The Hemingway Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of 20th Century Wartime Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Kevin Miller’s book, The Silver Waterfall, will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Hemingway 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 2023 Hemingway Winners were announced at the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!

Join us in celebrating the 2023 First Place Hemingway Winners!

J.L. Oakley – The Brisling Code

An experienced intelligence agent at 22, Tore Haugland faces certain danger when he accepts an assignment in occupied Norway knowing that his predecessor was killed by the Gestapo only a week before. The dying agent left a mysterious message in his interruption code that London calls the “Brisling Code.” London wants Haugland to find out what it means as well as to gather information on the expansion of the U boat base in Bergen. Haugland is sent to work at a drafting office in a shipyard. His mission is jeopardized when a ruthless SS officer, Hans Becker, with his own secrets, is alerted to his presence by a traitor at the Verks. Becker will do anything to find him. If Haugland can’t discover the meaning of the Brisling Code in time, it could cost him his life and expose the members of the local resistance he works with. If he does, it could hurt the people he has grown to care about. But what if the message was written down wrong?

From Chanticleer:

In The Brisling Code, a fast-paced first installment of her historical thriller series, Oakley weaves a brilliant portrayal of the perils met by the Norwegian Resistance during WWII.

Layered perspectives—from resistance workers, traitors, and even an SS Officer—create a rich world through which readers can understand the sacrifices that were made to free our world from the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

Immersed in volatile Nazi-occupied Bergen, Norway, fearless young intelligence agent Tore Haugland and his team of organizers work tirelessly to protect the essential work of the Norwegian resistance.

Haugland’s task is to uncover the plans for the expansion of the German Uboat base with inside help at a shipyard. Also charged in unveiling the meaning behind a mysterious message sent by his murdered predecessor, Haugland navigates the treacherous waters of Norway—a mere haunting of the beautiful city it once was before Nazi occupation. Readers can “almost taste the danger” as our hero moves from one treacherous predicament to the next. Haugland’s mission risks not only his own life, but the lives of every friend and connection he makes.

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Kathryn Gauci – In the Shadow of the Pyrenees

When France declares war on Germany, the villagers of the sleepy village of Mont-Saint-Jean have no idea how much their lives will be impacted. At first they find themselves helping a trickle of British soldiers and airmen heading into Spain, but within months, that trickle has turned into a never-ending flow. Desperate French and foreign Jews, together with ordinary men and women evading Vichy’s harsh laws in search of freedom, either attempt to flee and join de Gaulle’s Secret Army in North Africa, or hide and regroup in readiness for D-Day. Before they know it, they are drawn into the shadowy world of escape networks in one of France’s harshest and most dangerous mountainous terrains, where at every turn they face deportation or death if caught.

Rich in detail and based on true events in Occupied France, In the Shadow of the Pyrenees weaves together a powerful and vivid tableau of characters, a tortured love affair, and the heroism of countless helpers. It is a story that conjures up the voices of the past and will take you on a journey in which the ensuing upheavals continue to resonate in the villagers’ lives long after the war has ended.

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Michael J Cooper – Crossroads of Empire

This work is not yet released, but the previous book in the series was the 2022 Dante Rossetti Grand Prize Winner.

In the summer of 1914, sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair leaves home to join the Great War for Civilization. Little does he know that, despite the war raging in Europe, the true source of conflict will emerge in Ottoman Palestine, since it’s from Jerusalem where the German Kaiser dreams to rule as Holy Roman Emperor.

Filled with such historical figures as Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Faisal bin Hussein and Chaim Weizmann, Wages of Empire follows Evan through the killing fields of the Western Front where he will help turn the tide of a war that is just beginning, and become part of a story that never ends.

From Chanticleer:

Michael J. Cooper’s latest historical fiction novel, Wages of Empire, draws readers into the perilous journey of sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair and his father into WW1. On this path, their lives will intersect with such historical figures as TE Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, the Arab nationalist Faisal ibn Hussein, the proto-Nazi and advisor to the German kaiser Guido von List, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.

Set in the summer of 1914 we find Evan living in the American southwest where his father moved the family from England for his Oxford sabbatical. Evan struggles to cope with his mother’s death in childbirth and yearns to escape his father’s controlling grip. As war breaks out in Europe, Evan decides to leave home and join the fight, without telling his father.

By the time Clive realizes Evan is missing, the war is in full swing. Clive returns to England to search for Evan and reactivates his commission at the War Office in London. There, Clive uses every means available to find Evan. Meanwhile, Evan has made his way across the Atlantic and into France with the hope of joining the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), but instead he is arrested by the Paris police as a possible German collaborator. He escapes, but by mistake, crosses into occupied Belgium where he barely survives a German artillery barrage with poison gas. Joining the Flemish resistance, he is badly wounded after helping to flood the lowlands, a deciding factor in stopping the German army. After recovering in a BEF hospital in France, Evan begins a romance with a beautiful young nurse just before he is discharged to return to England by hospital ship.

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Ivan Luis Hernandez – Isla Vulnerable

In late 1950’s Cuba, the island’s allure as an elite global paradise was cloaked by a revolution that brought down its rich and powerful.

