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Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
60 Seconds To Earth’s Wrath by Joy B. Wren
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
The Biggest Unsolved Series of Crimes
Killing Time follows a gifted past-life investigator who is looking into a series of modern London murders that echo the crimes of Jack the Ripper. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story? What made the Jack the Ripper mystery particularly suited to the world you’ve created?
I was a Crime scene photographer for the Met police for 24 years, which means yes, I’ve seen awful sights in my time. I’ve also seen a lot of good forensic work and met a lot of skilled investigators in my time. So when I was looking for a new project to include my world of Awakening that I’d set up in my first book, The Many Lives of Adam Capello, I felt it was time to use my experiences to tell a tale of 2 investigations – one from the past and one in the near future. The mystery of Jack the Ripper is probably one of the biggest unsolved series of crimes in history, with a HUGE amount of interest. What better case to do my dual timeline investigation?
Awakening is all about discovering and confronting our past. Fantastic if you can pick up knowledge and past skills such as speaking languages, but at what price. What if you found out you’d once been Jack the Ripper? What if the shock was so terrible, your present day mind shut itself off, only to be replaced by the monster within?
What were some driving ideals behind Jason’s character’s development, and what makes him particularly suited to investigating crimes involving past lives?
Jason has a natural talent for reading body language and went on to study the subject in high detail – he excelled. His ability makes him a great Awakening investigator, able to push further and harder into people’s traumatic past lives to find who murdered them. He knows he’s putting his clients through a lot of pain for a good reason, but it still hurts him too.
Jason is, at the heart of it all, a really nice guy with a conscience. In crime writing that’s a huge no no! We want our detectives to be as complicated and flawed as their quarry to add as much character and drama to the story. So I wanted this skills to play havoc with his love life, as he over analyses everything. And inside he’s very shy, so the extraordinary expert in body language becomes and ordinary guy who can’t read a thing when he really likes someone. He’s just as clueless in those circumstances as the rest of us.
What interested you about placing the possibility of redemption alongside the idea that a violent past might literally return?
At first I just wanted the idea of a two timeline investigation with the Ripper, but as in any good film / novel, the antagonist must have redeeming features just as the protagonist has a dark side. The more I went into the Ripper’s mind, the more I wanted to find a reason for his savage attacks. It became a mission for me to twist the reader into having some sympathy for this monster, if only to confuse us. Where do our loyalties lie? What on earth could justify that level of violence? That’s what makes this more than just a historic murder mystery, it becomes psychological as well.
How does Killing Time expand the possibilities of the Awakening world established in The Many Lives of Adam Capello, and where do you see the series going from here?
Isambard Smythe is such an interesting character. I’d love to give him his own case to solve, possibly with 19th century royal connections. Sabina Bjorkman is also a very strong character, even just at the basic, ball busting, beautiful, scary DCI keeping ahead of her ‘superiors’. I’ve committed the sin of writing two related stories in different genres and from different perspectives. Both the novels are connected and yet they run alone as well. They intertwine to develop of their own accord. The next Awakening novel? Either Adam’s next adventure or another crime novel would be sensible – though I do have a great idea for a comically dark story reflecting my film work as a film stand-in. Watch this space.
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Now, a gifted detective questions his conscience as he hunts for Jack the Ripper through his reincarnated victims.
I Left That Possibility Open
Mystery at the Edge of the World follows a retired civil engineer in coastal California whose peaceful retirement is disrupted when he’s drawn into a murder investigation. What inspired the premise of the story?
I’ve thought about using an engineer as the protagonist in a mystery novel for a number of years. In this book, Jace is retired with a comfortable pension, so he doesn’t need to worry about making a living, which frees him to spend whatever time is needed to solve puzzles.
What made you choose a retired engineer, rather than a former police officer or detective, as your amateur sleuth?
There are many mystery stories, in fact, series of stories, where the sleuth is a doctor, a mathematician, a novelist, a lawyer, or even a clergyman. We live in a world full of infrastructure, and there are many stories that could be made from the world of construction alone, never mind all the other interactions people have with the engineered facilities around them, along with each other. But someone has to be at least a little versed in engineering in order to write about an engineer investigating a crime. There is, in fact, an entire discipline called ‘forensic engineering’ which looks at the causes of infrastructure failure, and can unearth criminal activity in the process. So, for me, this subgenre of an amateur engineer sleuth seems under-represented in literature, and looked like a field I could write in, while being entertaining and human at the same time.
Did you know who the culprit was before you started writing, or did the investigation evolve as you went?
I did not have the culprit pegged when I started writing. I left that possibility open as I wrote it, but towards the end, the red herrings swam away, and the culprit remained.
The ending leaves room for more adventures. Do you already know where Jace’s next case might take him?
