A Realm Awards Finalist? Me?!?

I can barely believe I get to say this:  my book A Noble Companion is a finalist for this year's Realm Awards!!!  

::cue all the squees::

This little Ugly Duckling retelling was such a challenge to write.  First of all, it's the first time I have been part of a multi-author project.  Second, I really had never written fantasy before, and I struggled with that aspect of the book a lot.  Third, every book in this series focuses on a side character of the fairy tale being retold, not the usual main character, and... there aren't really any other named characters in The Ugly Duckling.  

I'm not a fantasy writer, I'm a historical fiction writer, so I did a lot of praying that God would help my imagination and writing skills grow and change to suit this new project.  And I did find ways to make it truly a fantasy book, but one resting solidly on a foundation of historical research for the setting.  But I never really expected that it could compete against more obvious fantasy books for the Realm Awards, which are for Christian fantasy and sci-fi.  The fact that it made the long list last month felt like a really amazing honor, and I really didn't even hope that it would go farther.  But it did!  It's a finalist now!  Wow.

If you want to see who all the finalists are, you can find the official list here.  If you want to know more about A Noble Companion, check out my page about it.