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Literary Titan Silver Book Award
Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.
Award Recipients
Walking Away by Richard Michael O’Meara
Pulsar: The Time Traveler by Alexander Heed
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
The Bloodline Watchers: The Awakening
The Bloodline Watchers opens with streetlights failing around Sam Howardson in New Orleans, a small disturbance that soon becomes impossible to dismiss. A glowing mark appears on his chest, a centuries-old flame joins with him, and people who know his family’s history begin trying to keep him alive. The story grows from the French Quarter’s candlelit rooms and hidden passages into a struggle that reaches Sam’s cousins in Oklahoma. Its supernatural world is full of signals, shifting timelines, ancestral protections, and watchers who can find a person by the power in their blood. The stakes are enormous, but author Orion Veil gives Sam an immediate, human concern: he wants to understand what’s happening without bringing danger home to the people he loves.
That family gives the book its strongest scenes. Krishtan and Marisol protect Sam with knowledge passed down through generations, while Luke, Celine, Audrey, Kay, and Loyd meet his return with affection, fear, and questions they’ve avoided for years. Their responses feel distinct. Luke looks for a practical way forward; Celine reaches toward the strange with curiosity; Audrey struggles to fit what she sees into the faith that has shaped her life. Around them are meals, coffee, old photographs, and a grandfather’s bottles of Dr Pepper waiting in a cabin refrigerator. Those details make the inheritance tangible. When the family gathers at Tenkiller and discovers what their elders prepared, the mystery gains emotional force because the house holds evidence of care as well as secrets.
Veil writes in short, rhythmic bursts that make a room seem to breathe and a change in the air feel physical. Heat, copper, cedar, water, and a hum beneath the floor recur across the book, linking distant places and people through sensation. The style is especially effective when Sam’s childhood memories surface alongside his awakening. His fear of being unwanted has a history, and the book lets us feel how difficult it is for him to accept help. At times, the repeated pulses, pressure shifts, and declarations of gathering danger slow the action, especially as the cast and mythology expand. Still, the language gives the novel a recognizable cadence, and its quieter exchanges make the large visions and violent encounters matter.
The Bloodline Watchers: The Awakening is a sweeping first chapter in a family saga about memory, belief, and the cost of learning what earlier generations tried to preserve. It follows Sam from bewilderment toward a more deliberate sense of responsibility, while allowing the people around him to awaken at different speeds. The closing confrontation opens a larger conflict, with Loyd’s fate and the force watching the family still unresolved. What stays with me most is the image of people who’ve spent years scattered and afraid beginning to hear one another again. Veil makes inheritance feel like a live wire: dangerous to touch, impossible to drop, and brightest when the family holds it together.
Pages: 302 | ASIN : B0GFPS77VL
Accidental Tribes
C. S. Pascoal’s Accidental Tribes begins with eight students stuck in a classroom that smells of dirty socks and poor decisions. At New York City’s Mariah Wilson Public School, Room 359 is where trouble goes to sit, and this group has supplied plenty of it: addictive games, fake academic records, humiliating social media posts, and unauthorized schemes. Their advisor, Dr. Miryam, has arranged an experiment intended to keep them in school and help them imagine who they could become. The Director has her own agenda. What follows is an illustrated young adult novel that combines school satire, friendship, family struggles, and a mystery about the adults running the place. It’s an energetic setup, with enough friction between the students to make their eventual cooperation feel worth watching.
The book’s strongest moments come when someone’s irritating behavior starts to make emotional sense. David’s devotion to assignments becomes especially affecting once we understand that school gives him the predictability his home life can’t. Dev’s confidence hides years of loneliness, while Antoni’s imitation of his father leaves him struggling to picture a future of his own. Jamie stands out because her longing for friendship exists alongside anger that doesn’t disappear just because someone apologizes. Her history with Patty gives the story some of its hardest emotional questions. I also liked Nia’s gradual discovery that leadership involves listening and making room for people. These relationships give substance to the students’ projects, including an app inspired by Leo’s overwhelmed mother. Their inventions grow out of recognizable needs, and their teamwork develops through arguments, mistakes, and small gestures of care.
Louis Sachar’s Holes makes a useful comparison. Both books place young people inside a punitive environment, surround them with adults whose motives deserve scrutiny, and show friendships forming under pressure. They also share a taste for exaggerated authority figures and humor that sits close to cruelty. Pascoal brings that dynamic into a world of smart glasses, AI tools, group chats, and audiences that can turn a schoolyard insult into something enormous. Her characters are navigating identities that exist both in the hallway and on a screen. The book is particularly sharp about how a joke can keep hurting someone long after its creator has moved on. That gives its central question, who you’d want to meet as your future self, a practical urgency.
