Monday, February 13, 2012

Hoo Boy, Black Hawk is Best Romance at All About Romance

Oh wow.

Black Hawk has made an incredible showing in the All About Romance Reader's Poll.
Here.




(People liked it!!  They really liked it!  Lookit!  Lookit!)
(hyperventilates and uses up most of her exclamation points for 2012.)



Go here to see the covers of the other wonderful books readers chose.  You can click right through and have a close look and buy.  It's a wonderful list because these are fellow readers talking to you. 

This is the great stuff that came out in 2011.  Something for everybody.


Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews
Seduction of a Highland Lass, Maya Banks
The Black Hawk, Joanna Bourne
The Perfect Play, Jaci Burton
Silk is for Seduction by Loretta Chase
The Other Guy's Bride, Connie Brockway
Breaking Point, Pamela Clare
Dragon Bound, Thea Harrison
My One and Only, Kristan Higgins

Notorious Pleasures, Elizabeth Hoyt
Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James
When Beauty Tamed the Beast, Eloisa James
A Lot Like Love, Julie James
The Admiral's Penniless Bride, Carla Kelly 
What I Did for a Duke, Julie Anne Long
To The Moon and Back, Jill Mansell 
All They Need, Sarah Mayberry
Curio, Cara McKenna
Unraveled, by Courtney Milan 
Unlocked, Courtney Milan 
Call Me Irresistible, Susan Elizabeth Phillips 
Just Like Heaven, Julia Quinn 
Treachery In Death by J.D. Robb 
New York to Dallas by J.D. Robb 
Archangel's Blade, by Nalini Singh
Stranded With Her Ex, Jill Sorenson 
Yours To Keep, Shannon Stacey


This is what I said at the AAR site:

I don't know what to say. I am touched beyond measure and utterly flabbergasted. Thank you. 

Black Hawk was a hard book to write. Five years ago, when I was putting the finishing touches on Spymaster's Lady, I firmly relegated Adrian to supporting-character status. He wasn't sequel bait, I thought. He was too hard, too cynical, and too wounded to ever make hero material.

"But I found myself fascinated by him. He kept trying to take over other people's books. After a bit, it became apparent the only way I could get Adrian to stop upstaging the current hero was to give him a book of his own.


"I am so happy to think of my Justine and my Adrian coming alive in peoples' minds. If I was writing of the long journey these two had to take to earn their happy ending, I'm overjoyed to know readers liked traveling with them.

"I am so proud that Black Hawk holds these honors for 2011. Thank you, everyone who voted. And thank you, AAR, for supporting the Romance genre for all these years.

image Hawk attrib phae

28 comments:

  1. Congratulations Joanna. I still haven't found "Black Hawk" locally. I'd really love to read it. Are you going to do any contests?

    dpd333 (at) aol dot com

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  2. Congratulations, Jo. I am so thrilled for you.

    Love you,

    Julie

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  3. Hi Diane --

    Some places, Black Hawk is on the shelves at B&N. Or you can try your local Indie bookstore. They will order it for you and it's a way of supporting them.

    Indie bookstores, especially those that carry Romance Books, deserve our support.

    Finally, try the library. I'm in a fair number of libraries. If not at your local branch, they may be able to get it for you on Interlibrary Loan. This is a good option if money is a little tight.

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  4. Hi Deniz and Julie --

    I really have trouble believing this is true. I'm like, 'Wow'. Because this is readers saying this. And I had no idea.

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  5. Jo, I adored Adrian's story, and I'm so happy you wrote it. Congratulations on your win!

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  6. Congratulations! I'm glad to see so many of my favourite books of 2011 in the list - and Black Hawk is my number 1 too!

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  7. Well done, Jo! I'm re-reading Spymaster's Lady, and wondering if Grey knew just close he came to serious competition from "the boy." Hats off to you, now go back and write us another one.

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  8. Anonymous5:01 PM

    Congratulations to you (Justine and Adrian too!). My favourite of 2011 as well!

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  9. "The Black Hawk"sounds wonderful book I can't wait to read it congratulations Ms.Bourne.

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  10. Congratulation! Way to Go! Yipee! You go Girl! :D

    It is a wonderful book & it deserves the praise. I'm (as I'm sure many of your fans agree) thrilled on your behalf and beleive it is well earned & deserved. We do love you & the characters you make us fall in love with.