Yes. I just finished the next novel, Mystery at the Hidden River, where Jace is invited to help with a case that eventually proves to be industrial espionage – and murder.
Author Links: Amazon | Website
The Ficcom Creation Link: Digital Gods
The Ficcom Creation Link: Digital Gods, by C.R. Endacott, is a science fiction thriller with a metaphysical edge, built around the idea that reality may be a constructed system and that some people are beginning to see the code beneath it. The story moves across timelines, from Sarah Yardlem in 925 AD to Sandra Melange and Jackson Blacksmith in 2025, then forward to Detective Constance Sharp in 2124 as she investigates a series of strange murders tied to aphantasia, the Tree of Life, and a hidden digital order. At its core, this is a genre-blending sci-fi mystery about truth, control, fate, and what happens when human beings get close to knowledge they were never meant to have.
Endacott doesn’t settle for a simple murder plot or a clean futuristic setting. Instead, the novel keeps widening the frame until a psychic reading, a police investigation, a cult-like movement, android government control, and questions about reincarnation all start to feel like pieces of the same machine. That could have become overwhelming, but I found myself pulled along by the sense that every strange detail mattered. Sandra’s visions, Jackson’s inability to visualize, and Constance’s sharp, frustrated detective work give the story different textures. One part feels mystical. Another feels procedural. Another feels like dystopian science fiction, looking over its shoulder at religion and asking, “What if the myth was just bad documentation?”
The writing is direct and often more interested in momentum. The dialogue explains a lot, and some scenes lean into their ideas. But there is also something compelling about that urgency. The book feels like it is chasing a revelation and wants the reader to keep up. I appreciated the author’s choice to make aphantasia more than a character trait. Here, it becomes a doorway into bigger questions about perception, free will, and who gets marked as dangerous by a system built to preserve itself. It made the science fiction genre feel personal, almost intimate, because the battle over reality begins inside the mind.
I would recommend Digital Gods to readers who enjoy science fiction with mystery, conspiracy, and philosophical tension woven through it. It will especially appeal to those who like stories about simulated realities, hidden systems, futuristic policing, psychic phenomena, and the uneasy space where technology starts to resemble theology. This is not a quiet book. It’s busy, strange, and full of big swings. For readers who enjoy sci-fi thrillers that ask uncomfortable questions and are willing to follow a story down several twisting corridors to get answers, this one offers a bold and thought-provoking ride.
Pages: 357 | ASIN : B0H1TWM6HM
Who Wants To Be A Billionaire: A Benjamin de Walters Case
Who Wants to Be a Billionaire? follows Brussels notary Benjamin de Walters as he presides over the strangest inheritance case of his career: the estate of Johan Paepe, a reclusive billionaire author whose will first leaves his family one euro, then twists into a billion-euro moral trap. Six heirs, one secret beneficiary, an AI-assisted police investigation, and a possible murder turn what should be a formal reading into a pressure cooker of grief, greed, accusation, and revelation. What begins in the controlled civility of a notary’s office keeps widening, from Johan’s decaying mansion to Usufruct, to the machinery of the Paepe empire, to an almost cosmic final passage over the Bermuda Triangle. It’s part mystery, part family reckoning, part philosophical fever dream.
I found the book most alive when it let people talk themselves into ruin. The early scenes around the table have a prickly, theatrical charge, with everyone trying to sound reasonable while their desperation leaks through the seams. Céline’s grief over Jens, Kenny’s wounded confusion about Joyabel, Pieter’s abrasive refusal to play along, and Nele’s quiet devotion to Brenda all give the inheritance plot a bruised emotional texture. The AI investigation is a smart provocation, too, because it’s not just a gadget. It becomes a mirror that flattens suffering into scores, reducing bankruptcy, illness, addiction, and bereavement into motive. I felt the book was asking a sharp question: when technology claims to see the truth, what parts of the human soul does it trample on to get there?
The writing is eccentric in a way I mostly admired. Benjamin’s voice wanders, digresses, lectures, remembers, and circles back, sometimes like a man telling a story over too much coffee, sometimes like a notary trying to notarize chaos itself. His long riffs on Hitchcock, especially Rear Window, The Birds, and Saboteur, could easily have felt ornamental, but for me they gave the book its strange weather. They echo the themes of watching, staging, suspicion, and performance. Not every detour lands with the same force. Still, I liked the unruly ambition of it. The book isn’t content to be a clean little puzzle box. It wants inheritance law, family trauma, cinema, capitalism, AI, religion, and metaphysics all seated at the same disastrous dinner table.
By the end, I was less interested in who “won” the fortune than in what the fortune had revealed about everyone who came near it. The epilogue in the purple sea of Hallerbos resonated with me because it lets the noise drain away and leaves only survival, tenderness, and the mercy of being understood. This is a strange and heartfelt novel. I’d recommend it to readers who like locked-room mysteries with philosophical tangents, family dramas with teeth, and books that aren’t afraid to veer from legal realism into something far more uncanny.
