Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Spirituality

The Mind & Spirit 2024 First Place Roundup for Spirituality and Enlightenment

The Mind and Spirit Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Enlightenment and Well-Being Non-Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Marijke McCandless’s book, Naked in the Now, will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Mind and Spirit contest page year ’round!

The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!

The 2024 Mind and Spirit Winners were announced at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!

Join us in celebrating the 2024 First Place Mind and Spirit Winners!

Shari Biery – It’s Your Turn: How to Rediscover Yourself, Prioritize Your Well-Being, & Thrive with Purpose

Also a Chanticleer 2024 Military and Front Lines First Place Winner!

Are you feeling buried under the demands of supporting your spouse, family, and the chaos of daily life while your own needs fall to the bottom of the list?

As a midlife woman, it’s easy to always put others first, leaving little time or energy for yourself. But now, It’s YOUR Turn to break free from the overwhelm and reclaim your life.

In It’s Your Turn, Shari Biery—a National Board Certified Purpose and Well-Being Coach and former military spouse—shares her personal journey from self-neglect to self-empowerment.

The moment she received the American Flag at her husband’s retirement ceremony marked not just the end of his career but the start of her own new chapter. After years of putting everyone else first, Shari made a powerful shift, and now she’s here to guide you in doing the same.

Through relatable stories and actionable steps, Shari shows how common it is for midlife women, especially those supporting a spouse and family, to feel overwhelmed and disconnected—and how to overcome these challenges.

From Chanticleer:

The detailed and actionable guide, It’s Your Turn by Shari Biery, encourages women to reclaim the time and space they deserve in life from the slow creep of demands like home, childcare, and supporting a spouse’s career.

To help women take “their turn,” much of this book is devoted to slowing down: why, how, and when to do it. Even its conversational writing style is an invitation to do so. It’s Your Turn leads readers to reflect, assess, and make effective changes in their lives. This isn’t a quick-hit self-help book, but a meditation for navigating midlife flux amid marriage and family responsibilities.

Biery draws on her own experiences living through many challenges frequently encountered by modern women. She struggled most with balancing personal needs and family responsibilities. Biery’s own needs and dreams long fell by the wayside in favor of managing her household and supporting her husband with his career in the military. With It’s Your Turn, she hopes to share her process of reclaiming those needs and dreams and reclaiming her well-being.

It’s Your Turn is loosely organized around Biery’s “C.A.L.M. method.” Through Clarity, Awareness, Learning, and Mindset, she teaches women how to carve out necessary space for themselves.

Read More Here

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Damien Fozard- Disbelief

Manuscript

Eileen Marlowe – The Call to Connect with Spirit

Author and artist Eileen Marlowe is an Indigenous Chipewyan from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. She invites readers to learn from her journey of spiritual identity, to forge connections with spirit and leverage them to transform your life. Through the symbology of dreams and the vibrant colours of her abstract art, Eileen shares her experience of dialoguing with her spiritual guides. Her practices of daily meditation and her efforts of becoming the director and architect of her own life are embodied in the themes of the artwork throughout.

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Anne Kiehl Friedman – Higher Love: A Psychedelic Travel Memoir of Heartbreak and Healing

Her entire life, Anne Friedman chased everything that society told her she should want: Marriage. Professional achievement. Thighs that didn’t touch. But all that got her was depression, anxiety, and disordered eating. Little did she know, her world was about to be turned upside down.

When her fiancé dumps her without explanation, she buys a one-way ticket to Costa Rica in search of answers. But what she finds there is beyond anything she could have imagined.

Through a spontaneous psychedelic experience in the jungle, Anne discovers three simple words that bring her peace. And in Amsterdam, on magic mushrooms with her dad, she has a series of visions that allow her to let go of the self-blame for her broken engagement.

But this is just the beginning of her journey. In Higher Love, Anne takes readers on a globe-trotting search for healing through psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD, and cannabis. As she travels through the Netherlands, Morocco, Turkey, Spain, and other richly sensuous locations, Anne shares the life-changing wisdom she gains from each psychedelic experience.

For fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Untamed, Higher Love is a guide for self-discovery with a delightful psychedelic twist. But be warned, this is not your average love story. With powerful emotions and a captivating setting, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Jane Kim Yu – Journey of Awakening and Higher Consciousness

Discover the journey of awakening in a new light never seen before. Read about our universal journey of discovery, of awakening to the greatest truth of the land, the truth that reverberates in our very hands, the hands of heart, the very heart of our being, that – you are love.

Through a profoundly rare experience that left the author’s mind silent for nearly half a year, it awakened her own desire to find her fire. The very fire that lit the night sky. The very fire that lives in all our hearts nigh. The very fire, to come alive.

Jane’s debut book Journey of Awakening and Higher Consciousness, is an offering of love that crystalizes her 3 passions: eloquent writing, creative expression, and the exploration of our divine humanity. These combine into an unforgettable experience that will awaken your inner fire and bring passion and purpose back into your life.

