Whitney Finalists Announced This Morning!!

The announcement came out early this morning around 7:15. Here is the official press release....

SALT LAKE CITY, UT—FEBRUARY 5, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Robison Wells, President, Whitney Awards

robisonwells@whitneyawards.com

801-691-9115

WHITNEY AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

SALT LAKE CITY, UT: The Whitney Awards committee today announced the finalists for the 2009 Whitney Awards, a program which honors the best novels by Latter-day Saint writers.

To be eligible for consideration, a book must have received at least five nominations from its fans. More than one hundred works by new and established authors in both the LDS and national markets met the preliminary criteria. Once a book is nominated, juries of authors and critics narrow the nominees down to five finalists per category.

This year’s nominees are listed below in alphabetical order by author:

BEST ROMANCE: Counting the Cost, by Liz Adair; Illuminations of the Heart, by Joyce DiPastena; All the Stars in Heaven, by Michele Paige Holmes; Santa Maybe, by Aubrey Mace; Previously Engaged, by Elodia Strain.

MYSTERY/SUSPENSE: Lockdown, by Traci Hunter Abramson; Methods of Madness, by Stephanie Black; Murder by the Book, by Betsy Brannon Green; Lemon Tart, by Josi Kilpack; Altered State, by Gregg Luke.

YOUTH FICTION: Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George; Fablehaven IV: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, by Brandon Mull; My Fair Godmother, by Janette Rallison; Bright Blue Miracle, by Becca Wilhite; The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams.

SPECULATIVE: Servant of a Dark God, by John Brown; The Maze Runner, by James Dashner; Wings, by Aprilynne Pike; Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson; I Am Not A Serial Killer, by Dan Wells.

HISTORICAL: Tribunal, by Sandra Grey; The Undaunted, by Gerald Lund; Alma, by H.B. Moore; The Last Waltz, by G.G. Vandagriff; In the Company of Angels, by Dave Wolverton.

GENERAL FICTION: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford; No Going Back, by Jonathon Langford; Gravity vs. The Girl, by Riley Noehren; The Route, by Gale Sears; Eyes Like Mine, by Julie Wright.

This ballot now goes out to members of the voting academy, a select group of LDS publishers; bookstore owners, managers, and employees; LDS authors; print and online magazine publishers; reviewers; and others working in the field of LDS literature.

Unlike previous voting, this year the academy can choose from any of the thirty finalists for the overall award, Best Novel of the Year. Similarly, any of the finalists who meet the eligibility requirements can be chosen for Best Novel by a New Author. (Those eligible this year: John Brown, Jamie Ford, Jonathon Langford, Riley Noehren, Aprilynne Pike, Dan Wells, and Becca Wilhite.)

Winners will be announced at a gala banquet on Saturday, April 24 at the Marriott Hotel in Provo, Utah. Tickets are now on sale at www.WhitneyAwards.com.

Special awards will also be presented that night to two persons whose bodies of works and tireless efforts have made a significant impact on the field of LDS popular fiction. Gerald Lund will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, and Dave Wolverton will receive an Outstanding Achievement Award.

For more information on the Whitney Awards, visit www.whitneyawards.com.

For a more colorful view of the nominees/books you need to go towww.WhitneyAwards.com

I am thrilled that I have already read 18 of the books that are nominated. I only have 12 more to read. I also want to add, I think that this years group of nominees are the best we have ever seen! Every category has excellent books. The final voting is going to be so hard.

I want to congratulate all of the nominees for this years Whitney Awards. I can't wait for April 24th, when the winners will be announced. If you have never been before to the Gala, you need to be there this year. There is nothing else like it, to be able to rub shoulders with some of your favorite authors. The food is really also very good and it is fun to dress up for the evening. It is wonderful to be part of the LDS Literary World.

Once again, check out the list of nominees and get reading. I promise you that you won't be disappointed. There are some fantastic books out there written by LDS authors.

Whitney Award Nominations End on December 31st

It is that time again, when you must get your nominations in by Thursday, December 31st 2009, to nominate your favorite novel for a Whitney Award. The Whitney Awards are given to outstanding LDS authors, who have written fiction novels. This will be the third year that the "Whitneys" have been awarded.

Every year, the Whitneys have gotten bigger and bigger and more prestigious. If you would like to see a list of books, written by LDS authors that have been catalogued, go to this site LDS Publisher.blogspot. This site is not officially connected with the Whitney awards. On occasion, you may find a book listed there that does not qualify as a Whitney nominee. Before nominating a book, check the official rules for Whitney Award eligibility.