Pascoal’s writing has a chatty and mischievous rhythm, helped by short chapters and expressive illustrations. Dr. Miryam’s commentary supplies plenty of wit, though her explanations sometimes spell out lessons the scenes have already made clear. Longer speeches about belonging, technology, and courage can slow the story, especially when the dialogue starts sounding like advice prepared for an audience. Her own willingness to manipulate events also creates an interesting tension with her confidence in the experiment. The closing chapters move quickly through grief, adult futures, and a lingering mystery, leaving some developments needing more breathing room. Still, the students’ uneasy loyalty stayed with me. The discussion prompts at the back extend the book’s invitation to think about friendship, ambition, and responsibility. Accidental Tribes is an earnest, sometimes unruly story whose appeal comes from watching young people discover what they can build together and what they owe each other along the way.
Pages: 180 | ASIN: B0HFXFBMWH
Sorcerer’s Creed: Legends from Qiledara, Book 4
Sorcerer’s Creed: Legends from Qiledara, Book 4 continues Amy Daniels’ fantasy series at a moment of uneasy peace. After a long period of violence, Galdutia and Qiledara are finally beginning to strengthen their relationship. Aaron the Dragonslayer and Elodie welcome the change and focus on preserving the fragile alliance between the two lands. Still, peace does not mean safety. The surviving dragonkin have not forgotten the destruction of the Master and his generals, and the possibility of renewed conflict remains just beneath the surface.
The arrival of Owen and Anna introduces an important new direction for Aaron. They come to Qiledara to help him develop his abilities in the magical arts and to teach him the sorcerer’s creed, an ancient promise that reaches beyond kingdoms, loyalties, and personal beliefs. This element gives the story a broader sense of history and adds another layer to the magical traditions already established in the series.
One of the strongest aspects of Daniels’ writing is the immersive nature of the world she has created. Qiledara feels expansive and lived-in, with distinct cultures, political tensions, histories, and alliances shaping the story. The setting is more than a backdrop. It continues to develop alongside the characters, giving the series a strong sense of continuity.
Aaron remains a compelling central figure. He has changed considerably since his earlier adventures, but his development is clearly not finished. His growing interest in mastering magic adds a new dimension to his journey and creates opportunities for further growth. He is no longer defined only by courage or his reputation as a dragon slayer.
Daniels also does a good job of restoring tension after the Master’s defeat. The alliance between Galdutia and Qiledara may be improving, but hostile forces remain, and the danger has not disappeared. That balance between peace and lingering uncertainty gives the story momentum.
As an audiobook, Sorcerer’s Creed offers listeners a richly imagined fantasy story filled with political tension, magical traditions, character development, and an expanding world. Fans of the earlier books should find plenty here that builds naturally on the series while opening the door to new possibilities.
Listening Length: 21 Hours 3 minutes | ASIN: B0HG23Z927
The Misadventures of Four Friends
Firecrackers follows a fourteen-year-old boy and his friends who investigate strange cries coming from a neighborhood house and find themselves in the middle of a real-life treasure hunt. What drew you to the classic idea of kids exploring their neighborhood and stumbling into a mystery much bigger than they expected?
I wanted to do something a little different: a humorous thriller. I thought the misadventures of four young friends focused on pirates, bi-planes, firecrackers, and mischief would present some pretty funny situations as they uncover the truth and outwit the criminal they call “Blackbeard” and his accomplices.
What qualities did you want each member of the group to bring to the friendship, and what do their homemade inventions, experiments, and elaborate plans reveal about how they approach the world?
All of them have a strong sense of adventure and loyalty. They are smart, energetic boys in a fairly open environment, left to explore and experience summer on their own but also as a team of friends. Nash approaches the world with a strong sense of friendship and humor. Stevie approaches it with an engineer’s innate ability to construct things. Leroy is a bit of an entrepreneur and outlaw. Bug is excitable, a bit younger, and less mature than the others. They approach the world with a lot of imagination, but they also must confront the very real dangers and mysteries surrounding Alice, Blackbeard, and the other “grown-ups” they encounter.
Why was the idea that “not everyone is who they seem” important to the story, and what do they learn about the difference between imagining who someone is and actually getting to know them?
They learn that not all “authority figures” are automatically worthy of their trust; genuine trust must be earned through direct experience.
Do you have more adventures planned for Nash, Bug, Leroy, and Steve?
I hope so!
