Celebrate Romance, Celebrating Wins!

A mish-mash of a blog today. No writing tips. Lots of BSP (blatant self promotion). If you wonder where Colby Hodge disappeared to, she was at Celebrate Romance, a small but wonderful author/reader conference, as was I. And about 70 others. This year it was in Columbia SC (you can probably figure my mindset when my flight landed in Charlotte and the pilot annouced it was 37-degrees out. I'm from Florida...). It was at the Inn at USC, a totally lovely historic hotel on the edge of the USC campus.

Author Isabo Kelly (solo below) and I, along with reader Robin Greene, arrived by limo from the airport:

Hey, life's short. Eat dessert first and take a limo when you can.

And here's Colby Hodge (R-standing) with author Elizabeth Hoyt (seated) at the CR signing at Books A Million Saturday night:

More photos can be found here at the moment, on the Publisher's Weekly blog. I'll post them all by week's end on my site in News.

Okay, BSP time. I found out late Friday night that Games of Command won the PEARL award for Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Romance, and The Down Home Zombie Blues took an Honorable Mention. Here's the full list of winners and HMs:

Anthology
Honorable Mention -
MY BIG FAT SUPERNATURAL HONEYMOON by Jim Butcher, P. N. Elrod, Marjorie M.Liu, Kelly Armstrong, Rachel Caine, Katie MacAlister, Lilith Saintcrow, RondaThompson, Caitlin Kittredge
WILD THING by Maggie Shayne, Alyssa Day, Marjorie M. Liu, Meljean Brook

Winner -
ON THE PROWL by Sunny, Karen Chance, Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks

Fantasy
Honorable Mention - ATLANTIS RISING by Alyssa Day
Winner - DEVIL MAY CRY by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Futuristic
Honorable Mention - THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES by Linnea Sinclair
Winner – SILVER MASTER by Jayne Castle

Best New Author
Winner – C. L. Wilson

Best Novella
Winner – Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs / ON THE PROWL ANTHOLOGY

Best Overall
HM – FOR A FEW DEMONS MORE by Kim Harrison
Winner – Devil May Cry by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Best Science Fiction & Fantasy
HM – BLOOD BOUND by Patricia Briggs
Winner – GAMES OF COMMAND by Linnea Sinclair

Best Shapeshifter
HM – CARESSED BY ICE by Nalini Singh
Winner – BLOOD LINES by Eileen Wilks

Best Time Travel
HM – PARALLEL DESIRE by Deidre Knight
Winner – WHEN I FALL IN LOVE by Lynn Kurland

Best Vampire
HM – LOVER REVEALED by J. R. Ward
Winner – DARK POSSESION by Christine Feehan

More BSP: In the prestigious 12th annual AAR Reader Poll, Games of Command took Best SFF & Futuristic!

So this has been an extremely exciting February and March for me. Plus, oh, yeah, we hatched another duckling. Meet Thumperduck the wonder duck, typing away on my Vaio under the watchful eye of Daq cat who is my laptop's wallpaper kitty:

Hugs all, ~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/