Wildest dreams - RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice

Once a book is published - when it grows up and leaves home, it takes on a new life. It's making its own way now, in the world of readers and reviewers. All the writer can do is watch from the side lines. It is wonderful to hear that a reader enjoyed your book. That was what made you write it in the first place. Not so good if they didn't enjoy it, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. Good reviews make you happy, bad ones make you wince, sometimes particularly perceptive ones make you thoughtful. Getting awards, or being nominated for them, is the icing on the cake.

The Joan Hessayon trophy

I've been incredibly lucky with my debut novel, Never Coming Home. It's been nominated for a number of accolades and won a few. I'm immensely grateful to various reviewers and judges who liked it enough to put it forward. I can honestly say that every one of them has been a complete surprise.

And late on Wednesday night I had another surprise. The nominees and winners of the RT Book Reviews Magazine Reviewers Choice awards were announced. I clicked on a link to see if there was anyone there that I knew. There was - me. Along with Sharon Sala, Diana Layne, Joya Fields, Robin Covington and Teresa Hill I was a nominee in the Indie Press/Self Published Contemporary Romance category. I hadn't won, that honour went to Sharon Sala, but just to be nominated was a terrific thrill. Wildest dreams territory. In fact, so wild I e-mailed my publisher early next morning to check that I wasn't imagining things. I'm a writer - we do have vivid imaginations.

The reply came back promptly - yes it is you.

I'm going to be attending the Booklovers Convention organised by RT Magazine in Kansas City this year. To be going as one of their award nominees is a fabulous feeling.

And in the diary for today ...

Things are getting hectic around here.

For a crowded couple of weeks my diary is overflowing:

On Tuesday 15 May Never Coming Home is released in bookshops in Australia and New Zealand. To celebrate, I will be blogging with the Australian Romance Readers Association.

Wednesday 16 May I will be the spotlight debut author on the RT Book Reviews website. Morgan, my interviewer, came up with some great questions, delving into some of the most emotional parts of the book.

Thursday 17 May is the night of the RNA Summer Party and the Awards Ceremony for both the Joan Hessayon Award for new writer of 2011/12 and also the announcement of the Romantic Novel of the Year. It will be a great night, if a nail biting one, for Choc-Lit. Linda and I will be lining up for the Joan Hessayon, and Christina and Jane for the Romance of the Year. We are made of strong stuff, and will party on, regardless.

The full list of nominees for the Joan Hessayon includes some fabulous and varied debut books.

Scarlet Wilson    It Started With A Pregnancy                 

Tanith Davenport  The Hand He Dealt                            

Liz Fenwick  The Cornish House                               

Evonne Wareham   Never Coming Home                            

Lynda Dunwell   Marrying The Admiral’s Daughter         

Rhoda Baxter  Patently In Love                                  

Linda Mitchelmore  To Turn Full Circle                               

Gina Rossi  The Wild Heart             

And the week after? That's the week of Crimefest in Bristol, where I have a twenty minute spotlight to talk about mixing crime with romance. And guess what? I'm on stage immediately after Meg Gardiner.  Scary, or what? Will I hear a word she says?                     

Update for readers of RT Book Reviews

Just a quick message for readers in the US and Australia - if you have a copy of the June issue of RT Book Reviews you'll find an update on what contestants from all five American Title contests are doing now. Worth a read for some great stories. And I'm there - right at the end of the article.

Seeing Stars

Confession time.
I'm currently in grave danger of succumbing to two of the seven deadly sins. That would be pride, and envy. And the source of this temptation? A perfectly innocent magazine - RT Book Reviews.

Making the final of the American Title contest, which was run by RT and Dorchester Publishing, was a big turning point in my career as an author. Never Coming Home was actually written while I was taking part in the contest with another book, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. And that book will be published by Choc-lit in 2013. So the magazine has a rather special place in my heart.

This Saturday the May 2012 edition of RT Book Reviews dropped through my letter box. It takes a while to get to me, as it has to swim the Atlantic first, but it was worth waiting for. Never Coming Home was reviewed in the  romantic suspense category, and was awarded 4.5 stars with the comment that it was a 'nerve-wracking thrill ride filled with deception, base emotion and death and a tempestuous love story.'

What can I say, except thank you? The book has come full circle. When I sent the manuscript off to enter American Title I never dared think that I would one day get to see the published book reviewed in the magazine. It was a dream.

But this year, dreams are coming true.

So - that's pride. But what about envy? Well - today is the first day of the RT Book Lovers Convention, which is taking place in Chicago. Friends Trish Milburn and Barbara Longley from American Title will be there, together with Lynne Connolly from the Romantic Novelists' Association. They will be signing books at the huge book fair that is part of the event, meeting readers, attending balls and cocktail parties, mixers and brunches and generally having one heck of a good time. And I am sooo envious. I want to be there too.
Maybe next year? In Kansas City?