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2024 Mind & Spirit First Place Winners!

Watch for our Spotlight and Hall of Fame Articles that will feature incredible books, including Marijke McCandless’ Grand Prize Award-winning Naked in the Now

Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you enter the Mind & Spirit Awards!

Got a great Self-Help or Enlightenment Book?

The 2025 Mind & Spirit Book Awards are open through the end of September!

Submit to the Mind & Spirit Awards Today!

September 24, 2025
Two Weeks left to submit to the Chanticleer Cover Design Awards (CCDAs!)
Two Divisions Close at the end of July

Two excellent divisions close at the end of July!

Don’t let your cover miss out!
- The Chanticleer Cover Design Awards for Fiction
- The Chanticleer Cover Design Awards for Non Fiction
Only 2 weeks left to submit your books to these prestigious CIBA Divisions and embark on an extraordinary journey to success. With over $30,000 in prizes awarded annually, now is the time to make your mark!

The Cover Design Awards are still open!

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2024 Cover Design Award for Fiction!
- Ann Phillipp – Grand Theft Death
- C.L. Olsen – Old Crabby Turtle
- Deborah Swenson – Till My Last Breath
- Laura C. Rader – Hatfield 1677
- Gail Noble-Sanderson– The Book of Rules
- Margaret Porter – A Change of Location
- Mark A. Gibson – A Song That Never Ends
- Travis Davis- One of Four
- R.W. Meek- The Dream Collector Book 1; Sabine and Sigmund Freud
And a huge round of applause for the 2024 Cover Design Fiction Grand Prize Winner:

Luna, Rhone and Stone Book 2 by Strider S.R. Klusman

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2024 Cover Design Awards for Non-Fiction!
- Anne Gately – Sunburnt: A Memoir of Sun, Surf and Skin Cancer
- Kasey J. Claytor– Finding The Light: Navigating Dementia with My Son
- Kathryn Caraway – Unfollow Me
- Linda M. Lockwood – Sky Ranch: Reared in the High Country
- Marianna Marlowe – Portrait of a Feminist: A Memoir in Essays
And a huge round of applause for the 2024 Cover Design Awards Non-Fiction Grand Prize Winner:

Teaching in the Dark by Genet Simone

The CIBAs offer more than just recognition — they provide a ladder to success with a range of achievement tiers and expert long tail marketing strategies. From the highly anticipated Long List to the prestigious Overall Grand Prize Winner, the CIBA lists energize both authors and readers, maximizing your digital footprint and expanding your fan base.

We are always eager to support the Best Books through the CIBAs. Join the ranks of celebrated authors who have already taken this critical step in their publishing.

Your book deserves to be discovered, celebrated, and shared with the world. Don’t miss the chance to showcase your talent and gain valuable exposure at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (April 2026) where Winners from all 28 Book Award Divisions will be announced and honored.

In a world hungry for good books, your story deserves to be heard. Submit now and leave a lasting impression.

Let’s celebrate exceptional storytelling together!

Don’t Delay! Enter Today!

The Chanticleer Cover Design Awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction

Your book deserves to be discovered
July 17, 2025
The Chanticleer Cover Design CCDAs Non-Fiction First Place and Grand Prize Winners for 2024!

The Cover Design Awards recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in every genre. The Grand Prize Winner, Genét Simone’s book, Teaching in The Dark will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Cover Design contest page year ’round!

The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!

The 2024 CCDA Winners were announced at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!

Join us in celebrating the very first group of First Place CCDA Winners for Non-Fiction!

Anne Gately – Sunburnt: A Memoir of sun, surf and skin cancer

Also a 2024 Journey First Place Winner!

Australians love the sun – our outdoor lifestyle is part our trademark appeal. It’s also the reason that every thirty minutes someone is diagnosed with melanoma. Why skin cancer is called Australia’s National Cancer, and two out of three Australians are likely to be diagnosed with it before turning 70.

After living an average Aussie life playing sport, spending languid days on the beach, and falling in love with ocean swimming, Anne Gately received unwelcome news. She had Stage IV melanoma.

Yet Anne is one of the lucky ones. After a dire prognosis, she dug deep to face the clear and present prospect of death, head-on. In Sunburnt, her revealing memoir, Anne recounts the emotions and challenges of her life-saving immunotherapy treatment under the care of Professor Georgina Long to come through the other side.

Not only has Anne survived, she is issuing a clarion call for a change to the bronzed Aussie culture. In Sunburnt Anne combines a nostalgic view of a charmed Aussie childhood, a jolting review of Australia’s sun-worshipping norms, and enough scientific research to encourage us all to redefine our relationship with the sun.

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Marianna Marlowe – Portrait of a Feminist

Through braided memories that flash against the present day, Portrait of a Feminist depicts the evolution of Marianna Marlowe’s identity as a biracial and multicultural woman—from her childhood in California, Peru, and Ecuador to her adulthood as an academic, a wife, and a mother.

