Here Comes Award Number Three!

Fantasy fiction, while having a very long and established track record, is frequently dismissed as not fitting the Christian fiction mould, and it is often difficult to find the audience.  Partly because many Christian readers of fantasy do not look for them or expect to find them in Christian bookshops. 

So here is a reason to take note of this series, and an opportunity to talk about it.  Starflower, book 4 in The Tales of Goldstone Wood series, has just won the Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction.  Earlier books in the series won two Christy Awards, including the 2012 Award for Visionary Fiction.  So the series now has a hat-trick of awards.  Not bad going, especially when you consider that Heartless, the first in the series, was the author's debut novel.

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The Black Dogs Are on the Hunt, But Who Is Their Prey?

 

When a cursed dragon-witch kidnaps fairest Lady Gleamdren, the Bard Eanrin sets boldly forth on a rescue mission... and a race against his rival for Gleamdren's favor. Intent upon his quest, the last thing the immortal Faerie needs is to become mixed up with the troubles of an insignificant mortal.

But when he stumbles upon a maiden trapped in an enchanted sleep, he cannot leave her alone in the dangerous Wood Between. One waking kiss later, Eanrin suddenly finds his story entangled with that of young Starflower. A strange link exists between this mortal girl and the dragon-witch. Will Starflower prove the key to Lady Gleamdren's rescue? Or will the dark power from which she flees destroy both her and her rescuer?


"Fans of Tolkien...will be drawn into Stengl's effusive prose and wonderfully scary worlds...a series to stretch your imagination..."
USA Today

"...readers will enjoy this romantic adventure story, which is subtly laced with legends and Christian allegory akin to C. S. Lewis' Narnia series."
Elizabeth Ponder, Booklist (on Veiled Rose, Bk 2 in the series)


Starflower is available now.
Price: £8.99
ISBN: 9780764210266
You can order the book via your local Christian bookshop, or any other bricks and mortar or online bookshop.
For digital readers, this is also available in ebook format.

And the Winners Are....

Three novels from Bethany House!  Once again, Bethany books have come up trumps at the Christy Awards, winning the Historical Romance, Suspense and Contemporary Romance categories.

 

The Christy Awards were first awarded in 2000, and honour excellence in Christian fiction in several categories.  You can find out more about them here.

Against the Tide, winner in the Historical Romance category, tells the story of Lydia, a young lady living in Boston, and working as a translator for the US Navy.  Lydia's language skills bring her to Alexander Banebridge, a mysterious man working to end the opium trade.  When his enemies gain ground, Alexander is forced to turn to Lydia for help...

The Suspense Category Winner, Rare Earth, features Marc Royce, who we first met in Lion of Babylon. In this story, Marc is sent to audit a relief organisation working in Kenyan refugee camps. However, his true mission is to focus on the area's reserves of minerals essential to high tech industry.  These elements, known as 'rare earths' have inflamed tensions worldwide, and stoked tribal rivalries.  Can Marc do anything to help restore justice?

Finally, in The Breath of Dawn, winner of the Contemporary Romance Award, two people with traumatic pasts must confront them in order to build a future - if they survive!

As well as these three prize-winners the author Lynn Austin, who has written a number of successful novels for Bethany House and who is an eight-times Christy Award winner, was inducted into the Christy Awards Hall of Fame.  Karen Hancock, who is also a Bethany author and the winner of four Christy Awards, was also inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Well done to all the authors, and well done to Bethany House's staff, who clearly know a good book when they see it!

You can order any or all of these books in the UK via your local Christian bookshop, or any other bricks and mortar or online bookshop.
All three are also available as ebooks.

Thoughts on Winning a Christy Award...

...and growing up in England.

"You can't cry while wearing a pink dress, or you'll never be taken seriously again as long as you live."

So writes Anne Elisabeth Stengl on her reaction to winning the 2011 Christy Award for Best First Novel. Her thoughts on her Christy Award experience can be read in full in her very entertaining blog post.

