The 2022 Feathered Quill Book Awards results are in! With a judging panel comprised of authors, reviewers, editors, and publicists who are active in the literary community, the Feathered Quill judges know what makes a top-pick. Congratulations to the six Koehler Books authors who made the list.
Dragonfly Dreams by Eleanor McCallie Cooper – 1st Place Winner in Young Readers
“If a dragonfly lands on you, it means change is coming. You better watch your dreams, Nini.”
Living in China when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Nini and her family don’t realize that their world is about to collapse. Nini and her best friend Chiyoko are on their way home from school when they are stopped by Japanese soldiers and forced to step aside for a car with a mysterious passenger. Uncertain of what is happening, they create a secret hiding place to leave messages for each other.
Nini’s family is soon forced into hiding to protect her American mother from being arrested and sent to an internment camp. When the family situation becomes desperate amid circumstances of hunger, disease, and quarantine, Nini is the only one who can make the dangerous journey across the war-torn city to save her family and find her best friend.
Not since Empire of the Sun has a book captured the drama of Westerners trapped in China during World War II.
H’Ilgraith by Mary Elizabeth Ames – 1st Place Winner in Fantasy
A new species has emerged . . .
When homo transformans, a species of human able to transform into animals, first appears, those affected do not know what is happening to them or how to control it. As the world becomes divided into factions seeking to either exploit or protect this new species, an orphaned girl named Ruwena finds a mentor in the mysterious old woman known only as H’Ilgraith. But who is H’Ilgraith? Why is she so dour and taciturn toward her ward, and how did she acquire her extensive knowledge about dragons, potions and hybrids?
Witness H’Ilgraith’s adventures as a young woman, forging her personality and abilities as a homo transformans in an unfriendly world.
Taking Baghdad: Victory in Iraq with the US Marines by Aaron Michael Grant – 3rd Place Winner in Best of Backlist
TAKING BAGHDAD is one of the few histories of Operation Iraqi Freedom written by a Marine who actually served in the war. It covers the twenty-two-day push to Baghdad in 2003, which was was one of the most efficient conflicts in the annals of warfare. This book is for soldiers and civilians, for historians and the young who need to understand war. So much more than facts and figures, Taking Baghdad is a dynamic account of the real struggles of war. Corporal Grant illuminates success in Iraq for those who see Iraq for what it became afterward: a war in which America lost heart. Written on sand-covered pages during the invasion and after, the author guides us step by step on a journey through the desert, through war and peace.
Honor Through Sacrifice by Robert E. Lofthouse – Finalist in Inspirational
“A man can fight if he can see daylight down the road somewhere,” President Lyndon Johnson told a senator in March 1965. “But there ain’t no daylight in Vietnam-there’s not a bit.” Even as he said that, he was committing the first US ground combat units and initiating a massive bombing campaign in North Vietnam. Unaware of President Johnson’s private misgivings about the conflict, Gordon Lippman dutifully entered Vietnam as the 3rd Brigade/1st Infantry Division executive officer in September of that year.
It didn’t take long for his fellow soldiers to figure out that Gordon Lippman was the man they wanted to follow into battle. Overcoming great challenges in the Army, he earned the Distinguished Service Cross and two battlefield commissions and became a hero among heroes. He focused on the mission at hand, rallied his troopers, led from the front, and dodged enemy bullets. A couple of times they hit home, but he came back to fight again! He was one of those studs to come out of small-town America and become a leading member of “The Greatest Generation.”
This is a sweeping story on the broad landscape of twentieth-century compromise, accommodation, and conflict, from the allied war in Europe to the forgotten victory in Korea to the televised dinnertime war in Vietnam.
Journey Between Two Worlds by Karola M. Schuette – Finalist in Memoir/Biography
“He had to rub it in that now I was considered a stateless person and no longer had any rights. Wow, did he hate those war brides, those whores.”
Journey Between Two Worlds is a compelling firsthand account of growing up in Germany during the poverty and despair of the Great Depression and the fear and oppression of Hitler’s Nazi regime, surviving the ravages and rubble of World War II, and ultimately gaining freedom and a resurrected life in America.
Karola Schuette describes in lyrical detail how her destiny is transformed forever when she meets a German-born US Army intelligence officer. Forging a life of new horizons and experiences in the United States, Karola opens our eyes to the liberties and opportunities that we may assume to be our birthright, and subtly and insightfully conveys that a democracy requires constant cultivation to sustain it.
The Demon in Disguise by Ashley Elliott – Finalist in Memoir/Biography
In the late evening of May 18, 2002, prominent local businessman Carter Elliot and his young protégé become the first double-homicide victims in the history of Conway, Arkansas. The Conway PD, Arkansas State Police, and FBI combine to launch a painstaking investigation into what seems a meticulously planned mob-style execution. There are no eyewitnesses, recorded disturbances, fingerprints, or DNA.
After several weeks of investigation, and numerous theories, law enforcement has made no progress. They have no motive. No suspects. Then, one month after the murders, the estranged wife of Carter Elliott goes missing. Is there a connection?
The Demon in Disguise chronicles Ashley Elliot’s years-long, roller-coaster journey with the criminal justice system in pursuit of answers and justice for her parents..When will it end, and what will it ultimately produce?