I know that that many of you have read a lot of books this past year. If you really liked something that you read, please nominate the book and author. Spread the word to your family and friends about the Whitney Awards. You can also attend the Whitney Awards Ceremony in April. It is a fun evening to dress up, eat a fabulous dinner and mingle with your favorite LDS authors. Go to the official Whitney Awards website to find more information about getting tickets to the dinner/ceremony. You can e-mail someone there that could help you. I look forward to the Gala all year long!!

PLEASE remember that you only have a few more days to nominate your favorite books,before midnight on the 31st, so don't forget!

I hope that all of you are enjoying yourselves and getting some great reading done. I know I have done a lot of reading the past several weeks, so I will have more things to blog about in the future.

Thank you for supporting me and my blog this past year of 2009. If you haven't done so yet, please become a follower of my blog.

Also, if you are an author or publisher that would like me to read and review your books, please contact me here. I love to promote good fiction and non-fiction that is being published. By our good example of reading and writing, we will help our children and grandchildren to become proficient at these skills and gain a love of reading.

Writing Conference and Whitney Awards were a Hit!

How can I sum up my weekend? WOW!!!! I attended the LDS Storymakers Writing Conference and then the Whitney Awards that Saturday night. I finally found a group of people where I truly fit in! Writers are a very unique group of creative and intelligent people. Not that I am calling myself creative and unique quite yet...but I felt at home.

I loved all of the classes I was able to attend. I wish that I had been able to attend ALL of them that were taught during the two days. They made us choose and I left my time turner at home so I could not go back and take all of the classes.

There were so many that were helpful for a newbie writer like me. Some of the classes I went to were:

-"Jumping in: Where/How to Start Your Story" taught by Crystal Liechty.

-"Grabbing and Keeping Kids' Attention" taught by Rebecca Shelley.

-"What Will Get You Rejected: Mistakes Not to Make" taught by Janette Rallison

-"Show, Don't Tell, for Adolescent Lit" taught by Tamra Norton and Lu Ann Staheli

-"Plot and Conflict" by Rachel Ann Nunes

-"Writing Picture Books" by Kristyn Crow and Sharlee Glenn
and
-"Creating and Maintaining a Character Bible" taught by Jeff Savage aka J. Scott Savage.

As I said before, there were so many other classes I wanted to attend taught by people I admire so much, but I had to toss a coin. **sigh** That was the only drawback for me, so much to learn and so little time to attend everything.

The writer's conference is such a valuable tool for writers. I could tell that even the seasoned, published authors were getting as much out of the conference as those of us hoping to some day publish. Congrats to author Jeff Savage, (who wrote Farworld, Waterkeep,) who was in charge of the conference this year. He and his committee did an outstanding job!! We could all see the incredible amount of work that was put into putting an event of this size together. I believe that there were almost 300 people in attendance at the conference. I can hardly wait until next years conference.

The Whitney Awards were outstanding again this year. The women of LDS Womens Book Review(that includes me) were very excited and nervous to present the Whitney award for Best Romance Novel of 2008. Of course it helped that we coordinated so well. I think we did Ok and we remembered all of our lines. We didn't use any notes.

It was so wonderful to see so many people there supporting the Whitney Academy. I hope that the Whitneys' continue to grow bigger and stronger every year. LDS authors deserve the recognition for the high quality of writing they do. BTW, anyone can attend the Whitney Awards Gala. If you are interested next year, let me know. It is a super opportunity to meet and chat with some of your favorite LDS Authors. The dinner and the program is also outstanding.

Here are more pictures from this fabulous evening.


Here we are with Authors Josi Kilpack, author of Lemon Tart and Julie Wright, author of My Not So Fairy Tale Life.


















Jennie Hansen, author of the Bracelet Series, Shanda, Sheila, Angela Escheler, author of The Love Letters of Joseph and Emma and Jessica Day George, author of the Dragon Slippers series and my favorite, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow.



















Shanda, Hillary and me with author, Brandon Sanderson, who wrote the Mistborn series. He won the Whitney Award for Best Speculative fiction.
















We were excited to meet Gregg Luke, author of a great mystery/thriller called Do No Harm.













We were so happy to finally meet author H.B. (Heather)Moore, author of Abinadi . She won the Whitney Award for best Historical Fiction. She also won this award last year. What a great accomplishment.



