Author Robert C. Yeager’s novel The Romanov Stone received a 2013 Independent Publisher’s Silver “IPPY” Award for Suspense/Thrillers during New York’s annual BookExpo America convention last June.
Also during BookExpo, The Romanov Stone garnared an IndieReader Discovery award for general fiction. “What makes the IRDA’s so unique,” says IR President Amy Edelman, “is their extraordinary panel of judges, including top agents, traditional publishers, PR people, bloggers, and book reviewers–virtually a who’s who of some of the most important people in publishing today.”
Conducted each year to honor the best independently published books, the “IPPY” Awards recognize authors and publishers who “take chances and break new ground, and offer an alternative to the big five conglomerated media publishers,” according to Awards Director Jim Barnes.
“Their elevated level of writing, editing, design and production raises the bar and inspires us all,” Barnes added. More than 3,000 Gold, Silver and Bronze “IPPY’s” have been awarded to authors and publishers around the world since the program began in 1996. This year, 29 medals went to university presses and nine to museums.
A mix of historical fiction and contemporary suspense, The Romanov Stone tells the story of a reclusive young professor who learns from her dying mother that she is a direct descendant of Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar. The startling revelation launches Kate Gavrill on a bold search for a lost family fortune. But nothing is simple in the tragic history of the Romanov clan. Only by finding the rarest of precious gems—a fabulous, long-missing alexandrite—can Kate claim her treasure.
Yeager has written for The New York Times, Ladies Home Journal, Readers Digest, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Business Week and many others. He authored Seasons of Shame: The New Violence in Sports and Losing It: The Economic Fall of the Middle Class, both by McGraw-Hill. He is currently working on a new novel.