Anna Campbell has once again been voted Favourite Australian Romance Author at the 2011 Australian Romance Readers Awards, held last night at Cello’s Restaurant in Sydney.
Campbell also retains her undefeated status in the Favourite Historical Romance section, the award going to her Avon Regency book Midnight’s Wild Passion. A representative from HarperCollins accepted the awards on Campbell’s behalf, reading a prepared acceptance speech that, in true Campbell style, had the audience smiling.
New Zealand author Nalini Singh picked up the most awards, winning Favourite Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Futuristic Romance for Archangel’s Blade and Favourite Paranormal Romance for the much-anticipated Kiss of Snow, the latest book in the Psy/Changeling series, for which Singh was awarded the prize for Favourite Continuing Romance series for the third year in a row. Singh’s awards were received on her behalf by selected ARRA members. Singh had also pre-recorded her acceptance speech, which was shown to the audience after her final award was announced.
Helene Young (photo by Kat)
Shattered Sky was named Favourite Romantic Suspense. Queensland author Helene Young was the only winner who was able to personally accepted her award. Young’s next book, Burning Lies, with be released in July by Penguin Australia.
Australian authors Kelly Hunter and Denise Rossetti won Favourite Short Category Romance for With This Fling… (see Kat’s review here) and Favourite Erotic Romance for The Lone Warrior, respectively. Julie James won Favourite Contemporary Romance for A Lot Like Love.
The Member of the Year award when to Amy and the Bling Off culminated in a mini-parade, with authors Melissa Craig and Travey O’Hara sharing this year’s Queen of Bling title. They will be time-sharing the tiara.
Guest speaker Paula Roe spoke about the the books that shaped her love of romance reading and, eventually, led her to try her hand at writing romance fiction. Her passion and enthusiasm for the genre had the audience smiling, at times laughing, as she described some of the earlier novels she loved (and loved to read out loud to her friends in high school).
The annual Australian Romance Readers Awards are managed by the Australian Romance Readers Association. Nominees are shortlisted from member nominations and winners are decided by popular vote among ARRA members.
The event was sponsored by Australian online bookshop Booktopia. The awards were sponsored by Galaxy Bookshop, Carina Press, Harlequin Australia, Rosemary’s Romance Books and Temptation the Romance Bookstore, Romantic Reflections, Romance Direct, Penguin Books Australia and Booktopia.
Check out the photos from the event via Flickr. I plan to write up a longer post on my observations from the night, so watch this space.
ARRC 2011 round-ups
ARRA has posted some round-ups of ARRC 2011 on it blog. Take a peek at what happened at the convention on the Thursday (volunteers hard at work), Friday (volunteers at work), Welcome reception, Silent auction.
Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader has also posted part 1 of her round-up.
For a round-up of all the round-ups, check out our ARRC 2011 page.
RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award winners
The RT Reviewers’ Choice awards were announced at Los Angeles last week. Click here for a list of winners. Congratulations to A/NZ authors Nalini Singh (Best Shapeshifter Romance for Play of Passion) and Tina Duncan (Best First Series Romance for Da Silva’s Mistress).
Congratulations also to Valerie Parv, who was awarded a Pioneer of Romance Award.
Source: Maggie Nash and Romance Writers of Australia
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Archangel's Consort by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter, Book 3)
A solid instalment in the series, despite the exhausting intensity of the romance and a slightly underdeveloped external plot.
This review was originally submitted as an entry for the ARRC2011 Reader Challenge and was selected to be in the final round.
Archangel’s Consort continues the story of Elena, former Guild Hunter and newly made angel, and her lover Raphael, the archangel of New York. Vampires are breaking their Contracts all over the city and archangels are showing signs of madness. Either an old foe is targeting Elena, Raphael’s greatest vulnerability, or an ancient power is awakening—one that Raphael will have to confront but may not be able to vanquish.
Newcomers to the Guild Hunter series shouldn’t find it difficult to pick up the basic characteristics of the world that Nalini Singh has created. The violence is graphic, but less so than in previous books. The power struggles between angels may get confusing, but it’s easy enough to follow the external plot even without fully understanding these nuances.
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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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Decadence, Wandergurl and I read many more books than we’re capable of reviewing on this blog. This means that not all the review copies we get or the library books we borrow are mentioned on the blog. This is a shame! Some of the books we get have the most interesting blurbs … but for some reason they just don’t appeal to us or we don’t end up reading far enough into the book to be able to write up a decent review.
