The Romantic Novel of the Year. Winners. Shortlists. News.

The Romantic Novel of the Year is Romantic Novelists Associations major award and is open to all romantic fiction first published in the UK in the current year. The presentation is made at the RNA Awards Luncheon. In previous years this has taken place in April, but in 2008 it is being held in February.

Books all receive three reads from amongst a panel of over a hundred readers who are ordinary members of the public. The readers score the titles on such criteria as romantic content, readability, dialogue, characters, plot, style and setting. The books with the highest scores go on to a longlist and receive a fourth read. When that score has been added, the six books with the highest combined score form the shortlist for the year.

The whole shortlist is read by all the final judges to select the outright winner.

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The Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 is Pillow Talk by Freya North

Petra Flint and Arlo Savidge were teenage sweethearts in a sweet, chaste, old-fashioned way. They never really told each other how they felt. Now, years later, Petra is a wonderfully talented jeweller by day, but by night she is a sleepwalker, never fully able to rest.

Arlo, a musician, is living in North Yorkshire, teaching at an eccentric boys' boarding school. Like Petra, he carries with him something that makes it hard to sleep at night.

In an ice-cream shop one rainy day Arlo and Petra stand before each other once again, hardly able to believe their eyes. Is this their second chance?

However, for love to blossom, they must finally put their pasts to bed. A past Petra can't quite remember. A past Arlo wants to forget.

About the Freya North
In the early 1990s, Freya North abandoned a PhD to write her first novel, Sally. For four years she turned deaf ears to the pleading of parents and friends to ‘get a proper job’. Instead, she opted for a succession of freelance and temping jobs to accumulate precious writing days. Eventually, with the first novel complete and a second underway, Freya sent sample chapters out to the publishing industry. There followed a string of rejections from publishers and agents alike. Undeterred, she tried a different tack and sent a page of completely fabricated ‘reviews’, purporting to be from famous authors and the media, to a leading literary agent. He didn’t believe the reviews (some were his own clients…) but he took her on and placed her work in a bidding war which resulted in a three book deal. Sally was published to great acclaim in 1996. Freya’s subsequent novels, Chloe, Polly, Cat, Fen, Pip, Love Rules and Home Truths have all been bestsellers. Freya North lives in London with her family.

rna_08shortlist
2008 Shortlisted titles: (authors, except Maureen Lee, above)
One Last Summer – Catrin Collier (Orion)
Silk and Steel – Catherine King (Sphere/Little, Brown)
The Leaving of Liverpool – Maureen Lee (Orion)
Silver Bay – Jojo Moyes (Hodder & Stoughton)
Pillow Talk – Freya North (Harper Collins)- Winner
Young Wives’ Tales – Adele Parks (Michael Joseph/Penguin)

Catrin Collier – One Last Summer (Orion)

Hailed ‘the new saga queen’ by The Sunday Telegraph, Catrin Collier was born and raised in Pontypridd. Her career took her to Europe and America but now she lives with her family near Swansea. Over six million viewers enjoyed the BBC’s Hearts of Gold series in 2003, which was based on Catrin’s first novel. The BBC is currently developing two more television series from her novels.

ONE LAST SUMMER was based on the life of Catrin Collier’s mother and grandmother; it is a powerful novel which spans over sixty years, from the life of grandmother Charlotte, beginning in East Prussia in 1939, to her journalist granddaughter, Laura in modern day England.

Catherine King – Silk and Steel (Sphere/Little, Brown)
Catherine King was born and grew up in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, surrounded by iron and steel works and coal mining villages. She developed her story-telling skills by writing romantic novels and has published five titles under a pseudonym. However, it was a search for her roots and an interest in local industrial history that provided the inspiration for her longer novels.

WOMEN OF IRON is her first saga, published by Sphere in hardback in 2006. SILK AND STEEL is her second saga, published in hardback by Sphere in December 2007 with the paperback to follow in August 2008. She is currently working on her third book and her website is: www.catherineking.co.uk

Maureen Lee – The Leaving of Liverpool (Orion)
Born into a working-class family in Bootle, Liverpool, Maureen Lee spent her early years in an end-terrace house near the docks – an area that was relentlessly bombed during the Second World War. As a small child she was bombed out of the house in Bootle and the family were forced to move. When Maureen left her convent school at 15, she wanted to become an actress. However, her shocked mother put her foot down and Maureen had to give up her dreams and go to secretarial college instead, later getting a job at the English Electric company.
Despite this, Maureen was determined to succeed as a writer. She went to night school and ended up getting two A levels. Only after her sons grew up did she find the time to pursue her dream of writing, but it took several years and a lot of disappointment before sheer determination and perseverance saw Maureen finally achieve her dream of becoming a writer.

Jojo Moyes – Silver Bay (Hodder & Stoughton)
Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and was brought up in London. A journalist and writer, she worked for the Independent newspaper until 2001. She lives in East Anglia with her husband Charles Arthur (a Guardian journalist) and three children, as well as a collection of badly-behaved animals including an ex-racehorse and several rescued battery hens.
She is the author of Sheltering Rain, Foreign Fruit (which won the RNA Novel of the Year for 2004), The Peacock Emporium and The Ship of Brides (shortlisted for the 2006 RNA award).

