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The Makings of a Lady – read a sample

I hope you enjoy it!

If you do like it, here’s the buy link for amazon: mybook.to/Makings

 

Thursday evening, and time for the RITA® awards ceremony. This is the glitzy highlight of the RWA conference. Everywhere I looked, there were writers, publishers, editors, and agents, all done up in their finery. My first stop was at Harlequin’s Toast – a drinks reception before the main event. Harlequin Mills & Boon were well represented – here I am with some of the gang!

From top: me with Bryony Green and Jo Grant from Harlequin Mills & Boon. Bottom: Me with Jo Grant; me with Karen Kincy (my roommate)

We had VIP tickets (they really go all out to make you feel special) and were seated near the front. The ceremony was slick and professional, and the winner announcements were punctuated by videos from members highlighting how important RWA was to them, and how members help each other through difficult times. Karen and I had a great time just simply being there.

The lifetime achievement award went to Suzanne Brockmann, and she made a wonderful, impassioned speech about pushing the boundaries in romantic fiction. She herself was responsible for many groundbreaking moments, though met with resistance along the way. “How are readers ever going to expand their world view if they don’t get to meet characters like my adorable gay sheriff?” she said to her then editor. Love is love is love is love! was her conclusion. Powerful stuff.

Finally, it was time for the award for Best Historical Romance (short). Just beforehand, my heart suddenly began to race, as for the first time I contemplated the possibility of actually winning. They had advised us to prepare a speech regardless, but with seven finalists in my category, I honestly hadn’t anticipated it.

The winner was announced by Kelly Bowen, my buddy from the day before (she won the category last year, and won the Best Historical Romance (long) this year). It seemed to take ages to read out all the finalists, and then when Waltzing was announced as the winner, I was genuinely stunned!

Eventually I got it together enough to stand up, grab my notes and reading glasses, and head for the stage. Bryony Green from Harlequin came with me, as the editor of the winning book also gets and award. My own editor, the wonderful Julia Williams, wasn’t able to be there, so Bryony went on stage in her place.

I got through my speech ok, then Kelly gave me the award. It’s really heavy! I can’t quite express the sense of numb delight and incredulity that threatened to overcome me. I mean, a RITA! Seriously!

Here’s the link to the announcement and my speech:

Afterwards, there was a sense of unreality as I accepted congratulations from dozens of people, all the while with a stupid grin on my face! Both Kelly and Kait Nolan won their categories too, which was lovely.

Me with Kait Nolan

And then, heartstoppingly, Tessa Dare (yes, the Tessa Dare) came up to me to congratulate me and ask for a selfie! Seriously!

I was chatting afterwards to Jess Russell, who was also a RITA finalist this year, and she was wearing the most amazing dress. It included the covers of every one of the RITA finalists!

The afterparty was fab – those romance writers certainly enjoy the dancing and the craic!

I chatted with some wonderful librarians, and danced away with a bunch of women I’d never met before. It was fab! Oh, and yes, by this time I’d changed into flat sandals.

Here’s Farrah Rochon’s clip of some of the dancing. Yup, that’s me!

This whole, marvellous experience wasn’t over yet. The next day I had meetings with agents (yes, I know, most writers have agents. I don’t – yet! But I will), then all the Harlequin Historical authors, plus some of the lovely Harlequin team, got together for lunch.

Top row: Bronwyn Scott, Julia Justiss, Flo Nicholl, Christine Merrill, Sheila Hodgson,

Middle row: all of us together

Bottom row: Bryony Green, Liz Tyner, me, Vic Briton, Blythe Gifford

The partying wasn’t over yet. Friday night was the time for the (apparently famous) Harlequin party. Even more exciting, the Harlequin RITA winners & finalists, and authors celebrating a landmark book, were invited to a VIP reception beforehand. This was such fun! Fabulous food (risotto to die for!), free makeup artists and hairdressers, and the chance to mingle with Harlequin’s top executives!

Then it was time to party! Harlequin thoughtfully provided soft blue socks to dance in, and you can see lots of partygoers wearing them. The dancefloor filled as soon as the music began, and didn’t empty all night. I likened it to an Irish wedding in that sense – and also the feeling that you could dance with anyone, whether you’d spoken to them before or not. My particular dancing buddies included Abby Green, Katherine Garbera, Stacy Boyd, Kimberley Troutte, Scarlet Wilson, and Joss Wood.

