The five books shortlisted for the Amazon 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award have been announced today and include novels across crime, romance and science fiction. The Award, now in its fifth year in the UK, celebrates new, independently published books across all genres, with the winner receiving a £20,000 cash prize, a golden Kindle and a dedicated marketing campaign on Amazon UK to raise awareness of their work and bring it to a wider audience.
The 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award saw a record number of submissions, after recent research revealed that Britain is a nation of storytellers, with 80% admitting to telling tales to captivate and excite the people we are talking to. Almost half of those surveyed also claimed to have used their creativity to inject some much needed escapism into their lives, with 45 per cent penning a novel in the last twelve months.
This year, the judging panel features broadcaster and author Clare Balding, best-selling author Nicola May, 2020 Kindle Storyteller winner Anna McNuff, Sacha Black from the Alliance of Independent Authors, Darren Hardy, Author and Editorial Programmes Manager at Amazon UK and Michaella Parkes from the Amazon Books Editorial Team.
“It’s clear we have felt the need to get creative over the last year and escape our everyday lives by putting pen to paper and creating a new world. It’s great to see another record year for the Kindle Storyteller Award, self-publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing really animates the market and I’m looking forward to reading all the great stories.”
– Clare Balding
“It’s fantastic to see the number of submissions to the Kindle Storyteller Award grow each year and the quality continues to be of the highest standard – I’m looking forward to getting stuck into each shortlisted book and finding our winner.”
– Darren Hardy, UK Author and Editorial Programmes Manager, Amazon
2021 Kindle Storyteller Award shortlist
Escape to the Hummingbird Hotel by Daisy James
Daisy James writes feel-good romantic comedies set in sun-filled locations. A proud Yorkshire girl, now living in the North East, her passion for writing stories began in childhood and over the years she’s amassed several unfinished novels, currently stored in a shoebox under her bed, which she’s determined will never see the light of day. After being trapped in a hotel for three days whilst Hurricane Sandy ripped through New York, Daisy penned the words to what became her first published book catapulting her passion for storytelling into a career. The first book in her newest series and shortlisted title, Escape to Hummingbird Hotel, follows the life of a celebrity florist as she deals with heartbreak and new adventures in an uplifting romantic comedy set on the gorgeous island of Corfu.
Stranger at the Villa by Mary Kingswood
Mary Kingswood is a traditional regency romance author based in the Scottish Highlands, who published her first novel in 2014 after deciding she wanted to bring her characters to life and share their stories with the world. Seven years later Mary has published over 40 books through Kindle Direct Publishing including her ‘Strangers’ series and shortlisted book Stranger at the Villa, which follows the story of twenty-six year old Susannah Winslade, who is drifting into perpetual spinsterhood as she cares for her sick stepmother, young brothers and sisters and alcoholic father, and Samuel Broughton, who has come to Great Maeswood to make a new start as a country physician, with strange things going on at his surgery, the unthinkable happens and he must face his past.
An Isolated Incident by JD Kirk
JD Kirk is a thriller, mystery and crime fiction author from Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. After successfully publishing over 140 children’s books through an agent for a few years he stumbled upon KDP and uploaded his first book that outperformed all of his children’s books combined in the first three weeks. In 2019 he penned his first crime novel and the DCI Logan series was born. His shortlisted book, An Isolated Incident, is book 11 in the series and follows DCI Jack Logan on a manhunt after a violent home invasion in the remote wilds of Glen Coe leads him into the seedy world of Scottish light entertainment.
The Corfe Castle Murders by Rachel McLean
Rachel is a crime, thriller and mystery writer from Birmingham whose first experience with storytelling started in 2003. Since then, Rachel took a much-needed break to raise her two boys before returning to her deep-rooted passion in 2010. After self-publishing her first book in 2017 Rachel has seen success and continued writing several crime, thriller, and mystery stories. Now, her shortlisted novel, The Corfe Castle Murders and first book in her Dorset Crime series follows DCI Lesley Clarke a straight-talking city copper as she investigates a murder at one of England’s most iconic landmarks.
A Thousand Li: The Second Sect Tao Wong
Tao Wong is a Canadian author based in Toronto who began his writing career on fan sites before taking the plunge to self-publish his own work and becoming a full-time author in 2019. He now has a total of seven different series spanning a wide range of worlds within the LitRPG and xianxia science fiction and fantasy genres. His shortlisted book, A Thousand Li: The Second Sect is the fifth instalment of his most recent series and follows Wu Ying after he was gravely injured after saving his master in the previous book. Caught up in the winds of war, Wu Ying and his friends must continue to balance their journey to immortality against the pull of mortal politics.
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Congratulations.