RITA Awards

While I have respect for authors who do well to achieve this honor, unfor­tu­nately, it doesn’t do any­thing for this reader to see the RITA on the cover of your book. I’ve been burned a few times with books labeled as RITA award win­ners. What stood for excel­lence for some, represented some­thing else for me: avoid, AVOID, avoid.

My first RITA awarded book was by Mary Jo Put­ney, it was a his­tor­i­cal novel, Danc­ing on the Wind. While I’ve enjoyed many of Mary Jo Putney’s books and a few sit on my keeper shelf, this was my least favorite.

I find such awards polit­i­cally moti­vated to a degree. Every­thing is rel­a­tive. Does hand­ing out these awards improve qual­ity? I don’t think so. I do think if you had Roman­tica as a cat­e­gory and the authors were rec­og­nized — they’d give your other straight romance authors a run for their money. I’m just say­ing. Shelby Reed is out­stand­ing. She’d get my vote, hands down.

Many times, look­ing over the nom­i­nees, I know I stand alone because more than half are authors who either a)make the list every year and b) anony­mous to moi. Besides, I don’t really read much straight romance these days—too bor­ing. So, I don’t envy the job of the judges of these things. I read some­where they have to read up to 100 pages of each con­test book. That explains a lot, thank you to who­ever posted that. I have no proof if it’s verac­ity, sorry. But if per­cep­tion is truth, then I tend to believe that one.

What I find inter­est­ing is the dust up over whether or not another cat­e­gory should be cre­ated to encom­pass roman­tica. I felt that Lisa Valdez should have been nom­i­nated for Best First Book Final­ists myself, but that’s just me. Maybe read­ing the first ten pages was a put-off for some. I don’t know. The book was well writ­ten and the char­ac­ter­i­za­tions were pretty decent. How­ever, the feed­ing frenzy over it’s graphic sex scenes pretty much had this book shut off from gar­ner­ing any type of award.

Con­tem­po­rary final­ists read like humor/slapstick and chick lit to me. I don’t read much of those. I hope sin­cerely that Cheryl Reavis nabs Best Long Con­tem­po­rary for Black­berry Win­ter. She’s the only final­ist I’ve read and enjoyed on a con­sis­tent basis.

Rakes still dom­i­nant the Best Long His­tor­i­cal Romance cat­e­gory, why am I not sur­prised. I don’t read those any­more either. It’s just some­thing about that if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. And the Para­nor­mal Cat­e­gory — haven’t read not one but I do have Dark Lover by J.R. Ward that Sybil’s been pimp­ing. That book was a given to be in that cat­e­gory despite var­ied reader response.

One thing puz­zles me, you can cre­ate a cat­e­gory for Roman­tic Sus­pense and another for  Nov­els With Strong Roman­tic Ele­ments but not have another cat­e­gory for roman­tica? Give Me a Break. A few cat­e­gories could be elim­i­nated too like Nov­els With Strong Roman­tic Ele­ments, Best Tra­di­tional Romance (WTF?), Best Short Story Con­tem­po­rary, I’d lump that one with Best Long Con­tem­po­rary Final­ists (series, not sin­gle title) and change it to Best Series Romance (Short/Long). If there’s sup­port for such a cat­e­gory of Roman­tica, it’d be there.

Any­way, con­grat­u­la­tions to those who were nom­i­nated or stunned to be nom­i­nated. I know I was as unsur­prised and unin­spired as usual. Here is the list. Enjoy.

For Fur­ther Reading

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