Heart of Excellence Readers’ Choice Contest | Nicole Evelina

I’m so happy to finally be able to announce that Been Searching for You won the Long Contemporary Category in the 2017 Heart of Excellence Reader’s Choice contest, sponsored by the Ancient City RWA chapter. Camelot’s Queen also took third place in the Strong Romantic Elements category.

I’ve known about this since before Christmas and keeping it a secret was just killing me! So soon, this little trophy on the right will join the others in my curio cabinet.

This is the first RWA contest that Been Searching for You has won (it has finalled in several others) and this one was a reader-driven contest, so it means even more because of that. That novel sits somewhere between traditional romance and women’s fiction and it doesn’t follow a lot of the traditional genre conventions, so a lot of romance readers don’t really know what to do with it. It matters so much to me that these readers understood and loved it, so it was finally recognized by an RWA chapter.

1) I found out last night that both Been Searching for You (long contemporary) and Camelot’s Queen (mainstream with romantic elements) finaled in the Heart of Excellence Readers’ Choice Contest! That’s an RWA contest hosted by the Ancient City Romance Writers chapter.

2) A few days ago, Madame Presidentess was named an Honorable Mention in the Reader’s Favorite book awards in the fiction – historical personage category. It may not be a win, but it is still and honor (no pun intended), and it puts me in the company of Anna Belfrage, who blurbed both of the Guinevere books. She also received an Honorable Mention and a second book of hers was a finalist. That is the kind of company I want to keep!

3) I am hard at work on beta reader edits to The Once and Future Queen. I’m hoping for a late October release, but it may end up being early November. I will let you know for sure once my editor and proofreader have seen the book.

4) If you’re in St. Louis/St. Charles, Missouri, be sure to stop at Main Street Books. They are now selling all of my books!

I should have news on Madame Presidentess audio soon, so stay tuned for that…