Sunday, July 15, 2007

SANDRA PAUL and DOMESTICATING LUC


I'm feeling rather desperate about Sandra Paul.

I wanted to bring you a taster of all the RITA shortlisted books this year -- the very last in which there will be a Traditional Category -- and thought it would be a piece of cake.

I actually know four of the shortlisted authors so all I had to was put out a call for excerpts. No problem. But Sandra hasn't shown up on any of my extended networks so I searched further. I posted pleas on all my loops, on the eHarlequin message board. Nothing.

She doesn't have a internet footprint. No photographs. No interviews. No blurbs. So all I can give you is the cover of DOMESTICATING LUC -- it's great isn't it? -- and give you a link to Amazon, US so that you can check it out for yourself -- and maybe buy a copy so that you can find out for yourself what gives it that extra sparkle. Give you a link to her page at Fantastic Fiction

And if anyone out there can tell me more, then send me an email and I'll put up more tomorrow. In the meantime, since I can't get hold of Sandra, I'm going to set you a question myself -- and the prize will be a copy of my August release, REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION.

"Luc" is one of those seriously sexy hero names. If you could name a hero, what would you call him, and why?

Don't forget! Keep commenting on all the Rita finalist posts until Monday.

And finally, we now have news of the categories for next year's Rita and Golden heart series fiction. Gone are Traditional, Short Contemporary and Long Contemporary and they are to be replaced with the following.

New Contemporary Series Golden Heart and RITA Categories

Contemporary Series Romance

Definition: Series romance novels that focus primarily on the romantic relationship.

Judging guidelines: In this category, the love story is the main focus of the novel, and the end of the book is emotionally satisfying and optimistic.


Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure

Definition: Series romance novels which focus primarily on the romantic relationship but may have more complex suspense/adventure subplots.

Judging guidelines: In this category, the love story is the main focus of the novel, and the end of the book is emotionally satisfying and optimistic.

"Rationale pertaining to both of the above categories: With the shrinking word counts at Harlequin/Silhouette, there is no longer an appreciable difference between the length of individual lines. Therefore, these two categories were created to focus on content rather than word count. "


So there you have it. But tonight we have the award ceremony -- it's online, live, at the RWA website

I'll be back tomorrow with news of the winner!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damien. B/c men are generally men. They are strong, dominating, controlling and loving at the same time. They need a strong name to go with a strong woman which is why I chose Damien.

Anonymous said...

Roark....I know there are lots of them out there and they are all delickable!!!!!

Valerie

Maureen said...

I think I would pick Luke.

Becky said...

Love the cover. I would name my hero Lucien. It's kind of a older English Aristocratic name, but it sounds so sexy. It makes me think of a man who isn't afraid to take control and has a bit of the devil in him...if you know what I mean, but also has a fun, gentle, caring, and loving side to him at the same time. :)

Eva said...

Dominic is a strong-sounding name for a hero. It belongs to an honorable, daring warrior!

Anne McAllister said...

Great cover. Sorry to say, I don't know Sandra, either.

The reason I began to write romance fiction was because I wanted to name a son Brendan and my husband didn't. After four boys not named Brendan, I decided I was going to have to come up with another way to get to use the name (I couldn't keep having sons forever!), so I began to write.

As it happened, even there I didn't get to Brendan until my 4th hero, but I do love the name (I'm trying to convince children that I deserve a grandson named Brendan now!).

At the moment I'm writing about a hero named Sebastian. He's my 60th -- and I haven't re-used a name, so it's getting a little tricky coming up with names I can live with and heroes who fit them. But I like Seb a lot. Just needed to find the right book for him.

Love your blog party, Liz! What fun!

CrystalGB said...

I would pick Chase or Chance.

Donna Alward said...

My current hero is Luca. :-)

And I've had a Connor, Mike, Jonas and Nate so far in my Romances. :-)

I do like strong names. And names that are a reflection of the character.