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Literary Titan Gold Book Award Sept 2023
The Literary Titan Book Awards are granted to children’s books that have enchanted and delighted us with their distinctive storytelling, vibrant illustrations, engaging characters, or innovative concepts. These books merit extraordinary recognition, and we are thrilled to applaud these exceptional authors’ tireless efforts, commitment, and creative talent.
Award Recipients
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
Literary Titan Book Award September 2023
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise, and we are proud to acknowledge these brilliant authors’ hard work, dedication, and writing talent.
Award Recipients
The Spectre of Psyche by Blair Wylie
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
I Seek To Understand People
The Silent Hen follows the lives of a fearless Virginia spy and a young Jewish girl as they navigate the complexities of WWII and the aftermath of 9/11, in a poignant story of love, bravery, and the resilience of the human spirit. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
During WWII my mother and father both served in OSS, the forerunner to the CIA. Like the characters, Lucy and Gordon, they married in Cairo, Egypt. I was born shortly after the war, and my younger brothers and I picked up on our parents’ interests in foreign relations. Although they kept secrets about their wartime service, our dinner table conversations were often about strategies for promoting civil rights and foreign and domestic justice. It was not unusual for refugees from different parts of the world to stay in our home while they looked for places to resettle. I took the thread of one of my mother’s rare stories, that of a little girl she befriended in Cairo, and decided to blend that with the testimony of a Holocaust survivor who had been helped by a Muslim family. The story at the beginning of The Silent Hen of Lucy taking a trolley into Washington, DC, and getting in an Army truck to sneak back to her hometown for OSS training is something that happened to my mother.
The characters of Lucy and Bella are both captivating and complex. How did you develop their personalities throughout the novel?
That’s a good question. My main career was as a psychiatrist, and I have never been able to stop myself from trying to understand people. I ask my characters the same kinds of questions I tried to teach my patients to ask themselves.
The theme of resilience amid adversity is a powerful aspect of The Silent Hen. How did you balance the novel’s darker themes of loss and sorrow with threads of hope and idealism?
I guess that’s Pandora’s box, isn’t it? There was a time when my field, psychiatry, emphasized uncovering primitive emotions, which would be the equivalent to opening a box of traumas. In psychotherapy, bringing unconscious darkness to consciousness was never enough to sustain recovery. As in the Greek myth, in which the last thing to fly out of Pandora’s box was hope, recovery from trauma requires hope. I suppose these ideas work their way into my writing, especially in these current times of international conflict that so much resemble the times in my book. If individuals persist in caring for one another despite our conflicts and failings, I think we have a chance. One of my brothers has worked trying to promote reconciliation between Christian and Muslim groups in a war-torn area, and I wanted to write a novel that captured that spirit calmly enough that people could take it in.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Another good question. I’m working on a mystery novel set in Tidewater, Virginia, about a woman psychiatrist, her foster daughter, and the problems that ensue when they run afoul of a militaristic NGO located nearby. I’m not sure when I’ll be done, but I have other projects going on at the same time.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
This morally complex story follows a Jewish child sheltered by a Muslim couple in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, and a Virginia woman named Lucy whose conscience compels her to enlist in the OSS, forerunner to the CIA, for service in Egypt.
After an OSS man in love is severely injured in a parachute drop, he and the child, Bella, begin a harrowing journey to Egypt, where Lucy’s resemblance to Bella’s murdered mother will confront them with decisions for which there are no easy answers.
A Heart-Rending Letter
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Not My War follows a young woman who returns home to Paris to find it under Nazi occupation and slowly realizes the horrors they are committing and how it impacts her life. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
As a teenager in England during World War II, my mother had a French pen pal– a girl of about her own age, who lived in Paris. Shortly after the German occupation began, my mother received a heart-rending letter from her friend, describing her grief and fear as she watched hundreds of Nazis triumphantly enter the city in long columns with their weapons fully on display. My mother held on to this letter for decades. It was so emotional, I couldn’t read it without crying! My mother died of Alzheimer’s’ a long time ago, and after her death I searched through her things for hours, looking for that letter. I never did find it, which is a pity because I thought it should belong in a museum. But I did incorporate a similar scene in ‘Not My War,’ when the protagonist witnesses that very same event.
