the archgod. Lilla must decide which path will take to ensure her people’s survival, but as the rebellion, the Era War, and her love for the dangerous general escalate, she only grows more uncertain of her place amongst any of them. With the clock ticking down, she will have to choose, and the decision may cost her everything.

Lilla’s character is the star of this novel that will pull in readers who want to celebrate her as she proves her worth – to herself as much as anyone else.

Though Lilla’s mother died when she was only five, Lilla still remembers the fierce, beautiful woman who so valiantly fought to keep her only child safe and happy. When she discovers her mother’s secret heritage as a creation of the archgoddess, made to be a perpetual guardian of the light, Lilla fears she may never live up to such a standard. Constantly plagued by doubts in her abilities, Lilla fights like only youth and sheer bravado can to rise above the menial expectations of a contract marriage and a pretty showpiece of the palace.

She fearlessly confronts the archgoddess, telling her that she must earn Lilla’s respect despite the power pouring from the deity. After being tasked with hunting and killing the dark archgod and his minions of destruction, Lilla is rightly terrified, but she refuses to let that stop her. She risks treason, death, and the corruption of her very soul.

However, as much as her passionate fire of youth drives her forward, that passion draws ever more danger towards her.

She plunges into the rebellion after seeing firsthand the cruelty of the overseers and soldiers when one of her friends, a young servant, is taken to the camp and badly beaten for simply being a refugee. Once “inside” the rebellion, she discovers that her mother supported the cause, which cements her resolve.

Lilla doesn’t take the time to investigate whether she truly shares this group’s values. Xor, the leader, uses Lilla’s guilt and self-doubt over her position as the king’s daughter to bully her into deadly situations. And Lilla nearly misses out on an amazing partner in General Callum, as she initially shuns him for his bloody reputation. She even steals from him to aid the rebellion – all the while, Callum has her back, literally and figuratively.

The world of Uhna will entirely transport the reader.

A mixture of magic and science, this place creates an unbelievable environment, where fanged warhorses exist alongside floating elevators and transmitter necklaces that will put the newest smartphone to shame. The magical elements of earth, air, fire, water, and animal will feel both familiar and novel. The past and the future seem to collide here and coalesce into a unique spin on the space opera genre.

The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise won Grand Prize in the 2022 CIBA Cygnus Awards for Science Fiction.

November 26, 2023
The CHATELAINE Book Awards 2023 Short List for Romantic Fiction
The Chatelaine Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Romantic Fiction. The Chatelaine Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best new books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, and stories that appeal especially to fans of affairs of the heart to compete in the Chatelaine Book Awards (the CIBAs). We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2023 Chatelaine Romantic Fiction Long List to the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards SHORT LIST. Entries below are now in competition for the 2023 Chatelaine Semi-Finalists. Finalists will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

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 20th, 2024 in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the SEMI-FINALISTS of the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards novel competition for Romantic Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Susan Bagby – Christmas Wish Upon A Star
- Douglas Bachmann – Afterlife
- Kathryn Brown Ramsperger – A Thousand Flying Things
- K.S. Jones – Once In a Bluebonnet Moon
- Jeanette Watts – My Dearest Miss Fairfax
- Charles M. DuPuy – Rescue Man
- T.K. Conklin – Guarded Hearts
- Morgan Sloan – Stableshoes
- Edie Cay – A Viscount’s Vengeance
- Kathleen Stone – Hey Jude
- Gail Avery Halverson – A Sea of Glass
- Hope Gibbs – Where the Grass Grows Blue
- Betty Codd – Agatha
- Alice McVeigh – Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
- George T. Arnold – Old Mrs. Kimble’s Mansion
- Bonnie Rose Ward – Loving Beth
- Catherine Tinley – A Laird for the Highland Lady
- Carmela Dutra – Love Extra Credit
- KB Taylor – Hattie’s Family: Through the Eyes of a Dairymaid
- Suzanne Baginskie – Dangerous Revenge- Book 2 of The FBI Affairs Series
- S.G. Blaise – Proud Pada
- Lynn Yvonne Moon – Fish Scales
- Rose Prendeville – Mistress Mackintosh and the Shaw Wretch
- Wendy Rich Stetson – Heartsong Hills
- Yvonne Korshak – Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
- Marie Jones – Those We Seek
- Eve M. Riley – The Outcast
- Carol Van Den Hende – Always Orchid
- KD Sherrinford – Song for Someone
- Nancy Herkness – Royal Caleva: Gabriel
- Evie Alexander – Love ad Lib
- Kelly Miller – A Dutiful Son
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

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.

