Reading (mostly) romance books down under
You can find the full archive of the #arrc2011 tweets at What the Hashtag?! but if you’re after the live tweets from the author sessions and convention events, here’s an excerpt from Friday to Sunday.
These are in chronological order (oldest tweets first), but I’ve had to strip out the dates and times because WTH uses Pacific time and doesn’t match the time at ARRC. Let me know if something doesn’t make sense. (I was going to format this more prettily, but…it’s long!)
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Demonstrating a distinct local bias, Australian romance readers awarded their favourite authors at a the Australian Romance Readers Convention on Saturday night.
For the second year in a row, historical author Anna Campbell won the award for Favourite Australian Author. Campbell also picked up the award for Favourite Historical Romance—which might as well be called the Anna Campbell Award because she’s won it every year since the awards began—for her latest book, My Reckless Surrender. Campbell is published by Avon/HarperCollins and was one of the keynote speakers at the convention.
New Zealand author Nalini Singh picked up three awards. Singh won Favourite Paranormal Romance with Bonds of Justice, part of her Psy-Changeling series. The series, set in a future featuring humans, psychics and changelings, also won the award for Favourite Continuing Romance Series. Her urban fantasy book, Archangel’s Consort, the latest book in her Guild Hunter series, won the award for Favourite Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy or Futuristic Romance. Singh is published by Gollancz/Hachette in Australia.
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To follow the live tweets from ARRC, search for #arrc2011 on Twitter, or check the transcript at What The Hashtag. You can find all the ARRC-related posts on Book Thingo here.
The Australian Romance Readers Convention started off with an intimate gathering of readers and authors at the Swiss-Grand, Bondi Beach. The Swiss-Grand is a 4.5-star hotel across the road from Bondi Beach. It’s tucked into a side street so there are no noisy crowds spilling over from the mains strip along the water. The rooms are really small suites with a small lounge area.
As expected, it was a much smaller crowd than the one we saw in Melbourne in 2009. The upside to this was that it way easier to chat! By the end of the night, people were having pockets of conversation in small groups. There was a larger crowd sitting outside, and I think it’s where many of the authors were.
A couple of people have reported a Kiss of Snow ARC sighting. But apparently it’s now locked in a safe. So close and yet so faaaaar!
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BDB cheat sheets updated
Just a quick note to let you know that the ever lovely—and very thorough—Decadence has updated the BDB cheat sheets, including the spoiler thread for Lover Unleashed. You can find links to all the BDB posts here.
Bookish people are meeting up TONIGHT
A quick reminder that we’re having a casual get together for book bloggers, twitterati, Goodreaders, Facebookers, lurkers and any other bookish people who are part of an online community. (Okay, and even if you’re not!) We’re meeting at the Arthouse Hotel (257 Pitt St, Sydney). If you have a book that needs a new home, feel free to bring it along for a book swap.
Click here for more details and to RSVP. We’d love to see you there. If you decide to come along on a whim, feel free to pop by even if you haven’t RSVPed. You’ll find us when you see books!
One more sleep until ARRC 2011
I’m so excited for the Australian Romance Readers Convention like you wouldn’t believe. If you’re keen but still unsure about going, check out Decadence’s post on why you must NOT miss this event. I’ll be at the Welcome event tomorrow night, so please grab me and introduce yourself. (You may have to do this a few times—I have trouble remember names when I’m meeting a lot of new people at once.) A few unofficial social things to think about:
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Lover Unleashed by J. R. Ward - Australian/UK paperback
If you’re hungry for clues about upcoming books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Decadence has put together what we think we know about what’s coming next. LAST UPDATED: 28/3/2010
This post contains spoilers from earlier books in the series, including Lover Mine, and spoilery speculation about future books. None of this stuff is set in stone, so please don’t blame us if something changes between now and when the books are released.
The ninth book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, titled Lover Unleashed, is about Payne, blooded daughter of the Bloodletter, and Manuel Manello, MD.
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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Without any discernible plot or direction the story is all icing and no substance. And not particularly sweet icing at that.
Rose Edelstein has a gift: when she eats, she can taste the emotions of the person who made the food. Her mother’s lemon cake has never tasted more desperate, and Rose becomes the keeper of her family’s secrets—including her own.
I picked this book up for the Goodreads Aussie Readers Summer Reading Challenge as my Oprah book. The title is just so delicious. Some of the descriptions of food and emotion are scrumptious. For example, Rose envies her best friend Eliza’s turkey sandwich:
I’d tasted that turkey sandwich before. The whole thing was just a sonata of love—the lettuce leaf, the organic tomato grown on a happy farm, even the factory mayonnaise took on such delicacy of feeling it seemed like an exquisite violin solo. It was difficult, and rude, to hate my friend so much.
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The second Australian Romance Readers Convention is right around the corner and if you haven’t been to the first one, you probably have no idea what a treat this is going to be.
