The three finalists for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award have been announced. Through May 21, Amazon customers can vote for their favorite work after reading excerpts from the finalists’ novels. The winner, to be announced on May 27th, will receive a publishing contract from Penguin, including a $25,000 advance.A panel of publishing professionals—bestselling authors Sue Grafton and Sue Monk Kidd, literary agent Barney Karpfinger, and Penguin Press Editor-in-Chief Eamon Dolan—have written critiques of each novel.
Here are the finalists:
- Ian Gibson, Victoria, British Columbia, for Stuff of Legends (a comic fantasy about heroism and celebrity, where a 15-year-old boy’s fondest wish is granted and he is teamed with his idol, warrior hero Jordan the Red, to defeat villains, monsters and demonic armies).
- James King, Wilton, Conn., for Bill Warrington’s Last Chance (Bill Warrington tries to reestablish ties with his estranged children after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. After several attempts at a reunion fail, he decides to kidnap his 15-year-old granddaughter, April, so that his children will be forced to talk to each other – and to him – as they attempt to “rescue” April).
- Brandi Lynn Ryder, Napa, Calif., for In Malice, Quite Close (in 1979 San Francisco, an unlikely relationship forms between 15-year-old Karen, who longs to escape her abusive father, and wealthy art collector Tristan Mourault. Tristan gains Karen’s trust and she soon adopts a new identity as his daughter, sending the two on an extraordinary odyssey that spans 15 years and two coasts).
2 comments:
I'm surprised at how different each of the novels seem... I wonder, though, how someone is expected to vote simply based on a small excerpt. Some books are ruined by their endings - others are saved by it. Seems strange.
A couple of these sound interesting, if not promising. I will be keeping an eye on the winner of this contest
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