Pages: 210 | ASIN : B0GYMF6JMW
Sprinkling of the Absurd
Lonely When You’re Dead centers around a freelance writer sent to Quebec City to cover a poetry festival that quickly turns into a murder investigation, complete with riots, biker clubs, and drug debts. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Good question. The obvious inspiration is simply the breaking news on any given day. It seems there is no shortage of large groups of people running seriously amok at one public or not-so- public gathering or another: rock concerts, sporting events, political rallies, children’s birthday parties. I haven’t as yet heard of an authentic poetry riot, but I’m sure it’s coming down the pike, unfortunately. But the idea of a poetry riot—rather than the actuality—is kind of intriguing, if you like your plots garnished with a sprinkling of the absurd.
Quebec City feels vivid and uneasy throughout the novel. What drew you to that setting?
My wife and I lived in Boston during the 1990’s. Quebec City was a day’s drive away, and a fine place to spend a long weekend. The city is lovely, and the old town looks like a slice of Europe set down on the St Lawrence River. Charming. The question of Quebecois sovereignty was the hot issue during the years that we visited Quebec City. There was a definite tension in the air throughout Quebec province. Sovereignty was a can of worms that hadn’t been opened yet, and no one on either side of the question was sure what might pop out. So, potent times.
The humor in the novel is very dry and sideways, even during violent scenes. How important was comedy to the book?
Quite honestly, I don’t consider myself a humorist, or even a particularly humorous writer. The humor seems to seep in, no matter what I intended originally. Lonely When You’re Dead may have a bit more humor than my other novels, because of the slightly absurd nature of the premise. Also, I think the noir/hardboiled approach to the narrative lends itself well to a bit of humor. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are thought of as the patron saints of hardboiled mystery writing, and their work certainly displays a sense of humor mixed in with the grim mutterings and threats of bodily harm. Maybe it provides a kind of respite from the bare knuckles of the story.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I seem to be attracted to the mystery and thriller type of novel, and I’ve got a few ideas kicking around. I’m hoping to have a new book out by early next year. Best laid plans of mice and men…
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Fingerprint File Books | Amazon
Sympathetic Characters
Moving Targets follows a private investigator as a stolen-artifacts case and a decades-old murder pull him into a web of corruption, grief, friendship, and the difficult work of rebuilding a life after loss. What inspired Miles Darien as a detective, especially his emotional depth and old-fashioned investigative instincts?
My love of detective stories started in the same familiar fashion as it did for so many others: Being intrigued by the exploits of Sherlock Holmes stories as a young person, I immediately began trying to figure out the cases before reading the outcome. It set me on a path of being a detective for a good detective story. As both my reading and my real experience base expanded, I became acutely aware of how the emotional elements of everyday life intersected everything we do and the people we become. The cases that a private investigator deals with come with heightened amounts of those same elements. I wanted Miles to experience those things as well, both empathetically and personally. That’s where dramas are born.
The novel balances multiple mysteries with Miles’s grief and personal healing. How did you decide how much space to give the cases versus his inner life?
I have always viewed the cases and Miles’s life to be inextricably linked. So, there was no conscious effort on my part to give a certain amount of space to one or the other. His cases were both a refuge and a challenge when mixed with what was happening in his non-work life. Whatever ended up on the page happened organically.
Miles’s circle of friends gives the book a strong sense of community. Were any of those relationships inspired by real friendships or places?
Friendships have always been extremely valuable commodities for me. The qualities I’ve admired in my friends play a big part in how I develop the sympathetic characters in my books. Conversely, negative behaviors I observe in people I encounter often develop into the less desirable characters. Taking bits and pieces of all of those people and molding them into a story appropriate character is key to creating a believable storyline. As for places, I’ve been fortunate to travel extensively in my life which gives me more diverse places and personalities to draw upon.
The ending offers hope without fully resolving Miles’s grief. Was it important to you to avoid a neat emotional conclusion?
Absolutely. I felt it was important to provide readers with some amount of a lift at the end but, at the same time, acknowledge that grief doesn’t just vanish. It finds an emotional refuge somewhere in a person’s mind, but it is always there lurking in the background. As Miles moves forward, he will deal with it less on a daily basis, but it can always be recalled, often at an inopportune time. Those times will come in handy as elements of his ongoing story.
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The investigation takes Miles and his life-partner FBI Agent Ken Caldwell, to Wisconsin’s Northwoods where the ongoing distrust between the indigenous and white populations is palpable. The case suddenly takes a deadly turn when its resolution leaves a new tragic trail of death. Miles is forced to decide whether he can continue his work while, at the same time, overcoming his guilt and paralyzing sadness. That dilemma drives him to make the biggest decision of his life.