How does the inner life of a feminist develop? How does a writer observe the world around her and kindle, from her earliest memories, a flame attuned to the unjust?

With writing that is simultaneously wise and shimmering, nuanced and direct, Marlowe confronts her own experiences with the hallmarks of patriarchy. Interweaving stories of life as the child of a Catholic Peruvian mother and an atheist American father in a family that lived many years abroad, she examines realities familiar to so many of us—unequal marriages, class structures, misogynist literature, and patriarchal religion. Portrait of a Feminist explores the essential questions of feminism in our time: What does it look like to live in defense of feminism? How should feminism be evolving today?

From Chanticleer:

Marianne Marlowe’s memoir, Portrait of a Feminist, reveals the evolution of her feminism through a collection of thought-provoking essays.

“I would say, if it were possible, I was born a feminist” is at the heart of Marlowe’s story. She relates to this defining identity throughout years spent in Peru, California, and Ecuador, where she navigates childhood, marriage, motherhood, and a professional career.

The section titles reflect periods in Marlowe’s life that correspond to nature’s rhythms— “Seeds Planted”, “The Growing Years”, “Maturation”, and “Harvesting”—and maintain strong connections between her thematically-linked experiences.

As a Peruvian American woman, Marlowe navigates the concepts of gender, race, and culture from a personal and critical point of view.

Read More Here

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Linda M. Lockwood – Sky Ranch: Reared in The High Country

At the age of eight, Linda Lockwood moves with her family to an isolated ranch in eastern Washington State. Within two years, she’s patrolling the ranch on horseback alongside her border collie—herding sheep, killing rattlesnakes, and defending the ranch’s livestock from coyotes, bears, and even trespassing hunters—and working tirelessly to realize her dream of training horses. But her most daunting challenge is one hard work can’t overcome: her mother is descending into madness. And Linda’s deepest fear is that she might inherit the schizophrenia that threatens to dismantle her family.

At age twenty-five, Linda marries, but the joy of her first pregnancy is darkened by her mother’s suicide. Then she endures a painful miscarriage and the death of her beloved grandmother, traumatic events that send her back in time to the births and deaths of animals—domesticated and wild—that she loved in childhood. Eventually, her own family grows, but her happiness is haunted by questions people have tiptoed around all her life. How did her mother become schizophrenic? What did she endure as a patient in 1960s mental hospitals? Might Linda and even her children be next to battle that catastrophic mental disorder? Driven by the courage and will she sharpened as a rancher, Linda vows to find out.

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Kathryn Caraway – Unfollow Me

Also the 2024 Journey Grand Prize and a Clue First Place Winner!

This book about the author’s harrowing experience with a stalker is not yet released, but we are excited to see it come out and see her story get told. To find more information see the authors website kathryncaraway.com or her advocacy project at unfollowme.com

This book also releases on Kickstarter soon, along with a fictional thriller sequel where the victim gets her revenge! Follow it here: The Unfollow Me Duet by Kathryn Caraway — Kickstarter

Kasey Claytor – Finding the Light: Navigating Dementia with My Son

What happens when a younger person gets dementia and becomes filled with peace?

Finding the Light is a poignant memoir about a mother’s journey caring for her son with a terminal form of early-onset dementia, Frontotemporal Degeneration, or FTD. From the overwhelming tasks that must be done to ultimately sharing the meaningful insights that can be gained in this experience, you can’t come away without being deeply moved.

Claytor shares ways to lessen the toll of caregiving with stress-reducing methods and options for self-care, financial tips, and suggestions for good estate planning.

But most importantly, her message is about developing a way to instill a sense of well-being in dementia sufferers and their caregivers.
When Kasey Claytor found out that her 49-year-old son had Frontotemporal Degeneration, her world came crashing down…

Finally grappling with this situation head-on, she set out to learn everything she could about this devastating condition and create an environment around her son that would hopefully give him a sense of well-being despite the odds.

From Chanticleer:

Some stories are impossible to look away from, and from its very first sentence, Finding the Light, Navigating Dementia with My Son by Kasey J. Claytor proves itself one of them. “…when my 49-year-old son, Justin, was first diagnosed with a form of early-onset dementia, I was stunned.” Without hesitation, the book draws readers into a saga of family, illness, and resilience.

Although a memoir, Finding the Light is in many ways an instructional text, too. Readers don’t need similar medical situations to draw from Claytor’s lessons of improvement. The conversational, approachable writing style serves this purpose well.

Although it’s in chronological order, this is an unconventional, modern text.

Traditional scene-based paragraphs are offset by poetry, informative sidebars, and even the full text of letters sent throughout Justin’s illness. Claytor deftly shifts between these sections, building a cohesive narrative from which readers can easily learn.

Read More Here

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

And now, the first ever GRAND PRIZE WINNERS in Non-Fiction for the Chanticleer Cover Design Awards!

Genét Simone- Teaching in the Dark

Also a 2024 Hearten First Place Winner!

