Joining the Romance Novelists’ Association

For a couple of years now I’ve been wanting to join the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).  The Association organises events for authors, established and aspiring, including a summer weekend conference every year where you can attend workshops and lectures held by those in the industry.

It’s taken me this long to join because you can’t just become a member whenever you fancy – there are limited spaces for new aspiring author members – and the time to join is strictly early January.  Last January I was grossly complacent about joining, thinking I could send an email anytime on the day that nominations opened.  Busy with cooking dinner I eventually sent my email about 5 hours after the opening time, only to be told I was too late and all the places had gone!

So, I had to wait a whole year before I could try again.  This year I left nothing to chance.  I didn’t even schedule my email to go at a certain time – I stood there for ten minutes before with my finger poised over the send button.  Luckily, I got in this time and am looking forward to finding out what it’s really all about.

If, like me, you missed out, all is not lost.  I discovered that even if you’re not a member you can still attend the summer conference, you just have to pay a little more.  I did this last year and it was well worth it.  You have the chance to submit a partial of your manuscript and speak one to one with an editor or agent to get their feedback.  It’s only 5 minutes but it’s vital information, even if it’s critical.

Another great thing about being a member of the RNA is that every year you get the opportunity to have your manuscript read by a published author who writes in the same genre.  I’m planning on doing this this year, so we’ll see how that goes!

It’s a Mystery, what makes these such tasty reads

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve read two mystery novels, Alpine For You, by Maddy Hunter, and Real Murders by Charlaine Harris.  They were both different in their style but both offered page-turning cliff hangers before climaxing in very satisfying endings (neither of which I saw coming).

Alpine For You, Maddy Hunter

The blurb: Accompanying her grandmother on a seniors’ our of Switzerland, Emily Andrew had envisioned a vacation out of a travel brochure….But her dream trip snowballs into mayhem when smooth-talking tour escort Andy Simon is found dead…

This is the funniest book I have read for a long time and had me laughing out loud in places.  Emily is savvy, glamorous and red-blooded, but awkward things happen to her just as they do the rest of us, although stumbling upon so many dead bodies hasn’t, thankfully, happened to me yet.

If you like Emily’s character you’ll love that of her nan – she has no social filter and says it like it is.  Her observations of her fellow travel companions are hilarious!

I’ll definitely be reading more Maddy Hunter – each book is set in a different location: Norway, Scotland, Australia, Italy, and so on.   I can see me becoming hooked.

 

Real Murders, Charlaine Harris

The blurb:

Aurora Teagarden reckons she knows everything about her fellow townsfolk, including which ones share her interest in the darker side of human nature, as she and her friends have formed a club to discuss real life killings.  But fiction soon becomes fact as more and more bodies are discovered…and the similarities between prior murders and those of Aurora’s townsfolk become frighteningly common.

My obsession with Murder She Baked led to me looking up similar movies and which books they started out life as.  My search led me to the fictional librarian and amateur sleuth, Aurora Teagarden, from the series created by Charlaine Harris.

I was expecting a ‘cosy’ mystery but found that Real Murders was, in parts, fairly harrowing.  It kept me guessing right till the end whodunnit, and I was completely wrong in my deductions.

There were a lot of characters, as indeed there has to be in any good murder mystery, and at times Aurora surprised me how she wasn’t frightened living alone when everyone around her seemed to be dropping like flies.  But maybe she’s just a braver woman than me!

Despite that, I couldn’t wait to pick the story back up again every time I had to put it down because life (like sleeping and eating) got in the way.