So this year, we’ll be doing a monthly post highlighting the review copies we receive, notable media releases we get via email, with the occasional borrowed or gifted books thrown in, in case other readers might find them of interest. The plan is to post every third Monday of the month. That’s the plan. You know how well we’ve managed to follow a blogging schedule thus far… *ho hum*
Authors for Queensland
Today is your last day to bid on the items up for auction at Authors for Queensland, an initiative by authors who are aiming to raise funds for victims of the Queensland floods. Romance readers may be particularly interested in signed book packs by Anna Campbell or Bronwyn Parry. Even more fun is Nikki Logan’s offer to use your (or a friend’s) name as the hero/heroine of her next romance book!
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Today, the Australian Romance Readers Association confirmed that the 2011 readers’ convention will run from Friday, March 25 to Sunday, March 27 at the Swiss Grand, Bondi Beach.
Keynote speakers include Australian author Anna Campbell (historical romance), New Zealand author Nalini Singh (paranormal romance and urban fantasy) and US author Cindy Gerard (romantic suspense).
You can read more details about the keynote speakers at the ARRA blog.
I’M SO EXCITED! So … who’s coming to Sydney?
ARRA book signing event
The Australian Romance Readers Association is hosting a book signing event at the Romance Writers of Australia later this year. The book signing will be on Friday, August 13 at the Crowne Plaza in Coogee.
There are over 40 authors expected to be at the signing, including some big names in Australian romance. Entry is free for ARRA members and RWA delegates. It’s also open to the public for a $5 registration fee. If you’re planning to attend, it’s best to register in case the event is booked out. Check out the flyer below and click here for details.
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Because ARRA members just wanna have fun. (And read!)
The Awards dinner was excellent. I’d never heard of Cello’s Restaurant before, but it’s a beautiful venue—although the lifts are a challenge if you’re the least bit claustrophobic. High ceilings, chandeliers, and even a grand piano to the side—it’s just reeked of old world romance.
If you follow us on Twitter, you’ll know that Tracey O’Hara issued a challenge that eventually resulted in a call for a bling off at the Australian Romance Readers Awards dinner. And do you know what I love most about my fellow ARRA members? They said, Bring it!
You can see photos of the bling off here and here. (I’m missing a lot of blinged out people, though, so let me know if you have any more links!)
Sadly, I got carried away and left my outfit shopping so late I turned up to dinner, well, quite UNfashionably late. Others also suffered for the sake of bling and leather, with stories of shoes superglued to the kitchen floor, the case of the killer heels, and last-minute
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Anna Campbell took out the top prize in last night’s Australian Romance Readers Awards, held last night at Cello’s Restaurant in Sydney.
Campbell was voted Favourite Australian Romance Author of 2009 and also won Favourite Historical Romance for her fourth novel, Captive of Sin.
The night was a bonanza of wins for Australian authors, with Paula Roe, Kandy Shepherd and Bronwyn Parry taking the prizes in their categories.
Roe won Favourite Short Category Romance for The Magnate’s Baby Promise. Shepherd won Favourite Contemporary Romance for Love is a Four-Legged Word. Parry won Favourite Romantic Suspense for Dark Country.
New Zealand author Nalini Singh, who was also the guest speaker for the event, won Favourite Continuing Romance Series for her Psy-Changeling books and Favourite Sci-fi, Fantasy or Futuristic Romance for Angel’s Blood.
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It was the surprise that couldn’t be kept under wraps. Plans were dropped for this … or they would have been if I’d made any.
Galaxy’s monthly book club would have another special guest in New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh, who jumped across the pond from New Zealand.
I managed to arrive before Nalini and learned that Sofia (Galaxy’s paranormal romance guru) had invited a reporter and photographer from the Daily Telegraph to meet Nalini.
While I was waiting for Nalini to arrive, I had a chat with the reporter, Julia, who will soon converse with (rather than interview) Charlaine Harris. (I asked what the difference was, and apparently a conversation is meant to be more comfortable, informal and less inherently interrogative than an interview.)
For research purposes, Julia has read the first 2 Southern Vampire Mystery books (which she enjoyed) but hasn’t read any other paranormals. Yet. (I’d like to think that might change as a result of her stories on Nalini as well as Charlaine.)
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