I tried to video us all joining in with the chorus of ‘Living on a Prayer’ but facebook has muted half of it for copyright reasons. Skip forward to the last 20 seconds to hear us singing!

What a night! What a week! And what an experience! It was a-ma-zing! I will never forget it.

To other writers – if you ever get the chance to go to this conference, do it! Such a warm, welcoming community of (mostly) women. Although the RITA experience will probably never happen again, still the conference itself is worth it. Next year it’s in New York, in the last week in August. I’ll be there, dancing shoes at the ready!

Hi All,

I’ve recently returned home from #RWA18 – The Romance Writers of America annual conference. What a wonderful event! Almost 2000 delegates, plus RWA staff, and associates including publishers, editors, marketing experts, and agents.

There is so much to say that I plan to write two blog posts – Part 1 is BR (Before the RITA® awards) and Part 2 is AR (After the RITAs) 😀

I confess, the fact that Waltzing with the Earl was a double finalist in the awards was the motivation for me to be brave and fly to Denver, Colorado from Ireland. I didn’t know any of the writers who would be there, had no roommate, and hadn’t travelled to the USA since 1993.

I found a roommate – Karen Kincy – via the event forum, and we hit it off really well. (Check out her work via www.karenkincy.com)

The workshops were amazing – I learned so much! The AGM was really interesting – I totally agree that we need to ensure diversity in the genre, and that we need to continually find the most effective ways of supporting all romance writers – including unpublished writers.

Along with all the other RITA® finalists, I was treated like royalty all week! People were constantly spotting my silver RITA pins and ‘RITA Finalist 2018‘ badge, and congratulating me. It was just wonderful.

On the Wednesday I attended a special reception for the RITA and Golden Heart finalists. [The Golden Heart awards are for unpublished writers.] We all got special certificates to recognise our achievement. I buddied up with two other RITA finalists – Kelly Bowen and Kait Nolan. We were all in different categories.

That evening, there was a free party – Harlequin were launching a new initiative called ReadBliss – an online video forum for all things Romance. It isn’t yet live, but it sounds exciting! They videoed us answering a series of questions about romance – should be interesting to see when it’s all edited together. At the party, as well as food, drink, and lots of chat, they had a Wheel of Fortune to win Read Bliss goodies, and two therapists were on hand offering free massages!

On to Thursday, and the Harlequin book signing. I met lots of other Harlequin Historical authors for breakfast, and just before the signing we did two facebook live videos, which was great fun!

  L to R: Bronwyn Scott, Catherine Tinley, Julia Justiss, Blythe Gifford, Liz Tyner, Christine Merrill

Here are the links to the live videos: facebook live 1 facebook live 2

At 3pm we had the rehearsal for the RITA awards ceremony. We managed to grab a quick photo with most of the finalists in my category (Historical Romance – short). They had told us all to prepare a speech but I don’t think any of us were even thinking about who might win – being a finalist was awesome enough already!

It was now 4pm, and I had to be at the Harlequin drinks reception by six. So being smart (or so I thought), I had booked an appointment at a local hairdressers, feeling that going to a major awards ceremony as a finalist justified the treat!

Unfortunately, I was just getting my hair washed when the fire alarm went off! My hairdresser rinsed off the conditioner quickly, then we all stood in the street for twenty minutes while the Denver Fire Department checked the building. Eventually we got the all clear, but by the time I was done I was a) late and b) unhappy with what the hairdresser had done. I’m not particularly fussy, but honestly, I’d done a better job when I’d blow-dried my own hair the day before.

So there I was, stressed and rushing. I got back to the hotel at 6:05pm, and of course the foyer was full of beautiful women in gorgeous evening dresses! I slunk upstairs, and got ready in double quick time. Dress, necklace, a little make-up, stuck a fancy clip in my hair to disguise the mess, then the shoes. Or, more accurately, stilts. I took a deep breath and headed downstairs, my roommate Karen with me as my plus one. It was 6:15pm.

Time for the RITAs ceremony!

 

 

To be continued…

Here’s the link to the first 50 pages of The Captain’s Disgraced Lady – absolutely free! Just click ‘read a sample’ when you get there.

Takes all the guesswork out of knowing whether to buy it or not – by page 50 you’ll definitely know whether you like it or not!

Happy reading!