First Round Fiesta

(DOH!  And posted 3 hours early... sorry...)

You may or may not know, but yesterday was the posting of the first round winners in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award. It's so fun. Every year I read those lists, I know more and more people on them. This year was an impressive list, so I thought I'd share the people I know who made it. [disclaimer: there were 2000 winners this round, so undoubtedly missed a friend or two (or five) PLEASE don't take it personally if you passed and I didn't catch it.]

But first... a GIFT my friend Joris made for me. Legacy, the first of these listed, is my ABNA entry. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this poster for the trilogy. A part of me really wants to self-publish these so I can use these covers (though books 2 and 3 need SERIOUS rewrites—in fact the 3rd probably needs to start from scratch)

Individual covers and poster designed by Joris Ammerlaan

Okay, so now to the winners! (full lists are here)

In the General Fiction Category

Charity Bradford, Sendek: The Magic Wakes


Christine Beth Reish, Façade


Dana Brantley-Sieders, Waking the Dead in Music City

Jessica Bell, Bitter Like Orange Peel

Stephen Swartz, The Dream Land

Sue Maynard, Carving the Light


In the Young Adult Category (I know many more of these... I will ponder WHY later)

Brigid Gorry-Hines, Unraveling

Catherine Stine, Fireseed One (look familiar?--she was here Wednesday!)

Emily McKeon, Mothers of Monsters

Hart Johnson, Legacy ← do you see me? Right on top of Fielder *shifty*

J Allen Fielder, Four Dogs

HK Savage, Whispers

Johanna Garth, Orchard Girl

Lisa Koosis, Resurrecting Sunshine

Michael Di Gesu, The Blinded Gardener

PK Hrezo, The 49th Parallel

Roland Yeomans, The Bear With Two Shadows

Tamara Hart-Heiner, Shadows Fall

Theresa Milstein, Naked Eye (which gets bonus points for having naked in the title)

Tracy Walshaw, Paper Tigers



What is the rest of this process, you ask?

In March, 2000 will become 500 based on our excerpts. These winners will be called Quarter Finalists. In April 500 will become 100. This is based on a Publisher's Weekly editor read of the WHOLE book. Winners will be called Semi-Finalists. In May, 100 will become 6 and ALL of these finalists will get a trip to the finals. So we've only chipped the tip of the ice berg, so to speak... and a lot of GREAT books were knocked off because either the pitch wasn't quite there or there was a mismatch with the reviewer by genre or voice. Still... the step had to be passed to go on. So it is worth a party for all!

So YAY!