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Model Marine: A Novel

Sondra Sykes Meek

2018 Gold Medal
284 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Gold Medal
*Gold Medal Winner in the Fiction - Literary category of the 2018 Readers' Favorite Book Award Contest!
*Award-Winner in the Military category of the 2018 American Fiction Awards!
*Finalist in the Military Fiction category of the 12th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards!

Molly Monroe had her future planned out for her. When she makes an impulsive decision to join the Marine Corps, her boyfriend breaks up with her, her brother bears the burden of guilt, and her mother feels betrayed. The people in Molly's life have always tried to protect her, but she wants to protect herself. 
As a Combat Camera Marine, Molly observes and records her environment from behind the lens, where image shapes day-to-day life. After she is wounded during a combat deployment, her dreams are frightening, and her memories are a kaleidoscope of scattered and chaotic scenes; a collision of past and present, real and unreal. Snapshots in time. Glimpses of war. Fragments of love: lost and found. 
This story unfolds through multiple perspectives and as the negatives and positives develop, an image of the Model Marine is sharpened into focus.

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Dreaming of Oranges

An Unreliable Memoir
Marcelline Thomson

2018 Silver Medal
286 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Silver Medal
Sumptuous and expertly written, Dreaming of Oranges is an exotic tale, fueled by intelligence and wit, with all the romance of Casablanca and all the spirit of the modern woman who dares to live life on her own terms.
--Sarah Haberman, Executive Director, The Moth
The reader is drawn to the colors, smells, vignettes, the fierce dedication these friends have for each other, the reckless danger, the love affair.
Two young women, fresh out of an exclusive college in Westchester, thumb their noses at the conventions of marriage and middle class life to seek adventure. It is 1961. Inspired by Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, armed with charm, good looks and wit, they set off on a journey to the Middle East and find more than they bargained for. They compete for the love of a handsome young Cypriot and become ensnared in a web of secrecy that will send them careening through the cloak and dagger world of the region's politics until forced to flee into the desert for safety. Their fraying friendship may not be enough to pull them through as they come to terms with loss of innocence, loss that characterized their country as America went from Camelot to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Sirrine is a self-described Mediterranean type from the Midwest, Jean a blonde New York sophisticate--or so she seems on the surface. Their story is poignant, heartbreaking at times, but also told with comedy and flair. Reliable or not, this evocative "memoir" is totally engrossing.

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Dog Logic

Tom Strelich

2018 Bronze Medal
400 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Bronze Medal
Funny, inflammatory, and strangely prescient, a duck-and-cover fable. If Dr. Strangelove and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get Dog Logic
  • Silver Winner Foreword INDIES 2017 Book Of The Year Award - Science Fiction
  • Bronze Winner Readers' Favorite 2018 Award - Literary Fiction
  • Finalist National Indie Excellence Awards - Contemporary Novel
Hertell Daggett is not what he used to be: once married, once a physicist, and once shot in the head in a New Year's Eve accident, or possibly the 4th of July. The doctors got most of the bullet out, but a few specks of copper remained floating in his brain, connecting parts no longer connected in the rest of us, filaments of species memory going back to the beginning of time. He remembers the yodeling of dinosaurs, the dry humor of mastodons, and the rubbery smell of trilobites. 

Hertell discovers a time-capsule, actually a vast time-cavern full of people who've lived beneath the pet cemetery since 1963 as part of a long-forgotten Government program to preserve Western civilization in the charred aftermath of the massive nuclear war triggered by JFK's assassination -- at least that's what their computer simulation predicted. Hertell leads them into the modern world, like one of those lost tribes stumbling from the jungle into civilization, only this time it's not the lost tribe that's overwhelmed by civilization, but very much the other way around, and they will pay for it. 

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Peregrine Island

A Novel
Diane B. Saxton

2018 Honorable Mention
288 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Honorable Mention

PEREGRINE ISLAND is the recipient of the following 8 literary awards:

2017 Winner of the New York City Big Book Award for Mystery

2017 Best Book Awards Finalist in General Fiction for Fiction, for Literary, and for Mystery & Suspense

2017 Winner of the National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Fiction: Northeast

2017 Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction by Independent Press Awards