Louise just wants to enjoy her newfound freedom after returning from boarding school, only to discover the truth about the occupation of her homeland. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Louise is by nature fun-loving and impetuous. When the harsh realities of the occupation start to affect her and her family, she puts her head in the sand, becoming willful and totally self-centered. Her behavior becomes so outrageous that she starts losing her friends. Only when she is mistaken for a Jew, and is treated as such, does she finally realize the error of her ways.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I did a great deal of research before I started to write, and came across some useful first-hand accounts of how atrociously the Jews were treated—not just by the Germans, but also by the French police. I wanted to convey how miserable the lives of ordinary people became under the occupation, many of them slowly starving to death because of the harsh rationing. Also important to me was to convey the sense of fear predominant at the time. Many ordinary people chose to turn a blind eye to the atrocities they witnessed because they were afraid for their own lives. I did my best to remain as close to the truth as possible, and many of the events that take place in the book actually happened—things so truly awful that I could never have made them up.
What is the next book that you’re working on and when can your fans expect it out?
No more Nazis for me, for the time being anyway. I need to get my thoughts away from that dreadful time. I’m working on a new series set in Victorian times at the start of the Industrial Revolution. It focuses on the lives of women working in a corset factory. One of the characters becomes a serial killer! I’m only partway through writing, so it probably won’t be published until the fall.
Author Links: Goodreads | Website
Finally free from her stuffy English boarding school, the fearless and fun-loving Louise is eager to embrace her future. But after she returns home to find Paris under Nazi occupation, she’s quickly dragged into a war that she wants no part in.
Reluctantly plunged into the secretive and dangerous world of the French Resistance, her hopes of fun and excitement are crushed beneath the grueling realities of war. And when she meets the young, handsome Nazi officer Hans, Louise becomes increasingly torn between her loyalty to her family and her newfound feelings for the charming officer.
As tensions rise and emotions threaten to boil over, Louise realizes she won’t be able to ignore the war forever – and when she stumbles upon the horrifying truth behind the Nazi occupation, she’ll be forced to question her deepest beliefs and take a stand for what’s right.
Step into a gritty and authentic historical fiction novel that captures your imagination with larger-than-life characters and thrilling historical details. Not My War is a page-turning read that focuses on the lesser-known stories of the brave men and women who fought in Nazi-occupied France. Scroll up and grab your copy today …
The Silent Hen
Helen Montague Foster’s historical novel, The Silent Hen, offers an evocative journey through the tumultuous eras of World War II and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The narrative explores the intertwined lives of its characters across time and space, from the war-ridden landscapes of Cairo and Yugoslavia to the heart-rending realities of the modern era.
The novel’s protagonist, Lucy, a fervent Virginia woman, eagerly serves her country during the Second World War, enlisting in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Following an intense training period, Lucy is deployed to Egypt, falling deeply in love with a fellow operative, Gordon. This passionate backdrop sets the stage for an unexpected and tender narrative that unfolds when Gordon, dispatched to Yugoslavia, encounters Bella – a young Jewish girl hiding from the horrors of the war with her pet hen, Tisina. Now orphaned, Bella forms an unforeseen bond with an American soldier and a Virginia spy, a connection bearing an uncanny resemblance to the relationship with her late mother.
Foster’s The Silent Hen is an homage to the bravery and dedication of the author’s parents and all OSS members who risked everything during this tumultuous period of history.
The narrative ingeniously interweaves two distinct timelines – the upheavals of war from 1943 to 1945, contrasted with the devastating effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The early timeline presents a potent exploration of Lucy, Gordon, and Bella maneuvering through the labyrinth of religious, cultural, and political complexities of the war. Simultaneously, the latter timeline unveils the poignant revelation of Lucy grappling with dementia, with only her comrade, Hart, maintaining the clarity of their shared past.
The narrative is punctuated by two principal characters: Lucy, the fearless operative, and Bella, the innocent child. Amid the pervasive sorrow and loss that mark the pages of the novel, Foster expertly weaves threads of hope and idealism into her characters’ personas.
The Silent Hen is captivating not only because of this juxtaposition but also due to Foster’s adept storytelling. Her suspenseful narrative keeps the reader on the edge, continually questioning the connection between the two timelines and the eventual unfolding of later events. This novel serves as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity, all while delivering an engrossing tale that reverberates with historical significance and emotional depth.
Pages: 330 | ASIN: B0CDSJVRWQ
Not My War
In Not My War, esteemed author Valerie Anne Hudson offers an intricate narrative of an enigmatic character, Louise, set amidst the tumultuous backdrop of Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II. Born to a German mother and British father in Switzerland, Louise grapples with the stark realities of war, navigating her existence in an atmosphere fraught with peril yet peculiarly distanced from her personal realm.
Her journey is one that resists a superficial understanding, as she embodies a sense of detachment from the grim tableau unfolding around her. She chooses the path of indifference, maintaining an unbroken facade despite the atrocities that persist on her doorstep. Hudson adroitly highlights that even as a citizen of a neutral country, escaping the grim realities of war is not an option.
