Moonlight in Vermont, a Novel Named Best IndieExcellence Romance

A novel by Moretown, Vt., writer John Hilferty has been awarded top prize as the best Romance novel of 2007 by the Indie Excellence Awards.

Authors of the Indie Excellence Awards, which honor the best independently published books in the U.S., were formally recognized at the Book Expo America at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. http://www.pubinsider.com/indieresults.html (http://www.pubinsider.com/freeezine.html.) An Indie Excellence award indicates that the book, though independently published, has risen to the level of mainstream acceptance.

Moonlight in Vermont, a Novel, is a first novel for Hilferty, who has had a long career in journalism, including a a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of The Mad River Valley, a photographic history, which he wrote with his wife, Ellie, a professional photographer.

Moonlight in Vermont, which is set in New England, Colorado and the Alps of Europe against a thrill-filled background of ski racing, deals with a man’s struggle to exist without the one he loves the most. A summary reads: “Like the mountain stream in winter rushing unseen beneath dark ice, the love that is forbidden will seek a coming out wherever it can, never finding lasting release in something as honest and soft as moonlight, but it will burst forth beneath the cold wind of seduction and betrayal, jealousy and rage, and finally, death itself.”

The novel has received favorable reviews from several directions, including USABookNews.com, which said, “Author John Hilferty delivers a knock out romance-suspense novel.” Book Review.com wrote: “Masterfully executed … The feel of the ski town comes right off the page and is as real as it gets in a novel… . From the very beginning, readers will be hooked and the last few chapters will not allow you to put the book down.” “A novel well worth reading,” said the Burlington Free Press. “This one is worth a read,” wrote Skiing Magazine.

Though a first-time novelist, Hilferty has had a long career in journalism, including investigations of organized crime and militant extremist groups. He shared the Pulitzer Prize as a member of a team which covered the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1980 for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He shared an Associated Press Managing Editors award in 1980 for his investigation into the murder of Philadelphia Mafia boss Angelo Bruno.

Hilferty is currently at work on a novel dealing with the New Jersey connection to the disappearance of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. Hilferty wrote about the Hoffa case while covering the North Jersey Teamsters Union, which during the 1970s was controlled by the Genovese crime family.

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