2026 Writing Mentorship Award (for unfinished or finished manuscripts)
Deep beneath a vanished civilization, Origin—an ancient multi‑layered intelligence—splinters into rogue minds. When Elira awakens as the system’s lost key, she must stabilize its collapse before rising hidden worlds fracture reality itself.
When the ancient Aegean plunges into total war, pulling Helen into its wake, the battles are real, the gods are not, and the dead speak through myth and memory.
Set against the glamour of TEAL’s flying boat Aranui and 1950s Pacific aviation, a former stewardess uncovers a decades-old secret that sends three women across the UK, Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific in search of the truth about their past.
Diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, Elena Russo's looking for answers. A discovery about her late father leads Elena to India where she tracks down the place he had his future read to him from an ancient Nadi leaf. But what good comes from knowing your future? Can Elena find her way to healing?
A walk on Primrose Hill in May 1977 ends in tragedy for Susan. Her husband, Charlie, is fatally stabbed and her baby, Peter, kidnapped. Her fingerprints are on the knife, but her life is in danger, and it will be two decades before she can prove her innocence.
For Carley Hawthorne, the most dangerous secrets aren’t encrypted. They’re inherited. After learning she holds the key to protecting digital civilization, she must dismantle a conspiracy that could collapse global encryption.
A cycle of betrayal based on fairytales and mythologies brought together in an urban fantasy-romance following two teenagers that are two sides of the same coin who have to decide if they can break the rules their parents set for them
In 1936 Seattle, an actor is having the time of his free-wheeling life, until he meets the woman of his dreams, who won’t let anything get in the way of her acting career. When her twin brother turns up dead, together they unearth a horrific set of murders, and a perpetrator who is untouchable.
In this Muslim romance, Meena Pathan and Tom Khan are forced to return together to Pakistan eight years after their broken engagement, only to find themselves teaming up to save their families from deadly floods that have trapped them in the mountains of Swat.
In Walking Over Wet Paint, a guarded, emotionally reserved editor in vintage togs collides with a charming oncologist in the wake of her mother’s terminal illness, forcing both to re-evaluate their emotional defenses, past patterns, and ideas of permanence.
When poorly and lonely William befriends a scruffy, one-legged pigeon he names Jack, he doesn’t just find companionship, he discovers the courage to imagine, explore, and heal. From their bedroom-window adventures to the moment William must finally fly solo, their friendship changes his world.
What if there were cults that didn’t look like cults, where life didn’t play out in a compound or end with a Kool-Aid cocktail, and why would anyone join them anyway?
John Hopkins, a young Irish-American, believes he is worth more than his humble upbringing, so he tries for a job working for George Pullman, industrialist, who is building a futuristic city for his workers. At first, the two men hit it off, but when Pullman’s workers try to unionize, the two men...
Inspired by the author's grandmother, this historical coming-of-age novel follows a young Black girl in 1930s Alabama as she navigates family, race, faith, and hardship while forging her own definition of what it means to be a lady.
In war-ruled Vael, sixteen-year-old Jorium has trained his whole life to kill, but when he alone can wield the forbidden Death Arts, the power sickens him. As his people face ruin, he must balance life and death while falling for a Life Artist boy he is certain hates him.
In a small seaside town where mainly nothing untoward happens there are suddenly two desperate women, a much loved fishing boat skipper in a coma, and a police Inspector who doesn't want to understand that life outside London happens very differently.
An inspirational story of love and war based on the true account of Makorongo, an East African serviceman who became a prisoner of war to the Japanese but was repatriated by Hans-Werner, his boyhood friend, before America bombed Tokyo in WWII and returned to the girl he left behind.
A science experiment goes wrong, and Mark is catapulted into what was once a parallel universe where he seems to be the leader of the resistance, but will he survive and return home before his two worlds split completely.
Secunda has always known Siberis was small. She does not know it was built to keep girls like her contained. When her best friend disappears and four forbidden powers awaken inside her, she is forced beyond the borders of the only world she knows, into a larger one that has spent a century burying...
A 66-year old Senior Engineer at ToneDef Communications learns he’s been the victim of social engineering and has inadvertently passed highly classified military radio specs to the enemy. Worse still, the attack was perpetrated by his long-time lover.
He thinks they’re one step away from forever. She thinks they’re barely defined. As workplace romance, sexual chemistry, and competing agendas collide, somebody’s future plans are about to be upended.
A Jewish spy in the Second World War faces a moral dilemma when he’s ordered to arrange the escape of a Nazi scientist.
Heather is forty two and desperate to escape her small, tight world controlled by Mother, so bravely finds a path to trust in the outside world. And in herself.
The Light Templar awakens within the Veil. She has only a sword, shield and the hammering in her chest that says her dragon is out there. But what if recognizing her power threatens the power of another? And what if that other is the only one who can seemingly help her regain the sky?
After surviving a classified operation that was erased from history, former commander Su-Hwa lives in isolation with fragmented memories she cannot trust. Working in civilian protection for high-profile figures, she begins to notice attacks that mirror tactics from her lost past. As suppressed...
What happens when the world ends? Do we forge a new sense of camaraderie? Do we forgo our grudges at the armageddon's behest? My take is that the world's end won't be so spectacular after all. Ultimately, we'll be too consumed by our own reflections to notice the world crumbling around us.
In Seattle, 1935, a young girl right out of high school, falls in love with a glamorous older man, entering into a world of elegant gowns, cocktails, and dancing. But when he grows more controlling and violent in his pro-Nazi group, the Silver Shirts, she runs away with the help of an actor (Max)...
Against the backdrop of 1940s England is the coming-of-age story of two irrepressible young sisters and their family. Daring to reach beyond their stations in life, gives rise to repressed aspirations stifled by class, humble circumstances, and the ever-tightening restrictions of war time.
When a bitter and lonely magpie named Sorrow spends his days booing other birds, an unexpected friendship with a cheerful magpie named Joy teaches him that life is better when shared.
Dragons keep the balance of the world. But when the people of Halareth began to pray to the dragons, the gods reminded their people that the dragons were a creature of their creation. Now, on every new moon, dragons no longer fly the skies, but walk the earth as mortals. And take as mortals do.
When his intimidating teenage daughter comes to stay, a childhood bully is forced to confront his past and decide whether he should take responsibility for something that happened many years ago.
