A few days ago, my friend, author Abigail Morrison, texted me, “Congrats fellow semi-finalist!” I had to ask, “For what?”
I’d completely forgotten that I’d submitted The Vessel – Book Two in The Devil Particle Series and its cover (created by the very talented Patrick Knowles) to the Kindle Book Review Book Awards. I’d even received the email from Kindle but deleted it because I’d thought I hadn’t entered any of my books.
I’m so glad I was wrong and that I did! It’s an ego boost to see my book and its cover on the list and wonderful to see Abby’s and my colleague Peggy Joque Williams’ novels there as well.
In 2024, The Devil Particle was one of only 5 finalists in this same contest, along with my friend Chris Norbury‘s novel Little Mountain, Big Trouble. Neither book won, but we are both proud of these accolades. Hopefully The Vessel will do as well as The Devil Particle, or better.
The opening of The Vessel
The Vessel opens with Paul Salvage in an impossible situation:
I have all the world’s evil inside me, and I’ve killed my brother. This can’t be good.
I picture my brother, Asher, sitting on the edge of my bed. His leg bounces while he tells me about the cute girls he and his best friend, Gaige Devlin, met at The Corner Diner. Ash’s hair is a dark, wavy mess; his blue eyes sparkle, and a dimple creases his pale right cheek, just like mine. Then this image morphs, and I see Asher at the bottom of a rocky ravine. Around his head, his hair floats in the blood-stained river. His blank eyes stare up at me, and a deep bloody gash replaces the dimple.
“How could I?” I moan, forgetting I’m sitting on the floor of the spherical Implantation Room in the depths of the cavernous Penchi Lab. And forgetting I’m being watched through a hidden camera system by a bodyguard, a nurse, two scientists, and President Stark Cicero.
“Paul?” Dr. Jackson Odin, Director of the Vessel Project, asks over the speaker system concealed in the padded polyurethane walls. I imagine a look of worry on his pockmarked face.
I can’t be the Vessel. What was I thinking? How can I hold all the world’s evil? I’m just a kid—a kid who lost control and killed his big brother.
The other two award-winning novels
As I mentioned, Abigail Morrison’s thrilling young adult novel Downfall (Chronicals of Castia) is also a semi-finalist in the Kindle Book Review Book Awards.
In a world buried under eternal snows, five giant, electric crystal pillars are all that separate the last habitable city from destruction. Rebecca Dalton is determined to lead the corps that keeps them running, but when a series of mysterious power spikes lures her out of the safety of the city’s highest floors, she’ll need more than just her engineering skills to escape her hunters.
And the historical literary novel Braving the Dawn: A Novel of New France by Peggy Joque Williams (the cover is up for an award too!). This is the sequel to Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles.
Banished from France by King Louis XIV, once royal favorite Sylvienne d’Aubert must make the dangerous ocean crossing with a group of young women eager to secure husbands in the French colony of Quebec as Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King). Sylvienne, however, scarred by an abusive, arranged marriage in France, vows never to wed again. She is determined to one day return to her beloved homeland and to her lover, Etienne.
Congratulations! So well deserved!!
Thank you, Emily!
Congrats, Kristin. It’s always nice to be singled out for an honor at any level for one’s books. Fingers crossed that you win it all!
Thank you, Chris!
My fingers are crossed for you. I have an exclusive offer from a top five publisher in New York. I’m waiting to hear back. I have been here before only to get rejected. We will see. I know that I can do it, but will a publisher give me a chance? I think about it every day, but I’m writing meanwhile to keep busy. The mg was already published by a bad publisher, but Tina wanted to give a second try. I edited the hell out of it because it was full of errors. The mg is about a boy with cerebral palsy who is mainstreamed for the first time in the seventh grade after being in a Special education class in elementary school. I think it will get rejected. Two other mgs are ready for submission, but Tina will only submit one mg at a time. It is frustrating because I could be in an institution in the next five years. That is Tina. Oh well, at least I got this far.
My fingers are crossed for you, too, Steve! Keep me posted.
Congratulations! What an honor and to learn about it through a friend makes a great story. I hope that all your books have continued success 🙌
Thank you, Lisa and back atcha!
Fabulous!
Thank you!