The CHRISTY AWARDS honor the best in Christian fiction in nine categories. The Christy Awards Advisory Board is pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 CHRISTY AWARDS.

“Never settle for less than the truth,” she told him. But when you don’t even know your real name, learning the truth about who you are can be as elusive—and as magical—as chasing fireflies on a summer night.

Charles Martin lives a stone’s throw from the St. John’s River in Jacksonville, Florida, with his wife and their three boys.

For the first time in decades, Father Tim returns to his birthplace, Holly Springs, Mississippi, in response to a mysterious, unsigned note saying simply: “Come home.” Little does he know how much these two words will change his life.

Jan Karon is author of the bestselling series of novels that feature Father Tim Kavanagh, an Episcopal priest, and the fictional village of Mitford, North Carolina.

Over the course of a Chicago summer, Violet Hayes’s world will open wide before her eyes. But in the wake of discovery, she must find a way to determine which path is the right choice for her life.

Lynn Austin is a full-time writer, author of more than a dozen novels, and a three-time Christy Award winner who lives with her husband near Chicago.

Kregel Publications

Mona VanderMolen, an antiques dealer in a small Michigan town, is trying to keep her business alive when her fifteen-year-old niece, Hallie, suddenly arrives on her doorstep. As the two women work through their problems and learn to forgive, will an unfortunate accident tear them apart once again?

Shelly Beach is a Christian communicator who speaks at women’s conferences, retreats, and seminars and writers’ conferences.Author of Precious Lord, Take My Hand, Beach is a college instructor and writing consultant in Michigan.

Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group

In search of her father, Veronique Girard needs transportation into Colorado mining country. Jack Brennan isn’t keen on driving a beautiful, young French woman to the rough-and-tumble camps, but Veronique isn’t about to take no for an answer.

Tamera Alexander is a bestselling novelist and Rita Award winner whose deeply drawn characters, thought-provoking plots, and poignant prose resonate with readers.

Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group

Riley Keep, former man of God, now haunts the streets. Forgiveness from those who used to love him seems impossible…until he hears rumors of a small town in Maine where miracles are happening.

Athol Dickson studied architecture and the arts at university, followed by a long career as an architect. Now a full-time writer, he’s the author of six novels. He and his wife live in Southern California.

Thomas Nelson

Scarlet continues Lawhead’s riveting saga that began with the novel Hood, which relocated the legend of Robin Hood to the Welsh countryside, conjuring up an ancient past, holding a mirror to contemporary realities, and shattering everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood.

Stephen R. Lawhead is an internationally acclaimed author of mythic history and imaginative fiction. Lawhead makes his home in Oxford, England, with his wife.

Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group

One forensic geologist. Two dead men. 500 witnesses. Yet no one seems to know what really happened. As the FBI digs into the case, one thing is made clear: if no one else will talk, the stones will cry out.

Sibella Giorello, a former geologist and fifteen-year features reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

NavPress

Scotty Dawn has all the freedom a fifteen-year-old girl could want. But there are costs to such a life. Scotty doesn’t know who she is, where she came from, or who to trust. The answers she finds are darker than she had expected. Will she discover who she can trust and finally make sense of her world?

Lisa Samson is the author of more than two dozen books, including the Christy Award-winning Songbird. She lives with her husband and three children in Kentucky.