WHISKEY COVE Nominated for 2013 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award

Northwest native Denise Frisino's debut novel, "Whiskey Cove," a tale of Prohibition-Era fiction based in fact, has been nominated for the 2013 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.

"It's a real honor to be nominated, so I'm very proud," says Frisino, who based her Prohibition-Era fiction, which is also available as an ebook, on firsthand interviews with former bootleggers in the Pacific Northwest.

"Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment took its toll all over America, and spilled across our borders north and south," she says. "When you know an era and have elders who can fill in the gaps, it helps flush out the story."

Accidentally trapped on a rumrunner's boat during those tumultuous "dry" years between 1920 and 1933, a young woman, Alexandria, falls in love. She thrills to the excitement of the swift crafts illegally plying the waters from Canada to Washington State - and she's enthralled by the bootlegging captain, Jake McKenzie.

But she also catches the eye of Antonio, who is part of La Cosa Nostra, a particularly severe crime organization which had control over booze in Chicago. Antonio is trying to make headway in overtaking in the Northwest region.

Now, in the 1970s, Alex is still haunted by Antonio's death. She reveals her memories of those raucous times, including the unsolved murder, to the college student she has hired as summer help. And that student begins to wonder what the feisty elderly woman is really up to.

" 'Whiskey Cove' is a very colorful portrayal of the people, gangsters, boats, subcultures, attitudes, excitement, dangers and bigger than life people of the times," writes Amazon reviewer Denny Dollar Boss, who says the Prohibition-Era fiction matches nicely with the Ken Burns documentary about the same topic.

"I am lonely now that I just finished reading Denise Frisino's thrilling 'Whiskey Cove,' " writes Amazon reviewer Mud McHugh. "I will miss Frisino's endearing tale of the rumrunner life in the rugged beauty of the Pacific Northwest's inland coastal waters lying between the Canadian border and the tip of Washington state."

"A friend handed this to me on a beach vacation (when she was done with it, of course!). I wasn't sure what to expect, but was very pleasantly surprised," writes Amazon reviewer Lisa C, who rated the book five stars. "The author has done a nice job of keeping the reader engaged with enough romance, intrigue and devilish details throughout."

Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association is a non-profit association of independent bookstores from five Northwest states

Denise Frisino is an award-winning writer, actress and arts teacher. She has spent her summers playing and working in the numerous islands that define the Pacific Northwest, where her family spans four generations. Frisino and her husband spend time at Hood Canal and reside in Seattle. Her novel, "Whiskey Cove," is a nominee for the 2013 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.