A young teacher buys a one-way ticket to Shishmaref, Alaska. Within minutes of landing, she finds herself dealing with unexpected, rustic accommodations, and the culture shock of living in a remote Iñuit community. She relies on her courage, resilience, and wit while enduring freezing temperatures, power outages, loneliness, and first-year teacher anxieties and missteps, but eventually realizes that those challenges pale in comparison to the life lessons she learns about the heart of teaching—lessons from her students, their culture, and their community, on the vast, windy landscape at the edge of the Chukchi Sea.

From Chanticleer:

How does place shape who we are—and who we’ll become? In this memoir, Teaching in the Dark, Genét Simone puts that question to the test by recounting her first year as a teacher.

The initial year of teaching is never an easy feat, but for Simone it was especially challenging, and transformative. She spent it with Native students in the remote island village of Shishmaref, on the Arctic edge of Alaska—no small wonder the school year became an unforgettable one.

Today, Simone has decades of teaching experience to draw upon. Yet, in this memoir she rarely employs her present voice to reflect on the past. Instead, the narrator remains in the moment: a young and inexperienced Simone, who only knows that she feels destined to be a teacher. When she signs up for the Shishmaref teaching job, she doesn’t even realize that it’s on an island.

Read More Here

Find it Locally and on Amazon!

Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2024 Cover Design First Place and Grand Prize Winners!

Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!

Got a great Fiction Book? The 2025 Cover Design Awards are open through the end of July!

Note: Late submissions are accepted until the dates change on the website!

Submit to the Cover Design Awards Today!

July 9, 2025
ONE KISS by Michelle Ashton – Memoirs, Spirituality, Inspirational

One Kiss by Michelle Ashton is a poignant and emotionally unvarnished memoir of life through loss, healing, and the grim, lovely battle of being human.

One Kiss feels like a private journal—vulnerable, scattered at times, terribly real and sympathetic. Readers walk beside someone who’s still dealing with life’s challenges—working through heartbreak, trying to heal, stumbling, getting back up, and asking big questions she hasn’t yet found the answers to.

Much of this book circles around Ashton’s deep, complicated attachment to Noah, the man she calls “Adonis” and her “Twin Flame.” She relates with painful but relatable honesty how it feels like to wait, to hope, to wonder if you should hold on or walk away. Who hasn’t sat there refreshing their messages or praying for a sign that maybe this time things will turn out differently?

But One Kiss reveals far more than just romantic longing, as Ashton opens her everyday life to the reader.

She shares her love for her brother Seb, the joy she gets from her niece and nephew, and the little experiences that remind her she’s still fighting. One moment, she’s breaking down over a memory that haunts her or a silence that’s too loud, and in the next moment, she’s belting out songs in the car or laughing with the kids. That mix of grief and light feels so real because our complex lives rarely offer just one emotion when we struggle.

Ashton’s spiritual experiences thread through One Kiss.

She talks about seeing signs, feeling nudged by something bigger, and wondering if the universe (or angels or God) is trying to guide her. She never comes across like she’s trying to preach or claim some special wisdom, but rather attempting to make sense of her own experiences with touching authenticity.

Through her “One Kiss” project (which gives the book its name), Ashton wants to do something meaningful by helping survivors, protecting animals, and making the world a little less cruel. Even when she’s burned out or doubting herself, she keeps circling back to that powerful question: “How can I turn my pain into something useful?”

One Kiss foregoes a typical memoir structure, reading like a conversation over coffee as someone pours their heart out.

It rambles and loops back on itself at times, lending to its casual and personal tone. In the end, what may stick with the reader isn’t just Ashton’s heartbreak or her spiritual reflections, but her stubborn resilience. She’s learning, piece by piece, how to keep moving when everything feels stuck, how to keep loving even when it’s messy and painful, and how to slowly start building the life she wants to live.

Michelle Ashton’s One Kiss maintains its conversational and realistic style even when it becomes passionate or fragmentary, which complements the narrative since it welcomes readers to empathize with their own experiences. You will likely discover elements of yourself here from times when you’ve felt sad, lost, and weary. The text is not flawless, but healing is not either and that’s what makes it hit close to home.

June 2, 2025
The 2024 Mind & Spirit Book Award WINNERS for Spirituality and Enlightenment Non-Fiction
The Mind and Spirit Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Enlightenment and Well-Being Non-Fiction and Memoir. The Mind and Spirit Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring enlightenment, motivational/self-help, spirituality, mindfulness, well-being, meditation, and energy. See our full list of Non-Fiction Divisions here.

1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Gail Noble-Sanderson on Saturday, April 5th, 2025 at the Bellingham Yacht Club in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

This is the OFFICIAL 2024 LIST of the MIND & SPIRIT BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the MIND & SPIRIT Grand Prize Winner.