Author Website
Nash and his mischievous friends embark on their summer adventures when old lady Alice is heard moaning outside her spooky house. As they investigate, a man they call “Blackbeard” misleads, bluffs, and threatens them. But as the danger to Alice rises, so does Nash’s determination to uncover the truth – until the boys discover it’s not just Alice who “Blackbeard” will kill to protect his treasure.
Join the fun and fireworks along the way.
But be careful: not everyone in the deadly game is who they seem.
Goodbye South Africa
Gillian Lynn Katz’s Goodbye South Africa is a coming-of-age novel about the complicated business of leaving home, especially when home is a place you love but can no longer comfortably call your own. Set during the 1960s, the story follows Annabelle Bradlow, a young Jewish girl whose privileged life in Johannesburg is upended when her father, a doctor involved in the anti-apartheid movement, decides to move the family to America. Annabelle is devastated at the thought of leaving her friends, relatives, and beloved nanny, Daisy. She’s also carrying the emotional scars of a childhood car accident and struggling with obsessive-compulsive behaviors that become increasingly difficult to manage. What begins as a family’s escape from a troubled country grows into a story about belonging, religious identity, mental health, and the uneasy relationship between the place we’re born and the place we choose to call home.
One of the novel’s most compelling relationships is the one between Annabelle and Daisy, whose warmth and affection provide the emotional security Annabelle rarely receives from her own mother. Daisy’s recollections of being forcibly removed from Sophiatown also expose Annabelle to the brutal realities of apartheid, revealing the enormous differences between their experiences of South Africa. Katz is particularly effective at showing how political events enter the everyday lives of families, from the constant fear of police raids to the racial hierarchies embedded in seemingly ordinary household routines. The move to suburban New York brings a different set of challenges. Annabelle encounters American teenagers, changing social attitudes, the civil rights movement, and a culture that encourages young people to question authority. Meanwhile, her compulsive washing and fear of contamination intensify, and her parents struggle to understand what’s happening to her. The scenes involving Annabelle’s OCD are among the book’s most affecting, especially when her desperate attempts to feel safe are met with anger and bewilderment.
Readers familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake will recognize a similar fascination with the immigrant experience and the complicated pull of two countries. Both novels explore how migration reshapes family relationships and how difficult it can be to develop an identity when different cultures make competing demands on you. Katz adds another dimension by placing Annabelle’s personal struggles against the political upheaval of apartheid-era South Africa and the social changes unfolding in America. Religion also becomes an increasingly important part of her search for stability. Her growing interest in the Worldwide Church of God, despite her Jewish upbringing and her father’s objections, introduces questions about faith, independence, and the appeal of certainty to someone whose life has been defined by disruption. Katz’s storytelling is intimate and frequently autobiographical in feel, with a wealth of period details, including music, clothing, food, and the distinctive language of South African daily life. At times, the extensive recollections and historical explanations slow the narrative, but they also give the story much of its personal character.
The novel becomes especially poignant when Annabelle returns to South Africa as a young woman, hoping to recover the sense of belonging she lost when her family emigrated. Her developing relationship with Tommy, a young man she meets through the church, brings romance and the possibility of an independent future. But tragedy forces her to reconsider her faith, her relationship with her family, and the country she once longed to return to. By the final chapters, Annabelle’s understanding of home has changed considerably. Her encounters with apartheid’s everyday injustices, her experiences in America, and her personal losses all contribute to a growing determination to make decisions for herself. There’s something particularly moving about the contrast between the frightened girl who boards an ocean liner because her father has decided the family must leave and the young woman who eventually boards an airplane because she’s made her own choice. Goodbye South Africa is a deeply personal story about displacement, family, first love, and the difficult process of becoming your own person, with a historical setting that gives Annabelle’s journey an added emotional weight.
Pages: 293 | ASIN: B0H73W42GD
Killing Time
Killing Time is a dark and inventive crime thriller that brings Jack the Ripper into a future where death doesn’t necessarily mean escaping justice. Thanks to a revolutionary technique called Awakening, people can recover memories of their previous lives, allowing investigators to pursue criminals whose crimes were committed generations ago. When a series of gruesome murders in London bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Ripper’s work, renowned past-life investigator Jason Ives is recruited to help Scotland Yard track down the killer. What follows is a fascinating blend of science fiction, historical mystery and psychological thriller, built around a particularly unsettling question: What happens when one of history’s most notorious murderers gets another chance at life?