Of course we had to have our picture taken with one of our favorite authors and friends, Rob Wells. He stepped down as the President of the Whitney Academy. It is because of him, that the Whitney Awards came about. It is his brain child. We will miss him in this capacity. He did assure us he is not going away from the writing community, but just graduated with his MBA and needs to find a real job...go figure! ;)














This beautiful lady is author, Kerry Blair, author of Counting Blessings and many super fiction novels. She was given the Life Time Achievement award. She also was named the new President of the Whitney Academy. I know that she will do an outstanding job with the Whitney Awards next year.

I will blog more and show you more pictures from the Whitney Awards later. While I have been typing, my clean family room has turned into a haven for Barbies and Transformers. Time to pay attention to the kids and their friends running through the house.

Thrilling Reads

I have been getting such good reading in lately. I have been enjoying reading the many books that are Whitney Award Nominees. I have also been sneaking in other books that aren't on the list.

I am in the middle of some mystery thrillers/romance novels. The first is called, Freefall, by Traci Hunter Abramson. The lowdown about this book is:"Lieutenant Brent Miller arrived in the Middle East with one objective--get seven hostages out of a hostile country. The plan almost worked. But now he has been left behind--with one of the hostages. It's up to Brent to get Amy Whitmore, a US Senator's daughter, across miles of desert to safety. What he doesn't know is that to survive, he needs her as much as she needs him."

The book is very exciting! I was pulled in from the first chapter. I love books that make me want to keep reading and feel pained if I have to put them down. I really liked the main characters Amy and Brent. Many times, characters have qualities that irk me, not so here. They felt "real" to me and how they behaved with one another. Another plus for me, is that there are characters in this book that we have seen before in previous books that Traci has written.

The next book I am reading is called, Traitor, by Sandra Grey. This book is based on one of my favorite historical time periods I enjoy reading about: WW II. "With war raging in Europe, the only way Marie can be with Felix is to join the Allied forces. However, as Marie parachutes into France to join the Résistance, she not only lands into the arms of her fiancé, but also drops into the hands of the enemy. Major Rolf Schulmann has been struggling between personal convictions and his duty to the German Fatherland. Now he must decide what to do with the captured fiancee of the man who gave him a new chance at life-a man he once loved as a brother. The Gestapo will do whatever it takes to dispose of Marie. If Rolf helps her escape he will have enemies on all sides-is it a sacrifice he is willing to make? Can Marie possibly trust her life to a man torn between two masters?

I will admit, this book was hard to get into at first. It took several chapters for me to final get hooked. Once I was hooked, I had to keep reading. Maybe it took me that long to start caring about the characters, but it felt like watching a really thrilling movie. The history in this book seems very accurate and you can tell she did fantastic research. The emotional pull, that haunts Marie and Rolf is clearly felt. They both have their own own set of problems, but this doesn't stop them from getting involved with one another. I can't wait to see how this all ends.I told you I am reading both of these books currently and have not finished either one yet. This doesn't stop me from recommending both of these books to you.


Another book I finished a few days ago was "Fields of Home" , by Rachel Ann Nunes. This book took me on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Here is a synopsis:...:"After fighting her way through a bitter and hurtful past, Mercedes Johnson has painstakingly carved out a life of quiet contentment on a Wyoming farm with her husband, Wayne, and their three boys. But all that changes when the birth father of her oldest child returns to Riverton. Brandon Rhodes has plans for his son, threatening the carefully balanced life Mercedes and Wayne have created. But just how far is he willing to go? Fields of Home is a novel about the deepest kind of ties and the true meaning of love."


It was hard to count how many times my heart went out to these fictional characters. The thing is, there are so many trials that many of us have gone through in life. As we read about these trials in fiction, how do we relate them to our own experiences? How realistically does the author write these trials? Rachel does a fabulous job of making feelings come out in her readers as they read her writing. Be prepared to cry and "feel" as you read Fields of Home.

Just wanted you to know that all three of these books are nominees for a Whitney Award this year. I hope that you have gone to www.whitneyawards.com. to look at all of this years fabulous nominees. Write down those that are of interest to you and join the fun and get reading.

The Sound of Rain

Here is another book that is a nominee, in the Best Romance Category, for a 2008 Whitney Award.

The Sound of Rain by Anita Stansfield

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved the Sound of Rain. It was so different from anything else that Anita Stansfield has written. I could so closely relate to the characters because of my strong music background. This is a very heartfelt and emotionally charged book. I was able to grow close to the main characters from the first chapter. This was a book that I did not want to end. I am recommending this one to all of you; just have the tissues ready. I can't wait to read the other books in this series.