Congratulations to the FIRST PLACE CATEGORY WINNERS of the Mind & Spirit Book Awards for Spirituality and Enlightenment!
- Shari Biery – It’s Your Turn How To Rediscover Yourself Prioritize Your Well-Being Thrive with Purpose
- Damian Fozard – Disbelief
- Eileen Marlowe – The Call to Connect With Spirit
- Anne Kiehl Friedman – Higher Love: A Psychedelic Travel Memoir of Heartbreak and Healing
- Jane Kim Yu – Journey of Awakening and Higher Consciousness
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2024 MIND & SPIRIT Awards is:

Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present

By Marijke McCandless

You can see all of our amazing 2024 Mind & Spirit Finalists! Congratulations to all and thank you for submitting!

Well done climbing the CIBA Levels of Achievement!

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!

This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook 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. Our handle is @ChantiReviews

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in May. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.

We will post at least two 2024 CIBA Divisions’ OFFICIAL Winners per business day starting April 14, 2024. We do a final sweep and reconciliation prior to making the Official CIBA Posts for the 2024 First Place and Grand Prize Winners. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. There are many moving parts involved with the Chanticleer International Book Awards Program.

Thank you for participating in the 2024 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.

Team Chanticleer!
April 17, 2025
GUIDED: Lost Love, Hidden Realms, and the Open Road by Kirsten Throneberry – Memoirs, Surviving Loss, Spirituality

In her stunning memoir, Guided: Lost Love, Hidden Realms, and the Open Road, Kirsten Throneberry weaves together the highs and lows of a road trip packed with life wisdom, where she explores grief, spirituality, and rekindled hope.

Throneberry’s achingly vulnerable memoir splits its readers’ hearts and tenderly sews them back together.

In the aftermath of the devastating loss of her husband, Kirsten sells her home and takes her two small sons, two elderly pups, and eccentric mother on a year-long road trip around the United States in their new-to-them Bigfoot RV.

Encouraged by the same spirit guides whose earlier advice for her husband’s health left her broken and untrusting, Kirsten must learn to face the open road with an equally open heart and mind.

Kirsten forces herself past her comfort level, attempting to heal old wounds, confront and patch up her relationship with her mother, and curate a life of wonder and independence for her sons. All the while hoping that as she carries out her mission, she will somehow be able to restore her faith in her guides and herself.

Throneberry guides readers toward their own life-fulfilling adventures, reminding them, “The point is not simply to live, but to shake yourself awake, to open your eyes, eyelash after eyelash, until you finally understand your true nature.”

Learning to live through humble collaboration, true intuition, and radical acceptance is core to this heartwarming autobiography.

Throneberry intentionally exposes her life—both its exquisite beauty and deep suffering—in each and every sentence, creating a relationship with the reader that feels truly authentic.

First unfolding in Hawaii, the narrative follows the family to their home in Seattle and around the country until their journey leads them all the way back to the Pacific Northwest region. The intricate play between places, people, and timelines will make readers feel like they have returned home as well.

At times jaw-dropping terrifying, laugh-out-loud hilarious, and curl-up-in-the-fetal-position sad, Throneberry beautifully sculpts not one but five interwoven lives out of the rubble of life-altering loss.

Guided empowers readers to expand what they believe is possible and to connect with the guides that inspire them. Kirsten Throneberry is a vibrant and deeply empathetic storyteller. Bold, courageous, and attentive to delicate relationships, her story is studded with bright jewels of inspiration that will carry readers through their own difficult journeys.

Readers of Guided: Lost Love, Hidden Realms, and the Open Road will feel held by these pages, no matter what battles they face. After all, as Throneberry writes, “Despite the unexpected and sometimes heartbreaking twists and turns inherent in any life, we are never truly alone. Something is always pushing us forward, onto the next situation or person that will encourage our evolution.”

March 14, 2025
MINNESOTA POEMS From The OUTPOSTS by Hari Hyde – Poetry Collections, Spirituality, Natural World

Hari Hyde reveals the mysticism of exploring chaotic nature and our human need to connect with it. He takes readers to sites of wonder, physical and conceptual, in his collection Minnesota Poems from the Outposts.

“Part 1: Middle Rivers” illustrates the shared liminal states of people and the natural world.

Aligning symbols of the turning seasons with people growing up in their communities, “Middle River, Minnesota” establishes our innate kinship with nature—as individuals and collectives. “School Bus” follows the transient days of childhood, while “Unruffled Railway” looks back from the end of an era, as the rails are now overgrown and unused. But, to be overgrown is to find life, and a new way of being after the end of that old cycle.

Meanwhile, “Moon Over Thief Lake” illustrates the need to commune with nature through beautiful but distant imagery.

Part 1 maintains a childlike playfulness in its use of language.

“Goose Capital” and “Young’s Store” give in to flights of fancy about the little details of rural life, while a trio of poems “Ye Olde Depot Theater, River Avenue”, and “Church Bell” fully immerse themselves in the charm of small communities.