The standout feature of Hudson’s opus is undoubtedly her characters, each of whom transcends the written page to convey a profound and resonant sense of realism. The audacious portrayal of Louise as an imperfect protagonist is a commendable aspect of Hudson’s storytelling. Louise’s perspective on the war might evoke empathy due to her survivalist approach, but as the narrative progresses, her actions increasingly elicit a critical response from the readers.
This literary work finds an ideal audience among enthusiasts of historical fiction, as well as those who relish the exploration of morally ambiguous characters. Louise’s silent complicity to the persecution of ethnic minorities, merely to curry favor with the Nazi officers, offers a stirring glimpse into her character, blurring the line between right and wrong. While I enjoyed the novel, I felt the resolution was rather abrupt in contrast to the preceding storyline, which delicately unravels the psychological layers of the characters.
Not My War is a compelling, thought-provoking work of historical fiction. This novel gives readers a nuanced perspective on a historically tumultuous era told from the perspective of a woman fresh from school and looking to start her life.
Pages: 260 | ASIN : B0C9XBMPBW
She Discovers A New Life
Taken follows a widow from the twenty-first century who is transported back in time to 1756 and held hostage while falling in love with a British soldier. What was the inspiration for your story?
The inspiration for my story began well over two decades ago when my sister and I had newly graduated from college. She and I had always had a strong affinity for history. While she loved British history, I loved American history, and we both fantasized about being time travelers to experience those histories because we loved learning about all that had taken place within those particular eras.
As children, our parents loved traveling with us throughout the country visiting historic locations, which inspired our imaginations growing up. And, while growing up loving period dramas depicted on TV and in movies, we read many classics written by authors from the American Transcendental Period and British Romantic Period. During the same time, she and I were also introduced to historical romance novels as teenagers, which I loved and devoured.
Being fond of the romance genre, it wasn’t until a few years later after college when I became inspired to write about a young widow who was transformed from her sorrowful experience after traveling through time, where she discovers a new life and embarks on a journey of new found love. I also chose New England as the setting for my story, because I’m familiar with the area and have a deep affection for it after having gone to school in western Massachusetts.
Was the character’s backstory something you always had, or did it develop as you were writing?
Although I outlined my story, my story also began developing organically as I was writing the character and scenes. As a result, the character’s backstory emerged like many other scenes in the story which took on a life of their own.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
One theme that I felt was important to explore was the idea of overcoming loss in life and discovering new hope in choosing to experience what life has to offer after all. Another theme that I felt equally important to explore was that love heals and when it’s mutually found and accepted, love cannot be broken and transcends all that was ever known as it brings forth the true sense of happiness.
Can you tell us more about where the story and characters go after book one?
This is a fun question! And, while I hope not to spoil what comes next after book one, I will start by saying that book one establishes the foundation of the characters’ relationship as they encounter each other under trying circumstances. After book one, the characters continue to grow as they learn more deeply about each other. They continue to experience trying circumstances which will threaten their security and the love that they share for each other as the French and Indian War progresses within their midst. Their new trials will determine the strength of their bond to each other as they also confront their differences as it relates to their unique life experiences. As it is a romance, despite their tribulations, the love they share for each other triumphs against all odds as the saga continues.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
Matt was my husband. I was supposed to be with him for the rest of my life when the accident happened and took him away from me. I wouldn’t love anyone else. I believed.
Until, I meet Leif. He tells me to trust him and to take my chance with him.
Except, I’m his hostage. Not only am I his hostage, but time is holding me captive too, and I’m suddenly trapped in a world that is not mine. The year is 1756, and I am strangely in Massachusetts Bay Colony. War between Great Britain and France explodes across New England, and terrorizes the territory.
I don’t know how I got here, and all I want to do is find a way home. But, the more time I’m stranded here, the more I spend time with Leif, and I am compelled toward him.
Our lives are becoming inextricably entwined, and I’m afraid of losing everything that I once knew and loved.
I begin questioning where I truly belong as I think of the life I left behind.
I wonder if I’m going to withstand this, because all I know for certain is he is bound to my survival… and to the truth of why I’m here.
*If you enjoyed the suspense and mystery in books like Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, you will love this thrilling historical romance!
*The first book in the Taken series by E. C. Roderick featuring a rich, romantic adventure of a strange twist of fate that binds a British soldier fighting in the French and Indian War and a young American woman from the twenty-first century.
Literary Titan Book Award August 2023
The Literary Titan Book Awards are awarded to books that have astounded and amazed us with unique writing styles, vivid worlds, complex characters, and original ideas. These books deserve extraordinary praise, and we are proud to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and writing talent of these brilliant authors.
Award Recipients
Rito de iniciación by Diego Uribe
A Time To Grow by Lowell Duane Pabst
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
LITERARY TITAN 