The King of War by Peter Gibbons has taken the top prize of £20,000 in this year’s Kindle Storyteller Award.
The winning novel is the fourth book in the author’s Viking Blood and Blade Saga series which has been very popular. Peter Gibbons is set to start a new historical series this month with the publication of Warrior and Protector, the first book in the Saxon Warrior series.
There were five books on the Kindle Storyteller Award 2022 shortlist:
- City of Scars — DCI Logan Crime Thrillers, Book 14, by J D Kirk
- King of War — Book Four in the Viking Blood and Blade Saga, by Peter Gibbons
- It Started With A Kiss — romance set in Cornwall, by Clare Lydon
- Midsummer House — Applemore, Book 3, romance set in the Scottish Highlands, by Rachael Lucas
- The Woman in Room 19 — a psychological thriller, by Ann Girdharry
It was the second consecutive year that J D Kirk had a book on the shortlist, the first time an author had been on two Storyteller shortlists.
The award for KDP self-published writers was started in 2017 and this was the sixth year of the contest. Readers play a part in helping to draw up the shortlist as customer feedback, number of reads through Kindle Unlimited and sales are some of the criteria taken into consideration before the titles are presented to a panel of judges.
Adam Kay, author of the best-selling medical memoir This is Going to Hurt, was one of the judges on this year’s panel, with last year’s winner Rachel McLean; best-selling author Mel Sherratt; Alliance of Independent Authors member manager Melissa Addey; Darren Hardy, author and editorial programmes manager at Amazon UK; and Jen Barrett, of Amazon Books editorial.
I should perhaps point out that Peter Gibbons’ book was, in fact, my tip to win the award when the shortlist was published in September, purely on the grounds that I read the sample, which gripped me to the extent that I am now reading through the rest of the series.