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 to the next rounds of judging.

the Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CHATELAINE Book Awards is:

Operation Mom:

My plan to get my Mom a life and a man

by Reenita Malhotra Hora

See the full list of Chatelaine 2022 Winners here

We are now accepting submissions into the 2024 Chatelaine Book Awards for Romance Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 18-21, 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!
November 8, 2023
AIR BOAT: Love is an Adventure (Book 1 of the Special Forces Connection) by Jacek Waliszewski – Romance, Action & Adventure, Suspense

For readers interested in a unique romance, Air Boat: Love is an Adventure by Jacek Waliszewski offers a distinctive cast of characters and tense excitement in the sky.

Air Boat brings together a former Special Forces soldier, Luke, who prefers to keep to himself, an independent and sarcastic female pilot, Stella, and a three-legged Husky named Saint who marches to the beat of his own drum. These captivating characters embark on a fast-paced, page-turning tale.

Author Jacek Waliszewski starts this romantic adventure with a suspenseful scene of a vintage plane barreling towards the Twin Cities, accompanied by two F-16 fighter jets, before setting the stage for the two main characters to meet. The mystery of this scene will stick in the reader’s mind, drawing them forward with stark curiosity that only grows in excitement.

Saint, the wandering Husky mix, brings these two together, with sparks quickly flying between their strong personalities. Luke is not one to share much about his personal life or history, but the wounds Stella sees on his shoulder indicate trauma from his time deployed with the Green Berets. Unlike some common counterparts in a romance, Stella is a strong, competitive woman who is not likely to fall for anyone – nor give them the last word.

After the two spend some time together (axe throwing at a local bar), Luke takes Stella up on an offer to learn to fly the small commuter planes that Stella and her father, Pierre, use for their airboat business of ferrying people across the west (Montana, Alaska, and Minnesota are some of the locales). As the attraction between Luke and Stella grows, an opportunity to fly together turns into a terrifying situation which brings the story full circle.

This adventure romance has fine detail and intrigue, as the author draws from his own time as a Green Beret.

Air Boat is an exhilarating and fast-paced adventure that romance and adventure fans will love.

The story will continue, as Air Boat is the first in a five-part Special Forces Connection series, two of which will be coming out in 2024. Readers will eagerly await more by Jacek Waliszewski.

November 6, 2023
IF YOU FIND ME WORTHY By Pam Landen – Contemporary Romance, Women’s Fiction

If You Find Me Worthy introduces forty-six-year-old Kate Baker, a woman who knows her own mind. As the former owner of a million-dollar private jet charter service, Kate is well established in the world of aviation as well as the world of CEOs.

Having started her career in the technology field, Kate is returning to her roots when her friend and former business partner asks her to use her technical expertise to assess the disaster recovery plan of North American Bank. She negotiates to exchange her assistance for a look into the bank’s lending practices for her study on the prejudice against female business owners.

Kate is certainly not looking for love. Having lost her husband to ALS years previously, she is focused only on her work, her son Stuart, and golf. However, when she meets Curtis Michaels, the CEO of North American Bank for the last seven years, she immediately feels an unfamiliar, and unwelcome, attraction. So begins If you Find Me Worthy by Pam Landen.

Curtis finds Kate exceptionally intriguing. He can’t help but constantly challenge the beautiful blonde.

A widower himself, Curtis has raised his daughter Sarah alone and carries the scars of his former bad relationship. He knows he shouldn’t even think about approaching Kate since she is temporarily working for his bank, but he can’t help himself.

The more Kate learns about Curtis, the more she realizes their similarities in the business and personal worlds, but Curtis’s demons threaten their fledgling relationship before it has a chance to truly blossom. She questions her ability to maintain her distance from the man who so clearly needs her help, but will the two be able to defeat the memories of his former life?

This novel’s greatest strength is character development.

Both Kate and Curtis have extreme depth. The pain from their former spouses has created a pain simultaneously unique to the characters while bearing striking similarities. Kate’s husband, Sam, left Kate with extreme feelings of inadequacy despite her running a successful business and caring for him during his illness. Their story is one Kate is embarrassed to admit to Curtis.

Unbeknownst to Kate, Curtis has his own shameful secret concerning his dead wife Carol. His trauma is, perhaps, the most critical to the novel’s plot as it keeps him from seeking future happiness with Kate. Though perfect for each other, the two have a chasm of hurt between them. The strength Kate has found through therapy and self-actualization won’t allow her to settle for less than Curtis’s full heart, but finding the patience to help him get the counseling he needs proves difficult. Numerous times, their relationship stands on shaky ground, but the growth of their love is endearing.

