And the Winner Is...

You've met the Decision Committee. You've been privy to the short list of nominees. Now, it's my great honour to introduce the final winner of this year's Farthest Reach Award.

The Indie Book Collective (IBC)

Behind The Words // Marni Mann

I'll be honest. I'm not sure what drew me to try Marni Mann's new book. She and I have been connected on the web via Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and probably a few other places for some time, and I knew what she liked to read, what she liked about my writing and that she seemed very far from the subject matter of her first novel. Yeah. That's it. I think that's has to be it, the very heart of it right there: that she seemed so different from the people in such a dark world, this one that she was writing about. I suppose I had to peer inside and see if she was actually able to pull it off. They say you should write what you know. Did Marni know this world? Come on! Really know it? Or was she inhabiting a facade like an actress? I had to know. And so I crept inside her story. 

And I must continue the honesty. She pulled it off in a way that I didn't expect.