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American Book Fest has announced the winners and finalists of the 22nd Annual Best Book Awards (BBA), one of the world’s largest international book award programs for mainstream, indie and self-published titles. More than 400 winners and finalists were announced in over 100 categories. Awards were presented for titles published in 2020-2025.
Cindy Roe Littlejohn’s “Palmetto Pioneers: From Harmony to Hostility” was one of five finalists in the category General Nonfiction.
Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest, said this year’s contest yielded thousands of entries from authors and publishers around the world, which were then narrowed down to the final results. These can be viewed at AmericanBookFest.com.
“From Harmony to Hostility” is the sequel to Littlejohn’s first Palmetto Pioneers book, “The Emigrants.” It is the real-life story of Mary Walker Andrews set in antebellum Florida. The continuing saga follows Mary's life from 1845 to two years into the Civil War (1862.) Mary, who married a man from Washington, D.C., has a front-row seat to Florida’s political atmosphere as it secedes from the nation.
Employing research from real-life journals, diaries and letters, Littlejohn created an immersive window into this woman’s remarkable story, using a unique mix of carefully authenticated details and meticulously crafted narrative nonfiction. It reveals unsung moments from Florida’s rich and complex history.
Palmetto Pioneers is reminiscent of A Land Remembered, but the Palmetto Pioneers Florida series begins thirty years earlier in 1829. This is the second book in the series of three. The third was released earlier this month.
The book is for sale throughout the area from Monticello to Thomasville and Tallahassee – The Monticello Chamber of Commerce and Vintage Treasures in Monticello; The Bookshelf in Thomasville; and Hearth and Soul, Midtown Books, and My Favorite Books in Tallahassee; as well as The Florida History Shop in the Florida Capitol and the Old Historic Capitol. It is also available in Crawfordville at the Wakulla Old Jail Museum store, Book Mart in Perry, and at the Gadsden Art Gallery gift shop in Quincy. The book is also available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, KOBO, and other online stores.
Cindy Roe Littlejohn is a married mother of three and a grandmother of seven. She is an author, blogger, a tree farmer, and a retired agricultural and environmental lobbyist. Littlejohn is from Jefferson County, Fla., and is the eighth generation of her family to have lived there.