We announced the winners for the 2021 People’s Choice Awards during the New Hampshire Literary Awards Virtual Ceremony on October 9, 2021.
NHWP is proud to announce the nominees for the 2021 People’s Choice Awards below.
Voting has now closed as of midnight October 1, 2021. We received 894 votes!
| Book Cover | Title | Author | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIDDLE GRADE YOUNG ADULT | |||
 | For To See The Elephant | Tammi Truax | When did elephants first come to America? To your New Hampshire town? Who cared for them? With a title attributed to George Washington this fact based novel tells an enormous tale of American history and of freedom. Written in flowing verse, each character has a distinct voice, including the elephants. |
 | In the Neighborhood of True | Susan Kaplan Carlton | Ruth moves to Atlanta in 1958 and hides her Jewishness to fit in…until a hate crime compels her to speak out. |
 | July in August | Maryjo Paradis Smith | The last thing July Krativitz wants is attention. If the grownups knew her mother was an addict, they’d put her in a foster home. And then who’d take care of her baby brother? |
 | Liberty - Loving Lafayette: How America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman Helped Win Our Independence | Dorothea Jensen | Inspired by “Hamilton: the Musical”, the teenaged French aristocrat’s complete role in our revolution is celebrated via read aloud rhyming verse (with illustrations and endnotes). |
 | Spindlefish and Stars | Christian M. Andrews | In this tale inspired by Greek mythology, a girl searching for her father finds herself stranded on a mysterious island with a boy who fell from the sky and an old woman weaving an endless tapestry. |
 | Stolen to OZ: Toto and Miss Jennie in Oz (Without Dorothy) | Alan Lindsay | Where did that balloon come from? And why were bags of Emeralds tied to the side? Miss Jennie Grierson and Doctor Morgan Fiddledog tumble together inside the basket, with Toto dangling down below. They are blown away on an adventure to the strange and curious Land of Oz. |
 | The Legend of the Santa Stocking | Yvonne Vissing | This is the story of a financially-struggling family that decides to put reminders of why each other are special into their stockings instead of store-bought presents. The result was "the best Christmas ever". |
 | The Mystery of the Skull and The Hidden Past | Janis Hennessey | The secret buried in the park, the nasty note writer, the shouting museum director lead Delilah, Darcy, and DJ down perilous paths. The 3Ds are resolute in solving every mystery, but will they succeed? |
| CHILDRENS PICTURE | |||
 | Clumsy Tommy Turkey | Kenny Haynes | This is a humorous story about a young turkey and his difficulties in learning to fly. His friend Henrietta was a source of encouragement. He persevered and, after many attempts, he conquered his fears and found the value of friendship. |
 | Marjory Saves the Everglades | Sandra Neil Wallace | When journalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas returned to Florida after WW, she hardly recognized the Everglades near her home. Developers saw the area as useless swampland. Marjory discovered that Everglades wasn't a swamp at all, but a slow-moving river of grass, creating one of the most unique ecosystems in the world. |
 | Rootbound Rescue | Kayla Fisher | A garden flower accidentally lands in the wild. Animal friends help her out of her pot, teaching her to bloom and grow through adversity. |
 | The Santa Spirit | Yvonne Vissing | This beautiful picture book shows how the Santa Spirit is shared by people of all ages and types. It is culturally diverse and inclusive and moves children away from seeing Santa Claus as a person to being the spirit of joy and loving-kindness that anyone can have. |
| FICTION | |||
 | A Cup of Stars | Joseph Monninger | Joseph Monninger's A Cup of Stars collects forty years of short stories and novellas by its author. |
 | Aliens, Drywall, and a Unicycle | Kevin St. Jarre | Tom Tibbets takes a job at a weekly newspaper in NH, and an apartment in a building where residents form a kaleidoscope of the odd, interesting, and insane. Featuring intelligent dialogue exploring feelings of meaninglessness, jealousy and love, ambition, and the mindful mapping of one’s life, searching for inherent meaning in the world. |
 | Bikini Cowgirls of the Urban Legion | Dave Agans | Cowgirls. Bikinis. Murderous media conspiracy. What could go wrong? Meg Brecker joins a reality show to investigate her lover’s murder. As she pits her cowgirl skills against talented rivals, can she avoid her own demise and uncover the nefarious Bikini Cowgirl plot before it reaches its must-see-TV climax? |
 | D.C. | Laura - Jean Gilbert | This book features a thought-provoking theme of intrigue and deception in the nation's capital. Through rich details, this tells a story of power and money taking advantage of racial division. |
 | Dog is My Co-Pilot | Jamie Sheffield | This collection of short stories explores the bond between humans and dogs. |
