Morton S Gray: A First Time

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

A First Time

On Monday, I headed down to London for the Romantic Novelists' Association Annual Awards, the RoNAs. I didn't know what to expect, as I hadn't attended before.

Bella Osborne and Morton Gray

By chance, although getting on at different stations, my friend Bella Osborne was on the same train. We travelled together to the hotel near Embankment tube station right by the River Thames. We were pleasantly surprised to find the hotel we had booked into was right next to the venue for the evening at One Whitehall Place. We later discovered there was a very welcome connecting door, so we didn't even need coats!

I had decided to attend the awards as several of my friends, Bella Osborne, Janice Preston and Alison May, were nominated for awards, as well as others I know and admire from the RNA.

The evening began with a champagne reception in a beautiful room overlooking the Thames. It almost felt as if the buildings and the London Eye on the opposite bank had been lit just for us. Noise levels, as at most RNA events, were heightened as friends greeted each other and new friendships were made.

Janice Preston

View from the window

Champagne reception

We were ushered through into the Gladstone Library, where our seating was pre-allocated at glittering tables loaded with canapes, silver chocolate hearts and pink champagne. I was sitting opposite to Sue Moorcroft and next to June Tate.

Fern Britton was presenting the awards, along with the RNA's own Jane Wenham-Jones. My friends unfortunately didn't pick up any prizes, but it was a great achievement to be shortlisted anyway.

The winners were:-

Melanie Hudson, The Wedding Cake Tree, Choc Lit
Winner Contemporary Category Romantic Novel of the Year
(for mainstream romantic novels set post-1960, and can include chick lit, paranormal and romantic suspense)

Emma Hannigan, The Secrets We Share, Headline Review
Winner Epic Category Romantic Novel of the Year
(for novels containing serious issues or themes, including gritty, multi-generational stories)

Iona Grey, Letters to the Lost, Simon & Schuster
Winner Historical Category Romantic Novel of the Year
(for novels set in a period before 1960)

Milly Johnson, Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café, Simon & Schuster
Winner Romantic Comedy Category Romantic Novel of the Year
(for consistently humorous or amusing novels)

Annie O'Neil, Doctor... To Duchess?, Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Winner RoNA Rose Award
(for category/series and shorter romance)

Lucy Inglis, Crow Mountain, Chicken House
Winner Young Adult Category Romantic Novel of the Year
(featuring protagonists who are teenagers or young adults)

Outstanding Achievement Awards

Anita Burgh is the author of twenty-three novels, all published after she reached 50.

Claire Lorrimer, who has written more than 100 novels, is the daughter of the RNA’s first President, best-selling novelist Denise Robins.

Both Anita and Claire were presented with outstanding achievement awards for their continued championing of the RNA and romantic fiction.

Iona Grey triumphed over fellow competing authors to win the Romantic Novelists' Association's highest accolade, The Goldsboro Books Romantic Novel of the Year, with Letter to the Lost, published by Simon & Schuster. Fern Britton presented Iona with her trophies and a cheque for £5000.

I have a particular soft spot for Iona Grey, as I once attended one of her courses about heroes and heroines in Cheshire and she has taken an interest in my writing ever since.