The Romantic Novel of the Year Awards: The judges are...

It’s just three weeks until the RNA announces the books that have been shortlisted for the RoNAs – the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards - and we are now unveiling the judges who will decide on the Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of the Year 2017.

The RNA gives seven awards for different types of romantic novels. The categories are: Contemporary, Epic, Historical, Paranormal or Speculative Fiction, Romantic Comedy, the RoNA Rose for a shorter romantic novel and Young Adult. In the first two rounds of the contest the entries are judged by a panel of readers who choose the winner in each category.  These seven winners then go forward into the overall Romantic Novel of the Year Award for excellence in romantic fiction.

The four independent judges who will read each of the category winners to decide the overall winner are:

Matt Bates, the Fiction Buyer for WH Smith Travel, writer and journalist Fanny Blake, bookseller and publisher Ron Johns and Caroline Sanderson, writer and books journalist.

 RNA Vice-Chair and Award Organiser, 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.”

Matt Bates is the Fiction Buyer for WH Smith Travel. In 2013 he judged the HNS International Award and has contributed to book-related articles in Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, The Bookseller and Writers Forum magazine. In 2015 he was named Bookseller of the Year by the RNA.

Fanny Blake was a publisher for many years before becoming a freelance journalist and writer. She is books editor of Woman & Home and has written five novels including Women of a Dangerous Age and House of Dreams. Her new novel Our Summer Together will be published in in July 2017.

Ron Johns opened his first bookshop in 1974 aged 20. He now owns several bookshops and also created Mabecron Publishing, which publishes books with a West Country flavour and to date has published 23 titles. Ron has been a Costa Prize judge and is a council member of the Booksellers Association and the Independent Booksellers Group.

Caroline Sanderson is a writer and books journalist, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Worcester. She is Associate Editor for The Bookseller, and the editor of ALCS News. Caroline is the author of five non-fiction books, and co-hosts a monthly book club on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

A total of 300 books were entered for this year’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards.

The shortlisted books will be announced on the RNA website on February 7^th and the RoNA Awards will be presented in London on March 13^th. For tickets

For more information about the RoNA judges, visit our website news pages

http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/news

To learn more about the awards, go to http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/awards

For more details on the RoNA Awards event, or to buy tickets, visit our website activities pages.  http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/activities 

RNA Romantic Novel Awards: Shortlisted authors.

The contenders have been announced for the RoNAs (Romantic Novel Awards) 2016 and the overall, most prestigious, award – The Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Fern Britton, television presenter and author, will present the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) Awards for 2016 during a glittering ceremony in the Gladstone Library, One Whitehall Place, London SW1 on 7th March.

The awards comprise six categories – Contemporary Romantic Novel, Epic Romantic Novel, Historical Romantic Novel, Romantic Comedy Novel, the RoNA Rose Award (for shorter and category romance) and Young Adult Romantic Novel – with five authors shortlisted for each one.

The winners of the six categories will be announced during the evening and those six authors will then go forward to compete for the overall prize of The Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Fern Britton will then reveal the author whose book has won the RNA's most prestigious and coveted award, along with a cheque for £5,000 (five thousand pounds).

Since its inception in 1960 the RNA has promoted excellence in romantic fiction and its Chairman, Eileen Ramsay, commented, “The announcement of the shortlist is always an occasion for celebration, when we reveal the best in romantic fiction from the last year.”

David Headley, Managing Director of Goldsboro Books, commented, “The success of Goldsboro Books has come from the very close relationships that we’ve built with publishers and authors over the years. It’s therefore rather fitting that we sponsor an award that celebrates the best in one of the most popular genres of fiction.” 

In previous years winners have included such well known and much loved names as  Joanna Trollope, Freya North, Rosie Thomas, JoJo Moyes and Rosamunde Pilcher.

The Category Shortlists

The Contemporary Romantic Novel category is for mainstream romantic novels set post-1960 and includes genres such as chick lit, paranormal and romantic suspense.

Under a Cornish Sky, Liz Fenwick, Orion
High Tide, Veronica Henry, Orion
The Wedding Cake Tree, Melanie Hudson, Choc Lit
It Started at Sunset Cottage, Bella Osborne, HarperImpulse
A Jersey Kiss, Georgina Troy, Accent Press

The Epic Romantic Novel category contains serious issues or themes, including gritty, multi-generational stories.

The Book of Lost and Found, Lucy Foley, Harper Collins
The Secrets We Share, Emma Hannigan, Headline Review
The Years of Loving You, Ella Harper, Avon
After the Last Dance, Sarra Manning, Sphere
If You Go Away, Adele Parks, Headline Review

The Historical Romantic Novel category is for novels set in a period before 1960.

