After winning the very first Page Turner Awards Writing Award, in 2020, Mark Stibbe is proud to share that his award-winning novel, A Book in Time, has been published.
Mark Stibbe is a fiction writer who specializes in magical realism and historical romance for adults, and science fiction for the 8-12s.
He is a member of The Society of Authors, and divides his time equally between writing fiction and running BookLab, a company dedicated to assessing manuscripts, ghost-writing, structural editing, and coaching
Mark's Winning Submission Was Published After Winning The Very First Page Turner Writing Award
Winner of the prestigious Page Turner Awards 2020, A Book in Time is a truly enchanting work of magical realism by “a hugely talented storyteller.” This exceptional novel has been described by publishers, agents, and literary judges alike as “visionary”, “ambitious”, “magical”, “unique,” “refreshing”.
You will never have read anything like it before. And if you’re a lover of books, or you work in a profession to do with books, you will be hooked from the first sentence.
A Book in Time is really a love story about a book’s longing over two centuries for the mother who bore it. Adopted by many different owners – some loving, others unscrupulous – this book longs to be reunited with an elderly author who cherished it as if it was her only child.
As the book passes through many hands, it observes not only the way people treat it, but each other, and in all of this, its mother’s love sets the high standard against which everything is lovingly judged.
In a strange demonstration of synchronicity, the author – Mark Stibbe – experienced the culmination of his own search for a mother after completing this novel. Having been orphaned in 1960, and having never met or known his birth mother, Mark met her for the first time at the end of 2021, shortly before she died. So, there is more than a hint of Mark’s own search in the book’s quest for its author.
In the case of A Book in Time, in perhaps a unique way, art has magically imitated life even as life has magically imitated art.
Read more about A Book in Time
Meet Mark
Mark has been writing books since he was 16 and has clocked up over 50 titles. His PhD on storytelling was completed in 1982 and published by Cambridge University Press.
Most of his books over the years have been religious nonfiction. Fathers. The Top 7 Dad Skills – won the general nonfiction award at the New York Book Festival.
In 2015, Mark migrated from religious nonfiction to mainstream fiction and has been writing novels in the magical realism genre. His novel A Book in Time was picked as the overall winner in the Page Turner Award for Fiction Writing.
His latest novel is called House of Dreams - a Tudor ghost story (magical realism again). Mark’s hobbies include Lego - he is the official Lego reviewer for Sorted Men’s Magazine. He also runs a new YouTube Channel called ‘The Christian Storyteller’.
He currently lives in Kent with his wife Cherith (from Northern Ireland) and their two Labradors - Bella and Phoebe. I am very much looking forward to reading the 2021 entries, and also working with the wonderful team at the Page Turner Awards.
Mark's favourite quote is from W.H. Auden:
There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.