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  11. This is how real Adrian and Justine are to me. I was so happy for them, after all they'd been through together, that I actually cried when I saw they'd cut a swath through the awards. (Urm, I'm happy for you, too, Jo.)

    Bless pushy Adrian insisting that he have his own book.

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  12. Hi Annie --

    Oh dear. I have to admit, I was pleased on Adrian and Justine's part too. Isn't that foolish?

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  13. Hi gamistress, Gail, Anon, and Vanessa --

    This is so wonderful for me.

    I write the book and do the editing and send it off to the publisher and mostly forget about it because I'm swallowed up by the next one. That's my job.

    I don't always remember there's a whole world of folks out there who read the books and recommend them to friends and ask for them in bookstores and the library and generally support Romance for all of us.

    Thank everybody who voted. It's good stuff y'all do, for me and all the other authors. Thank you.

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  14. Hi Charity Girl --

    Always good to hear from you. I am so glad you liked Black Hawk. And aren't the other books great too.

    I have a TBR stack that just keeps growing, because I do not dare read strong voices while I'm in the midst of writing.

    So I keep telling other authors -- "I have your book in the TBR stack." "I have your book on kindle." I just haven't read it yet. (... after six months. After a year.)

    I don't know if they believe me.

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  15. Hi Grace --

    Poor Hawker. There he is, shot and betrayed, (he thinks,) by the woman he's loved for years.

    And right there in front of him is a Frenchwoman so much like his Justine. There are even little subliminial habits they've both picked up from Lucille.

    But he wouldn't touch a friend's Lady. Wouldn't even let himself think about her in that way. Entirely against his personal code.

    As to the Pax manuscript. (cough) Yes. Must work. Must work harder ....

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  16. Kathy9:52 PM

    Congrats, Jo! Wonderful news. :)

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  17. Well deserved, congrats, Joanna! Got my vote, too.

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  18. Congratulations! It is well deserved. I voted for you and thought it (and all the other books in the series)was awesome!

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  19. Anonymous1:28 AM

    right up there with an impressive list of authors, madam! congratulations! thea mcginnis, fan

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  20. Anonymous4:13 AM

    HJ

    Wow! It looks to me as though Black Hawk won every category in which it was nominated. Which is just as it should be. Your books are wonderful on so many levels - by that I mean that they can be read simply (?!) as historical romances / romantic suspense for the excellent plotting and characterisation, and re-read to revel in the superb writing, where every word has been carefuly considered and placed, revealing the characters and their relationships so subtly that one hardly notices how the impressions build to give a clear sense of them, like the brush-strokes of a master. Of course, the downside to this careful craftsmanship is that readers have to wait longer for each book, but it's worth it! Congratulations.

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  21. congrats Jo, deserved ;)

    so happy can read black hawk and hope this can be movie =D

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  23. You are all so kind. (I would love to see this as a movie. Now I have to do the 'casting' for Hawker and Justine. Ah me.)

    Hi HJ --

    I feel like I'm writing in a sorta no-man's-land between Historical Fiction and Historical Romance. I'm glad to find folks who like this and want to read it. So reassuring.

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  24. Anonymous11:25 PM

    So well deserved. I think I'm about to read it for the fourth time. And I find more in it each time. I've been mulling lately about how Adrian's big hero moment is taking on justice in his own hands in defense of his lady (and incidently ripping out corruption from within), where Doyle's is bringing down Robespierre... I continue to believe the whole series is about Doyle.

    I will say, I struggled to decide whether it was set in Great Britain or set elsewhere. (Can't remember which category I put it in.)

    And an interesting casting question--wouldn't you need at least two actors (young Adrian and adult Adrian) and which would get to do the scene where they become lovers?

    DLS

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  25. Hi DLS -

    Yes. Definitely two, to the actor thought.

    Y'know, I really can see Doyle as the hero of the whole series. He's definitely the Eminence Grise.

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  26. WTG Jo. No one deserves this more than you do. I love to go to your world,thanks for letting us in.

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  27. Hi Mizwaller --

    We all -- all of us writers -- work so hard to create our fictive worlds. There is just nothing more wonderful than to know the readers can join us there.

    So good

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