The Secret Kiss of Darkness, Christina Courtenay, Choc Lit
Dangerous Entrapment, Lesley Field, MuseItUp
Letters to the Lost, Iona Grey, Simon & Schuster
At the Water’s Edge, Sara Gruen, Two Roads
The Consul's Daughter, Jane Jackson, Accent Press

The Romantic Comedy Novel is for consistently humorous or amusing novels.

One Wish In Manhattan, Mandy Baggot, Bookouture
The Royal We, Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan, Head of Zeus
Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café, Milly Johnson, Simon & Schuster
How To Get Ahead in Television, Sophie Cousens, Corvus
Love From Paris, Alexandra Potter, Hodder & Stoughton

The RoNA Rose Award recognises the best in category/series and shorter romance that focus on developing a love affair between the hero and heroine.

The Wedding Reject Table, Angela Britnell, Choc Lit
From Wallflower to Countess, Janice Preston, Mills & Boon Historical
Doctor... To Duchess?, Annie O'Neil, Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Cora's Christmas Kiss, Alison May, Choc Lit
His Lost-and-Found Bride, Scarlet Wilson, Mills & Boon Cherish

The Young Adult Romantic Novel features protagonists who are teenagers or young adults.

Crow Mountain, Lucy Inglis, Chicken House
Did I Mention I Love You?, Estelle Maskame, Black & White Publishing
Angel Dares, Joss Stirling, Oxford University Press
Lainey's Lot, Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, Accent Press
Anya and the Shy Guy, Suze Winegardner, Entangled Teen

RoNA AWARDS 2016

We all love an excuse to dress up in our glad rags and enjoy a special event. The RoNA awards in March is one that every romantic novelist looks forward to attending. It's so exciting to watch and applaud as writers we admire accept awards for their novels. However, without entries there would be no awards event to attend.  Anne Stenhouse Graham has come along today to tell us more about the RoNAs and to remind us all to enter.

March 7^th 2016 will see many RNA members, agents and publishers gather in London’s glorious The Gladstone Library, Royal Horseguards for the presentation of the Association’s Annual Awards. By that time excitement will have been mounting. The publication of the shortlist earlier ensures that. Some rather nervous people will be assembled.

 

Last year's winners with special guest Barbara Taylor Bradford

However, Nicola Cornick and I hope to be a little more relaxed by then since you’ve all been very good and followed the rules/instructions/suggestions and made the deadlines.

Haven’t you?

The Awards recognise the effort of all our members. So if you’ve written the best contemporary, epic, historical, romantic comedy or young adult novel and it was published between 1^st January and 31^st December 2015, then consider submission, why don’t you? You know the adage - You’ve got to be in, to win.

Our outstanding achievement awards 2015 went to Jill Mansell and Carole Matthews

The RoNA Rose embraces the shorter novel where the focus of the book is on the relationship between the two central characters, and magazine serials. It shares the same dates as the others.

 

For the first time digital first books are eligible and because it’s the first time the dates are extended to include those books first published digitally between 1^st January 2014 and 31^st December 2015.



The magnificent Gladstone Library

The rules, submission buttons and all that sort of stuff are found on the website. Here:

http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/awards

Check it out - Sorry, but no title may be entered more than once.

The  Discipline of the Deadline:

We all, whatever we write, have deadlines and we’re very disciplined about meeting them. So that leads me to…

RoNA awards 2016

Closing Date 1^st October 2015 for the 2016 Awards…

Is your entry on its way?

Anne Stenhouse Graham

Thank you, Anne (and Nicola). We hope you will both be kept very busy processing entries and we look forward to news of shortlisted books in 2016.

If you would like to write for the RNA blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Barbara Taylor Bradford at the RNA Awards 2015

Members and honoured guests are looking forward to the annual Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards on Monday 16^th March 2015 at the Gladstone Library, Whitehall place, London. Our special guest who will present the main award is well known author. Barbara Taylor Bradford

Barbara Taylor Bradford is the bestselling author of the enduring novel A Woman of Substance, which has sold over 32 million copies since its publication in 1979 and launched the career of one of Britain’s most beloved and iconic story-tellers. Barbara’s novels have sold more than 88 million copies worldwide, in more than ninety countries and forty languages, and no less than ten mini-series and television movies have been made of her books. Born and raised in England, Barbara began her writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post and later worked as a journalist in Fleet Street. She is a forthright and popular commentator on everything from marriage to fashion, and her journalism has appeared across the national press.  Barbara lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford. 

