Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book, amid turmoil unleashed by the federal government’s recent defunding of the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts, will hold its 34^th annual Colorado Book Awards celebration on July 26 at the Elli Caulkins Opera House Studio Loft in Denver. (Full disclosure: Colorado Humanities serves as Rocky Mountain Reader‘s fiscal sponsor, providing essential administrative assistance and 501c3 legal status.)

Celebrating Colorado Humanities’ 51^st year and its 21^st year hosting Colorado’s Center for the Book, the event will honor “Colorado’s vibrant literary community [and] also serves as a fundraiser in support of Colorado Humanities’ statewide work to connect people to the stories, ideas and conversations that shape our lives,” according to the press release.

Books published in 2024 were submitted by authors and publishers for awards consideration through January 1, and committees of volunteer selectors and judges whittled down entries to the finalists listed below. We reviewed many finalists in multiple categories over the last nine months and have highlighted those with links to the reviews. In some cases, we provided links to other books by finalists reviewed in our pages. (Quotes from publicity materials for books we didn’t review appear within quotation marks but are unattributed.)

We share Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book’s mission to raise awareness of the state’s rich and diverse literary landscape and to unite readers, writers and book lovers in a community of support. Read about this year’s Colorado Book Awards finalists here and support Colorado authors and books by reading those that pique your interest.

Anthology

Available at bookshop.org

Four Corners Voices

Chuck Greaves, Lisa C. Taylor, and Mark Stevens, editors

Four Corners Writers

An anthology of essays, poems and short stories by participants in the Four Corners Writers group

https://rockymountainreader.org/four-corners-anthology/

Available at bookshop.org

Ramas y Raíces: The Best of CALMA

Colorado Association of Latino Mentors and Authors

An anthology highlighting the creativity of Colorado Latinx writers

https://rockymountainreader.org/ramas-y-raices/

Available at bookshop.org

The Alma Journal

Prairie Sea Project

Daisy Dog Press

A collection of varied forms of writing by participants in the Alma Residency program in Joes, Colorado

https://rockymountainreader.org/alma-journal/

 Creative Nonfiction & Memoir

Available at bookshop.org

The Afterlife is Letting Go

Brandon Shimoda

City Lights Booksellers and Publishers

“Brandon Shimoda’s The Afterlife is Letting Go is best read slowly. Written as creative nonfiction, deeply researched and imaginatively composed, it offers multiple ways into understanding the experience of 120,000 Japanese Americans detained and imprisoned in camps by the U.S. government during World War II.” —RMR

https://rockymountainreader.org/afterlife/

The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos 

Mark J. Easter

Patagonia

Fort Collins ecologist Easter was a James Beard Award Finalist by  in the category “Food Issues and Advocacy,” 2025, and Gold Award winner of the Independent Book Publishers Alliance (IBPA) book awards for The Blue Plate.

Available at bookshop.org

Without Exception: Reclaiming Abortion, Personhood, and Freedom

Pam Houston

Torrey House Press

A searing collection of connected essays on the author’s personal experience of reproductive freedom during a lifetime that spanned the duration of Roe v. Wade, and a passionate argument against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe.

https://rockymountainreader.org/without-exception/

General Nonfiction

 Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons

Sarah Scoles

Bold Types Books

Winner of numerous awards, Scoles is a Colorado-based science journalist and contributing editor at Scientific American whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, Outside, the Washington Post and elsewhere.

On the Origin of Being: Understanding the Science of Evolution to Enhance Your Quality of Life

Luke Comer and Jenny Powers

River Grove Books

Powers and Comer investigate links between our genetic makeup and modern lifestyles, and the frequent misalignment of the two.

Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the ‘Criminal Alien’

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

The New Press

Hernandez argues that America’s panic surrounding so-called criminal aliens is “overblown, misguided and ignores the history of racism that made migration a criminal act in the first place.”

Guidance and Exploration

 ACT for Burn Out

Debbie Sorenson

Jessica Kingley Publishers

Explores breaking the burnout cycle and offers strategies for tackling the complex issue

Land of Ice: Jaunts into Colorado’s Glacial Landscape

Vincent Mattews III and James P. McCalpin

Colorado Geological Survey

With 600 full-color images and over 200 pages, this oversized volume teaches the geological origins of Colorado’s mountain landscape.

