Congratulations to the following UNP authors who were finalists for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards! More than 2,500 entries spread across 55 genres were submitted from University and independent publishers for consideration. The Finalists were determined by Foreword’s editorial team. Winners are now being decided by teams of librarian and bookseller judges from across the country.

Winners in each genre, along with Editor’s Choice Prize winners and Foreword’s Indie Publisher of the Year, will be announced in June 2024.

Adult Nonfiction

Biography:

Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son by Paul Carter. Modern biographies of Richard Nixon have been consumed with Watergate. All have missed arguably the most important perspective on Nixon as California’s native son, the only U.S. president born and raised in California. In addition, Nixon was also a son, brother, friend, husband, father, uncle, and grandfather. By shifting the focus from Watergate and Washington to Nixon’s deep, defining roots in California, Paul Carter boldly challenges common conceptions of the thirty-seventh president of the United States.

Adult Fiction

Historical Fiction:

The Forsaken and the Dead: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book Three by Sidney Thompson. Set in the 1890s, past his prime, Reeves proceeds through the valleys and shadows of Indian and Oklahoma Territories. Despite his caution and innovations as a lawman and detective, his nation no longer seems a product of his own making—so much like his children and his marriage to Jennie. While a modern world implodes around him and demons from his past continue to haunt his present, he remains resolute in his faith that he can be a steady rider on a pale horse.

Thriller and Suspense:

Godfall by Van Jensen. When a massive asteroid hurtles toward Earth, humanity braces for annihilation—but the end doesn’t come. In fact, it isn’t an asteroid but a three-mile-tall alien that drops down, seemingly dead, outside Little Springs, Nebraska. Dubbed “the giant,” its arrival transforms the red-state farm town into a top-secret government research site and major metropolitan area, flooded with soldiers, scientists, bureaucrats, spies, criminals, conspiracy theorists—and a murderer.

Congratulations to all the finalists!