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The Shelley Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Supernatural Fiction. The Grand Prize Winner, Lydia M Hawke’s book, Becoming Crone will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Shelley 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 Shelley/Paranormal 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 Shelley (formerly Paranormal) First Place Paranormal Winners!
Joe Lyon – The Molossus of Old Man Moyer
Former convict Jimmy Myer finds himself in a precarious situation, transporting the corpse of a well-known psychic, when an unexpected detour brings him face-to-face with the Molossus. This mythical creature is rumored to grant its keeper immense wealth, albeit at a harrowing price—the inevitable violent demise of its host. Currently, the beast is in the possession of Old Man Moyer, a billionaire with a sinister reputation, who is hell-bent on escaping this fatal fate.
As Jimmy becomes entangled in this eerie narrative, he navigates a world filled with mysterious mediums, determined detectives, and ghostly onlookers. The journey is fraught with danger and intrigue, leading to a gripping climax that forces readers to ponder a disturbing question: Can any treasure justify the cost of one’s life?
The Molossus of Old Man Moyer unfolds as a mesmerizing tale of greed, destiny, and the supernatural, challenging the boundaries between the material and the mystical.
Jo Deniau – Hologram
Ever since holographer David Leone turned forty, he’s feasted on spicy memories of his lost love, “Lu,” who’s now a famous movie star. When the ghost image of a child appears in a holographic portrait of a bride and groom, David’s determined to capture clues to Lu’s traumatic childhood. But he must first invent a device to pre-screen space for holographic traces. Funded by the bride’s millionaire father, David goes back to Lu’s old home. But he’s ill-prepared to survive the hazards of this staging ground, including the home’s mercenary owners, a lapse in his tree-climbing prowess, and Lu’s return to Circleville.
A threat less obvious to David is that his discoveries might make him famous-for all the wrong reasons.
Nola Nash – House of Mirrors
Sometimes the only ones who see us for who we truly are, are the mirrors.
The small historic town of Franklin, Tennessee, hides a grisly past behind its pristine Hallmark movie façade. While the glories of the town’s history and its architecture are meticulously preserved, the hauntings left behind by the darker side of that history are kept tucked away in the local ghost tours. When a new couple moves into the Bennett House, the town is brought face-to-face with the spirits of their past that have been trapped for a century and a half in mirror prisons that now reside on the Bennett House walls. Can Ruby Baxter, local tour guide, historian, and reluctant medium help the lost souls find the homes they belong in and peace with their own pasts so they can finally rest? Or will town prejudices against the spirits hold them hostage? Will the mirrors help Ruby find her purpose and finally see herself as others do?
Woven through the modern quest for helping the souls of the past find their voices and peace, are the Five Bloodiest Hours of the American Civil War – The Battle of Franklin. Mirroring events in the modern tale, the story of humanity, fear, and sacrifice of the soldiers and citizens whose experiences and names were left out of the history books is finally told so that they, too, can be seen for who they truly were.
Claire Fraise – They Stay
There’s no way she’s going to believe in ghosts. But when her sibling is kidnapped, the only clues she has come from the other side…
Shiloh Oleson loves her six-year-old brother more than life. So the headstrong teen’s world shatters when he goes missing after tee-ball practice and her abusive father gives up the search. But the devastated girl doesn’t know what to think when a weirdo classmate claims a dead spirit told her his location.
Outright rejecting any paranormal garbage, Shiloh and her friends frantically investigate a similar disappearance in the hope of uncovering the truth. But all the desperate teenager unearths are disturbing secrets about her family, the school… and a sinister force on her tail.
Can the determined young woman bring the little boy home before all hell breaks loose?
They Stay is the first book in the bone-chilling They Stay YA supernatural thriller series. If you like relatable characters, unearthly mayhem, and endings that leave you wanting more, then you’ll love Claire Fraise’s spine-tingling story.
Fionn Mac Meldrum – The Shadow of Banshee Hill
In 1818, Cillian Valour, an Irish rebel’s son with limited prospects, is determined to marry his longtime love, Martha Ashworth, daughter of a local landlord. When her father forbids their engagement, Cillian turns to the heavens for help in an act of desperation-but it is a mysterious stranger that answers his call. After accepting an offer too good to refuse, Cillian and Martha are forever changed. Together, the star-crossed lovers turn away from the light and cut a swath of horror and misery across the land-until one night in Rome, the unthinkable happens.
Emily Corvo’s life in modern-day Boston is upended by the murder of her mother and the disappearance of her father. Learning that her mother was callously slaughtered by something not of this world, Emily vows to rescue her father and avenge her mother by hunting down those responsible. But she may find that only by trusting the enemy can she quench her thirst for vengeance.
James McKenna- An October’s Journey: Poe’s Final Gift
In this elegant work of literary fantasy, a young, 19th century attorney receives a strange birthday gift from his friend, Edgar Allan Poe, who convinces him to defend a woman and her two grown children who have been arrested for practicing witchcraft. The trial is to be held in an old Puritan town that has somehow “fallen out of time,” and the verdict of the case will determine the fate of many more than just the three souls on trial. Navigating as a stranger in an even stranger land, he must piece together the truth of the most bizarre case of his career.
Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2023 Paranormal First Place Winners!
Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!
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