A major theme of the novel revolves around Kate’s research project – the treatment of women in business.

Kate must repeatedly prove herself in this “man’s world.” She faces extreme sexism from Jake, the lead marketing representative for the bank. His constant berating, questioning, and name-calling push Kate to her limit, but she refuses to allow Curtis to step in on her behalf. With few women in positions of power within the bank, Kate’s journey is entirely uphill with Curtis often throwing roadblocks in her path as well to test her business acumen.

An interesting twist is Kate’s acceptance of Curtis’s behavior. She sees Curtis as a flirt rather than an opponent. Though Curtis has macho-man control issues, his treatment of Kate is chivalrous and giving. She willingly gives up power to him on occasion, and she seems mostly unbothered by that power release. His validation of her feminism makes her feel like a beautiful, treasured woman for the first time in her life, and, in some way, actually accentuates her feminine power.

Behind the details of business and technology lies a touching romance. Recommended!

October 13, 2023
The CHATELAINE Book Awards 2023 Long List for Romantic Fiction
The Chatelaine Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in Romantic Fiction. The Chatelaine Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best new books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, and stories that appeal especially to fans of affairs of the heart to compete in the Chatelaine Book Awards (the CIBAs). We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2023 Chatelaine Romantic Fiction entries to the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards LONG LIST. Entries below are now in competition for the 2023 Chatelaine Short List. The Short Listers will compete for the Semi-Finalist positions. Finalists will be chosen from the Semi-Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24).

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 20th, 2024 in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

These titles are in the running for the SHORT LIST of the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards novel competition for Romantic Fiction!

Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2023 CIBAs.
- Susan Bagby – Christmas Wish Upon A Star
- Douglas Bachmann – Afterlife
- Claira Towers – Just a Number: A Love Story
- Kathryn Brown Ramsperger – A Thousand Flying Things
- K.S. Jones – Once In a Bluebonnet Moon
- Jeanette Watts – My Dearest Miss Fairfax
- Charles M. DuPuy – Rescue Man
- T.K. Conklin – Guarded Hearts
- Morgan Sloan – Stableshoes
- Edie Cay – A Viscount’s Vengeance
- Kathleen Stone – Hey Jude
- Gail Avery Halverson – A Sea of Glass
- Hope Gibbs – Where the Grass Grows Blue
- Betty Codd – Agatha
- Laura Albu – The Undines
- Alice McVeigh – Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation
- George T. Arnold – Old Mrs. Kimble’s Mansion
- Bonnie Rose Ward – Loving Beth
- Catherine Tinley – A Laird for the Highland Lady
- Carmela Dutra – Love Extra Credit
- KB Taylor – Hattie’s Family: Through the Eyes of a Dairymaid
- Suzanne Baginskie – Dangerous Revenge- Book 2 of The FBI Affairs Series
- S.G. Blaise – Proud Pada
- Patrick Greenwood – Sunrise in Saigon
- Lynn Yvonne Moon – Fish Scales
- Rose Prendeville – Mistress Mackintosh and the Shaw Wretch
- Wendy Rich Stetson – Heartsong Hills
- Jerry Gundersheimer – Reach: A Nexus of Life and Love
- Robert Beatty – No Other Name
- Yvonne Korshak – Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece
- Paul Buchheit – 1871: Rivers on Fire
- Marie Jones – Those We Seek
- Eve M. Riley – The Outcast
- Carol Van Den Hende – Always Orchid
- KD Sherrinford – Song for Someone
- Nancy Herkness – Royal Caleva: Gabriel
- Evie Alexander – Love ad Lib
- Kelly Miller – A Dutiful Son
Good luck to all as your works move on to the next rounds of judging.

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

the Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 CHATELAINE Book Awards is:

Operation Mom:

My plan to get my Mom a life and a man

by Reenita Malhotra Hora

See the full list of Chatelaine 2022 Winners here

We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Chatelaine Book Awards for Romance Fiction. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024.

Please click here for more information.

Winners will be announced at the 2023 CIBA Awards Ceremony sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

April 18-21, 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!
September 14, 2023
Chatelaine 2023 Hall of Fame Celebrating Romantic Fiction

Need more Romance in your life? Read These!

The Chatelaine Awards are here to bring you the best in books about Love in all its forms.

***Submit your Novel today***

You have until August 31st to share your Love Story and enter the 2023 CIBAs!

Everyone deserves more love, and we’ve got lots of it for you to read! Steamy (Not Spicy), Historical and more! Other categories also include romantic themes, but if you’re looking for Romance- look no further!

