How Easy is it to Add to Your 'To Be Read' Pile?

Miranda's May Musings

Hello beautiful readers, welcome! I have a very serious question to ask this month: how big is your To Be Read pile? Ha, stop laughing... Is it like mine? Enormous? Even if I live to be eleventy billion years old I'll never finish. Such a thrilling dilemma.

Today fellow BITB blogger Alyssa J Montgomery and I went to a wonderful High Tea run by the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA), and it was divine. Held in a beautiful boutique hotel in Sydney, there were three tables, each hosted by an author: Kandy Shepherd, Shannon Curtis, and my table's lovely hostess Avril Tremayne.

You know where this is going, don't you? Yes, more books! I don't care that I've got a trillion books at home (slight exaggeration only). I staggered home full of tea, scones, sandwiches and cake, with a bag of free books and divine swag (unicorn pen! tiara! chocolates!) from Avril. So now, deliciously, these books are on my TBR:

                   

Photo credits: amazon.com

Here Comes the Bridesmaid is a beautiful hardback (isn't the cover sumptuously bridesmaid-y pink? I adore it!), and of course both books are signed by Avril. Swoon. Thankyou, Avril, thankyou.

...But wait, there's more. Our recent guest blogger Melanie Milburne was also at my table (read her recent column here). Congratulations Melanie on your 75th book (wow!). These are now on my TBR:

                     

                      Photo credit: amazon.com

Photo credit: amazon.com

Somehow or other I missed getting a book from Kandy Shepherd. I love her sweet romances, they are gorgeous to read, and Kandy is the nicest person to meet and chat to. So I've pre-ordered her latest, which sounds right up my alley and has a divine wedding pic on the cover. I love it already.

Photo credit: amazon.com

I did get this book from Shannon Curtis, quite outside my normal genre picks, which will be interesting to read. Shannon suggested I read Lycan Unleashed first, to get the gist of the world building. Alrighty then.

Photo credit: amazon.com

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand there was more: some books by Penny Reid in the Knitting in the City series. And so many others to choose from - I honestly couldn't carry them all home, such a tragedy. Everyone staggered out from that High Tea with happy tummies and books spilling out of their arms, adding to their TBRs with gay abandon. Alyssa's bag was just as heavy as mine.

It is so, so, SO easy to add to the TBR, isn't it? Life is sweet! ...I'm off to read.

Until next time, my friends,

Love from Miranda xxx

Love to Love:

Free books! High teas! Meeting new authors and old friends! Thankyou ARRA.

Love to Laugh:

...at how dead easy it is to add to one's mountainous TBR. Awesome.

Love to Learn:

Has something fabulously wonderful like this happened to you? Free signed books poured your way? Or are you disciplined (unlike moi) and finish your TBR before you add more? (But seriously, does such a person even exist?!) 

Romance Readers Unite!

with Debbie Phillips from ARRA

When we established the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA) in 2007 we had just 17 members. Having all met online, we started the association to organise an event for Australian romance readers. Who better than romance readers and authors to put on an event that met our needs? We didn’t know if it would work—nor have any idea of how much work would be involved—but we decided to have a go.


ARRC09 in Melbourne was truly awesome! Along with the hard work of our committee members we had support from the amazing community of romance authors. A number of international guests—Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dianna Love, MaryJanice Davidson, Susan Grant, Liz Maverick—came to the event (at their own expense)—and we were delighted to welcome them as keynote speakers. Add in a host of our favourite local authors—such as Keri Arthur, Stephanie Laurens, Anna Campbell and Melanie Milburne—and we ended up with about 30 romance authors attending. There were speeches, panels, giveaways and a mass book-signing event—the first of its kind in Australia. And, of course, we held our inaugural awards. (australianromancereaders.com.au/2009.html) All in an environment that celebrated romance—where not one person sneered at another person’s choice of reading matter.

Inaugural Australian Romance Readers Convention

The huge success of that convention boosted our membership; by the end of 2009 we had over 150 members. We had also established a monthly newsletter, regular lunches in some cities, and we had started planning our first RWA/ARRA signing event. But in the meantime we had to consider what to do about our annual awards—they could hardly be annual if only held at our biennial convention.

