We are pleased to announce that 8 of our outstanding authors have won awards in the AMERICAN LEGACY BOOK AWARDS. Several were finalists and our Samuel G. Tooma was a winner in the ADVENTURE: WAR & MILITARY FICTION category.

 

These awards were given across many genres. We are proud to publish and represent such outstanding authors, and work with them to create award-winning works of art.

Congratulations to all!

A complete listing of all awards can be found here.

Winner: Adventure – War & Military Fiction

The SOOF
Samuel G. Tooma

Dr. Samantha Stone, a civilian environmental scientist, is thrust into the middle of the male-dominated nuclear submarine world when the president tasks her to help plan a suicide mission in the Sea of Okhotsk. The objective: to locate and destroy a top-secret Russian command and control facility called the SOOF.

The SOOF has been built out of sight, under the waves and sea-ice canopy of the Okhotsk, to support a Russian military coup that has been in the works for ten years-a coup that is only the first step on the path to world domination. Critical to both sides, the SOOF must be destroyed to prevent catastrophe, and failure is not an option. To accomplish this daunting task, a submarine, a platoon of Navy SEALs, and Samantha are required. Though submarine commander Captain Ira Coen initially doubts her abilities, it soon becomes clear that Samantha is essential to the success of the mission.

The ensuing Okhotsk operation is fraught with surprises and life-threatening situations as Ira’s submarine tactical skills and Samantha’s environmental knowledge are tested to the fullest against seemingly impossible odds-with the fate of the entire world hanging in the balance.

Finalist: Adventure – Epic

Assassin’s Revenge
Samuel G. Tooma

Dr. Samantha Stone of The SOOF returns for a new adventure in Assassin’s Revenge.

After a wildly successful mission in the Sea of Okhotsk, environmental scientist Samantha and Captain Ira Coen’s submarine crew return home as international heroes. For the next year, Samantha leads an idyllic life-until one of the leaders of the Russian coup Samantha helped foil escapes capture. Determined to avenge his failure against those he deems responsible, he crafts a hit list and successfully carries out four assassinations. Samantha would be number five.

Suddenly, Samantha’s life is turned upside down as she suffers one horrific attempt on her life after another. But the assassin soon realizes that Samantha is not easy prey. When she decides to turn the tables on the insane, skilled killer bent on her destruction, the resulting cat-and-mouse game is filled with one heart-pounding encounter after another. Who will survive?

Finalist: Historical Fiction

Trouble the Water
Rebecca Dwight Bruff

“Before this decisive night, I’d not fully appreciated the subtle line between inspiration and insanity. But now, with all our lives at risk, I found myself navigating that most perilous edge . . . “

Inspired by the life of an unsung American hero and slave, Trouble the Water navigates the rich tributaries of courage, betrayal, and redemption. In his inspiring journey, Robert Smalls witnesses great privilege and suffering alongside his owner’s daughter and the dangerous son of a firebrand secessionist. At the age of twelve, he’s sent to work in Charleston, where he loads ships and learns to pilot a cotton steamer. When the Civil War erupts and his cotton steamer becomes a confederate warship, Robert seizes the opportunity to pursue freedom for himself and the people he loves.

Finalist: History – Military

Sea Pay: A Enlisted Man’s Naval Adventure
Bob Dorgan

Educated at Valley Forge Military Academy, Dorgan is well prepared for life in the US Navy when he is forward deployed halfway around the world to the USS Midway. But he soon learns life aboard an aircraft carrier can be full of danger and chaos as the ship nicknamed the “USS Never Dock” undertakes an emergency Indian Ocean deployment to relieve the crippled aircraft carrier USS Ranger in 1979 and becomes activated as the first carrier battle group “on station” in the Arabian Sea following the fall of the US embassy in Iran later that same year.

Dorgan quickly turns his job into an adventure that pays very well. With a general court-martial looming, he and his shipmates continue to add adventure and excitement to their “tour of duty,” both on and off the boat-until one night, when an unexpected turn puts an end to it all.

Finalist: Horror – General

The Shadow of Banshee Hill
Fionn Mac Meldrum

In 1818, Cillian Valour, an Irish rebel’s son with limited prospects, is determined to marry his longtime love, Martha Ashworth, daughter of a local landlord. When her father forbids their engagement, Cillian turns to the heavens for help in an act of desperation-but it is a mysterious stranger that answers his call. After accepting an offer too good to refuse, Cillian and Martha are forever changed. Together, the star-crossed lovers turn away from the light and cut a swath of horror and misery across the land-until one night in Rome, the unthinkable happens.

Emily Corvo’s life in modern-day Boston is upended by the murder of her mother and the disappearance of her father. Learning that her mother was callously slaughtered by something not of this world, Emily vows to rescue her father and avenge her mother by hunting down those responsible. But she may find that only by trusting the enemy can she quench her thirst for vengeance.

Finalist: Military Fiction

Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat
Ralph R. “Rick” Steinke

At the behest of rogue Iranian government officials, two terrorists break into the grave of an American veterans cemetery in the Suresnes suburb of Paris. What they take from that grave could lead to the deaths of millions of Israeli and US citizens, as well as Jews around the world. US Army Major Jake Fortina, a military attaché stationed at the US Embassy in Paris, is called upon by the FBI and French and Italian law enforcement and intelligence officials to help defeat Iran’s nefarious plan. Beginning in Paris, this international drama leads readers from Afghanistan to England, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, and the United States in the scramble to save the world from a terror unknown since the deadly Spanish flu outbreak of 1918.

Finalist: Novella

Keeping To Himself
John Carenen

Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, Whit Coombs seeks peace, quiet, and healing. Scarred spiritually by the death of his wife, who died cursing him for not euthanizing her, and physically from an IED in Iraq, he just wants a simple life in his cabin by a lake, miles from a hard road. Then, on a nighttime hike, he witnesses a grisly murder and finds himself with a dilemma: report the crime and lose his privacy-and maybe his life-or let the killers get away with it. As the killers and the attractive female county sheriff get closer to discovering what he saw, he realizes that maybe Keeping to Himself won’t give him the peace he needs.

Finalist: Parenting & Family

Every Other Weekend: Coming of Age With Two Different Dads
Anthony J. Mohr

Anthony’s father, Gerald Mohr, is a well-known radio actor before slipping to the Hollywood B-list thanks to the advent of television. Accepting the lead in a dying Swedish TV series, he falls for the script girl and divorces Mohr’s mother, who goes on to meet and marry another divorcee, credit card industry pioneer Stanley Dashew.

As his stepfather’s career rises and his biological father’s eases downward, Anthony tries to find his place. One weekend he’s sailing on his stepfather’s fifty-eight-foot catamaran; the next, his Swedish stepmother tells him that they’re poor. Coming of age in a time when divorce is rare and viewed as shocking, Anthony lives at the edges of what others regard as a dream world, a place where reality and fantasy blend, maps lead to the homes of the stars, and obstacles abound.