The Romantic Novelists' Association has announced the judges who will
decide the Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of
the Year, and the celebrity guest presenter for the 2018 Awards ceremony.
The judging
panel comprises: Matt Bates, the Fiction Buyer for WH Smith Travel, editor Alex Hammond, writer Elizabeth Buchan
and Liz Robinson, book reviewer for Lovereading.co.uk.
The Reverend
Richard Coles will present the winner of the award with a trophy and a cheque
for £5,000 on Monday 5th March at The Gladstone
Library in London. Richard Coles first found fame in the 80s with
chart-topping bands Bronski Beat and The Communards, before becoming a Church
of England priest. He is a popular media
figure, and recently enjoyed a stint on Strictly
Come Dancing.
RNA Chair
Nicola Cornick said: ‘We are thrilled to
have such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable panel of judges with such a
commitment to the romantic fiction genre, and a guest presenter who will ensure
the evening is enormous fun.”
There are
seven Romantic Novel Awards: Contemporary, Epic, Historical, Paranormal or
Speculative Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Young Adult and the RoNA Rose for a
shorter romantic novel. The winners of these categories are chosen by a panel
of readers.
The four independent
judges read each of the category winners to decide the overall winner of the
Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of the Year award.
Matt Bates is the Fiction Buyer for WH Smith Travel. He has
been rated in the Evening Standard as one of the Top 1000 most influential
Londoners, and has contributed to book-related articles in The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and The Bookseller. In 2013 he judged the
Historical Novelists' Society International Award, in 2015 he was named
Bookseller of the Year by the RNA and in 2016 was one of the
judges for both The Costa Book Prize (Novel) and The Booksellers' Association
Debut Fiction Category Prize. In 2017 he was named as
one of The Bookseller's 100 list.
Elizabeth
Buchan worked in publishing before she became a full time writer. Her novel Consider
the Lily won the Romantic Novel
of the Year Award in 1994, and a subsequent novel, Revenge of the
Middle-Aged Woman, became an international bestseller and was made into a
CBS Primetime Drama. She is a former Chair of the
Romantic Novelists’ Association, has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot
literary prizes and was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the
2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and
co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival.
Alex Hammond holds a BA
(Hons) in American Literature with Creative Writing, an MA in Creative Writing,
and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing. He worked for the
literary agency Rogers, Coleridge & White, with authors such as Zadie
Smith, Philip Hensher, Nick Hornby, Sandi Toksvig and Joe Dunthorne. He joined
Cornerstones Literary Consultancy in 2014, and is now an editor, mentor, and
scout. He works directly with authors at the Romantic Novelists’ Association
Summer Conferences, and the A Chapter Away writers’ retreats.
Liz Robinson
has been on the
editorial team writing expert reviews for Lovereading.co.uk since the
beginning of 2014. Reading is her passion, and she enjoys all genres, from
crime, mysteries and thrillers to romance, family drama and relationship tales.
A total of
300 books were entered for this year’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards. The shortlisted books will be announced on 8th February, 2018 and the RoNA
Awards will be
presented in London on 5th March, 2018.
For more information about the awards, please go to our website.
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