2017 International Book Awards Finalist for Literary Fiction

2017 National Indie Excellence Award Finalist for Fiction

2017 Bronze Award for US Northeast Fiction from the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards

2018 Reader Views Literary Award Finalist and Honorable Mention for Adult - Fiction

~~~~~

Literary Mystery Highlights an Heirloom Painting on Long Island Sound and

the Relationships between Three Generations of Women

Part “who-done-it” and part family drama, this award-winning novel

reveals that neither people nor paintings are always what they appear to be

Contradictory relationships within troubled families are nothing new, but the award-winning psychological novel written by well-known journalist Diane B. Saxton elevates these relationships and the mysterious heirloom painting that both exposes and unites them to an art form.

Peregrine Island interweaves the stories of three generations of women, one valuable painting, the artist who created it, and those who would do anything to possess it – including kill.

Lush with sensory details, this psychologically complex mystery novel is set on a private island in the middle of Long Island Sound. It begins when the family’s lives are turned upside-down one summer by so-called art experts, who appear on the doorstep of their isolated home to appraise a favorite heirloom painting. When incriminating papers along with two other paintings are discovered behind the painting in question, the appraisal turns into a full-fledged investigation and detectives are called into the case— but not by the family whose members grow increasingly antagonistic toward one another.

During the course of the inquiry and as the summer progresses, the family members discover new secrets about one another and new facts about their past. Above all, they learn that neither people nor paintings can be taken at face value.

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A Different Kind of Lovely

A Novel
Petra March

2018 Honorable Mention
352 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Honorable Mention
2018 Readers' Favorite International Book Awards Winner - Honorable Mention: Literary Fiction
2018 Elit Book Awards Winner - Bronze Medal: Literary Fiction
Crowned Heart for Excellence (InD'tale Magazine, Sept. 2017)

"A man with a damaged soul fell in love with a ballerina with a broken body."

When Neal Medwin glimpses Mina Automne for the first time, he's a man whose soul is darkened with memories of a painful past, whereas Mina is a vibrant, strong, young woman. She's a determined ballerina who's carefully planning and painting her life.
Neal steps into her existence and threatens to shatter Mina's plans with an impossible request.
Mina can't help the fragile man who's invading her home, even though their parents used to be close friends and she knows of Neal's hurtful background. She allows him to linger within her lovely and artistic world, however, hoping he might find some peace and solace.
Slowly, their conflict turns into friendship, and eventually into love, until a terrible discovery ruins Mina's projects and forces her to let go of all her dreams, and of her sweet, damaged man.
Neal is unable to fight for Mina and for the unripe love they share, because he's not ready to leave his past behind. He's not strong enough - not yet.

(Ages 18+)

Publisher's Note: This stand-alone novel is a spin-off of Petra March's award winning series, A Touch of Cinnamon.

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The Last Valentine

A Labyrinth of Love Letters Novel
Felix Alexander

2018 Finalist
282 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Finalist
When Olivia Villalobos finds a bloodstained love letter she endeavors to deliver it before Chief Inspector Sedeño finds it in her possession.

A city along the southern coast of Puerto Rico emerges in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Olivia, daughter of a drunkard police investigator who never knew the truth behind her mother’s disappearance, finds a bloodstained love letter in the hidden compartment of her father’s coat. Convinced it belonged to the man recently found dead she sets out to deliver it to the Labyrinth of Love Letters. A mysterious place believed to be an urban legend where the transients of forbidden love leave missives for one another. She enlists the help of Isaac Quintero to find the Labyrinth and they soon realize their quest has opened the door into Old Sienna’s darkest secrets—the perils, madness and depth of tragic love.

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The Second Cup

Can someone else steal your suicide? (The Butterfly Effect Book 1)
Sarah Marie Graye

2018 Finalist
320 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2018 Finalist

CAN SOMEONE ELSE STEAL YOUR SUICIDE?

...Beth thinks they can.


FAYE knows her heart still belongs to her first love, JACK. She also knows he might have moved on, but when she decides to track him down, nothing prepares her for the news that he's taken his own life.

FAYE is left wondering how to move forward - and whether or not JACK's best friend ETHAN will let her down again. And the news of JACK's death ripples through the lives of her friends too.

ABBIE finds herself questioning her marriage, and wondering if she was right to leave her first love behind. Poor OLIVIA is juggling her job and her boyfriend and trying to deal with a death of her own. And JACK's death has hit BETH the hardest, even though she never knew him.

Is BETH about to take her own life too?

The Second Cup is dark chick-lit and intelligent women's fiction at its best. Perfect for fans of Maggie O'Farrell, Elizabeth Strout, Dorothy Koomson and Amanda Prowse.

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TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicide, depression, motorcycle accident, ADHD, miscarriage, alcoholism.

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Praise for The Second Cup

"A wonderful heartwarming read, in spite of the difficult topics raised, a book that will stay with you after you finish the last page." - Bookliterati

"Graye takes an intense situation and instead of shying away from it, she strips away the bandage so we can see the raw, oozing wound." - Princess of the Light

"This book was the most beautifully written mental health book I have ever read." - Nerdy Book Life

"It is rare that an author can articulate the type of pain inflicted through the act of suicide. In The Second Cup, Sarah Marie Graye does this, not through one voice, but four." - Waggy Tales

"Tragically woven into the plot is the intense depiction of life's struggles: love lost, divorce, adoption, suicide, bullying, mental illness and disease. Graye takes you into the minds and souls of her characters." - Readers' Favorite

"It's really well written making it an emotional page turner. Be warned though it's not an easy read due to the main topics being depression and suicide." - Heidi, Goodreads

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Even in Darkness

A Novel
Barbara Stark-Nemon

2017 Gold Medal
326 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2017 Gold Medal
Winner of two INDIEFAB prizes: Gold for Literary Fiction and Bronze for Historical Fiction

Readers’ Favorite Gold medal for Literary fiction


Spanning a century and three continents, Even in Darkness tells the story of Kläre Kohler, whose early years as a beloved daughter of a prosperous German-Jewish family hardly anticipate the harrowing life she faces as an adult- a saga of family, lovers, two world wars, a concentration camp, and sacrifice. Based on a true story, Even in Darkness highlights Klare’s reinvention as she faces the destruction of life as she knew it, and traces her path to survival, wisdom, and unexpected love.

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The Dining Car

Eric Peterson

2017 Silver Medal
354 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2017 Silver Medal

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The Siege

A Psychological Thriller
James Hanna

2017 Bronze Medal
276 Pages
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Fiction - Literary

2017 Bronze Medal
WINNER: Bronze, Reader's Favorite. On November 23, 2000, one hundred inmates hold twelve guards hostage in the laundry dorm of The Indiana Penal Farm. Emergency squads are massed along the fence, awaiting the order to attack, while sharpshooters are perched like crows on top of the administration building. Tom Hemmings, a dorm counselor, has been conscripted to defuse the standoff. But the inmates are divided into rival gangs, the guards into feuding unions. And the prison administration has sparked the standoff by forcing cut-rate services upon the facility. As he enters the prison, Tom's heart starts to hammer. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad? And how will this nightmare end?