Five self-published books are among the finalists for the Romance Writers of Australia (RWA) Romantic Book of the Year Award, also known as ‘the Ruby’.
Ruining Miss Wrotham by Emily Larkin and The Sicilian List by Robby Dennis are finalists in the Long Romance category while K M Golland’s Plight and Anna Hackett’s Unmapped made the ‘Short Romance category. The Romantic Elements category includes self-published title The Girl and the Ghost by Ebony McKenna.
The winners will be announced on 18 August at the RWA conference in Sydney. All of the finalists will also go into the running for the overall Romantic Book of the Year Award, chosen by a panel of industry professionals. For a full list of finalists, see the RWA website.
The Ngaio Marsh longlist for best New Zealand crime, thriller and suspense writing also features two self-published titles.
Finn Bell became the first self-published author to win a Ngaio Marsh award last year when he won for Best First Novel. Bell has made the Best Novel longlist this year with his self-published title, The Easter Make Believers. Katherine Hayton’s The Only Secret Left To Keep is another self-published title on the longlist.
A panel of crime-fiction experts from the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand will choose the shortlist, to be announced in July alongside the finalists for the best first novel. The winner will be announced at an event at the WORD Christchurch festival, held from 29 August to 2 September.
For the full longlist, see the Booksellers NZ website.