But Part 1 also touches on the difficult challenge of maturity. “Milking Holsteins” and “Angus Cattle” find peace in a world where each creature has a role to play. But, matching the use of rivers as a thematic force of eternal change, “Minnesota Highway 59” reckons with the fact that there are some deep yearnings a person will never be able to satisfy.

These first poems open the book well, introducing both the setting of rural Minnesota and a focus on living in relation to its natural forces. Some of the themes in Part 1 could be expanded upon, but the warm poetic voice beckons readers to continue on.

“Part 2: Smalltown Outposts” broadens its scope to include a variety of notable locations, embracing the culture and history of Minnesota.

A mixture of compelling imagery and unique tones give each new location a sense of identity, especially in poems like “Split Rock Lighthouse (Lake Superior)”.

This combines with whimsical renditions of local mythology in “Paulette Bunyan” and “Mankato Man and Nature’s Plan” to instill in readers Minnesota’s vital, defiant soul.

Hyde also explores the human shadow of Minnesota’s history—the inner lives of those who made it—in “Minnesota’s Ten Millennial Girl” and “Blue Mounds State Park”. These poems describe the personality that history leaves to its locations but, at the same time, exposes the complexities that can’t be preserved over a long period of time.

Where Part 1 embraced communion with nature, Part 2 creates a thematic duality by highlighting our inherent conflict with it.

“Mankato Man and Nature’s Plan” puts this conflict in stark relief. The central figure defies his place as a tool in Nature’s hand. But “Red River Flood” shows how futile that fight can be, with the narrator choosing to become like the river itself rather than try to live in spite of it.

The rhyming can create awkward lines sometimes, but this section’s beauty is in its clear familiarity with its locations, which maintain their grandeur.

“Part 3: Inner Outposts” and “Part 4: Family and Faith” create another dichotomy—the inner self and its struggle to fit in with the outer world.

“Private Ponds”, “Secret Snow Bones”, and “The Outside” encourage trusting the inner self, finding meaning beyond societal expectations and dogma. But “The Believable Distance” and “Last Love” both recognize the pain in being distant from others.

These sections make playful use of metaphors, but in poems like “Guard Dog”, those become more complex and conflicted. The animal part of one’s mind tears and recoils at the chains that bind it.

As a whole, Parts 3 & 4 step into darker territory. Pain and suffering are reframed as the necessary teachers of survival—from the mundane to the divine—in “Ancient Apathy”. “Corporal Counselor” grapples with pride and envy as truly inescapable sins, innate to the inner self.

While there’s a return to some of the mysticism of childhood from Part 1, these later parts offer a more nuanced perspective on relationships.

This is particularly true among the poems most concerned with death, “Elegy for a Nobody”, “Get Well Cards (Calibrated)”, and “A Little Light”. While the themes of family and faith don’t interact much in general, these death poems find interesting connections between how death changes our relationships to each other and the deep desire to understand one’s meaning in the universe.

“Jonah and the Great Fish” stands out as a unique take on this section’s view of God. Here, animals are to humans as humans are to the divine. But the might of nature tests the boundaries of this metaphor. A great and terrible sturgeon reigns as a bloody demon, and it’s only through the help of nature’s small and wriggling things that the fish can be bested.

This poem serves well as a transition point to the fifth and final part of the collection, “The Wild.” Here, the core ideas and writing style of Minnesota Poems from the Outposts both shine at their brightest.

“Moose Head” grants intention and emotion to the forces of the natural world, while reinforcing its incompatibility with human society. This poem and “Arrowhead Northern Lights” create a compelling combination of descriptive language and poetic contrasts. All underscored by a palpable appreciation for the wilderness of Minnesota.

“Into the Woods” and “Lake of the Woods” experiment most with structure and poetic flow, to fascinating effect.

Both are much longer than any other poems in the collection, with lines and paragraphs shifting in size as they explore new parts of the wilds. They take this time to fully immerse a reader in their contrasting views of wilderness.

The narrator finds that, to truly go “Into the Woods” and become a part of them, one has to give themselves up to the beautiful ways of nature. It’s a welcoming of the raw, physical world.

“Lake of the Woods”, on the other hand, seeks divinity in the beasts of the water. Recurring symbolism aligns the lakes with the sky—a celestial realm, where humans can touch and even enter, but will find themselves reflected back in challenging ways.

And yet, for all of the woodlands’ chaos and strangeness, people come.

Here, in these final poems, Hyde returns to the incessant yearning. The distance between a person and the worlds of men and trees alike might be vast, but the quest to cross it is equally as meaningful.

October 9, 2024
The 2023 Mind & Spirit Book Award WINNERS for Spirituality and Enlightenment Non-Fiction
The Mind and Spirit Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Enlightenment and Well-Being Non-Fiction and Memoir. The Mind and Spirit Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring enlightenment, motivational/self-help, spirituality, mindfulness, well-being, meditation, and energy. See our full list of Non-Fiction Divisions here.

1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by Lisa Spicer on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

This is the OFFICIAL 2023 LIST of the MIND & SPIRIT BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the MIND & SPIRIT Grand Prize Winner.

