I finalled!

The 2015 Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA) Awards have been announced. These awards are where members of ARRA nominate and vote on the books they most enjoyed during the previous year.

I'm delighted to have made the finals list in five categories:

Favourite Historical Romance
The Spring Bride by Anne Gracie

Favourite Continuing Romance Series

Chance Sisters series by Anne Gracie

Favourite Australian Romance Author 2015

Anne Gracie

Favourite Cover from a romance published in 2015

The Spring Bride by Anne Gracie

The Strongest Heroine from a romance published in 2015

Jane Chance in The Spring Bride by Anne Gracie

You can see the full list of finalists here:
The awards will be presented to the winners on March 19 at a special dinner in Sydney. You can book here.

Thank you to ARRA for organizing these wonderful awards, to the readers who nominated my books (and me) and congratulations to all the other finalists.

Australian Romance Reader Awards

Every year ARRA (that's the Australian Romance Readers Association) announces their awards, and I'm delighted to announce that my book, The Winter Bride, has been nominated for several awards in the 2014 awards:
Favourite Historical Romance
Favourite Continuing Romance Series
Favourite Australian Romance Author 2014
and my hero Freddy is nominated for the The Sexiest Hero from a romance published in 2014
The full list is here.

Thanks to ARRA for organizing this Reader's Choice Award and thank you to those readers who nominated my book.
The winners will be announced at the ARRA Convention in Canberra in March 2015.

Trifles — and something exciting.

No, I'm not talking about the dessert made of cake, jelly, fruit and custard that I used to see when I was a kid; I'm just talking about small things— paper earrings — and then I remembered I should mention something not so small, and quite exciting (for me, anyway.)

 I haven't been posting a lot recently, as I'm deep in book-world, but I thought I'd just dive in quickly with a small insignificant thing -- ie a trifle.

Last year, for the ARRA (Australian Romance readers Conference) I made a few origami-style paper earrings from the cover of my books, and gave them away. I blogged about it here. So this year I made some more paper ones, only in a different style — little paper Autumn Bride books.

I'm thinking of going to the US to the RWA National Conference in Atlanta in July, so my question is, should I make some paper earrings to give away there? 

Oh, and I just realized I haven't put this on the blog — the something exciting — why might I go to the US conference? Because my book, BRIDE BY MISTAKE is a finalist in the RITA competition, the romance writers' Oscar, which I'm thrilled about. 

So. . . decisions, decisions.

More pics from ARRA

I promised you some more photos from ARRC (The Australian Romance Readers Association Convention.) I didn't actually take many — I was too busy speaking  (on panels and on stage as well as to lovely ARRA members) to take photos, but I did manage to get a few, mainly on the awards night, where I didn't have much to do. So here's me, with the other keynote speakers, the wonderful Kristan Higgins and Rachel Vincent.

This pic was taken at the end of the Historical Romance panel. I'd brought a bunch of bright feather fans, to get us all in the mood, and at the end, when we posed for photos, well, things got a a bit silly. :) And for once, it wasn't my fault. I blame Cathy Maxwell for this one. LOL

And here's Aimée, a Melbourne ARRAite with a wicked sense of humour — appropriately attired. 

 Kristan Higgins did a wonderful job. She performed all her duties brilliantly — and still managed to get herself photographed with a bunch of firemen. If I didn't know better I'd suspect it was she who set off the fire alarm.

 Two ARRA heroines — Rose and Debbie P.

One of the features of ARRC is the "bling-off" at the awards night — everyone wears fabulous bling, and there's a competition for the best bling. Here are some of the competitors, lining up.

And here are the two joint winners — and don't they look fabulous?

It was a brilliant conference. Thank you Debbie Jay (Convention Coordinator), Debbie Phillips (ARRA Prez) and all the amazing ARRA volunteers who worked so hard to make everything go so beautifully. It was an honor and a privilege to be part of such a wonderful event.