Squee! I’m a Rita Nominee

When the alarm went off at 6am, I suddenly heard my iPad ping and I thought, ‘That must be my calendar reminder.’ I immediately wondered what I was supposed to be doing today because nothing was ringing any bells. A few moments later, the iPad went insane, pinging  like crazy.

I stumbled out into the kitchen and saw ‘Congratulations on your #Rita12 nomination’ and my heart almost stopped. For those of you who don’t know, the RITA award is the Romance Writers of America’s industry award…the Oscars of romance writing. A big deal in my world!

My fingers wouldn’t work and all I could think of was, ‘Shouldn’t I have got a phone call?’ I glanced at messages. No blue blinking light. I didn’t want to get too

excited before I saw the list but my fingers were not cooperating very well so I rang the US and spoke to  Angela James from Carina Press who told me what I had read was correct. Boomerang Bride was nominated in the single title contemporary romance section and I was the first Carina Press author to have a Rita nomination. SQUEE!!

I have been entering the Rita since 2007 and each March I sigh. In fact,  last year I didn’t even enter any of my medical romances lbut I thought with my single title novel, Boomerang Bride, I would give it a shot. And here I am, giddy with excitement!  This book has been through the mill in finding a home so it is totally awesome that my peers liked it enough to nominate it for this award.

Congratulations to my fellow nominees…the list is here and a special high-five to the Antipodean contingent of Trish Morey, Christina Brookes, Nalini Singh and Barbara Hannay. Special thanks to Carina Press for printing the book so it could be entered.

My inbox has overflowed, my Twitter mates and Facebook pals have been amazing and the whole day has been like one big party. I hope all the other nominees are having as much of a wonderful day as I am.