I just read some excellent news: Laura Kinsale won the Best Long Historical Romance RITA with Shadowheart, and Jennifer Crusie won the Best Contemporary Single Title Romance RITA with Bet Me. YES! *fistpump* This goes a long way towards ameliorating some of the rather puzzling decisions the RITA committee has made in the past. (I mean, c’mon, Worth Any Price was the best Short Historical for 2004? Da hell? Was it an especially lean year for historicals? And I’m big Lisa Kleypas fan, even, the kind who buys her books as soon as they come out and devours them within a day, whether they’re any good or not.)
Anyway, congratulations to Laura Kinsale and Jennifer Crusie. I’m doing the Happy Snoopy Dance.
I’ve been doing the happy dance about Shadowheart since I read the news this morning. (Gee, I’d do a happy dance smilie if I could find one on this site ;))
The only one Rita winner that I’ve read is Evelyn Vaughn’s AKA Goddess. It’s one of the few Bombshells that I enjoyed. It deserved to win. (another happy dance non-smilie)
Oh, did A.K.A. Goddess win? HOORAY indeed! That was one hell of an excellent sexy-kickass book, one of the best Bombshells indeed. Congratulations to Evelyn Vaughn!
And of course to Kinsale and Crusie. Good year for the RITAs.
And TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR by Lani Diane Rich—the chick lit I’ve been begging everyone who says “I hate chick lit” to read—won for Best First Book.
I *love* “Time Off For Good Behavior”! So glad she won a Rita for it. And I haven’t read A.K.A. Goddess but I loved Von’s SIlhouette Shadows and she’s just a cool person. Looks like I’m going to have to order it.
Well I haven’t read either author (no I’m not a heathen) so my excitement is not quite at fever pitch (g)
I’m still waiting for Maili to send me a Crusie offering:)
Oh! I love you people! Thanks so much for saying nice things about my book. I love this website, and I keep waiting with fingers crossed to get snarked on (and would love it – Smart Bitches, just ask and you’ll get all my books!) I’m honored that people smart enough to enjoy this website enjoyed TOFGB! And I had the honor of sitting next to Jenny when both she and I won (swapping the “You’re gonna win/No, I’m not” argument) and she was thrilled and honored and giggly as a girl. Her award couldn’t have happened to a better book or a better person, and she deserves every bit of adulation she gets. Big love to all you Smart Bitches!
Lani
AWESOME! Yay Jenny and Lani!
Ooooh, you’re THAT Lani! Congratulations, Lani. Verrrry cool.
Smart Bitches, just ask and you’ll get all my books!
*coughs delicately* Well, since you mentioned it… Pretty please?
(I’ll e-mail you when I get home tonight.)
(Man, I love running this website.)
“This goes a long way towards ameliorating some of the rather puzzling decisions the RITA committee has made in the past. “
Probably because there isn’t a “RITA committee.” There isn’t one group that reads all the books and makes all the decisions. (Can you imagine the time it would take to read 1000 books and pick? Ack!)
The books are judged by other published romance authors—let’s see, you have to send in 6 copies, so that’s 6 judges for each book. Then, if you final, you have to send in five or 6 MORE books, and those are judged by Different published romance authors—rated on a scale of 0 to 9 (for some reason that’s easier to compute than 1 to 10)—and then the results are tabulated and voila! You have winners.
I don’t remember who else was in the running for Short Historical in 2004, so I couldn’t tell you about whether the field was small or not. The results may not correspond with best seller-dom—in fact, I’m sure they don’t, since Nora didn’t win a thing this year—but I try to read all the winners (and the finalists), and I’ve pretty much always enjoyed them all.