The Circe Award
Named for the sorceress whose power lay not in force but in the ability to change how others see reality itself. Circe did not need weapons. She needed only the ability to make you question what was real. The psychological thriller does exactly the same thing.
The Circe Award is presented annually to the best psychological thriller of the year.
Presented at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Scoring criteria
· Narrative tension: Does it compel you to keep reading?
· Originality: Does it do something the genre hasn’t seen before?
· Character: Do you believe in the people on the page?
· Reader impact: Will you think about this book a month from now?
Eligibility
Publication
Must be published in English between
October 1, 2025 and October 1, 2026.
Submission
Publisher submitted only.
Authors may not submit their own work for this award.
Publisher
Open to Big Five, independent, and small press publishers. No self-published titles in this category
How it works
Publishers submit directly through the Submit & Nominate page between October 1 and December 31, 2026. Submission fee applies at checkout.
Our team checks all submissions against eligibility rules. Hard rules, no exceptions. Books that fail eligibility are removed, and fees are refunded.
Thriller Book Retreat members vote on all eligible titles. The 10 titles with the most votes become the longlist. Publishers of longlisted titles are formally notified by Imagine Press.
Each juror reads the longlist of 10 and scores against four criteria. The panel meets once virtually. Results sealed immediately. Individual scores are never published.
The Circe Award is presented live at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Key dates
Submissions open October 1, 2026
Submissions close December 31, 2026
Longlist announced February 15, 2027
Shortlist announced
May 1, 2027
Gala ceremony October 22, 2027
A note for Greek publishers
The Homer Awards welcome submissions from Greek publishing houses. If your catalog includes English-language titles — or Greek works translated into English — published between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, we encourage you to submit.
For questions in Greek, write to us at info@homerawards.com, and we will respond accordingly.
About Circe
Circe was a sorceress, daughter of Helios, god of the sun, and Perse, an oceanid. She lived alone on the island of Aeaea, and when Odysseus’s men landed there, she transformed them into pigs. Not through force. Through a potion slipped into their wine. They did not see it coming. They did not know anything had changed until it already had.
When Odysseus came to find them, she tried the same trick on him. It did not work. He was protected — but he still had to negotiate with her, live with her, trust her enough to take her directions home. Even knowing what she was capable of.
That is the psychological thriller. The reader knows something is wrong. They can feel it. But they cannot see it clearly enough to name it — and they cannot stop reading until they do. The book gets inside your head and rearranges things quietly, and you do not notice until you reach the last page and realize you never saw it coming.
The artwork
Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678)
Ulysses Threatening Circe · c.1630–1635
Oil on canvas · Kunstmuseum Basel · Public domain
Odysseus confronts Circe after she has failed to transform him. The power has shifted — but only just. She is still dangerous. The tension in the painting is exactly the tension of the best psychological thriller: you are never entirely sure who has the upper hand.
The Homer Awards use public-domain classical paintings from the Greek tradition to represent each award.