Author: Sarah Kay Bierle Though the American Civil War is raging, fourteen-year-old Betsy Westmore and her family feel safe on their Pennsylvania farm. However, distant gunshots escalate and artillery shells shriek through the air as the Battle of Gettysburg unfolds nearby. Who can Betsy trust in the midst of terrifying tragedy?
Silence Is Not Always Golden: The Power of Spoken WordsWinner
2015 Southern California Book Festival
Author: Joy Elan Silence Is Not Always Golden: The Power of Spoken Words is a collection of poetry that is defying the norm. Written words have power because anyone can refer to them. However, spoken words are more powerful because the words are brought to life once they leave the body or a piece of…
Lessons: Shattered Pieces Being RestoredHonorable Mention
2015 New York Book Festival
Author: LaDonna Marie We live in a day now that we experience so many things. Each life situations maybe ranging from joy, to sadness, and it becomes apart of our story. With the poetic scribes in this book, the author looks at the different life scenarios, the true, real and present issues. Author LaDonna focuses…
You Shall Know Our NamesWinner
2015 Great Midwest Book Festival
Author: Ezekiel Nieto Benzion Buried in codes in old journals, Judah Halevi’s tale is finally revealed. A personal tragedy causes the gentle doctor to join the Hawk, a merciless fighter for justice against oppression in early 19th century Europe. Are they heroes? Villains? Or just men fighting for their rights in a cruel world?
Vanilla MilkRunner-up
2015 Great Midwest Book Festival
Author: Chanel Brenner Vanilla Milk focuses on a mother’sand family response to the sudden death of theauthor’s six-year-old son. Characterized by unsparing honesty, clarity, and restraint, thepoems explore the limits inherent in“recovering” from the grief of losing a child, and the need to continue experiencing joy.
Dark SurfWinner
2015 Southern California Book Festival
Author: T.C. Zmak Great white shark attacks are rising at local beaches. A surfer and an undercover FBI agent suspect something more sinister. To find the truth, they infiltrate a nomadic tribe of night surfers. What they discover is more shocking than they ever imagined. But it’s too late to turn back … .
The Sound of the Stones Honorable Mention
2015 Great Midwest Book Festival
Author: Beth Hammond Frankie and Ashra are separated by millennia, fiction, and reality, but in the end the barrier shatters. Together, they find love, uncover mysteries from the past, face ever-present danger, and hone powers they never knew they had. The ancient book about the past holds the future. Frankie is the key.
Birdbrain (Go Ahead. Love Your Planet. Just Not Too Much.) Honorable Mention
2015 San Francisco Book Festival
Virginia Arthur Ellowyn Kelsey was a “normal” young woman once, before she became, according to her family and friends- ‘assorted rednecks and white trash’, a “wacko environmentalist”. Mixing up dates for the church picnic, instead of a Bible, she ends up with binoculars in her hands. Something in her breaks when she sees a pair…
SpinnerWinner
2015 Hollywood Book Festival
Author: Michael J. Bowler A boy in a wheelchair who possesses a miraculous power accidentally unleashes an ancient evil into the world, plunging himself and his friends into a nightmare they might not be able to survive.
The Stranger and the Time MachineHonorable Mention
2015 Hollywood Book Festival
Author: Phil Scrima “You’re not of this Earth anymore.” Science fiction, adventure, mystery; it’s all there with a different twist. THE STRANGER AND THE TIME MACHINE combines the adventure and suspense of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the magnetism of AVATAR, the mystifying allure of SPACE ODYSSEY, the lore of the OLD WEST.