 | Girvan | Robert Napolitano | In the late 16th century, King James the VI, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, captures an entire family who have been terrorizing the Scottish countryside with acts against God and man. The family pays the ultimate price for their crimes. So says the legend. But what if that’s not what happened |
 | Home | Shana Chartier | The prodigal daughter returns. Beneath the towering Rocky Mountains, Tara Kingston returns home to face her childhood abusers while coming to terms with her mother's terminal cancer diagnosis. Does she find forgiveness before it's too late? |
 | Hope from Daffodils | Karen Coulters | Sophie, a widowed florist, encounters a disillusioned attorney in York Harbor, Maine. As romance blossoms, he discovers they share a painful common bond. With the truth coming to the surface, Brady begins a personal fight for justice. |
 | Horseshoes and Hand Grenades | S.M. Stevens | Two young women learn that “almost counts” while battling past and present demons that threaten their careers and romances. |
 | Isaac's Story | Roy Goodman | This novel is a history of the twentieth century seen through the recollections of 102-year-old Isaac Simon. He is blind and unable to speak or move, but his mind and memory are active and he is telling his life-story to himself — the immigrant experience, war, love, religion, art, class conflict, labor struggles, civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, family and friendship are all explored within the narrative. |
 | King of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats | James Patrick Kelly | The delicate, decaying political balance maintained by cloned human grands at the expense of the uplifted dog and cat populations is in danger of toppling under the influence of mysterious forces both outer and inner. And, the circus is in town! |
 | Leopold Christ | Robert Napolitano | Dr. Reynolds you need to see this! With those words, archaeologist Dr. Daniel Reynolds is taken on a journey that will lead him to an incredible discovery, one that could alter everything we think we know of the origin of man. |
 | No Man is an Island…Except Me | James Sheffield | A collection of short fiction. Fifteen stories about people who are square pegs in a round hole world; a writer’s dozen of people and places where unusual is the norm, where odd is ordinary. |
 | NPC | Jeremy Robinson | A small town pastor faces off against a high tech serial killer who believes the world is a simulation. |
 | One Track Mind | Mark Okrant | One Track Mind is the first of five Commissioner Kary Turnell Mysteries. In this novella, Kary and his task force investigate a murder that begins at the base station of New Hampshire's famous cog railway, proceeds to the summit of Mount Washington, then the action really ignites. |
 | Sky Realms Online: Grayhold | Troy Osgood | Sky Realms Online, the largest and most popular Virtual Reality MMORPG ever is played and enjoyed by millions every hour. Until, players receive a cryptic message from the developers stating that for unknown reasons, they are trapped in the game and may have to live out their lives within the virtual world. |
 | Still Here | Christine Duffy Zerillo | Gunfire awakens two women in bloody raids during King Philip’s War in New England in 1675-1676. Will Weetamoo, the powerful Pocasset Wampanoag sachem and her captive, Mary Rowlandson, a prosperous minister’s wife, see the common threads that bind them to one another or will they remain sworn enemies forever? |
 | Sweet, Sweet Jayne | T.R. Monaghan | In the early 70s , Jayne Ranney finds herself adrift after many family setbacks. As a runner for the city's preeminent bookmaker, Galen 'the Greek' Stathakis, young Jayne comes under the protection of a new type of family. And when an outside force puts her life in the crosshairs, they are all tested. |
 | The Green House | Dan Lawton | Seven flowers, seven colors, seven meanings, and one 37-year-old secret—the green house is the keeper of it all. Its creator, Girard Remington, is a fragile elderly man whose life was shattered by a tragedy nearly four decades ago. When tragedy strikes again—this time to his beloved wife, Miriam —he struggles to cope. |
 | The Last Woman in the Forest | Diane Les Becquets | From the breathtaking Rocky Mountains in Montana, to the vast deserts of Utah, to the lush rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, THE LAST WOMAN IN THE FOREST explores the darkest and most beautiful aspects of human nature and the natural world. |
 | The Life in a Day of Edna Zaminski | Will Conway | The events of a single day bring to the surface a woman’s lifetime of memories. |
 | The Light Years | R.W.W. Greene | A long-lost battleship and an arranged marriage may hold the key to faster-than-light travel and humanity’s future in R.W.W. Greene’s debut “The Light Years”. |