We asked Barbara her thoughts as she prepares to be the guest presenter at the Romantic Novelists Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards event. “I’m filled with curiosity to know who the winners will be and am looking forward to it. I know there will be a lot excitement and anticipations from the shortlisted authors.”

What would her advice be to the many writers just starting out on their writing careers?

“To do what Ernest Hemingway once said: ‘put your bottom on a chair and sit at a desk for as long as it takes in order to start and finish a novel’. That is how it gets done!”

Barbara’s much awaited 30^th novel, The Cavendon Women will be published on 24^th March 2015 by Harper Collins. A sweeping multi-generational saga for fans of Downton Abbey is set around the stately home of Cavendon Hall as the roaring twenties change the family’s fortunes forever.

The Cavendon Women:

1926. One stately home’s future lies with four very different young women …

On a summer weekend in 1926 the Ingham family gathers at Cavendon Hall, the great house in Yorkshire that has been their home for centuries, summoned by the Earl.  With them are the Swanns who have served the house for generations – and know all their secrets.

The estate is under threat: the aftermath of the Great War has left Cavendon facing ruin.  Its heir is pushing for divorce so he can follow his heart.  And the Earl has a surprise of his own. 

Four young women from both sides of the house will be the ones to shape its future – Daphne, fighting to modernise her ancestral home; Cecily Swann, forging a path as a fashion designer in London; Deidre, the career girl, and Dulcie, the outspoken debutante.  They will change the estate’s future for good or ill as the roaring twenties burn towards the Great Depression. Nothing will ever be the same again …

Thank you for sparing time to contribute to the RNA blog, Barbara and we look forward to seeing you along with all writers at the awards evening.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to be featured on the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

The Romantic Novel of the Year Award

Welcome to RNA Chair, Pia Fenton who has popped by to tell us about The Romantic Novel of the Year Award.

For over fifty years, the Romantic Novelists’ Association have been giving out awards for the very best in romantic fiction each year, celebrating excellence within our genre.  The list of past winners of The Romantic Novel of the Year Award includes some well-known and beloved authors – (there is a full list of previous winners on our website here) – so anyone lucky enough to win will be in very exalted company indeed! 

The awards were revamped a few years ago in order to showcase the wonderful diversity within romantic fiction and to give more authors a chance to shine.  Instead of just one main award and one for category romance, six new categories were created – Contemporary, Epic, Historical, Romantic Comedy, Young Adult and the RoNA Rose (for shorter/category romance).  Together they form the RoNAs – Romantic Novel Awards (the name was chosen to reflect the awards’ affinity with the US RWA’s prestigious RITAs and the Australian RWA’s RUBY award), and each category winner receives a beautiful glass star trophy.  They also go on to form the shortlist for the overall prize, the coveted Romantic Novel of the Year Award, which at the moment consists of a cheque for £5,000 plus this beautiful glass trophy created especially for the RNA.

 

 

The RNA had a record number of entries again this year and also a huge number of readers wanting to be part of the judging process.  Every entry is read, in the first instance, by three readers – ordinary members of the public who love our genre.  They are sent up to five books each and have to send back scores for each one.  The total of these scores determines a shortlist of six books for each category.  The top six are then read a fourth time by RNA members who have no vested interest in that particular book (the organiser makes sure of this), and the fourth score added to the other three.  This final total gives the winner for each category.

 

Finally, the six winning titles are read by a panel of independent judges who decide on the overall winner.
 

The names of the lucky winners for 2015 will be revealed at a sparkling awards ceremony on Monday 16^th March, to be held at the Gladstone Library near Whitehall.  Besides being a beautiful, Victorian room overlooking the Thames, it is surely the most perfect venue for a gathering of 230 authors and other members of the publishing industry as it formerly contained around 30,000 books.

Tickets for this event are on sale now (click here for details) and it promises to be a very enjoyable evening.  Not only will the six category winners and the overall winner receive their trophies, but the RNA will also present two Outstanding Achievement Awards.

 

Last year’s overall winner was Veronica Henry with her fantastic novel A Night on the Orient Express – who will it be this time?  Why not come and join us for some pink fizz, canapés and exciting announcements? We hope to see you there!

Pia Fenton

Readers Wanted!

Today we welcome RoNA organiser, Nicola Cornick who is asking for our help.

We’re looking for readers for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award!

I’m in the thick of organising this year’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards and for the

 most part it’s been great fun. Stressful and time-consuming occasionally, I will admit, but also a really interesting process to be involved with. We all know, of course, that the romantic novel of the year award is a prestigious prize that recognises the very highest standards of romantic fiction. We’re proud of our awards and rightly so. Over the years, as the profile of the RNA and of our awards has grown, an increasing number of books have been submitted for the contest. This year we have had over 200 entries across the five categories. Next year, with the inclusion of e-books in the awards for the first time, we are anticipating even more.