Congratulations to the FIRST PLACE CATEGORY WINNERS of the Mind & Spirit Book Awards for Spirituality and Enlightenment, a division of the 2023 CIBAs.
- Kelly Bulkeley – The Spirituality of Dreaming: Unlocking the Wisdom of Our Sleeping Selves
- Pierre Pradervand – The Gentle Art of Spiritual Discernment – A guide to discovering your personal path
- Maureen Kane – A Guide Back to You
- Kasey J. Claytor – The Money Map, A Spiritual Guide for Financial Success
- Melo Calarco – Beating Burnout, Finding Balance
- Dr. Kelly Rabenstein – Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success
The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2023 MIND & SPIRIT Awards is:

Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success

By Dr. Kelly Rabenstein

You can see all of our amazing 2023 Mind & Spirit Finalists! Congratulations to all and thank you for submitting!

Well done climbing the CIBA Levels of Achievement!

PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS!

Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!

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A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in June. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.

We will post at least two 2023 CIBA Divisions’ OFFICIAL Winners per business day starting April 24, 2024. We do a final sweep and reconciliation prior to making the Official CIBA Posts for the 2023 First Place and Grand Prize Winners. We thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. There are many moving parts involved with the Chanticleer International Book Awards Program.

Grand Prize Division Winners will receive a customized digital badge. When we receive it from our graphic artist, we will also post here and in the Grand Prize Division Winners Official Posting.

Thank you for participating in the 2023 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.

Team Chanticleer!
April 29, 2024
COMING OUT Of The METAPHYSICAL CLOSET by Lisa Rhyne – Spirituality, Metaphysics, Memoir

Lisa Rhyne offers a view into her beliefs, education, and personal experiences with the mystical and otherworldly in Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet.

In this autobiographical compendium of supernatural phenomenon, Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet is a combination of multiple original manuscripts, beginning with a hefty overview of the foundational science and concepts to help frame Rhyne’s experiences, the metaphysical world, and those who claim to work in it. Rhyne explains her perspective on walking between and having to function in both the ‘normal’ and ‘mystical’ worlds and, like many visionaries, describes this reality as illusory and subjective, created by the collective consciousness of living beings through morphogenic fields and a universal repository of knowledge.

Within this metaphysical framework, humans reincarnate from an ‘Oversoul’ that seeks to learn through each lived experience—the good, bad and everything in between. As such, Rhyne relates that shamans such as she can step between past and present lives, and even across different planes of existence. Throughout the book, Rhyne expands on the powers, dangers, as well as unique transformative opportunities that these spiritual journeys can lead to.

Her own path within the metaphysical community takes center stage as she shares impactful moments in her life. From a complex and abusive relationship with her mother, to a dangerous stalker, to joyous life-changing personal revelations, she insists that metaphysical forces have watched over her since before she was born.

Rhyne maintains a strong sense of yearning and hope throughout these stories, with moments of evocative description that paint both the mundane world and her enchanting mystical visions. Emotional scenes frame otherworldly ideas with experiences that readers can easily connect to—the pain of supporting a loved one through illness, the simple love between a girl and her cat, the joy and satisfaction of feeling that you’ve helped another person.

As she learned more about mystical practices and her relationship to them, Rhyne continuously connects with many fascinating people. Her continued studies include a wide variety of scholars, healers, and thought leaders, Hopi and other indigenous elders, fellow Metas (her term for those who share her beliefs, abilities and practices), and renowned authors such as Michael Talbot, Phillip K. Dick and shamanic practitioner Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD. Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet contains numerous references and links, so curious readers will find many more valuable threads of knowledge to pursue.

Rhyne shares examples of her metaphysical experiences and powers such as manifesting desired outcomes into her life, healing herself and others by moving between dimensions, and being guided by higher beings to pursue or avoid certain relationships. The full nature of these higher beings remains elusive, with references and stories that paint them in angelic, ancestral, and even extraterrestrial light.

Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet seeks to inspire readers—encouraging those who not only believe in but know the mystical to utilize their powers and share their abilities and perspectives with the world to foster understanding and acceptance of all things metaphysical.

Some readers might find some ideas difficult to grasp, as this book is oriented more towards those who already have some education and connection to various metaphysical theory and beliefs, but Rhyne grounds the more esoteric ideas with figurative language, scientific foundations, and recurring explanations. Additionally, as some ideas are often drawn from various mythologies across the world, they show interesting connections between belief systems that at first glance appear disparate but share foundational concepts.

Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet has over 300 images including pictures and video stills of sometimes unexplainable supernatural phenomena, and significant moments for Rhyne, with an online gallery that further expands on them, including transcripts and videos.

Rhyne’s online gallery includes images in the book and provides readers a chance to view the photos on their computers to be able to see the details better. More significantly, she includes security camera videos of drifting motes of light. The true nature of these videos is interesting to consider, whether one believes them to be small spiritual manifestations, or physical things catching the camera’s attention. Similarly, the photos and videos, and recording of the Mysterious & Unexplained show, include significant technical issues and comments by others experiencing the phenomena, giving tangible examples of Rhyne’s claims that her energy disrupts electrical systems.

