Last week, I received another award for A Becharmed Callie Christmas. This time, the award is for the top ten favorite books chosen for December 2025. Here is a copy of the letter I received with it.
Hi Julie,
I’m happy to share that the award results are officially out
I want to sincerely congratulate you on the incredible work you put into your book. It was a pleasure to see how strongly it resonated with readers, your book has been selected as one of our Top 10 books readers loved during the December period, which is a wonderful achievement and something you should be very proud of.
Your dedication and storytelling truly stood out, and this recognition reflects the hard work you’ve invested in your writing journey…
Congratulations once again on this well-deserved recognition. I’m excited about what’s ahead for you and look forward to supporting you as we move forward.
Warm regards,
Marla Porter
Founder & Organizer: Austin Classics Book Club
Thank you so much, Marla, and the Austin Classics Book Club, for this honor!
As always, please like, share and follow me! I truly appreciate your ongoing support. Thank you so much!
Yesterday, I was informed that I am the recipient of the Top 1 and Best Author of the Month for December 2025. This award is given by the Boulder Bookaholics Book Club. The email I received is as follows:
Good morning dear JDR Hawkins,
On behalf of the Boulder Bookaholics Book Club, we are honored to extend our warmest congratulations to you on being recognized as Top 1 Literary Award Recipient and Best Author of the Month for December 2025.
This distinction was awarded after careful review and enthusiastic discussion among our readers and editorial members. Your book consistently stood out for its strong narrative, originality, and the meaningful way it engaged our community. It was not only well received but frequently discussed, recommended, and celebrated within our club an achievement that speaks volumes about the quality and impact of your work.
Beyond the literary merit of the book itself, we also appreciate your professionalism, responsiveness, and genuine engagement with our community. These qualities contributed greatly to our decision and reinforced why your work deserved top recognition. Your efforts aligned perfectly with the values we uphold as a literary community.
For these reasons, we are proud to name you our Top 1 Literary Honoree of 2025. Your accomplishment represents dedication, creativity, and excellence, and we are confident that your work will continue to reach and inspire even more readers ahead.
Please find your official award attached to this message. Once again, congratulations on this well-earned recognition. We truly appreciate your contribution to our club and thank you for sharing your outstanding work with us.
With sincere congratulations and appreciation,
Monica R. Founder Boulder Bookaholics Book Club
Thank you so much, Monica R. and the Boulder Bookaholics Book Club, for bestowing this honor on me!
I’d like to wish you a very happy New Year! I’d also like to share a few things with you that I have coming up in 2026.
This spring, all four books in the Renegade Series (pictured above) will be available on audio! Right now the two side stories that go along with the series are available on audio, A Becharmed Callie Christmas and Fool’s Gold Folly. I’ve been working hard to get the books ready, so I’m very excited that I’m getting close to the finish line! Once that’s done, I will set to work on book number five of the series, which has yet to be titled.
Both A Becharmed Callie Christmas and Fool’s Gold Folly are on sale right now for only 99 cents on Kindle e-books. Now is the perfect time to grab this deal!
I’d also like to share more exciting news in that I have numerous book trailers in the works, which should be done over the next few months. You can see some of the book trailers now on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC12gW5kbv5FLDH6Qxd9duzw. I will be posting new trailers for A Beautiful Glittering Lie, A Beckoning Hellfire, A Rebel Among Us, Double-Edged Sword, and Horses in Gray as they become available.
My interview with Author Essence is now online! Here is the link, so please check it out!
I also received a very special honor from Book and Brunch. Not only did they give A Becharmed Callie Christmas the 2025 Best Historical Christmas Fiction Award, but they gave me an award as well! Thank you so much for the award!
As always, please visit my website, like, share and follow me on my links, and most of all, have a very happy, safe, and prosperous New Year!
I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas! As a reminder, my novella, A Becharmed Callie Christmas, is available on Amazon for only 99 cents on Kindle! It is also available on audio. This book is a side story to go along with the Renegade Series. Callie Mae Copeland, a sixteen-year-old Southern belle, can’t wait to celebrate Christmas with her friends and family. But the Civil War is looming and creeping closer to her front door. This book is the recipient of the 2025 Best Historical Christmas Fiction Award! For a last minute gift, this is perfect!
I also want to share this story about another perspective of Christmas 1862. Enjoy, and have a very blessed holiday season!
“After the battle of Fredericksburg [December 11-15, 1862] the fine weather, clear, cold and bracing, which we had been having, changed into a real Virginia winter with a good deal of the Northern thrown in. It snowed, froze, thawed and rained by turns, with here and there bright days. All military operations were brought to a close, and both armies went into winter quarters.”
