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.

An Anniversary & a Giveaway

The word wenches — the historical romance authors I regularly blog with — are celebrating their 9th anniversary. That's a long time in blogland.

We're celebrating with a series of posts about our first ever book, and with a giveaway. Eight winners will win one of these books, and one winner will win all eight of the books!

To enter the giveaway contest click here: http://bit.ly/WordWenchesGiveaway

Look what just arrived on my doorstep.

I'm smiling.

 

I remember when they gave out the first RITA finalist pins — it was at the 2000 (I think) conference in Washington, and it was my first RWA conference, and my first book was a RITA finalist.

The pins were new and it was a surprise for everyone when, as we registered they gave them out. They gave pins retrospectively as well, and some people were pinning on three, four, twelve or more and everyone was grinning and exclaiming over them with delight.  It was SUCH a buzz, and all through the conference it looked like little silver ladies were dancing across people's chests.

This is my fourth RITA finalist pin and the buzz doesn't get any less. It's a thrill every time, and the arrival of this beautiful little silver lady on my doorstep just made my day/week/month.

Live Chat and Big Contest

For US readers — I'm going to be doing a live Spreecast video chat chat with fellow historical romance authors - Madeline Hunter, Julia London, Jennifer Ashley/Allyson James, and Juliana Gray. It takes place on Wednesday, February 27th at noon EST (that's USA time -- 4 am in Australia)

The chat will launch a special contest with a $250 gift card to an on-line bookstore of the winner's choice and 5 bundles of books containing a past title from each of the authors concerned. For legal reasons this competition is open only to US readers only, sorry.  You can check out the details and sign up for the chat here.

Click on the little blue RSVP button in the top right-hand of the screen and you'll get a reminder.

For details of how to enter the contest, go here.