Too Tired to Fight: 13 Essential Conflicts Parents Must Have to Keep Their Relationship Strong

Erin and Stephen Mitchell

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

“How couples with kids can transform 13 common relationship fights into closer connection”

Historical Fiction

 All Our Yesterdays: A Novel of Lady Macbeth

Joel H. Morris

Penguin Random House

“Set ten years before the events of Shakespeare’s play, about the ambition, power and fate that define one of literature’s most notorious figures, Lady Macbeth.”

Mademoiselle Eiffel

Aimee Runyan

Harper Collins

“… tells the story of Claire Eiffel, a woman who played a significant role in maintaining her family’s legacy and their iconic contributions to the city of Paris., daughter of architect Gustave Eiffel.”

Mary’s Place

Charlotte Hinger

University of Nebraska Press

Hinger, a Kansas historian who live in Fort Collins, tells the story of a woman saving the family farm in the midst of the agricultural crisis of the 1980s.

History

Rainbow Cattle Company: Liberation, Inclusion, and the History of Gay Rodeo

Nicholas Villanueva, Jr.

University of Nebraska Press

Villanueva, a University of Colorado professor, argues that rodeo was an important factor in the LGBTQ liberation movement.

Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America

Rachel Gross

Yale University Press

Demonstrates how “outdoor culture is commercial culture, [examining] America’s journey toward outdoor expertise by tracing the development of the nascent outdoor goods industry, the influence of World War II on its growth, and the boom years of outdoor businesses.”

The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women’s Lives

Lydia Reeder

St. Martin’s Press

“How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood—and the brilliant doctor who defied them”

Mystery

 A Dream in the Dark

Robert Justice

Crooked Lane Books

Set in 1992 Denver and inspired by real wrongful conviction cases, A Dream in the Dark follows “one woman’s quest for answers as the fate of an innocent man hangs in the balance.”

Death Valley Duel

Scott Graham

Torrey House Press

The ninth novel in Graham’s National Park Mystery series, in which “an archaeologist must stop a century-old crime to save his daughter.”

Barbara Nickless

Play of Shadows

Barbara Nickless

Thomas & Mercer

The third in Nickless’ Dr. Evan Wilding series, in which “a package containing a hand-drawn maze, an ancient Cretan coin, and a cryptic greeting leads to a series of murders in Chicago, with a fearsome Greek myth as the connection.” We reviewed Nickless’ most recent novel, The Drowning Game, published in January, not part of this series. https://rockymountainreader.org/the-drowning-game/

Novel

Available at bookshop.org

Burn

Peter Heller

Alfred A. Knopf

In Peter Heller’s latest, two hunting buddies are pitted against a civilization ravaged by violence.

https://rockymountainreader.org/out-of-the-woods-into-the-fire/

Available at bookshop.org

Familiaris

David Wroblewski

Blackstone Publishing

“… prequel to Wroblewski’s bestselling first novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle [and] a retelling of Hamlet set in northern Wisconsin. Familiaris (the title comes from Canis lupis familiaris, the scientific name for the domestic dog) was published in June 2024, sixteen years after Edgar Sawtelle. Both books exhibit meticulous craftsmanship and elegant prose …” — RMR

https://rockymountainreader.org/familiar-territory-in-wroblewski-prequel-familiaris/

Available at bookshop.org

Sonata in Wax

Edward Hamlin

Green City Books

Hamlin’s debut novel tells the story of a musician/music producer whose life is changed by an intense search for the composer of a mystery sonata, “a dream of modernity, dazzling and feverish and wild as only the truest dreams are.”

https://rockymountainreader.org/sonata-in-wax/

Poetry

FishWife

Alysse Kathleen McCanna

Black Lawrence Press

McCanna is associate editor of Pilgrimage magazine and associate professor of English at Colorado Mountain College. “FishWife is a siren, a work, a witch, a spinster, and a healer, grappling with identity, wifehood, marriage, and sometimes even fish.”

In the Country of Hard Life and Rosebuds

Anna Leigh Knowles

Lost Horse Press

“Using family myth as navigation, the poems within In The Country of Hard Life and Rosebuds rotate between lyric pastorals and narrative forms.”

Tell Me Something Good

Mark Chartier

Turning Point

Chartier, a teacher at Pueblo School District 60, chronicles “the adaptations and accommodations of a special education teacher who suffers from disabilities, including Tourette’s syndrome, brain injury, and speech/visual impairments,” alongside the stories of his students’ struggles and triumphs.

