Has your book come of age?

Then it’s time to enter the Dante Rossetti Awards!

The Dante Rossetti Award for Young Adult Fiction is named for Dante Rossetti (1828-1882), Poet, Artist, and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Better known for his art, he was also rather prolific in his poem writing, and translating Italian poetry into English. Dante and all 3 of his siblings were writers, his sister Christina was also rather prolific in poetry writing, his other sister Maria was an essayist before becoming a nun, and his brother William was a well known editor and literary critic.

They weren’t the only literary inclined people in his family. Their uncle, John Polidori, who was also Lord Byron’s doctor, wrote The Vampyre in 1819, the first published modern vampire story.

His brother is also the one who wrote down the aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848:

• To have genuine ideas to express
• To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them
• To sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote
• And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues

One of his paintings can be seen on the badge for the Chatelaine Award, Blue Silk Dress painted in 1868, depicts Jane Morris, wife of artist, writer and designer William Morris, and one of Rossetti’s lovers.

Blue Silk Dress, painted in 1868, which we use on the badge for the Chatelaine Award

In other famous art pieces related to Rossetti, his wife Elizabeth Siddall was a model for many artists in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, most famously in John Everett Millais’ Ophelia

Ophelia by John Everett Millais, painted in 1852

The reason we chose Dante Rossetti to represent our Young Adult Award is because of the views of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, focusing on defying social norms, observing nature, and creative freedom. Compared to writing aimed at teenagers, learning how to deal with the world around them, while also making their own mark and changing how society thinks, we think it fits pretty well.

The Dante Rossetti Categories are:

• Contemporary
• Sci-Fi and Paranormal
• YA Adventure and Romance
• YA Historical
• Dystopian/Edgy/Urban
• Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Enter the Dante Rossetti Awards today!

We are delighted to celebrate the 2023 Winners of the Dante Rossetti Awards who have already started to make their mark on the genre!

• Kerry Chaput – Chasing Eleanor
• Lynn Yvonne Moon – Fish Scales
• Sophia Krich-Brinton – A Song Like the Wind
• J.A. Nielsen – The Claiming
• Trish MacEnulty – Cinnamon Girl
• S.R. Klusman – Luna: Book 2 of The Adventures of Rhone & Stone

The Grand Prize Winner for the 2023 Dante Rossetti Awards is:

Sour Flower

A Manuscript

By Maryanne Melloan Woods

That’s not all!

Take a look at these great YA reads that have come our way!

THE WINTER HEIR: Fractured Kingdoms Book 2
By J.A. Nielsen

The Winter Heir, the second book in J.A. Nielsen’s Fractured Kingdoms series, picks up where the first book, The Claiming, leaves off—with its protagonists struggling under the weight of a vital bargain.

Lady Dew Drop, Dewy to her friends—and her frenemies—is languishing in the court of the Winter Fae, a summer princess nearly frozen in both heart and spirit as she does her best to fulfill the pact she made with the Winter King. Meanwhile, the man who got her into this mess, the human mage and illegitimate princeling of Telridge—Spence Ferrous—tries to fulfill the deal for her.

But the story is much bigger than these two young lovers. The Winter King is dying without a legitimate heir. And it’s his own proud, arrogant fault. As much as both the humans and the Summer Fae would be willing to let him suffer the consequences of his own actions—he’s not the only one who will.

Read more here!

HAVE YOU SEEN ME
By Alexandrea Weis

In Alexandrea Weis’s YA mystery thriller, Have You Seen Me? something is wrong at Louisiana’s Waverly School. Deadly wrong.

This private educational institute for the state’s wealthiest has an unsettling record of young women disappearing. Three, from decades ago, were never found. In the last few years, a girl by the name of Margaret vanished, and now her sister Lindsey has followed suit. Despite numerous investigations, no clues have surfaced. Moreover, the steely head of the school, Sara Probst, uses intimidation and fear to keep the school operating at any cost.

Were these disappearances just high-spirited women who left on their own accord, or was there something more sinister at play? And now, after Lindsey’s disappearance, it seems a serial killer has returned after all these years.

Read more here!

LUNA: Rhone and Stone Book 2
By Strider S.R. Klusman

Luna, the second book in Strider S.R. Klusman’s YA Rhone and Stone Series, follows Rhone and his alien partner Stone as they develop a ship that can sail through the air.

The two train to become agents for the Office of Public Recrimination, urged to join by their friend – and now boss – Aundrea. Rhone struggles through training with the help of his trusty partner, but a much more difficult test remains before them – their first assignment.

Aundrea sends them to Corgy, a port town, without explaining their mission. But it doesn’t take long for Rhone to encounter troubles from shore and sea alike.

Read more here!

PLAGUE Of FLIES: Revolt of the Spirits, 1846
By Laurel Anne Hill

Sixteen-year-old Catalina Delgado’s hopes of marrying her love are troubled by strange, unnatural dangers, in Laurel Anne Hill’s novel, Plague of Flies.

Like every dutiful daughter in 1846, Catalina worries about her reputation. However, she must also gain the approval of Ángelo Ortega’s family. Unfortunately, when three strangers ride onto her family’s small ranch in Alta California, she knows that more than her dreams are at risk. Alta California has just been invaded by the men of the Bear Flag, and Catalina fears what will become of her homeland now that it has been claimed by the Yankees. The nearby ranch owned by the valiant General Vallejo has been raided, owners and their servants terrorized and held captive. Plus Bear Flaggers have murdered additional friends of Catalina’s family on a beach.

In connection with the recent killings, the three strangers are harbingers of a dire prophecy repeated to Catalina by a dying vaquero. Catalina is destined to be carried off by a spirit man riding a black Andalusian stallion. She will be tasked to do the bidding of Coyote, a trickster spirit who is trying to stop the advancement of the Bear Flaggers. Catalina grapples with her uncertainty and disbelief, but she desperately wants to save her family. When Spirit Man appears to her, she must ask herself how far she is willing to go to keep her loved ones alive.

Read more here!

Thank you for joining us to celebrate these YA Books!