Evelyn Pryce's Blog, page 2
August 23, 2013
Read-A-Romance Month – One Month. 93 Writers. Romance Matters!
On Day 28th, RAR will be posting my essay on why Romance matters. I’m very honored to be on this list of names writing on the subject and the essays posted so far are well worth checking out.
Read-A-Romance Month – One Month. 93 Writers.
May 21, 2013
A Man Above Reproach is the Romance Category Winner in ABNA!
Here is what happens when you find out you won your category in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.
It is May 6, 2013. You get a call from a zip code you don’t recognize. The voice on the other end identifies itself, asks if you’re driving. (You’re not, in fact, you never got your license.) The kind woman also asks if you’re sitting down. (Yes, you’re sitting on your couch.) You are told gently that you are the winner in the Romance category of ABNA 2013; this means that your book will be published. You are still in the running for the grand prize, but your book is definitely being published. You swear with delight, then apologize for swearing. You pace around your house, laughing and shaking, talking to your cats.
You can’t tell anyone but your immediate family. For two weeks.
Things start to happen really quickly. It’s best that they don’t give you time to think. You have access to resources you could have only dreamed about a week before. If you’re me, you have trouble digesting that you just achieved one of your biggest dreams.
As things are happening, it becomes more and more difficult to not talk about it. You dance around the subject, you deal in half-truth, you laugh anxiously about how nervous you are when anyone asks you. You feel like you’re lying, but you’re not, you don’t have any choice. If anyone found out, you’d be disqualified and every exciting thing that you worked so hard for would disappear in a flash.
You look at the cover of your book, which suddenly exists, and you can’t tell anybody. You cry.
The closer the date gets, the guiltier you feel, having to keep the news from people who have supported you all through the writing of your book. There’s a new feeling, too: at first, it seemed like it was forever, then it seemed like too soon.
I’m writing this blog two days before the announcement, to be posted on the day. And I feel scared. A lot of ‘what if’s in my life have turned into ‘this is happening right now.’
So, if I get scared, I try to focus on being grateful instead. I need to say that I am ridiculously, out-sized blessed with an amazing birth family and the very best friends a girl could hope for—this is not hyperbole. I am thankful to the point of being embarrassed every single day. The acknowledgement pages in my book will be teary and hand-wringing.
As far as the publication of A Man Above Reproach, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge three people right now.
My husband, Stephen Foland, who never asks me to close the laptop and be a normal person, who is my counsel and my constant, who did not blink an eye when I told him I was going to start writing historical romance. You don’t get even half of the praise you deserve for being the man that you are. I love you and I like you.
Jocelyn Hillen, my best friend for each crazy bit of our lives, who told stories with me when we were teens and to this very day, a first reader of the top tier. You help me find my way through my writing; you are my second pair of eyes. I am so sorry I couldn’t tell you all this time—it honestly killed me. I love you; forgive me.
Amy Loveridge, I can’t overestimate your impact in everything you touch. Your amazing advice and your lucid edits guided me to the draft I submitted to the contest (following a direct order from you to do so). Your friendship, and the unadulterated encouragement that comes with it, is an enormous gift.
Now that I’ve gone sappy, here’s the link for the finals voting: http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011. But really—I kind of feel like I couldn’t ask for anything more.
April 29, 2013
ABNA: The Rest of the Field (Romance) #2
An interview with yours truly by Scott Cairns, another one of the ABNA semi-finalists (for his novel, Silver):
ABNA: The Rest of the Field (Romance).
April 21, 2013
Publishers Weekly reviews A Man Above Reproach
The semi-final cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest is over–and I made it through. I was informed of that via a tweet from a friend while I was stranded in a class analyzing literature to exhaustion, which prompted me to dash out disruptively, run to the bathroom, try frantically to open the link on my phone, fail, then finally see proof by picture that my friend was kind enough to attach in the middle of my near-meltdown. When my teacher asked if everything was okay, I labeled my absence an ’emergency.’
I thought that a valid description.
Out of an initial 10,000 entries, the ABNA are now down to 25 manuscripts. My book, A Man Above Reproach, is among the final 5 romances. This has all been a long and overwhelming process, but here I am: able to share with you the Publishers Weekly review of my novel. It’s wonderful and I wish I knew the mystery reviewer, because I want to hug them.
“A bluestocking and a Duke make an unlikely pair in this exceptionally entertaining historical romance. Elias Addison, the dutiful and put-upon new Duke of Lennox, expects tedium and disdain when his friend persuades him out for a night of debauchery. Instead, he is drawn to the brothel’s pianist, an untouchable woman known as the Bawdy Bluestocking, who refuses to succumb to his charms. The truth is that Josie is no courtesan — she is a disenfranchised lady, a bookseller, and a crusader, determined to bring a better life to women who, due to circumstance, are forced into prostitution. Convinced that Elias is another unrepentant rake, she makes every effort to turn him away, which only fans his interest. A drama of class, hidden identities, and a battle of the sexes unfolds, with witty banter and searing passion sure to entice. Though the social situations strain credulity, Elias and Josie are so likable, and their romance such a delightful whirlwind, that stretching the historical accuracy is easy to forgive. Fans of Kieran Kramer and Sabrina Jeffries will find much to like here.” **
There’s nothing I don’t like here, down to the flattering comparisons. I knew at the outset, of course, that “the social situations strain credulity,” which is a charmingly delicate way to put it, but the qualifier that my characters are so likable that it is a minor sin means the world to me. A Man Above Reproach was a blast to write, I completely fell in love with my characters, and now I know that translates to the reader.
Now–off to find some distraction from fretting the finals!
**Publishers Weekly is an independent organization and the review was written based on a manuscript version of the book and not a published version
June 8, 2012
June 7, 2012
*whips off glasses* Good god.
glueyourfingers:
calanth...
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*whips off glasses* Good god.
Peles Castle
ugh is it legal to marry a stairway
June 6, 2012
(this post contains a sorta-spoiler for Mad Men, be fore...
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(this post contains a sorta-spoiler for Mad Men, be forewarned oh ye of Twitter. Tumblr is the land of spoilers, so I don’t have to worry about that.)
Forever, homie.
June 4, 2012
Gray is very in right now; you may also try a shade of n...
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Gray is very in right now; you may also try a shade of navy.