She was inspired to write SILVER BAY while whale-watching in Australia. The whales and dolphins were beautiful and compelling, but the disparate communities of people who followed them were the real draw. She felt so inspired by their passion for life on and under the water that she discarded 40,000 words of an existing novel to write the book, and completed the first draft within an unprecedented six months.

Young Wives’ Tales – Adele Parks (Michael Joseph/Penguin)
Adele Parks is one the biggest selling women’s fiction authors in the UK. She has sold over a million copies of her novels in the UK and her books have been translated into over fifteen languages. Her previous novel, Husbands has sold over quarter of a million copies alone.

Her other six novels, including much loved contemporary classics, Playing Away and The Other Woman’s Shoes, have ALL been top ten bestsellers.

Adele is well respected for tackling the complex issues of the lives we lead today with her trademark wit and her up-front, tell-it-as-it-is style. Young Wives’ Tales examines those compelling, perennial issues that interest us all. She scrutinizes our concepts of love, motherhood and infidelity with sincerity and humour.

Past Winners 1960- 2007

2007 : Iris & Ruby by Rosie Thomas (Harper Collins) -
2006 : Gardens of Delight by Erica James (Orion) -
2005 : A Good Voyage by Katharine Davies (Chatto & Windus) -
2004 : Foreign Fruit by Jojo Moyes (Hodder & Stoughton)
2003 : Playing James by Sarah Mason (Time Warner)
2002 : The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Harper Collins)
2001 : Someone Like You by Cathy Kelly (Harper Collins)
2000 : Dancing In The Dark by Maureen Lee (Orion)
1999 : Learning To Swim by Clare Chambers (Arrow)
1998 : Kiss And Kin by Angela Lambert (Bantam)
1997 : The Hours Of The Night by Sue Gee (Century)
1996 : Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher (Hodder & Stoughton)
1995 : Change Of Heart by Charlotte Bingham (Doubleday)
1994 : Consider The Lily by Elizabeth Buchan (Macmillan)
1993 : Emily by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (Sidgwick & Jackson)
1992 : Sandstorm by June Knox-Mawer (Weidenfeld)
1991 : Phantom by Susan Kay (Transworld)
1990 : Passing Glory by Reay Tannahill (Century)
1989 : The Peacock's Feather by Sarah Woodhouse (Century)
1988 : The Juniper Bush by Audrey Howard (Century)
1987 : A Better World Than This by Marie Joseph (Century)
1986 : A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger (Collins)
1985 : Sunrise by Rosie Thomas (Piatkus)
1984 : A Highly Respectable Marriage by Sheila Walsh (Hurst & Blackett)
1983 : Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson (Century)
1982 : Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald (Bodley)
1981 : The Red Staircase by Gwendoline Butler (Collins)
1980 - Best Modern Award: Mr Rodriguez by Mary Howard (Collins)
1980 : Parson Harding's Daughter by Joanna Trollope (Hutchinson)
1979 : Countess by Josephine Edgar (Macdonald & Jane)
1979 - Award Of Special Merit: The Emerald Peacock by Katharine Gordon (Hodder & Stoughton)
1978 : Merlin's Keep by Madeleine Brent (Souvenir)
1978 - Best Modern Award: It Was The Lark by Catherine Macarthur (Macdonald & Jane)
1977 : Every Man A King by Anne Worboys (Hodder & Stoughton)
1976 : The Look Of Innocence by Anna Gilbert (Hodder & Stoughton)
1976 - Best Modern Award: The Moon Is Square by Margaret Maddocks (Hurst & Blackett)
1975 : Vote For A Silk Gown by Jay Allerton (Troubadour)
1974 : The Burning Lamp by Frances Murray (Hodder & Stoughton)
1973 : The House Of Kuragin by Constance Heaven (Heinemann)
1972 : The Pride Of Innocence by Maynah Lewis (Hurst & Blackett)
1971 : Flower Of Silence by Joanne Marshall (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
1970 : Thea by Margaret Maddocks (Hurst & Blackett)
1970 : Broken Tapestry by Rona Randall (Hurst & Blackett)
1970 : Cat On A Broomstick by Joanne Marshall (Herbert Jenkins)
1969 : Comfort And Keep by Doris E. Smith (Ward Lock)
1968 : The Future Is Forever by Maynah Lewis (Hurst & Blackett)
1967 : The Truth Game by Anne Betteridge (Hurst & Blackett)
1965 : The Silver Answer by Margaret Maddocks (Hurst & Blackett)
1964 : Journey From Yesterday by Suzanne Ebel (Collins)
1963 : House Divided by Dorothy M. Gray (Hurst & Blackett)
1962 : Larksbrook by Margaret Maddocks (Hurst & Blackett)
1961 : The Witches Sabbath by Paula Allardyce (Hodder & Stoughton)
1960 : More Than Friendship by Mary Howard (Collins)

﻿ The Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 is Pillow Talk by Freya North

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The Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 is Pillow Talk by Freya North