RWA Update + Tess and Nate's Story Gets a Cover!

So am just back from a fabulous week in Anaheim for the 2012 RWA Conference... Exhausted, excited and inspired!

Lots of thrilling news to report, but easily the highlight of the week was Sarah Morgan's triumphant win at the RITAs for Best Contemporary Series Romance for Doukakis's Apprentice. She gave a wonderfully witty speech and looked fabulous in her gold-fringed RITA-matching frock (and she let me fondle it for a minute - the RITA that is, not the frock - see below!). Can't think of a better ambassador for Presents than Sarah, she done us all proud. Incredibly this was the first RITA for a Presents book, may there be many more now.

Also on my agenda was a Riva lunch with lovely fellow authors Kimberly Lang, Aimee Carson, Sue Stephens and Fiona Harper. Needless to say there was much talk about the upcoming launch of Kiss which according to my ed the NA office are 'very excited' about. They're not the only ones!!

Had a fabulous brainstorming session with Aimee and Kimberly for our Kiss continuity which is starting to look completely AWESOME (if I do say so myself). My hero is going to be a nice Southern boy turned cynical and super-sexy CEO who had a steamy one-night stand in college with my sultry sassy British heroine. They meet again ten years later and the fireworks are going to be seriously hot! It's set in NYC and Savannah and that's really all I can say for now... But I'm so excited about this story and the others in the quartet.

The Harlequin Party was a dance-your-feet-off affair as usual and we had Nora Roberts sitting on the table next to us! Not to mention free cosmopolitans all night. Having already stalked Nora at the Literacy Autographing earlier in the week (and got a signed copy of her new In Death book! Yay!) I had to refrain from doing it again. So me and Ms Abby Green stalked the fabulous Victoria Dahl instead. Managed to get an early read of her new book Close Enough to Touch and fell in love with it. Check out my Goodreads review if you want to know more.

I finished off the week spending a day schmoozing with Abby Green and Fiona Harper on Santa Monica Boulevard and hanging out at  Abby's suite in a fabulously funky hotel in West Hollywood - before fi and I caught the flight home to London...

All in all, had such a brilliant time I didn't even shout at my sons when I saw the Mount Everest of Laundry waiting for me on my return!

In other news I've just got ahold of the cover for my next (and last) Presents Extra release One Night, So Pregnant. Absolutely love the cover and the back blurb which should whet your appetite. The book's out in December in the US and will hopefully be out in the UK when Riva relaunches next year, but I will be putting up a sneak peek shortly on my website.

 

What to expect when you’re unexpectedly expecting

• Shock: Telling a gorgeous (almost) total stranger that he’s going to be a dad is never easy!

• Cravings: The instant chemistry that catapulted Tess Tremaine into the wildest night she’s ever had isn’t going to just go away— and no one says no to Nate Graystone when he’s determined to be involved….

• Hormones Gone Wild: Surely that’s the only reason she’s failing to keep Nate out of her bed, out of her mind…and why she keeps wanting more from the most unattainable man she’s ever met?

Good news week!

Got an email a couple of days ago from Donna at CataRomance to say that The Mile High Club has won a Reviewers Choice Award. I was so chuffed, especially when I checked out the full list and found fellow Modern Heat authors Nicola Marsh, Trish Wylie, Ally Blake and Sue Stephens there as well. You can check out the full list by clicking here.

Then I heard via the grapevine not one but two of my Modern Heat colleagues - namely Julie Cohen and Kate Hardy - have been nominated for RNA's much coveted Romance Prize this year. And I've got to mention Romance author Fiona Harper (who very nicely came up to chat to me last year at the RNA lunch so I consider her a friend) and who has been nominated twice (isn't that a bit greedy Fiona?). I'll be rooting for all of them come Feb 4th (if I can get a late ticket for the Awards Lunch at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, which I, of course, forgot to book! Duh!). For the full list of nominees click here.

And then to really make my week I got an email from my editor Bryony to say that Bedded by a Playboy got into the Waldenbooks Top Ten Bestsellers in series romance for the week ending 12th January and here's the proof. Yippee. I'm a happy camper. So happy in fact that I will admit to falling off the wagon ever so slightly last night. Luckily I didn't hit the ground too hard.

As my reward tonight I'm off to see No Country for Old Men, the new Coen Brothers movie. Anyone seen O Brother Where Art Thou? George Clooney in a hairnet - now that's what I call a movie. I'm expecting to be thoroughly entertained. And I'm expecting to tell y'all about it at a future date - unless it turns out to be rubbish, in which case I won't.