It takes a long time for a book to come to publication, and there are often many influencing factors along the way. It turns out that the Goldstone Woods of Anne Elisabeth's books were strongly influenced by the English common on which she used to play as a child when her father was stationed at Lakenheath in Suffolk with the USAF. Her family went exploring on this local common almost every day and it seems her parents and brothers encouraged her sense of imagination:

There was a dragon on the Common. We saw it a few times, though it was disguised as a mean tabby cat at the time. "Just because a dragon is disguised doesn't mean it's any less a dragon," Papa said.
So dragons clearly had an early influence on Anne Elisabeth!

As well as dragons, there were elves, which the 8-year-old Anne Elisabeth was certain were living in the ancient hollow oak trees. The trees themselves became sailing ships and castles as the Stengl children played in them.

So it was that a small-ish, wild-ish, open English space became to a young child an enchanted forest, and perhaps it was from one of the acorns from an ancient English oak tree in that 'real' yet magical place that Goldstone Wood grew...

For more on Anne Elisabeth's English childhood, and much more on Goldstone Wood, see her blog post W is for Wood.

Read a sample chapter of Heartless here.

Anne Elisabeth's next book Veiled Rose is out in the UK in August.

Four Christy Awards for Baker Publishing Group

Winner: Suspense. The Bishop by Steven James.

"In the fourth Patrick Bowers thriller—after The Pawn (2007), The Rook (2008), and The Knight (2009)—the FBI criminologist is called to the scene of a gruesome murder. At a primate research facility, a woman was attacked by two chimpanzees, but this was no accident: someone had tied the victim, a congressman’s daughter, to a tree and set the animals on her. Patrick, who’s faced his share of twisted killers, might be encountering his most clever foe. This is a fine thriller, featuring a strong, compassionate protagonist and a couple of pretty scary villains (imagine if Bonnie and Clyde were serial killers, and if they were completely mad). James, an accomplished writer who seems equally at home writing hard-edged thrillers and books about spirituality for adults and younger readers, clearly knows how to spin a yarn; and—despite its thematic similarities to the television series Criminal Minds—this novel is fresh and exciting."David Pitt, Booklist Reviewer.

For more information and a sample chapter click here.

Winner: Historical Romance. The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen.

Mariah Aubrey lives in hiding in the gatehouse of a distant relative's estate. Supporting herself and her servant by writing novels in secret, her life becomes even more complicated when Captain Matthew Bryant leases the estate...

"Christy and RITA nominee Klassen creates a wonderful cast of engaging characters while neatly stirring in a generous dash of mystery and danger into the plot of her latest, charmingly romantic inspirational romance." John Charles, Booklist

For more information and a sample chapter click here.

Winner: First Novel. Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.

"Heartless is a great Christian fantasy tale, which is suitable for children and adults. It is very easy to read but hard to put down, I read it myself and now my younger nephews are fighting over it so I have had to purchase another! A great gift that will have you waiting for the next instalment! I am very impressed by Anne Elisabeth Stengl." Alex Pickering Eden.co.uk

For more information and a sample chapter click here.

Winner: Historical. While We're Far Apart

"For anyone who can remember the Second World War, this stirs up memories of how it used to be. Although set in America, the heartache felt by the children in this story was repeated in many countries, not least in the UK. Esther and her young brother had lost their mother and now it seemed they were going to lose their father too. Eddie has announced one Sunday afternoon that he has enlisted in the army. No argument, he has already signed up. Will their grandmother look after the children? No! What then? Penny, a young woman who has long loved Eddie from afar – next door actually, but it could have been a million miles – offers to help. Penny moves into the children’s home – which they resent - and over time the three of them get to know their elderly Jewish widower neighbour who is blaming God for taking his wife and always seeking news of his son and family in Hungary amidst all the news of what the Nazis are doing to the Jews in Europe. There are many other threads to this novel, and some surprising twists and turns that make for an excellent read that I can highly recommend." Mary Bartholomew, The Good Book Stall.

For more information and a sample chapter click here.