I won!

At least, my books won.

I’m back from the ARRA ( Australian Romance Readers Association) annual awards dinner, which celebrates the books published in the last year,  and I’m delighted to report that my book, The Secret Daughter, won the Favourite Historical Romance category, with my friend Cathleen Ross coming runner-up with her gorgeous World War 1 story, An Unsuitable Bride.

Then my Brides of Bellaire Gardens won the Favourite On-going Series, category, with Alissa Callen‘s outback series, the popular “Bundilla” series coming runner-up.  

If you’d like a taste of Alissa’s work, here’s a link to the first book in the “Bundilla” series — Snowy Mountains Daughter.  I always like to start a series from the first book which sets everything up. And if you’ ever saw the movie, The Man from Snowy River, it will give you an idea of her setting.

It was a bitter-sweet evening, as a number of awards went to Kaz Delaney, a long time beloved Australian author who died recently.  Kaz was a long-time published author, multi published back when I was an aspiring author.  Over the years she’d written for a number of different publishers, and  a number of lines that folded, but she just kept on writing and reinventing herself.

Kaz’s most recent publisher was Tule for which she wrote cowboy romances and cosy mysteries. She was also incredibly warm, kind and supportive of other authors and aspiring writers. Her editor told me all the staff at Tule loved her because she was always 100% professional, warm, and really appreciative of anything they did.  And, very appropriately, Kaz won Favourite Australian Author. Here’s a link to Kaz Delaney’s first book in her cozy mystery series.

I would like to thank the organizers of the ARRA conference, who are all volunteers, and the readers who nominated and voted for my books.

The following day, we had a series of panels — historical romance, rural romance, romantic comedy, romantasy, romantic suspense and world-building. 

After lunch, where I met a number of new readers, there was a book signing event, where I shared a table with my friend, the lovely Penelope Janu who writes excellent rural romance. She grew up with horses, so there’s almost always a horse or two involved.

We had a good time catching up  and I nobly rescued her from  red snakes (jelly snakes — she doesn’t like the red ones). You can see them in the little dish on the right of the photo.

While Penne and I chatted,  we watched the fabulous internationally bestselling  Nalini Singh trying to stave off writers’ cramp as she signed mountains of books.

Do you know Nalini’s work? She was the one who converted me to paranormal romance, with her Psy-Changeling series

  She’s written a number of series since then, and they all sell like hot cakes. The Psy-Changelings are my faves because they were my first, but I also love her rock stars, and . . . They’re all good.

Nalini is also a total sweetheart. (In fact she helped me save Penne from the red jelly snakes too. <g>) Here she is  with a gift someone gave her  — a drink that sparkles!

It was a lovely couple of days, but when I got home I really needed a rest!
And now I’m back at work as usual.