Kids & Family

‘Lost Girls’ Account of Chelsea King Case Is Finalist for S.D. Book Award

Caitlin Rother's book focusing on John Gardner and Poway High teen is among three finalists in Local Biography/History category.

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When Caitlin Rother launched Lost Girls, her account of how sex-offender John Gardner became the monster who raped and killed, she upset the families of teen victims Chelsea King and Amber Dubois. 

On Thursday, Rother’s true-crime book drew a different reaction: praise. 

Lost Girls was listed as a finalist for a San Diego Book Award.  

Rother, a former Union-Tribune reporter, said she entered an earlier book, Poisoned Love, last year. 

“It was chosen as a finalist but lost out to two other books that tied (one on local breweries and one on Chula Vista history), which made me realize that [Local Interest] wasn’t the appropriate category,” Rother said.  

She says she spoke with one of the organizers of the prestigious local award, and entered her latest book in the Local Biography/History category. 

Other finalists in that category are:

  • An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands: Letters of Carrie Prudence Winter, 1890-1893, Sandra Bonura and Deborah Day, eds. 
  • I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story by Ingrid Croce and Jimmy Rock 
Also up for a book award is celebrity chef Brian Malarkey, who operates the chain of fabric-themed restaurants including Herringbone in La Jolla and Burlap in Del Mar. 

Malarkey’s Come Early, Stay Late is in the Cookbook and Entertaining category and is joined as a finalist by: 
  • Photographs and Memories: Recipes from Croce’s Restaurant and Jazz Bar by Ingrid Croce 
  • Brew Food by Bruce Glassman 
  • Power Entertaining by Eddie Osterland 
In January, six months after it was published, Rother’s Lost Girls was chosen as the No. 4 true-crime book by TrueCrimeZine.com.

In April, Rother also was invited for the first time to take part on a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  

“They asked me to talk about Lost Girls on a panel called Violence on the Page, and our panel was one of 10 chosen by C-SPAN to televise live,” Rother says.  

Here is a link to the podcast: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PanelonV 

The 19th annual San Diego Book & Writing Awards will be announced Saturday, June 22, at the AMN Healthcare Building on High Bluff Drive in San Diego. 

Local novelist Mark A. Clements, himself a San Diego Book Award winner, is set to be emcee.

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