Worth of a Girl was awarded the first-place award for BEST ADULT BOOK COVER at the recent Between the Pages Writers Conference in Springfield, Missouri, in June 2026.
Competition was tough. The contest chair said, “It was the first time ever that all judges agreed on a first, second, and third place award at first glance. One judge noted that it evoked emotions that she didn’t know she had.” The book has been called compelling, thought-provoking, unsettling, and a page-turner that’s hard to put down.
GOLD AWARD & 5-STAR REVIEWS
Literary Titan has given Worth of a Girl a five-star rating and a gold award, plus a wonderful review. An excerpt: “The story becomes a survival narrative about deception, cruelty, rescue, and the long road back to dignity. It’s fiction, but the book makes clear that it is rooted in real patterns of child trafficking, and that real-world grounding gives the novel its weight. I enjoyed how plainly C.A. Simonson tells this story. The writing is direct, accessible, and emotionally clear. There is no fancy distance between the reader and the pain here. We experience so much through Bibi’s innocence, and that choice gives the early chapters a hard kind of irony because I understood the danger long before she did. That made the book unsettling in an effective way. I also thought Simonson handled contrast well. The false promises of dresses, schooling, and food sit right beside the reality of exploitation, and that gap becomes the whole engine of the novel. Read the full review on Literary Titan: https://wp.me/p3cyvH-NSZÂ
“UNSETTLING” – “CONFLICTED” – “EMOTIONAL”
Another reviewer said, “I came across Worth of a Girl while researching narratives that successfully bridge the gap between “vulnerable hope” and the profound, rhythmic reality of a fight for justice. Your framework, specifically Bibi’s struggle within the trade school front and Dr. Warden’s ignited righteous indignation, is a sophisticated and highly marketable “humanitarian suspense.”
“The moment the truth refuses to stay quiet” from your book description stayed with me long after I finished reading it,” said another reader. “In Worth of a Girl, that line captures the quiet pressure that builds around Bibi’s world, especially as her simple hope for a school uniform slowly turns into a fight for survival. The way truth surfaces not through spectacle but through small warnings, injured friends, missing children, and uneasy silence makes the story feel grounded and deeply unsettling. The central conflict between innocence and exploitation is what pulled me in, and the way Dr. Steve Warden’s growing suspicion intensifies that tension is handled with restraint and care rather than melodrama.”
Get Worth of a Girl in print or digital on Amazon.com by clicking the link above. Read the first six chapters for free by clicking on “READ SAMPLE.”
The Write-Design 