Rhyne also provides supplemental documents like the full Dragon dictation messages (from Chapter 8) in this gallery. These messages contain some ominous and even poetic lines, though similarly to Rhyne herself, readers will find it difficult to parse meaning from this text. Much could be read into it, however, and the lack of clarity prompts one to wonder how an otherworldly entity might struggle to communicate with someone in our reality utilizing electronics.

All these examples might encourage others with metaphysical beliefs to openly share their experiences, their own documented phenomena, and could certainly spark fascinating discussions which is one of the goals of this book—to start authentic dialogue without any fear of negative repercussions or discrimination.

This book will resonate with those who experience—as well as seek to experience—seemingly unexplainable mystical things, and ultimately advocates for a world of understanding, love and authentic personal empowerment.

At the core of Coming Out of the Metaphysical Closet is the idea of inclusion and universal connection—through past lives, Aka cords, soul groups, or even just the small moments of kindness that turn strangers into friends. Whether or not readers share every belief with this book, Rhyne reminds them to search for people who enrich their lives and live the ideals of empathy and equality.

For readers on a journey of metaphysical spirituality, or for those who are merely ‘psi-curious’ (to borrow one of Rhyne’s terms), this book will spark curiosity and a sense of community. Rhyne understands there will be those who doubt and no matter how much evidence is presented by her or anyone else, some will never accept. And that’s perfectly fine with Rhyne. This book is a beacon of light for those who wish to be the masters of their lives and dreams. There are two questions that sum it up nicely. “What if she’s wrong?” and “What if she’s right?”

April 1, 2024
A SKY Of INFINITE BLUE: A Japanese Immigrant’s Search for Home and Self by Kyomi O’Connor – Memoirs, Surviving Loss, Spirituality

“It’s my armor,” Kyomi O’Connor realizes, as she sees herself continuing life as normal after her husband dies of cancer.

Grief brings with it many companions: childhood trauma, memories of difficult seasons of life, triumphant moments of growth, epiphanies, healing, love. In A Sky of Infinite Blue, Japanese immigrant Kyomi O’Connor allows grief to open her heart to the lessons of her past.

In particular, she recognizes emotional armor that since childhood, she has built up, torn down, and built up again. Through her relationship with her husband, her devoted Buddhist practice, and her trust in her “Self,” Kyomi makes meaning of her life and redeems her darkest memories. Readers walk through these memories with her as the book shifts between past and present.

Kyomi is deeply guarded as a child.

She struggles to deal with her family’s dysfunction, gradually learning to distance herself emotionally as a means of protecting herself. She fashions her armor, wearing it for years. But, after immigrating to the US, she finds a reason to begin taking it off.

Kyomi falls in love with Patrick, as his warmth and care give her the strength to become truly vulnerable. His rich characterization invites readers to fall in love with him right alongside the author.

However, Kyomi’s vulnerability is tested when her father becomes ill and reignites old family tensions. By now, though, she’s strong enough to face this dysfunction head-on. Though her sisters have long since turned against their father, Kyomi guides them and their mother toward forgiveness and reconciliation. This redemptive arc cements the central guidance of the memoir: that emotional armor is a barrier to connection, but vulnerability can heal even what feels irrevocably broken.

Kyomi and Patrick explore Buddhism to honor her father’s last wish. The couple’s practice anchors them during the dark events to come.

Patrick’s career becomes brutally challenging, and Kyomi relies on Buddhism to handle the resulting complications in their relationship.

Then, when Patrick is diagnosed with cancer, Kyomi wrestles with the agony of watching her loved one decline. Only her spirituality and undying love for Patrick keep her sane.

However, Kyomi’s armor returns as she takes on the role of emotional caretaker at the expense of her own health.

Kyomi fades into the background and primarily reports on Patrick’s career and spiritual journey, leaving out her individual reflections and desires. The long nightmare of Patrick’s illness becomes all-consuming. These steps back show the natural struggle with emotional regression and re-healing that any daunting personal journey can stoke.

At times, the author rationalizes her overt caretaking as being rightfully supportive of Patrick, saying she is being called to be the foundation for them both. While she does occasionally acknowledge that her old, dysfunctional pattern of armor returned during those years, she turns to her spiritual practice and finds Buddhism serves as her own foundation.

Kyomi O’Connor will break your heart, heal it, and break it again, but she will keep reminding you to be vulnerable. Though she records many dark experiences, her message is ultimately one of “wisdom, loving kindness, and compassion.”

This book will appeal to readers in search of validation of grief or guidance in lowering emotional barriers. Those interested in the rich insights of Buddhism can also learn much about the spiritual practice through Kyomi’s journey, and those with complicated family histories will relate to Kyomi’s efforts to untangle her past.

March 8, 2024