Romance

Available at bookshop.org

Cole and Laila are Just Friends

Bethany Turner

Thomas Nelson

Published in 2024, the second in a trilogy of contemporary rom-coms by Turner including Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other (2023) and Wes and Addie Had Their Chance (to be released July 2025).

https://rockymountainreader.org/trio-of-romances/

Fairest of the Fayre

Sheri Cobb South

Sonatina Press

The tale of a young woman searching for a mate, who meets a young man in search of answers at the Bartholomew Fair. This is the first in South’s new Bartholomew Fayre series.

Forbidden in the Falls

J.E. Birk

Maple Mountain Press

“… a forbidden boss-employee romance. It comes with a grouchy doctor, his hapless young office manager, leaf festival shenanigans, and all the small-town quirk you’d expect from a Devon Falls book.” Second in the Devon Falls series.

 Science Fiction/Fantasy

Nether Station

Kevin J. Anderson

Blackstone Publishing

A space horror novel from New York Times bestselling, Colorado-based novelist Anderson

The Future Lies

John Be Lane

Global Arts Press

“What would you do if you found out one day that the Artificial Intelligence that ran everything was lazy, dishones, and not quite as bright as it seemed? That there might be a way to outwit the Network, in spite of its oppression …”

Available at bookshop.org

Transference

Ian Patterson

Self-Published

Book 1 of two in Patterson’s Narrator Cycle series (the second is due out this summer). “Colorado Springs author Ian Patterson presents, in his debut sci-fi novel, an intriguing story that provokes several questions and ideas. Would you take on someone’s ailments or diseases for monetary gain? …. A real page-turner. [Patterson] paints a vivid and believable world that feels as though it could happen.” — RMR 

https://rockymountainreader.org/transference/

Thriller

Available at bookshop.org

Anyone But Her

Cynthia Swanson

Columbine York

The story of Suzanne, a woman searching for clues to her past and her mother’s 1979 murder, who returns to Denver in 2004.“Suzanne begins to wonder what pieces of her past have waited here in Denver for her return. Is the son of the man who killed her mother targeting her family? Does the desire for vengeance have a half-life, or can it be passed along to one’s children, like a gene?”

https://rockymountainreader.org/anyone-but-her/

Available at bookshop.org

If You Lie

Caleb Stephens

Thrillerscape Press

Denver author Caleb Stephens’ third thriller, “[a] a journey that includes suspense, plenty of action, darkness, red herrings, a ticking clock, high stakes, an engaging and dynamic protagonist, an evil villain … and lots of plot twists. Stephens delivers them all.” — RMR

https://rockymountainreader.org/denver-authors-third-thriller-takes-readers-on-a-deadly-cruise/

Carter Wilson

The Father She Went to Find

Carter Wilson

Sourcebooks

Wilson’s 2024 offering is a psychological thriller exploring an abandoned daughter’s search for her father. We reviewed Wilson’s more recent book, Tell Me What You Did, the February 2025 Barnes & Noble National Monthly Pick.

https://rockymountainreader.org/tell-me/

Children’s Literature

Available in English or Spanish at bookshop.org

Adela’s Mariachi Band

Denise Vega, author, and Erika Rodriguez Medina, illustrator

Charlesbridge

One of two delightful picture books by Colorado authors about the tradition of mariachi and the joys it can provide children and families, reviewed together by Rocky Mountain Reader

https://rockymountainreader.org/mamiachi/

The Quest for a Tangram Dragon

Christine Liu Perkins

Bloomsbury Children’s Books

“A clever and charming introduction to the Tangram puzzle, a classic Chinese shape puzzle that’s beloved in early math curriculum.” Author Perkins is a Denver writer and researcher specializing in Chinese history and culture.

The Wire Zoo

Natasha Wing and Joanie Stone

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

“This inspirational picture book biography tells the story of how neurodivergent artist Elizabeth Berrien created three-dimensional wire sculptures and went on to become the ‘godmother’ of contemporary wire sculpture.”

Young Adult Literature

I’ll Be Waiting for You

Mariko Turk

Little, Brown and Company

“… an homage to a lost friend, a spine-tingling ghost tale, and a sweet, budding love story.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

Unmasked

Kendra Merritt

Blue Fyre Press

A fairy tale romance, part of Denver author Merritt’s Mark of the Least series

Laura Resau

Virch: The Illusion Matters

Laura Resau

Owl Hollow Press

A Young Adult Sci-fi novel set in a mind-mending future world, 2154, by prolific author/cultural anthropologist Resau. We reviewed her 2023 book with Ecuadoran activist Patricia Gualinga, Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rainforest, illustrated by Vanessa Jaramillo.

https://rockymountainreader.org/protecting-and-preserving-the-rainforest/