 | The Mystical Adventures of Stavros Papadakis | Michael Lacoy | A successful yet epically dysfunctional Boston defense attorney has a near-death experience and determines to change his life and reunite his family -- but is it too late? |
 | The Nazi Skull: A Bone Guard Adventure | E. Chris Ambrose | When there's a break-in at the tribal center on the reservation where he grew up, Special Forces veteran Grant Casey flies home to Arizona to confront white supremacists, Nazi eugenics and the tribal elder who refuses to speak his name: his own grandfather. |
 | The Story So Far | Jane Eklund | The great American lesbian May-December love story, with cameo appearances by Socrates, Hildegard of Bingen, and Suzanne Pleshette. Set against 25 years of cultural evolution, the love between a young librarian and a grande dame of cheesy literature outlasts a 28-year age difference, romantic dalliances, illness, and the confines of the closet. |
 | The Wrong Kind of Woman | Sarah McGraw Crow | Set at an all-male, Animal House-like college campus in 1970, The Wrong Kind of Woman shows what a woman can be when what she should be is no longer an option. |
 | Toward The Light | Bonnar Spring | Hate, betrayal, and revenge. When Luz Concepcion returns to Guatemala to settle an old score, she discovers instead secrets, lies, and redemption. |
 | Witch, A Cranky Little Tale | Ann S. Robinson | Irene Richards and her thirty-five year old daughter Shirleen McClure, cope with events and each other during one year that begins and ends on Halloween. The novel is peppered with elements of magic realism, inspired by Irene's sudden interest in witchcraft and introducing her newly-acquired skills into her daily routine. |
 | Zani : Feathers of Lion, Book 1 | Cherie Konyha Greene | In 1513, at Carnevale, Silvio Speronelli kissed the girl next door, and she died on the spot. Five years later, he is a professional Fool, traveling with his noble Venetian patrons in an acting troupe. Then he is enchanted by the lovely Oriela Morèr. |
| NONFICTION | |||
 | Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachiaand the World | Paul O. Jenkins | Bluegrass Ambassadors tells the story of the McLain Family Band, who spread the gospel of bluegrass music all over the world and have educated hundreds of students in this uniquely American genre from the 1970s to the present. |
 | Counter Culture: Clams, Convents, and a Circle of Global Citizens | Eleanor Dunfey-Freiburger | Roy and Catherine ‘Kate’ Manning who had little formal education or resources. They did have humor, entrepreneurial zest, and spiritual roots as they collared the American dream starting out in 1915 with Dunfey’s Orchestra, a luncheonette, and a baby every two years through the Great Depression to the doorstep of World War II. |
 | Finding Home: Portraits and Memories of Immigrants | Becky Fields | Finding Home is a celebration of people from other countries who have resettled in New Hampshire, a state known for low cultural diversity. Photographer Becky Field met with 40 immigrants to record their memories of life in their home country and their journeys to find a new home in NH. |
 | Knock Wood | Jennifer Militello | Anchored by a wooden ring and the superstition of a knock that prevents misfortune, Knock Wood centers on three intertwined elements: the life of a mentally ill aunt in an abusive marriage, a high school romance with a boy who eventually dies of a heroin overdose, and an extra-marital affair characterized by an otherworldly connection. |
| Liberty - Loving Lafayette: How America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman Helped Win Our Independence | Dorothea Jensen | Inspired by “Hamilton: the Musical”, the teenaged French aristocrat’s complete role in our revolution |
 | Lunch with Tommy and Stasia - TV's Golden Age of Candlepin Bowling | Mike Morin | Saturdays at noon in New England was must-see TV for hundreds of thousands of candlepin bowling fans. Read the unexpected stories of the work-a-day men and women who became sports icons and stars because of their exposure on Boston TV for 50 years. Some as popular as Larry Bird and Jim Rice! |
 | Music Hall: How a City Built a Theater & a Theatre Shaped a City | J. Dennis Robinson | Follow the 400-year evolution of the performing arts in NH's only seaport and the roller coaster life of a landmark 1878 theater. |
 | Norine: Living a New England Century | Nancy Frye Bergeron | Love History? Well get comfy, help yourself to one of Norine’s molasses cookies while she pours the tea. Settle down and listen as Norine shares her 100 years of living a life in New England. |
 | Preserving Old Barns: Preventing the Loss of a Valuable Resource | John Porter and Francis E. Gilman | An illustrated reference for barn owners. It provides a practical understanding of the history, function, and preservation of old barns. |
 | Re-Imagine Santa | Yvonne Vissing | The most comprehensive book yet about Santa is directed at thoughtful adults who want to know how Santa became pervasive, how to handle him, and the best ways to transform him in an inclusive, diverse, and respectful world. |