Delighted winner 2014, Veronica Henry



One thing that makes the Romantic Novel of the Year Awards different from some other contests is that the readers in the first round are book lovers and keen readers drawn from the general public. Our readers are not members of the RNA. We are always looking to attract more people to join the panel, never more so than now in order to meet the greater demand for readers for both e-entries and paper entries. We’re talking to libraries, writing groups and other organisations in order to drum up some support, which is also great for getting the RNA more widely known. So if you know of anyone who might be interested in reading for our awards, please rope them in! I’m always happy to send out details and application forms to anyone who is interested.

Here, to give potential readers a taster of what it is like, is one reader’s view:

“Last year I saw a call for readers to assess and review those books nominated for the 2014 Romantic Novel of the Year Awards. Having some time available I thought that that would both provide me with some good holiday reading and be a fun thing to do.

I duly contacted the Awards coordinator who sent me a form. With this filled in and sent off, I awaited the arrival of the postman on a daily basis. Time and holiday passed, and I hadn't heard a thing, when, at the beginning of November, I got a phone call. “Good morning. You volunteered to read for us. If I send you five books, do you think you can read and review them in a month?”



Category winners with Darcey Bussell CBE and Helen Fielding

The next day five books and review notes arrived, and I settled down for some extended homework. The review notes were MOST helpful. I managed all five books inside the allotted time and e-mailed my scores as I completed each one. Of the five, two were good, one was less so, one was very good, and one was also good but didn't meet the RNA's criteria.



I found the process very enjoyable, and volunteered to read again this year. It’s a process I would recommend to anyone. You don't have to “just like romantic fiction” and the RNA really do make it easy for you. Oh, and you get to keep the books!"

Thank you, Nicola.
 Our glittering awards ceremony could not go ahead without the help of our wonderful team of readers. 
If you would like to join the team please contact Nicola on: RONAawards@romanticnovelistsassociation.org

The RNA blog is brought to you by Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to contribute to the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

RNA Summer Party - Joan Hessayon AWard and The Romantic Novel of the Year

As always the RNA Summer Party was a dazzling affair.....

Jenny Colgan, Rowan Coleman, Victoria Lamb and Charlotte Betts 

The Joan Hessayon Contenders

And the winner of the Joan Hessayon Award  is Liesel Swartz

Lindsay Davis

And the winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year goes to Jenny Colgan

Evonne Warham

Rachel Hore Reports From The Dubai Literary Festival

Rachel Hore's book THE GLASS PAINTER'S DAUGHTER is short listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year and this week she is in Dubai at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature. Here she gives a brief report of the festival...

'This week I'm here at the Dubai Literary Festival. It's the second year of this amazing new annual event and I really can't believe I'm here (husband in tow -DJ Taylor standing behind her in the picture), staying in the luxurious Hotel Intercontinental (check the pool area dotted about with palm trees and fairy lights) and enjoying mixing with a wide range of international writers such as Vikas Swarup (Slumdog Millionnaire), Martin Amis, Amit Chaudhuri and Michelle Paver.

Also, there are shops and trips - lunch in the Burj Kalifa (let's hope the lift to the top is back working!), and tonight my chance to commune with camels and a whirling dervish dancer in the desert - what more could a romantic novelist ask for?

It's wonderful what a varied and enthusiastic audience there is in Dubai, what a thirst for books and for reading. Yesterday I took part in a lively discussion about book clubs (and was delighted to see RNA's Liz Fenwick there).

Today many of the writers visit schools and tomorrow and Saturday I'm facilitating creative writing workshops. It's definitely the experience of a lifetime! Back to domesticity on Sunday - a real shame we couldn't bring our children(!) - but maybe a signed copy of a Darren Shan novel will be a nice consolation prize.'

Fran Morrison, a travelling musician, is summoned home to London after her father suffers a stroke and finds herself in charge of the family business, a stained glass workshop in an historic backwater of Westminster.
Minster Glass was founded in the Victorian heyday of stained glass making, and when the vicar of the local church asks Fran and her father's assistant Zac to restore a shattered angel window, her research into the window's origins amongst her father's papers uncovers a fascinating and moving love story from the Victorian past that resonates in her own life.
And as she makes a new life for herself in London she discovers that, if you know where to look, there are angels all around.

Find out more of what Rachel is doing at the festival by following her on Twitter @Rachelhore and #dxblit