It was exciting to hear back in early November from the judges for the 2025 Faith and Fellowship Book Festival.  I entered Nazar's Journey in the novella category, and I received second place. In the fall of 2024 I was invited by the festival to talk about my book in an online zoom meeting, and in 2025 I entered their yearly contest.  

Since this online festival includes many authors from the US and Canada, I was happy to receive this acknowledgement from someone who evidently is an experienced literary critic.  The judges are anonymous (not the same people who run the festival), and I was permitted to see their comments.  One of them stated--"Kept me reading till the end. . .this had me engaged throughout." This is very helpful feedback, since the judges are under no obligation to make positive comments, and I was hoping, when I began writing this work of historical fiction,  that any reader who picks up the book would become engaged with it until the very end, a pivotal part of the story.