The Kiss of Death Chapter of RWA is happy to announce the 2025 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense Contest will open January 1, 2025, 12:01 am, MST. 

The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today’s romantic suspense. The writing contest is for published and unpublished authors of mystery, suspense, and thrillers with or without romantic subplots.

The contest provides helpful feedback by trained judges. Winning or placing in the competition adds a boost to the entrant’s writing career. There are two divisions within the contest: Published and Unpublished. Entries should be received between January 1, 2025 – March 15, 2025. Finalists for each division will be announced in May [Unpublished] and June [Published]. Winners are traditionally announced during the Awards Ceremony at the Death by Chocolate Party held annually during the RWA® National Conference in July. 

In 2021, we held a YouTube livestream of the Awards Ceremony. You can watch the recording here.

Watch the Death by Chocolate 2022 Daphne duMaurier Award for Excellence Presentation.

2023 was the 25th Anniversary of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense

Watch the 2023 Daphne duMaurier Award for Excellence Presentation here. You can download the transcript here. 

To honor this milestone, we have included the category, Novella Mystery/Suspense, to the published division. If you are considering entering the contest this year, please read through the rules and submission guidelines carefully, as there have been modifications.

Scoresheets for non-finalists will be released by June 30, 2023.

Categories

• Short Romantic Mystery/Suspense: works with a central romance that have a word count of 40k-65k.
• Historical Romantic Mystery/Suspense: works over 65,000 words with a central romance set in a time that predates the end of World War II.
• Mainstream Mystery/Suspense: works over 65,000 words where the mystery/suspense is the main plot.
• Paranormal (PTTF) Romantic Mystery/Suspense: works over 65,000 words with a central romance and in which paranormal, fantasy, time travel, and/or futuristic elements play a significant role.
• Long Romantic Mystery/Suspense: works with a central romance that have a word count of 65k and above.
• Novella Mystery/Suspense: works between 25,000 and 40,000 words where the mystery/suspense is the main plot. The novella may have other elements, such as romance, paranormal, historical, or contemporary.

Division Specific

The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense – 2024 Finalists

PUBLISHED DIVISION:

COZY MYSTERY SUSPENSE CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Murder Among The Roses — Liz Fielding

Second Place: Murder in Fourth Position  — Lori Robbins

Third Place: The Portraits of Pemberley — Elizabeth Gilliland

HISTORICAL ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Conflagration! — donalee Moulton

Second Place: Confessions to a Stranger — Danielle Grandinetti

Third Place: Glory and the Master of Shadows — Grace Calloway

LONG ROMANTIC SUSPENSE CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Above ‘N’ Beyond —Tee O’Fallon

Second Place: Cliffhaven — A. M. Grimm

Third Place: Dead Keen (Things Unseen, Book 2) — Anise Eden

MAINSTREAM CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Against All Enemies — Vannetta Chapman 

Second Place: The Buried Hours  — Rachel Grant/R. S. Grant

Third Place: These Still Black Waters —Christina McDonald

SHORT ROMANTIC SUSPENSE CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Don’t Close Your Eyes — Mary Alford

Second Place: Killer Christmas Evidence — Sami A. Abrams

Third Place: Eliminating the Witness — Jordyn Redwood

ROMANTIC SUSPENCE CATEGORY WINNERS

First Place: Now and Always — CJ Burright

Second Place: Healing Kiss — Amanda Uhl

Third Place: The Offer — DL Wood

We asked our 2023 finalists what their favorite writing craft books were, and asked our published finalists to share writing advice. You can read their answers by clicking HERE.