Join us to celebrate the accomplishments of Colorado’s outstanding authors, editors, illustrators, and photographers! Finalists for the 2022 Colorado Book Awards will read briefly from their work and answer questions from the audience and finalist books will be available for purchase at BookBar.
Register for this free event and view the full finalists reading schedule at coloradohumanities.org/programs/colorado-book-awards/ [1]
Mystery Finalists
Red Rabbit on the Run
Jodi Bowersox
After being kidnapped and sold to a brothel, schizophrenic Tiffany Morrow emerges from a bad drug-induced trip in the custody of a couple who claim to be taking her home to Denver. At first she thought she imagined the demon horse at the airport, but there was no mistaking the mountain view out the window that morning. She doesn’t know how much time had passed since she’d been carried out of that vile cabin in the Amazon, but she can’t go home until she proves someone is embezzling funds from her mother’s corporation.
Jodi Bowersox has been an actress, seamstress, designer, business owner, homeschool teacher, choir director, and artist. Her romance novels span genres from faith fiction to suspense to time travel to sci fi, with small town, big city, and interplanetary settings. She lives in Colorado Springs.
Canyonlands Carnage
Scott Graham
When suspicious deaths befall a whitewater rafting expedition through Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family see that evil intent lies behind the tragedies. They must risk their lives and act before the murderer makes a risky journey on the Colorado River through Utah’s red rock wilderness even deadlier.
Scott Graham is the author of the acclaimed National Park Mystery series and of five nonfiction books, including Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Durango.
Break Bone Fever
Wanda Venters and Mary Rae
When Dr. Gennifer Drake’s body washes up on a foggy beach on Galveston Island, Texas, Dr. Louise Finnerty, an emergency medicine physician, and Dr. Marnie Liccione, a recently widowed pediatrician from Colorado, are shocked by their friend’s death. Untangling the web of lies propagated by an EPA cabal, they fight for justice and their lives.
Wanda Venters moved to Colorado 35 years ago as a major stationed at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center. After three decades as a pediatrician, she retired and began a second career, first as a children’s author and then as a mystery novelist. Mary Rae trained in Emergency Medicine and practiced for twenty years before transitioning to Primary Care.
Historical Fiction Finalists
Luther, Wyoming
Tomas Alamilla and Mario Acevedo
Two Civil War veterans, Deputy Adam Sanchez and Sheriff Nelson Cook, find themselves on both sides of the law when they corral a murderous bandit and help themselves to his stolen loot. Their plans go south when the bandit’s gang shows up wanting vengeance and their money in this tale of larceny, betrayal, and the return of a lost love to help set things right.
Tomas Alamilla is a Mexican entrepreneur with a lifelong love of stories featuring Western adventure, tough cowboys, and strong women. Tomas lives in Garden City. Mario Acevedo is an award-winning editor and a bestselling author of fantasy, action, and historical novels, including short stories. He lives in Denver.
Chloe’s Mistigri
Thomas L. Hall
Hall navigates a complex world filled with beauty and tragedy in a mesmerizing tale of joy, sorrow, and hope set against a backdrop of astonishing historical detail. From jazz-age Paris to depression-era Louisiana, from war-torn China to wartime New York and Havana, this story of love and courage intertwines with the likes of Josephine Baker, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Ernest Hemingway, and the famous mobster Meyer Lansky.
Thomas L. Hall is an attorney and writer from Fort Collins. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Illinois State University, a Master of Business Administration from The University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and a Juris Doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
The Cape Doctor
E.J. Levy
Levy’s debut novel is inspired by the life of Dr. James Miranda Barry, born Margaret Anne Bulkley circa 1795 in Cork, Ireland, who was an eminent nineteenth-century physician that revolutionized medicine and our ideas of gender. The novel recounts Margaret’s transformation from daughter to son in order to enter medical school and provide for her mother.
E.J. Levy’s fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Best American Essays, The New York Times, Orion, Salon, Rumpus, Salmagundi, Kenyon Review, The Nation, and won a Pushcart Prize. The Cape Doctor was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Barnes & Noble Best Book of Summer. Foreign editions are forthcoming in French, Spanish, and Italian. She’s an Associate Professor in Colorado State University’s Creative Writing MFA Program and lives in Fort Collins.