Lets take a look at the Grand Prize Winners for the Chatelaine Award

Operation Mom
By Reenita 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?

No, Ila couldn’t be taken with Dev because he’s one of three young men that her best friend Deepali is juggling in her summer experiment of exploring her “feminine mystique.” This turn of phrase becomes just one of many opportunities for Hora’s humor to shine as Ila remarks, “That’s a book by Gloria Steinem . . . no Betty Friedan.” Deepali’s response? “Yaar. Don’t be so literal.” The delightful balance between Ila’s book smarts versus Deepali’s street smarts carries us through Hora’s expertly crafted story.

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.

For twenty years, Henry, a science writer, has been researching a non-fiction book on the universe that he intends to write. Henry’s feeling “bored, boring, and budget-conscious…the trifecta of gloom,” as he puts it. But in the middle of this ennui, his sister-in-law invites him to dinner, along with her divorced friend, Isabel Dalton, an attorney, and “the setup is afoot.”

Read More Here

When The Wind Chimes
By Mary Ting

In When the Wind Chimes by international best-selling author Mary Ting, Kate Summers wants to make this Christmas extra-special for her older sister, Abby, and four-year-old nephew.

A year ago, she’d given up Christmas with her family to spend the holiday with her boyfriend, Jayden, whom she had caught cheating on her the next day. Not only is she hoping to erase that memory, but she also has another even more important reason to make this Christmas special. A few months after her disastrous break-up with Jayden, her brother-in-law, Steve, passed away from cancer, so Abby and Tyler will be spending their first Christmas alone.

After taking a leave from her job as a graphic designer in LA, Kate flies to Poipu, Kauai, determined to make this an amazing holiday, but on her way to her sister’s house, she meets a mysterious man, who gives up his cab for her. Kate can’t get the handsome stranger out of her head, and when she sees him again in her sister’s art gallery–and destroys his expensive shirt with paint–she is both mortified and excited.

Read More Here

The Skeptical Physick
By Gail Avery Halverson

In the second in a series by author Halverson, an aristocratic, intellectually curious young woman has fallen in love with a young physician, a commoner whose radical experimentations have jeopardized his reputation. The couple is just recovering from the professional and personal rigors of dealing with London’s plague victims when the city is overwhelmed by fire. Their services are needed now more than ever.

Supported by mentor hospital administrator Father Hardwicke in his medical endeavors, Simon McKensie is finally on the verge of marrying the woman he adores, Catherine Abbott. Even the wealthy, protective Aunt Viola has come to terms with the fact that, though she might not approve the match on social grounds, she sees that Catherine will be happy with Simon.

If winning her aunt’s approval and administering aid to plague victims wasn’t enough, just days before their planned nuptials, a fire breaks out that threatens to delay them yet again. Worse, Catherine sustains a severe injury on her way to the hospital to help Simon treat burn victims. It seems that there may not be a wedding. But Simon acts quickly and effectively to save the life of his beloved, exchanging wedding vows with her even as she is barely recuperating from her accident.

Read More Here

The House At Ladywell
By Nicola Slade

A surprise bequest, a cryptic benediction, and a box of long-lost letters thrust Freya Gibson in the middle of a life-changing mystery. As the personal assistant to successful novelist Patrick Underwood, Freya never takes a vacation. She believes herself content to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of London, keeping Patrick on track and reigning in her newly discovered and completely uncertain feelings for her boss.

When Freya inherits a house from a heretofore unknown relative, she isn’t sure what to do. What’s more, the house comes with a clause preventing the immediate selling off of the relic. Freya has no choice but to visit the estate, still reasonably sure she will rid herself of the property; until, of course, she sets foot in the ancient home in Ramalley.

With Patrick gone on a business trip to the US, Freya decides to spend a week getting to know her new home and the village nearby. She quickly decides she wants to keep the enigmatic house with the enormous stone mantle, former church windows, and hand-carved hares. Still, as she falls in love with the house, she uncovers evidence that Violet, her cousin, and the former owner, knew a great deal more about Freya than Freya knows about herself. With each step closer to the truth, the house seems to draw her closer in a protective grip, perhaps giving her a chance at a new future.

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 Chatelaine 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 Romance story deserves to be discovered, and you can submit to the 2023 Chatelaine Awards by the end of the month. Don’t miss this chance to give your book the recognition it deserves.

The Chatelaine Awards is your chance to shine!

The 2022 Grand Prize Winners from CAC23!

And remember! Our 12th Anniversary Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC24) will be April 18-21, 2024, where our 2023 CIBA winners will be announced. Space is limited and seats are already filling up. Sign up and see the latest updates here!

August 21, 2023