 | Shake, Strain, Done: Craft Cocktails at Home | J.M. Hirsch | Revolutionize the way you drink at home with simple recipes and common ingredients, no obscure liquors or fussy techniques needed. Many cocktail books call for hard-to-find ingredients and complicated techniques that can frustrate home cocktail makers. Shake Strain Done shows a better way. |
 | Stories from the Rolodex: Important Figures of Journalism in Their Own Words | Beverly Stoddart | Interviews with journalists who covered the news before the internet, social media, and cell phones had been invented. |
 | The Best of Bernie's Beat | Bernie Marvin | Stories of extraordinary people in New Hampshire’s North Country seen through the eyes of a veteran journalist. All are verbal portraits created with skill. |
 | The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly) | Carla Gericke | The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly) heralds the arrival of a remarkable, original voice. Attorney Carla Gericke’s collection of award-winning short stories, opinion pieces, and speeches was featured on C-SPAN Book TV. Unusual and unforgettable, intense and intelligent, funny and poignant, this rich collection is a brilliant, triumphant debut. |
 | The Spiral Shell: A French Village Reveals its Secrets of Jewish Resistance in WWII | Sandell Morse | Secrecy, Morse discovers, is still rife around the deportation of French Jews. This is a necessary, illuminating and beautifully intelligent memoir. |
 | This Difficult Thing of Being Human | Bodhisaksa | We all need someone who can love and support us unconditionally. What if that person is ourselves? |
 | Turn Enemies into Allies: The Art of Peace | Judy Ringer | Turn Enemies Into Allies provides a way of working with clashing employees that is deliberate and systematic, informed by Judy Ringer's expertise in conflict and communication skills and a decades-long practice in mind-body principles from the martial art Aikido. |
 | You - Me: Reflections on Becoming Your Dad | Dan Szczesny | Szczesny’s book contains fifty brief essays that are reflections on his daughter’s first five years of life. He writes about the big moments, like leaving the hospital, first steps, losing teeth, but also of everything in between-strolling downtown on lazy afternoons, dressing paper dolls, and constructing caves from laundry baskets. |
 | Sliding Home | Susan Ross | Now more than ever, parents and teachers need ideas, encouragement, humor, and solace. Susan Cole Ross and her husband Jeff embarked on their greatest adventure as a family and their greatest challenge as educators: A year of homeschooling in the mountains of New Hampshire. |
| Weaving of Departure | Shoshana J. Cote | ||
| POETRY | |||
 | Alone | Robert A. Cruess | Poetry and prose dealing with life, love and the joy of being alive. |
 | Crown of Wild | Erica Bodwell | In Crown of Wild, brokenness is inflected with pain and beauty. The poet knows how humans get damaged and do damage, and knows the womanly body: its sensations, pressures, what impinges on it, how it breaks free. These lyric narrative poems are home to characters as real as characters in short stories. |
 | Desire Lines | Marie Harris | In forms from conversational to lyric, from prose poems to occasional poems, this is a book of journeys. |
 | In The Kingdom of Autumn | Daniel Thomas Moran | The twelfth collection of poems, published in Ireland, by the former poet laureate of Suffolk County, NY. |
 | Moonshine Narratives | Scott T. Hutchison | This poetry collection examines the intersection of boyhood, love, life and nature |
 | The Ice Storm | Meg Kearney | In this masterful crown of sonnets, The Ice Storm, the drama of a disintegrating marriage plays out against the backdrop of storms and disasters, natural and man-made. |
 | The Marksman | Jeff Friedman | Through its imaginative reach, wild humor, and dazzling clarity of language, The Marksman centers its aim on the broken dreams of our lives and the tough love that will redeem us. |
 | View From The Other Side | Betsy Snider | A collection of poems grounded in the stony soil of rural NH and distant convents. |
 | Wooden Nutmegs | Russell Rowland | The poet uses his Yankee Peddler persona to remind us of both time's ferocity and its mercies. |
 | You, Genesis | Rachel Sturges | This is a first book of poems by former NH Youth Poet Laureate, 2019-2020. Poems are insightful raw observations about suffering and relationships throughout her work. The compilation reads like a brave reckoning, both a beginning and a goodbye. |
 | The Human Half | Deborah Brown | The lyric poems in The Human Half reveal an open-hearted speaker who finds solace in the beauties of celestial navigation, the flowers along the railroad tracks, and the brushwork of Vermeer and Van Gogh. Filled with quirks of perception, Deborah Brown holds space for wonder amidst of life’s seasons of longing. |