People's Choice Awards 2013
Anna Campbell, Amy Andrews, M J Scott, Anne Gracie

Each year ARRA members nominate and vote in their very own awards. That’s right—not only do they vote for the winners, but all nominated titles are put forward by ARRA members. When the awards started in 2009 there were 5 categories. That later expanded to 9, with an additional 3 ‘fun’ Members’ Choice awards selected by members each year.


The second awards night was held in 2010 at the gorgeous Cello’s Restaurant in the Castlereagh Hotel, Sydney. Nalini Singh was our dinner speaker (and scooped up a good portion of the awards). We have also been back to Cello’s for the awards dinner in 2012 and 2014.

Shannon Curtis (top), Kat Mayo

The next awards dinner will be held on 19 March, once again at Cello’s restaurant, with Shannon Curtis as MC and guest speaker Kat Mayo from Book Thingo. If you haven't got your ticket yet, follow the link:
australianromancereaders.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/awards-dinner-tickets-on-sale-3/


But in amongst all that we have been doing a lot of other things too. We’ve held three more romance reader conventions
2011 in Sydney http://australianromancereaders.com.au/2011.html
2013 in Brisbane http://australianromancereaders.com.au/2013.html
2015 in Canberra http://australianromancereaders.com.au/2015.html


And we’ve had some phenomenal keynote speakers—Cindy Gerard, Anna Campbell, Nalini Singh, Kristan Higgins, Rachel Vincent, Anne Gracie, Sylvia Day, Helene Young, Kelley Armstrong and Victoria Dahl.




Book Signing Event 2015

We’ve held 9 group book-signing events with as many as 90 authors attending, some held in conjunction with our convention, and others in conjunction with the RWA conference. We’ve held special reader events in Sydney and Melbourne with Julia Quinn, Sylvia Day, Maya Banks and Nalini Singh.








Today our membership has just passed 370 members. So we’re making progress reaching readers. But we are constantly looking for new ways to find and engage with romance readers. Our plan is pretty simple: more events, more promo, more competitions, more engagement.

Regency Fashion Parade 2015

Would you enjoy the opportunity to discuss romance books with other romance readers who ‘get it’? Why not come and join the Australian Romance Readers Association?

You can find us at www.ireadromance.com.au. Or chat with us on our Facebook group or Twitter.


We love to love ... romance books!


We love to laugh ... while reading romance books!


We love to learn ... about new romance authors!

10 Things I Loved About the Australian Romance Readers Convention Canberra 2015

with Cassandra Samuels

Hi, Cassandra here. I had the great privilege of attending a day at the Australian Romance Readers Convention in Canberra on the 7th of March.

Here are just a few of the things I loved about the weekend..

1. Helene Young's keynote speech. Wonderful and inspiring to all women, Helene proves that there is no limit to what a woman can do. She told us how she became a pilot against the odds, how she bluffed her way to a job in England, and how she came to write some of her fantastic Romantic Suspense novels.



2. The hilariously funny launch of 'Tribal Law' by Shannon Curtis. She wrote the book based on the suggestions of ARRA members and all profits from sales go back to ARRA.








3. I met John Purcell, part of the Booktopia team and author of the Emma Series (under his pen name Natasha Walker). He was was very tall and a lovely person to talk to. Believe it or not, he is the runt of the family. Or so he says.








4. The hot air balloons that rose up over Lake Burley Griffin in the early morning. Amazing site.









5. The goodies table was full of amazing things for readers to take home. Everything from bookmarks and pens to notebooks and chocolates.




6. It was my first ever ARRC author book signing. I met so many wonderful readers and found out that pens are a very popular giveaway item.









7. The Awards night was flappertastic, the theme being the 1920s. There were feathers as far as the eye could see (mostly on the floor). I wasn't a winner this year but I had an absolute ball with my new reader and writer friends.









8. The 'bling off' was great with at least a dozen up for the prize for best dressed. Even Fabio tried to get in on the act. The prize went to a lady who had an authentic 1920s dress that was divine.







9. The volunteer ARRC team did an amazing job of putting the convention together. I can't wait to go to the next one.



10. All the wonderful authors who gave up their time to come to the convention and participate in so many ways, in particular, the author signing. It was great catching up with so many friends.

All the authors who attended this year in all their flapper glory.

Which author would you like to see at a readers' convention?

Love to Love: meeting new readers.

Love to Laugh: at the amount of feathers lost during the Awards night.

Love to Learn: about other genres and how those authors approach writing their books.