AN author who lives near Great Dunmow has been named the January 2013 winner of an international awards scheme.
Julia Jones’ first novel, The Salt-Stained Book, competed against 64 titles over the month and attracted more than 300 votes in the Printed Book Awards.
The awards have been run by not-for-profit publisher Acclaimed Books Limited since 2008, and in that time several thousands of voters around the world have shown their appreciation by supporting and nominating books in the competition.
“It has been a delight to take part in this truly democratic competition and experience first hand the loyalty of my readers. To win against such strong competition is the icing on the cake,” said Ms Jones, who lives in Pleshey.
And the competition is strong, with several international best sellers, in addition to talented emerging authors making up the field. In a single month, the voting can run into thousands and the awards site contains numerous reviews and comments.
Managing director, Peter Lihou offered a personal message of congratulations to Ms Jones.
“Over the years, we’ve seen a great many popular titles gain the tangible applause of their fans by their votes and comments, but The Salt-Stained Book enjoys particularly warm support. It really is quite an accomplishment for an author to inspire their readers so much that they get online and vote in such numbers and leave extremely flattering comments. Julia is a very worthy winner.”
The Book Awards are the only international awards that are open to all titles distributed in Kindle or Printed formats by Amazon.com sites around the world. Any one can nominate or vote for a title, provided it is available on Amazon, without charge or registration. Dubbed The ‘People’s Book Awards, this openness attracts large numbers of visitors to the awards site thebookawards.com
The Salt-Stained Book was published in 2011 and has been described as “one of the great adventure stories of 2011”.
Drawing much of its inspiration from Arthur Ransome’s classic Swallows and Amazons series, it is the first volume of the Strong Winds trilogy: a modern day story of piracy and exploitation.
In 1945, two brothers die in the icy Barents Sea and a book is all that survives of them. More than sixty years later Donny and his mother set out for Suffolk to meet his mysterious great aunt. There is an accident and Donny is taken into care. But are the officials all that they seem and why won’t they believe Donny’s story?
Soon he discovers that his life has been built on a lie. Only the new friendships he makes and an unsuspected talent for sailing help him steer his way through dangers that he cannot under-stand towards a knowledge of his own identity and the secrets of a salt-stained book .
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