RITA for Miranda Cheever... seriously?

Nana · Joined: 02 Apr 2007 Posts: 898

I found the win for Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever to be pretty shocking. It was one of the worst books I read all last year. Can regency romance really be that thin of a category, or did JQ just get some auto-votes based on name recognition?

Schola · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1867

+IHS+

My eyebrows went up as well, but this win isn't as unbelievable as the first RITA going to On the Way to the Wedding.
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WandaSue · Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 277

LLB · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Dallas, Texas

First, btw, is a link to a topic I started during RWA's conference, including the RITA awards: http://likesbooks.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=3605

Now for the book itself. I read it and liked it. I heard from the author after mentioning it - I think - on my blog, and she indicated it was one of the first books she'd written. Having loved her first published book, Splendid, this doesn't necessarily mean anything to me, but it might to others.

Julia Quinn is an author that I find attracts a lot of positive attention, but an almost equal amount of negative attention. I honestly think some of the negative goes back to a cover quote another author gave her, comparing her to Jane Austen. Quinn didn't write that, nor did she print it on her books, but I think some readers actually blame her for heresy as a result.

Does anyone think that the press she gets - there was that Time article as well - actually works against her?
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Yulie · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 1053 Location: Elsewhere

willaful · Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 1476

Kass · Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 722 Location: under a cockatiel

LLB · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Dallas, Texas

RichMissTallant · Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 148 Location: Washington, DC

What would have been this book's competition? I tend to not always read books when they first come out so I'm a little fuzzy as to the books that would have qualified for this prize.

FWIW I really like this book.
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LLB · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Dallas, Texas

The finalists in that category were:

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Laurie Gold
http://laurie-gold.blogspot.com

willaful · Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 1476

Wow, I've actually read 4 out of the 5. Lord of Scandal I thought pretty weak, and for some reason Anna Campbell's writing just does not do a thing for me. Even so, I would still consider Untouched a better book than Miranda Cheever. But it seems like a remarkably poor list of finalists.

However, I remember last year someone had a poll of the RITA finalists ("Dear Author" I think) and I actually thought it might be a parody, the choices seemed so bizarre. So obviously I am really not in tune with the RITA mindset.
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_

LLB · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Dallas, Texas

Karen Templeton · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 298

The finalists are not voted on by the entire membership, but by another panel of five published judges (maybe former RITA winners or finalists? I've never been sure.).

And while that might seem constraining, giving a book to ten random judges to score is actually a lot more fair than allowing the entire 10,000-strong membership to vote, considering that they -- like the non-author readership as a whole -- would be more likely to vote only for those books they'd read. Which would be those books that sold the most copies. Since quite often lesser-known authors/books DO win (last year, for instance, the single title winner was a YA novel by a first-time novelist, ADIOS TO MY OLD LIFE by Caridad Ferrer), the system isn't entirely broken.

But it's true, authors or publishers have to submit books for consideration. And there's a limit of 1200 titles, which isn't even half of the books published every year. While I have no idea how many historical titles were entered altogether, somehow five judges gave the JQ book a high enough score to final; another five judges decided to award it the win.

Were readers to judge, instead of authors, it's highly possible the result would have been exactly the same. Wink

Karen T.
http://www.karentempleton.com

LLB · Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 869 Location: Dallas, Texas

Mary Reed McCall · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 62 Location: Upstate New York