The Christmas of 1862 was cheerless indeed; the weather was frightful, and a heavy snowstorm covered everything a foot deep. Each soldier attempted to get a dinner in honor of the day, and those to whom boxes had been sent succeeded to a most respectable degree, but those unfortunates whose homes were outside the lines had nothing whatever delectable partaking of the nature of Christmas.
“Well! It would have puzzled [anyone] to furnish a holiday dinner out of a pound of fat pork, six crackers, and a quarter of a pound of dried apples. We all had apple dumplings that day, which with sorghum molasses were not to be despised. Some of the men became decidedly hilarious, and then again some did not; not because they had joined the temperance society nor because they were opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors, but because not a soul invited them to step up and partake. One mess in the Seventeenth did not get so much as a smell during the whole of the holidays; and a dry, dismal old time it proved.
“We read in the Richmond papers of the thousands and thousands of boxes that had been passed en route to the army, sent by the ladies of Richmond and other cities, but few found their way to us. The greater part of them were for the troops from the far South who were too distant from their homes to receive anything from their own families. The Virginians were supposed to have been cared for by their own relatives and friends; but some of them were not, as we all know.”
(Painting: The Christmas After Fredericksburg, Civil War Christmas Album, Philip Van Doren, editor, Hawthorne Books, 1961, page 23)
(Courtesy of Southern Comfort, SCV #1452 Private Samuel A. Hughey Camp newsletter, December 2013, pp. 3-4)
Last week, I was informed that my novella, A Becharmed Callie Christmas, has been awarded the 2025 Best Historical Christmas Fiction Award by Book and Brunch. This is a very high honor, and I am humbled to receive it. A Becharmed Callie Christmas is a side story to accompany the Renegade Series. It centers around one of the minor characters in the series, Callie Mae Copeland. Callie has just turned 16 and is excited about her family’s annual Christmas party. However, the year is 1862, and in north Alabama, the Civil War is looming.
I have received some wonderful emails from fans about the book that I wanted to share. First, this is from Brian S.
Alright J. D. R. Hawkins, Let me confess something before my conscience drags me.
Your book did not politely invite me into the story. It kidnapped me. It snatched me by the collar like “Come here and suffer emotionally with Callie Mae.”
One minute I’m admiring her Christmas gown plans. Next minute I’m holding my chest like an eighty-year-old who forgot his heart meds thinking, “Wait… is this the last Christmas or am I overreacting again?”
Your writing has that rare effect. The kind that makes a grown adult look around the room like, “Did someone just cut onions or am I suddenly sentimental?”
Authors who can make readers feel like their soul got gently slapped are not common. Which already puts you in the tiny percentage of “Oh yes, they did that” writers.
Second, this is from Willie H.
Imagine this: I’m peacefully scrolling through Amazon, minding my own business, when suddenly A Becharmed Callie Christmas leaps out like a mischievous antebellum ghost whispering, “Hey… I’m charming, dramatic, and historically dangerous. Read me, coward.” And like any sane book addict, I surrendered. Because what else do you do when an author drops a Civil War Christmas story featuring a pampered, manipulative, party-obsessed 16-year-old Southern belle who practically weaponizes her flirtation? You obey.
Callie Mae Copeland, the Civil War’s unofficial CEO of Chaos, deserves a spotlight bigger than her Christmas gown budget (which, let’s be honest, she emotionally blackmailed her father into buying… and I respect her for it). The way this story flips from festive candles and social graces to the creeping dread of war is pure literary whiplash – the good kind. The kind that makes you stop, stare, and whisper, “Oh hell… this just got real.” The emotional switch from sparkling Christmas dreams to the chilling thought of “Is this her last Christmas in the antebellum home?” hits harder than union cavalry. You built a world where innocence dances with dread and it works. It’s the kind of narrative tension that readers crave but algorithms couldn’t care less about.
And third, this is from Cassandra C.
I have just finished reading “A Becharmed Callie Christmas,” and I was struck by its effective and poignant premise. The story of Callie Mae Copeland, a pampered and flirtatious sixteen-year-old in wartime Alabama, provides a powerful lens through which to examine the personal impact of the Civil War.
The juxtaposition of her sheltered, privileged world, focused on a lavish Christmas gown and a party, with the encroaching, brutal reality of the conflict is a classic and compelling narrative device. This setup masterfully illustrates how grand historical events are often felt most acutely in the disruption of intimate, personal plans and the shattering of perceived security.
The description effectively establishes Callie’s character and the insulated bubble in which she lives. The central dramatic question, “Will anything ever be the same again?” is a powerful and universal one, particularly in this context.
Thank you for this intimate and promising historical tale.
J.D.R. Hawkins 