The program has something for everyone: paranormal, erotic, contemporary, category, historical, urban fantasy, rural romance … whatever your taste, there’s bound to be a session that interests you. A panel that proved very popular at the last convention was This One Time, where the authors talked about the weird and funny stuff that go on behind the scenes when publishing a book or crazy fan stories. This time, the topic will have two panels. Aspiring writers are sure to find Publishing Ins and Outs useful.
I’m really looking forward to hearing the keynote speakers, Cindy Gerard, Anna Campbell and Nalini Singh. I’ve met Nalini a few times and she is awesome in person. She was an entertaining speaker at the ARRA Awards dinner last year where she revealed the title of her third angels book for the first time. At ARRA events, you get the scoop first. In February 2009, keynote speaker MaryJanice Davidson told us about a book idea she had about an FBI agent with multiple personalities that became Me, Myself and Why? published in September 2010. You just never know what’s going to happen.
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The Countess by Lynsay Sands (Madison Sisters, Book 1)
Light on plot, on character and on plausibility. And they make out next to a corpse.
The Countess was one of the first books I requested from NetGalley. In the process, I made some important discoveries:
1. DRM-protected NetGalley books expire 60 days after downloading.
2. It isn’t unusual for me to take me more than 60 days to review a book I’ve read.
3. Sony Reader’s note-taking feature is linked to the ebook file. When the ebook file expires, my notes are unreadable.
Technology sucks sometimes.
Luckily, I can still do this review, but it’ll be a little more general than usual. Except when I specifically mention making out next to the dead guy. More on that later.
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Join us in April for a month-long celebration of awesome Australian authors.
You may have been wondering why reviews have been scarce on Book Thingo. Aside from the obvious answer—we’ve been lazy but not that lazy—we’ve been saving up some of our reviews for a special month-long event.
Aussie Author Month is a cross-genre collaboration to support and promote Australian writing. During April, we’ll be featuring bestselling and upcoming Australian authors, and highlighting some of our favourite Aussie books.
At Book Thingo, we’ll be reviewing Australian-authored books, most of which will be romances or feature romantic elements.
Aussie Author Month started off with a tweet last year, and it’s been a collaborative effort between several bloggers:
Nyssa at A Writer Goes on a Journey via the Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFFWA), who will focus on Australian sff authors,
Ali and Rosie at Fangtastic, who will focus on urban fantasy and paranormal romance authors,
and later joined by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader, who reads within and outside of romance and sff.
You can find a list of participants here.
Here are some of the activities we’ll be undertaking:
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Book blogger meet up
A quick reminder that we’re having a get together for any book-inclined bloggers, tweeters, Facebookers, Goodreaders and lurkers on Thursday, March 24 at the Arthouse Hotel. Click here for more details. We’d love to see you there!
Mad month for historical romance readers
Historical author Ashley March is hosting a month-long celebration of historical romance. Her blog will feature guest posts from historical romance authors, daily giveaways and she will be highlighting websites that support historical romance. Book Thingo will be featured on March 29, but if you love historicals, make sure you check out the party every day this month. Leave a comment after the March Madness posts and you can be in the running to win a prize!
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(The Blood of Eden, Book 1) A compelling read, given Julie Kagawa’s brilliant writing and ability to create characters we can sympathise with, but it offers nothing new in terms of the vampire mythos.
(The Christies, Book 1) A second chance romance filled with adventure and set in a South African diamond mine. Not your conventional romance.
Despite some poignant moments, too many inconsistent elements may prevent you from fully enjoying the story. Best enjoyed as part of the series in which it belongs.
Starts off beautifully, but sizzling chemistry can’t save a couple that feels like they won’t last six months, let alone a lifetime.
This book takes risks and touches on issues not often found in the romance genre, but the lack of chemistry between an unsympathetic heroine and a hero who doesn’t seem ready for a long-term commitment make this one a DNF for me.
Humour, tragedy, realism and, of course, a happy beginning—this memoir has it all. I don’t know why I didn’t read this sooner.
A dramatic story with moments that will break your heart. Unfortunately, the hero’s emotional catharsis is rushed and the the resolution doesn’t match the story’s earlier promise.
Tohr’s book hearkens back to the earlier books in the BDB series. It’s not without its faults, but in true J. R. Ward fashion, when she pulls out the angst, it’s very, very good.
A beautifully written story—the sheikh romance for readers who hate sheikh romances. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read in the Mills & Boon Sexy line.
Skim through the beginning, because when this book gets good, it’s, oh, so very good. Alexei and Maisy may reflect the traditional alpha male and ingénue pairing in category romance, but they don’t always behave as expected. And that’s a good thing.
Special thanks to BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER for keeping us abreast of what's going on in the Australian book industry, and particularly to Tim Coronel, who patiently explains to us the intricacies of book publishing in plain Tweet-lish.
Website| Twitter | Tim Coronel