When a poor native farm boy named Victor Gomez is suddenly orphaned and adopted by one of the most influential families in his hometown, he meets and falls for Sarita Rodriguez—a supermodel and media empire heiress—just before Fidel Castro overthrows President Fulgencio Batista and takes control of the island. After Castro raids Victor’s new family’s estate and imprisons his father, Victor narrowly escapes and flees to the US where he accepts an unconventional, deadly deal as a spy to save his country. Still just a teen, Victor finds himself in a cycle of betrayal—struggling to find truth and purpose, while torn between protecting his now powerless parents, finding his disbanded biological siblings, and secretly pursuing Sarita as she rises to international fame from New York.

Based on the true story of the author’s family, Isla Vulnerable weaves a captivating tale of love, sacrifice, and human resilience in the face of extraordinary historical events—including the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, the CIA’s covert operations in foreign affairs, Operation Mongoose, and the assassination of JFK. A dynamic cast of real-life-inspired characters, meticulous attention to historical detail, edge-of-your-seat spy scenes, and a love story that transcends social classes compose an ideologically-unbiased, heartwarming, and cinematic journey in this author’s first published book.

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Linda Stewart Henley – Kate’s War

Twenty-year-old Kate is poised to launch into a long-anticipated life of independence when Britain declares war in 1939. After that announcement, her dream of escaping the London suburb she grew up in and pursuing a singing career is quashed: she must stay put with her family and prepare for bombing and possible invasion by Germany.

Living in these anxious times, Kate strives to achieve balance in her life, though a speech disability interferes with her singing and a failed romance adds to her distress. But when a young Jewish girl whose parents have been deported comes to her for help, Kate’s goals change. Taking on a responsibility she never could have imagined, she learns that freedom and survival cannot be taken for granted—and as new responsibilities outweigh earlier goals, she learns that assisting others to escape unspeakable evil requires new perspective, as well as courage she didn’t know she had.

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Jerena Tobiasen – Tsarina’s Crown

In 1915, Simon Temple, a young naval officer from northeast England, finds himself aboard RMS Guardian, patrolling the North Sea as part of the Germany blockade. By midyear, he’s in Petrograd, Russia on a private assignment for King George. The three-month task turns into three years, embroiling him in the intrigues of two royal families, Russian politics and British espionage. As the Russian revolution consumes the country, Simon’s cover is threatened, and his safety compromised. He must escape the chaos before he’s captured, but his scheme becomes complicated when two others unexpectedly join him in a hasty departure.

High seas adventures. Russian vistas. Royal exposé. Political conspiracy. The stuff of which spies are made. Tsarina’s Crown is a fast-paced, historical drama that leads the reader from World War I at sea to the desperation of the Russian revolution. Full of action and intrigue. And just a little romance.

From Chanticleer:

Jerena Tobiasen delivers a sharp, first-rate novel in Tsarina’s Crown, first installment in The Nightingale and Sparrow Chronicles, capturing a precise panorama of Russian politics and British espionage during a delicate period in time.

The year is 1915 and Simon Temple, a young naval officer aboard the RMS Guardian— a British Royal Navy Ship— patrols the North Sea for questionable communications and marine activity. Months later, he is entrusted by the British crown to serve as a liaison on a covert mission in Petrograd, Russia. Simon is careful not to blow his cover as a young aristocrat while he is thrust into the world of international politics, the ruthless Russian Revolution, and becomes caught right in the middle of two powerful royal families.

The mission turns out to be longer than Simon anticipated, and his life quickly becomes threatened as he tries to navigate a dangerous political labyrinth, all the while hoping to unearth the spy information that his King requires of him. But as the precarious wheel of mayhem and chaos churns in Russia, Simon’s only way to survive is to escape, realizing that his wit and intelligence might not save him from the tense political atmosphere. Things become even more complicated when he is joined by two other people who hope to flee.

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William McClain – Alice’s War

Weymouth, England 1939. War changes everything. For grandson Martin, coming of age under the backdrop of World War II. For Sonja, the Jewish refugee he’s drawn to, who left her family in Germany only to face new dangers in England. And for Martin’s friend, Ellis, confronting a war similar to the one that drove his father to alcoholism.

Recently widowed, Alice must set aside her long-awaited chance to recreate her life on her own terms when the war places her two grandchildren in her care. She finds herself revisiting the tragedies she faced as a mother, as she navigates personal aspiration, loss, and the importance of family.

Alice’s War is not a story of decorated air pilots or daring resistance fighters. It is instead a story of ordinary people facing fear and loss. As outside forces tear Alice’s family and community apart, she quietly gathers and reforms their sustaining bonds.

Set in the town of Weymouth against the grand backdrop of England’s Jurassic Coast and with a front-seat view of the unfolding drama, Alice’s War immerses the reader in a time unlike any in modern history.

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Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2023 Hemingway First Place Winners!

You can see our Spotlight on the recently reviewed books that fit the Hemingway division here.

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

Got a great Historical Fiction Book that looks at times of war?

The 2024 Hemingway Book Awards are open through the end of October!