View all my reviews.

So Little Time and SO Much to Read!

I am up to my neck in report cards and getting things ready for parent-teacher conferences this week. You have to realize how excruciatingly painful this is for me, while all I want to be doing currently is reading. The finalists for the Whitney Awards were announced recently, giving me a boatload of books I need to read before I send in my final votes for the awards. What I have read so far, it is going to be very difficult when I go to place my final votes. There are so many outstanding books that are finalists this year. My advice to you is head over to the Whitney Awards website(http://www.whitneyawards.com/) and make a list of books for your reading list. There are many categories, so I know that all of you will be able to find something there that you would like.

I just recently finished a book called, "Taking Chances" by Shannon Guymon, which is a finalist in the Romance Category. This is not your typical LDS romance, it is a a story of finding love, learning to forgive, and of course, letting your guard down and taking a chance on love. I was immediately drawn to the characters in the story, not only because of their engaging personalities, but because of the thought provoking back storyline involving sexual abuse. It was presented in a way that really touches your heart and helps you have such compassion for anyone that has ever endured this trial in their life.






Another story I am reading is called, "Do No Harm" by Gregg Luke. This book is one of the finalist in the Best Mystery Suspense category. How badly did I want to read this book today? Well it accidently traveled to church with me and hopped out onto my lap in between Sunday School and Relief Society. I hate when this happens, I have no control over the books. I didn't get much read because of people wanting to talk to me about what I was reading. I knew I should have run away to an empty classroom somewhere. Just kidding! Just a little "book-aholic" humor there! Seriously though, if you have ever read any medical thrillers before, this is right up your alley. The suspense keeps building and building to the point you don't want to put the book down...all except for those pesky report cards staring at me waiting to be finished. **sigh** Gregg Luke has written a very exciting book that I just can't wait to finish.

There are many more books that I need to read before I vote, but what a pleasure to read such fantastic work that is out there by LDS authors. Again, go take a look at the finalists and either go to your library or nearest book store to start reading some outstanding books.

Today is the day!..Last day to nominate books for a Whitney Award

If you have read any book by an LDS author, whether the story had LDS characters or not, head over today, December 31st, to nominate the book for a Whitney Award.(http://www.whitneyawards.com/)

Today is the deadline for nominations and then the books, that received 5 nominations will be sent to the judges. (I happen to be one of the judges in the Youth Fiction category. I have loved being able to be part of this great organization.) The judges will then read the qualifying books and then will vote for the top 5 books that were read from the category. From there, the Whitney Academy Voters will read the top 5 books in each category, who then will vote on the best book in each category. The winners will be announced at the 2nd Annual Whitney Awards in April.

I attended the 1st Whitney Awards last year and it was a fabulous evening. Everyone was dressed up in fancy clothes, we had an exquisite dinner in an elegant setting and then the award winners were announced. (http://www.whitneyawards.com/2007winners.html). I am planning on attending again this year.

I know that there are many of you out there that have been reading some great books by LDS authors. Remember, the books do not have to take place in an LDS setting, they only have to have been written by an LDS author. It only takes a few minutes to go to the Whitney Awards website and nominate your favorite books that you have read this past year.

The main criteria is:
1. The books must have been released during the current year from January 2008-December 2008.

2.The author must be LDS, whether the book was placed in an LDS setting or not, the author must be a member of the LDS church.

3.The book must be a work of fiction...no non-fiction books, sorry.

If you would like a pretty complete list of books written by LDS authors this year go to this blog where she has them listed on the right side of her page. (http://ldspublisher.blogspot.com/) I
have been keeping track of the books I have been reading this year, by going often to LDS Publisher blog spot.

To end my blog for today I will post some pictures taken at last years Whitney Awards..(sorry if you have seem some of them already, but guess what, you get to view them again!)








Sheila and Hillary with Author Rob Wells





LDS Womens Book Review (Sheila, Hillary and Shanda) with author Jennie Hansen who won a lifetime achievement award.

















Shanda, Sheila and Hillary with author Jessica Day George, who won the award for "Best Novel by a New Author" for her book, "Dragon Slippers"












Sheila, Shanda and Hillary with author Brandon Mull who won the award "Best YA/Children's Book" for "Fablehaven 2: Rise of the Evening Star"










Hillary, Shanda and Sheila with author Shannon Hale who won the award for "Best Speculative" fiction with her novel, "A Book of a Thousand Days"