“2020 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal Winner in the Romance – General genre“
“Winner of 2020 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Adult Fiction E-book“
Sincere thanks to the “IPPY” Awards panel for choosing “On Loving: A Novel” as their 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medalist for BEST ADULT FICTION E-BOOK!
“2020 eLit Silver Medalist for Romance”
I can’t be happier to share the great news about “On Loving: A Novel” winning the 2020 Silver eLit Book Award in the romance category!
“Literary Titan Book Award”
May 2019
I’d like to thank “Literary Titan” for the Literary Book Award, recognizing “On Loving: A Novel” as one of their winners. Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the readers and fans who’ve been amazingly supportive and sent me their kind messages, reviews, and feedbacks through my website and in other ways. Thank you all!
27th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards
Structure, Organization, and Pacing: 4/5
Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar: 5/5
Production Quality and Cover Design: 5/5
Plot and Story Appeal: 4/5
Character Appeal and Development: 4/5
Voice and Writing Style: 5/5
Judge’s Commentary:
The story opens with a mournful tone, as we approach the topic of Rose’s father dying; we get lovely background on her father and the things he loved, like poetry and literature. We’re getting depth of his character, which author wisely presents as a way for us to connect with Rose. It’s a natural narrative tool to convey essential information and how it influenced Rose. We then switch from gloomy recollections to feeling the warmth of familiarity and affection with Uncle Frankie. We see a youthful side of Rose, and so much dimension in her interactions. Well done. We’re getting some excellent sensory descriptions, such as the ‘celestial cologne’ that captivates in its description, but overall and as an enduring note throughout the book, I would have loved to see more setting description in great detail. For instance, author writes of a ‘huge, dark kitchen’ without giving us description and sense details such as any aromas, temperature, shadows, signs of use. A physical space can tell so much about characters. Bringing sensory details to all settings, inside and out, would elevate the story to a great degree, as we could then see where we are, characters can interplay with the space, and it becomes real. In the scenes about presenting gifts of jewels, silk and fabrics to the heir, sensory details would make those items realistic, sparkly. We could feel the cool smoothness of the silk. That’s what is needed here. Bring out your setting details and sensory descriptions everywhere. The pace succeeds, and we’re shaken by unexpected twists like the postpartum woman who seems fine upon release from the hospital, but ten minutes later throws herself under a truck. I loved that this detail seemed so out of character for the author, and wonderfully so. Now we have some dials turned way up. What’s this author going to do next? We’re on the edge of our seats. Inner dialogue matches well with inner thought, like wordlessly turning for a peck on the cheek when her inner thoughts are so against it. Well done. The wedding needs sensory details. ‘We sent invitations’ misses out on the chance to show the invitation design and what that says about the couple. Just a layer of description is all this needs to make the most out of the great storyline and structure.