The Romance Novelists’ Association has announced its shortlist for their annual RoNA awards. The Romance authors congratulate Fiona Harper for finalling in the RoNA Rose Award (for Short/Series/Category Romance) with her title ALWAYS THE BEST MAN, a 2012 RIVA release.
And we also give a big high five to Pam Hartshorne, aka Jessica Hart, for her final in the Historical Romance category with her book TIME’S ECHO. Congrats girls!
The Australian Romance Readers Association also have announced their finalists for the annual ARRA awards. Double congrats to Barbara Hannay who shortlisted with THE CATTLEMAN’S SPECIAL DELIVERY in the Short Category Romance category and also in the Favourite Contemporary Romance category with her single title, ZOE’S MUSTER. And we can’t forget Nicola Marsh, whose indie title CRAZY LOVE got a thumbs up in the Favourite Meeting Between A Hero and Heroine category!
Way to go everyone! Fingers crossed!
One of our favourite posts to share with readers are our good news posts!
Huge congratulations to the Romantic Times nominees for Best Harlequin Romance of 2012!
Fiona Harper: SNOWBOUND IN THE EARL’S CASTLE
Shirley Jump: RETURN OF THE LAST MCKENNA
Barbara Wallace: DARING TO DATE THE BOSS
And a MASSIVE celebration for Shoma Narayanan’s MONSOON WEDDING FEVER, nominated for Best First Series Romance!
We also have one final hat-tip this month: congrats to Fiona Harper and her book DANCING WITH DANGER (RIVA, aka The Ballerina Bride in North America)! It’s won the Best Short Romance award at the FESTIVAL OF ROMANCE held in the UK this past weekend! Way to go, Fiona!
This time of year is awards season, and Harlequin Romance has made a great showing in several contests.
Congratulations to Barbara Wallace, who won the NECRWA Beanpot Award for THE HEART OF A HERO!
Three cheers for Fiona Harper, who is a double finalist in the Golden Quill Awards with MILLIONAIRE’S BABY BOMBSHELL and SWEPT OFF HER STILETTOS!
Donna Alward’s HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART won the Short Contemporary Category of the Colorado Award of Excellence. Her book, A FAMILY FOR THE RUGGED RANCHER, was also a finalist.
Romance Writers of Australia announced the finalists for the R*BY Award (Romantic Book of the Year) and in the Short Sweet category, Romance author Marion Lennox finalled with ABBY AND THE BACHELOR COP and Barbara Hannay finalled with MOLLY COOPER’S DREAM DATE. Way to go! The winners will be announced at the RWAus conference later this summer.
The National Reader’s Choice Award finalists were announced, and HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART (Donna Alward) is shortlisted for Contemporary Series. The awards are handed out at RWA Nationals in Anaheim this July.
And the Booksellers’ Best Award nominees are listed and congrats to Jessica Hart for THE SECRET PRINCESS and Donna Alward for HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART – both books got the nod in the Traditional category. This award is also handed out at RWA Nationals.
So what do you think? Should we pop the champagne or what?
Valentine’s Day is always special for romance authors, but we know, that it’s not all about expensive out of season roses, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates or champagne.
“I love you” written on lipstick on the bathroom mirror, drawn in the steamed up windows of a bus, a heart made out of stones left in the front yard will lift the heart, raise a smile. And it doesn’t just have to be on one day of the year.
Valentine’s is just a reminder to say the words, think about how much you love someone, take the time to share them with someone who means the world to you.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
And if you want to know how romance authors celebrate the day, come back tomorrow. We’re sharing our day with you by letting you know how we celebrated Valentine’s Day and one lucky reader will get a heck of a prize! All you have to do to enter the contest is comment on those posts. After the last story is posted, we’ll be picking ONE winner to receive a prize from each of the authors. One winner. Lots of loot.
Two Harlequin Romance authors already have a very special Valentine’s Day gift from the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
Jessica Hart and Liz Fielding have both been shortlisted for the RoNA Rose Award 2012 – their award for the very best books in the short romance category of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award.
Here’s Jessica, talking about her inspiration for Ordinary Girl in a Tiara…
I have a confession to make. I’ve never been much of a one for stories about princes or sheiks or brooding Mediterranean counts. I like romances that are rooted in reality, and characters I can identify with. So when I decided to have a go at a royal romance (“try something a bit different”), I decided I’d have to do a bit of research. Well, what a lovely time I had! I got to flick through endless celebrity mags for background material – OMG, the frocks! – and could have picked minor European royalty as my specialist subject at the end of it. Who knew there were so many of them??
Still, it all seemed a bit glossy and remote, and I was having a hard time getting really inspired until the day I spent an entire afternoon watching royal weddings on YouTube (a dirty job, but someone has to do it). And that’s where I came across the 2004 wedding of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Mary Donaldson, which seemed to have exactly the right blend of fairy tale and reality that I wanted for Caro and Philippe’s story. On top of which they both looked so happy and so darned nice, how could I help but be inspired? I challenge you to watch their wedding waltz without heaving a great big ‘Aaaaahhhhhh …’ at the end of it. Now, that’s romance.
Of course, this was before last year’s royal wedding here in the UK, which also looked a genuinely happy occasion (in spite of the fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton selfishly chose not to get married in June when Ordinary Girl in a Tiara was out).
Now Caro’s story doesn’t seem quite such a fantasy as it did when I first started writing. Because Mary and Kate both show that ordinary girls really can get to wear tiaras sometimes.
And Liz on her love affair with Italy…
I wanted to write a book set in Italy since I first visited several years ago. The warmth of the people, the scenery, the stones steeped in history, its impossible not to get carried away with the romance of it and it’s hardly surprising that one fan described FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN as “possibly Liz Fielding’s most sensuous romance”.
This story crosses the generations to link a wartime love affair with a present day romance and there was a moment when I was writing the scene where Sarah and Matteo meet in the exact spot where her great-grandfather said goodbye to the woman who had saved his life, who he loved, when time seemed to slip, the two kisses became one and I actually shivered. That’s never happened to me before!’
As the warmth, the pleasures of Italy soaked into the pages, it became a third character in the book.
I love it so much that I’ve just booked a trip to the Italian lake to celebrate a major wedding anniversary this year. Watch out for another Italian hero very soon!
The awards will be announced on 5 March and Jessica and Liz will meet up with their editors for lunch, then photographs and then the awards ceremony in London.
