The RNA Romance Prize Shortlist - Michelle Styles

It is that time of the year again when the short list or finalists for the different awards begin to be listed.
Last Friday, the finalists for the Romantic Novelists Association Romance Prize were announced.
The Romantic Novelists Association or RNA is the British equivalent of the RWA. It was founded in the early 1960s and its members list reads like a who is who of British women's fiction. Every year, it awards two main prizes -- the Romantic Novel of the Year for single title books and the Romance Prize for category novels. The Romance Prize includes the Betty Neels Rose Bowl. Betty Neels of course was a long time and well respected member of the RNA who wrote wonderful feel good romance. When the Romance Prize was started a few years ago, Mills & Boon decided to honour her achievement by donating a rose bowl in her memory. Past winners include -- Jessica Hart, Anne Herries, Liz Fielding and Nell Dixon.
This year, the shortlist is particularly strong and luckily for North American readers includes several books that will be released in the US in the next few months. The books are split between the Romance line and the Modern Extra/Heat (Promotional Presents) line this year and so they are all contemporary romances.
The finalists are Breakfast at Giovanni's by Kate Hardy (to be released in the US as In Bed with Her Italian Boss April 08), Driving Him Wild by Julie Cohen ( February 08 US release as His for the Taking), The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella by Liz Fielding, The Mediterranean Rebel's Bride by Lucy Gordon, and two books by Fiona Harper -- Her Parenthood Assignment, and English Lord, Ordinary Lady (a February 08 release in the US). It is a very strong field this year and having read the books, I do not envy the judges because basically I would not be able to choose. The award will be presented a very glamorous lunch on February 4th.
I sure some one will do a report for Tote Bags.
However, I am not going to be there this year. On 7 February, Mills & Boon are having a cocktail party to celebrate their 100th centenary and I am going there instead. Again, I am positive that it will be covered at Tote Bags. It promises to be another glamorous event and has already been mentioned in at least one literary gossip column. There is a rumour of Butlers In the Buff appearing, but one can never trust the gossip columns. I do know that there will be party bags as the back of the invitation listed the sponsors.
For US readers, Harlequin/Silhouette have teamed up to produce a special Valentine's Day site. It features free online reads, postcards and a chance to read the 2008 Romance Report. All of the February US books have the special treat heart on the front cover.

Memorable Kisses - Susan Stephens

I dreamed a dream in times gone by...

One of my all time favourite songs from that amazing musical, Les Miserables.

Dreams. Odd things, aren't they?

As I confided over at the Pink Heart Society Spotlight the other day, I had this weird dream recently that I was kissing Roger Moore!

As one of my fellow Presents authors, India Grey so reasonably demanded- why not Sean Connery, or Pierce Brosnan?

You tell me!

But that brings me neatly round to the subject of kissing- don't you think we should have a contest for the best first kiss?

Mine was when I was nine years old and at a mixed camp during the school holidays.
Of course boys couldn't visit the girls' dorm, but Brian Bigland - 11 years old- (Hi, Brian! Goodness knows where you got to ) snuck into mine and gave me a very wet, and rather yucky kiss! Of course, the dorm' monitor was hot on his tail and poor Brian was punished severely for his boldness. But wet and yucky, I still remember my very first kiss to this day! And no, it wasn't repeated, and yes, the security between the girls and boys was tightened up right away!!! And no, of course my mother never found out ;-)

How about your first kiss?

Share your stories and I'll pick out a winner at random from those we love and award a prize!

Susan

http://www.susanstephens.net/

I'm a quiz addict, how about you?

We’ve all been there - flicking through the glossy pages of women’s magazines at the supermarket check-out, in the doctor’s waiting room, or hiding under the bedclothes with a pen and a flashlight, reading the ubiquitous sex quiz pages with headers like The Top Ten Ways to Keep Your Man.

An addict to filling out forms of any kind, I have filled out sooooo many of these quizzes over my lifetime without ever really wondering who wrote them, or what kind of education and background the creator must have had before dolling out such essential relationship advice. They could be psychologists, franticly overworked editors, or sixteen year old interns for all we know.

Or they could be like Abbey Parrish, the heroine in my latest novel, and my very first Modern Extra Sensual, GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS. Abbey doesn’t have one single clue how to get a man much less what to do with him when she ultimately does get him!

Yet somehow her advice resonates. Perhaps it's all about collective experience. Or the way we can all see in our daily stars how that kernel of advice might actually relate to our lives. A need for solidarity, to know we're not alone in feeling out of place, out of time, and on the verge of never being able to find someone to love.

Next time I head down to the supermarket, and flick through a magazine I wonder which question will speak to me, and head me off on a tangent I was simply waiting for the right prod to head along any old how.

How about you? Have you ever read something in your stars or an advice column that was like a lightbulb moment? Do you think such random things can really change a person's course in life?

a few minutes to be thankful - Julie Cohen

Hi, my name is Julie Cohen and I've had the most amazing 12 months of my entire life.

My first book was published in March 2006, and I've had five others published since then (the two latest are SPIRIT WILLING, FLESH WEAK, with Headline's Little Black Dress imprint, and DRIVING HIM WILD, Mills & Boon Modern Extra, in February). In March 2006 I also became pregnant, after much trying, and I gave birth to my first child five weeks ago today, on 23rd December.

Twelve months, six books, and a baby...is it any wonder I wake up every morning feeling blessed?

