2018 FLORIDA BOOK FESTIVAL NAMES WINNERS
ORLANDO_ Florida Book Festival honors the best books of the winter and announces winners for 2018.
The Promise of Cedar Key (Headline Books), by Rick Robinson, wins Best Fiction. Death at Windover (Headline Books), by Jay Heavner, wins Honorable Mention for Best Fiction. Both novels are set in Florida and have won numerous awards.
Grand Prize winner is the story of two famous actors who shared a deep friendship for more than 50 years. Author Scott Eyman’s Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart (Simon & Schuster) tells of the bond between Henry Fonda and James Stewart, two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. They got along since their first meeting as stage actors and then roommates in New York, sharing a love of practical jokes and model airplanes.
Between them, they made such memorable films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, The Philadelphia Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window.
They were an odd match: a liberal Democrat and conservative Republican; a ladies man and someone married to the same woman for 45 years. This is not a typical Hollywood story, but a fascinating portrait of a special friendship between two men told in a very moving way.
Eyman and other winners in the competition will be honored at a private dinner in Orlando in February.