Jason makes an engaging central character, combining an extraordinary talent for reading people with a decidedly ordinary struggle to understand his own relationships. His uneasy partnership with the formidable DCI Sabina Bjorkman brings plenty of friction to the investigation, while his developing romance with Samantha offers some welcome warmth and humour amid the increasingly disturbing murders. Author M W Taylor gives his supporting characters their own complicated histories, gradually revealing how their experiences connect to the investigation. The story also takes readers inside the killer’s mind, where competing personalities, religious obsessions and memories of Victorian London create a troubling portrait. These shifting perspectives give the psychological thriller elements much of their intensity, particularly as the boundaries between past and present begin to blur.
One of the book’s most interesting features is its imaginative approach to reincarnation. Awakening has transformed everything from criminal justice to historical research, creating a society in which yesterday’s victims can identify their murderers and people can find themselves accountable for crimes committed in previous lifetimes. Taylor explores the possibilities through Jason’s investigation, bringing Victorian witnesses and victims into a modern murder mystery that moves between London’s historic streets, police stations and locations farther afield. There’s a substantial amount of Ripper history woven into the story, alongside forensic detail, speculative technology and some genuinely uncomfortable moral questions. The pacing occasionally slows as characters explain the workings of Awakening or examine historical evidence, but these details help establish the rules of Taylor’s imagined world. His conversational dialogue and occasional irreverent humour provide a lively contrast to the novel’s graphic violence and darker psychological material.
As the investigation progresses, Killing Time becomes increasingly concerned with identity, guilt, obsession and the consequences of remembering lives that might have been better left buried. Taylor makes good use of the emotional complications of his premise, particularly the difficult relationship between an individual’s present-day identity and the person they once were. The plot develops through unexpected connections, personal revelations and increasingly dangerous encounters, culminating in a confrontation that brings the novel’s central questions about responsibility and redemption into focus. Even as the immediate investigation reaches its conclusion, the story leaves readers contemplating the wider implications of a world where the past can never truly be forgotten. With its combination of serial killer suspense, speculative science fiction and historical crime mystery, Killing Time is an ambitious, often disturbing thriller with an intriguing take on one of London’s most enduring mysteries.
Pages: 329 | ASIN : B06XRMGQL9
The Coded Crucifix: An Aaron Thornton Thriller
David A. Dummer’s The Coded Crucifix opens with a killer slipping into the crowds at Pamplona’s San Fermín festival, then rewinds a week to show how he got there. FBI psychologist Aaron Thornton has been summoned to England by MI5 because a former patient will speak only to him. The man warns of an IRA operation in Spain involving a mercenary known as El Gocho. Thornton and MI5 analyst Sarah Maylor head to Pamplona with little more than a date and a name, and their search leads them from a struggling bull ranch to a crucifix marked with coded directions. Dummer gives the investigation a firm deadline: each day brings the festival, and whatever the plotters have planned, closer.
The novel gets much of its energy from watching people with different pieces of the story act on what they know. Thornton and Maylor chase records and interview witnesses; El Gocho studies their movements and changes his appearance; a rancher fights to protect a family legacy whose history is surfacing in nearby fields. Dummer makes Pamplona feel busy and physical, with packed streets, church interiors, bull pens, and mountain paths all shaping what the characters can do. The details of bull breeding and the running of the bulls give the chase its distinctive setting. At times, the briefings and explanations slow the momentum, especially when several institutions must be introduced in quick succession. Even so, those details make the search feel like work carried out by people who have to earn each useful clue.
Readers of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code will recognize the pleasure of following an old religious object toward a hidden location. Dummer pairs that puzzle with a modern intelligence operation, and the crucifix matters because different people read its marks, history, and whereabouts in different ways. The Spanish Civil War and its aftermath run through the mystery as living concerns for families in the present. A recovered object can offer a lead to investigators and news about a missing brother to someone who has waited decades. That human connection gives the historical material weight. It also makes the novel’s wide cast easier to follow: beneath the changing leads and loyalties, many characters are trying to decide what they owe the people who came before them.
Thornton’s own history gives the thriller another source of tension. His earlier ordeal in Belfast still affects his sleep, his judgment of danger, and his need to keep control when the case grows personal. His partnership with Maylor develops through shared legwork and growing trust, which helps ground the larger conspiracy. The Coded Crucifix builds toward a vivid pursuit through the bull run, where the geography and customs Dummer has spent time establishing become part of the action. The closing chapters leave consequences for several characters still unfolding, in keeping with a series built around Thornton. It’s an involving, research-rich thriller for readers who enjoy a clue trail with a strong sense of place and investigators who have personal stakes in where it leads.
Pages: 402 | ASIN: B0GX2ZZG39
