Goldie earns gold medal in national awards
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN, May 12, 2023 - On Thursday, the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY Awards) announced that Taylor Thomas Smythe’s latest book, Goldie: A Magic City Wonders Novel, was named winner of the gold medal in the Southeast - Best Regional Fiction category.
Started in 1997, the IPPY Awards exist to “honor the year's best independently published titles from around the world. The awards are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published books released each year.” The awards are open to authors and publishers worldwide.
Goldie was released in November 2022. The inaugural installment in the Magic City Wonders series is set in 1980s Miami and follows the story of a young diner waitress named Donna Locke, whose life is turned upside-down when she develops an unusual and mysterious power to turn objects to gold. The second book in the young adult science-fiction series, The Dream Team, will open for preorders in late summer 2023.
This latest honor marks the fourth formal awards recognition for Smythe’s written work. This March, Goldie was announced as the recipient of a silver medal in the Florida Book Awards. In 2021, the first installment in his seven-book Kingdom of Florida middle-grade fantasy series—The Golden Alligator—was chosen as the winner of a silver medal in the Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Awards and as a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards. The Kingdom of Florida series, which draws inspiration from such classics as The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, follows the journey of a group of South Florida children as they discover a magical parallel world ruled by an evil prince.
To order Goldie: A Magic City Wonders Novel, visit www.magiccitywonders.com. More information on Smythe’s award-winning Kingdom of Florida series can be found at www.kingdomofflorida.com.