But some other really cool things have happened in the past twelve months. So in between feeding and rocking my son, I wanted to spend a few minutes blogging about how writing books has connected me with people.

For one thing, people I haven't heard from in ages have Googled me and sent me an email or a letter. This is great. I've heard from relatives, long-ago friends, former teachers and former students. Google is truly a wonderful thing.

(One of my hobbies is inserting strange phrases into my blog so that it comes up on a Google search for, for example, "nude Canadian hippies". I'm not sure if any of my long-lost friends have found me that way.)

For another, readers get in touch and tell me what they think about my books. This is a total thrill--particularly when they are from a far-away country I've never been to. On the other side of the fence, since becoming an author and finding out how great it is to hear from readers, I've started writing to authors I admire, and I've met a few amazing people that way.

Also, complete strangers email me because we share some sort of interest. The other day I heard from a woman who is a total Ewan McGregor fan (I am just slightly obsessed with him, and he's the hero of my book DELICIOUS). What a joy, to discuss the merits of a beautiful man with a like-minded stranger...

Of course, the romance writing community is amazing, full of generous published individuals and exciting aspiring writers. Forums like this blog, The Pink Heart Society, and Romancing the Blog are brilliant because you can meet online, but I belong to real-life writing groups too, and there I meet people of all ages, beliefs, backgrounds, and talents, who I probably would never meet if we didn't share a love of writing.

Writing has changed my life, and truly provided a community for me. For example, when I went into hospital to have my son, visits to my blog soared, and there were nearly a hundred congratulatory messages left for me to read when I got out of hospital.

What gifts I've been given.

How about you?


DRIVING HIM WILD, Mills & Boon Modern Extra, February 2007

When smart-mouthed New York City cab driver Zoe Drake finds Mr Tall, Dark and Brooding on her doorstep, she doesn’t know what to think...does he want something, or has Christmas come early this year?
"Cohen writes the perfect short contemporary romance"
(Romance Reader at Heart)


SPIRIT WILLING, FLESH WEAK, Headline Little Black Dress

Rosie Fox can’t see dead people. She’s a fake spirit medium, playing the game for fun and profit. Until one day, she really sees the future. And she realises that maybe the truth is more important than she thought.
“Wildly romantic, hilarious…terrific page-turning fun”
“Witty, fun, and just a little bit quirky”
(Amazon reviews)

Is Everything Research? - Trish Wylie

Seems to me that since I became a writer, everything has become research for me - in one form or another…

Used to be when I took a weekend away somewhere I did it just to – well – have a weekend away somewhere. But not anymore. Now I’m taking pictures of things around me with a view to using them in a story, I’m looking at places where imaginary characters could live or work, I’m seeing parks where they could have walked, cafes were they might have had coffee… And I’m seeing them there and wondering what they would say or do and what their lives are like.

But then I think I did that before I even became a writer.

Maybe that’s the thing with people who write – we don’t just look at a place and see that place. Or watch two people talk and just leave it at face value. Our imaginations are always on the go and we’re always curious about people; what they’re talking about, their lives, their problems, whether or not they're alone in the world. From time to time we may even eavesdrop to try and found out...

With friends on a night out (too many years ago for me to confess to), we sometimes played a game where we would pick a couple in the crowd and build a whole life for them - we'd give them a profession and a name and a personality and we would talk when they talked – making up conversations for them (quite often with dumb accents and much hilarity) – and do you know what? I think that was writer training too.

So now, every place I visit become a research trip. I might never use a particular place or setting in the end, but if I ever need it I know it’s there , stored deep in my brain. Like when I visited Dublin recently for the book launch of fellow Irish Writer Abby Green’s first book. I mean, I’ve used Dublin as a setting dozens of times – but truth be told I’ve always shied away from finer details and exact place names. All it took was a weekend refresher visit and it occurred to me that I was missing out on a lot by not adding that particular layer in.

So I put on my nice new trainers and took my Christmas Present camera and off I went a wandering. I found a house for my heroine to live in, a park for her to sit in, a busy shopping street near Trinity College where she could have worked. I took random pictures of the streets full of people that she might have seen every day, the local landmarks she would have walked past to get to work – I even took my camera and a pen and paper onto one of the open top bus tours so that I could take notes from the bus drivers hilarious running commentary…

And while I travelled back to my hotel on one of the City’s shiny new Tram’s (which give the place a lovely European City feel) I imagined that I was the heroine – I was breathing the air that she would breathe, seeing the people she would see and simply *being* in the city she would be in. Which made it all the more real to me, and I have to believe that can only be a good thing for my writing, right?

Maybe sometimes we do need to just leave the keyboard behind and walk out in the real world so that we can come back and create a more realistic imaginary world?

But what it does mean is that everything is now research for me….

I wonder if I’m the only one that thinks that way…?

H’s & K’s
Trish

Trish’s next release is a Modern Extra entitled Breathless! out in February:

Just one night would take her breath away!

Rory Flanaghan is every girl's dream: tall, toned and so, so sexy. On leave from his dangerous overseas job, he's helping out at the gym he owns. When writer Cara Sheehan starts one-to-one sessions with Rory, exercise takes on a whole new meaning. He leaves her with a sensual awareness she's never let herself feel before...

Rory can't understand why this beautiful, fiesty woman has a problem with her image, and he knows he can teach Cara what she's capable of... As things get really personal, Rory shows Cara that just one kiss, just one touch...just one night... will leave her breathless!