Readers who find it unseemly when an author revels in her success, click away now.
Both A Lady Awakened and A Gentleman Undone turned up on a gratifying number of Best of 2012 lists in the online Romance world.
Lady was named by Romance Around the Corner, The Librarian Reads (check it out, offspring, Mom is on a list with John Green!), Radish Reviews, Erin Satie, Shallowreader, Megan Frampton at Heroes & Heartbreakers, and Jane at Dear Author.
Gentleman got mentions at Insta-Love Book Reviews, Romance Novels for Feminists, Gossamer Obsessions, and Library Journal.
And both books appeared on lists from feminist blogger/romance fan scATX and Dear Author’s Janine and Jennie.
I’ve gone back and forth on the question of how much I should care about this stuff. But I won’t lie: as it is now, I care a whole lot. Writing romance is the first job I’ve ever had that actually felt like a career rather than a way to pay the bills, and so I want very much to be good at it. Reviews, and then lists that say, “Of the many books I read this year, this is one of the ones that made the biggest impression on me” are meaningful measures of whether or not I’m succeeding. (More meaningful to me than Amazon ranking, which tells me people bought my book, but doesn’t tell me whether they thought it was any good.)
So, yeah, I’m gratified. Even though a part of me thinks, “God, what an unbecoming, narcissistic blog post. Also, if you allow yourself to be validated by good reviews and year-end lists, what are you going to do when you release a book that’s roundly panned?”
Anyway, I’m especially gratified to see Ruthie Knox on so many of the same lists, as she was my #1 discovery in 2012. I’m cooking up a post on the topic of “discoverability,” with a list of authors whose books I bought for the first time in 2012 and what made me buy them. It’s reaffirming my opinion, which I know I’ve already recorded here, that Ruthie Knox is just plain doing everything right.
Hi, Cecilia!
Congratulations on the wonderful recognition for your two books, well-deserved!
Very excited for A Woman Entangled this 2013!
Tin -
How did I not know about your blog? Love your takes on A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal, The Governess Affair, and Like No Other Lover. I’m going to have to go through and read your reviews of every book we’ve both read :)
Thank you for the congratulations and for looking forward to A Woman Entangled. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
(Everyone: Tin writes the Love Saves the World review blog. Thoughtful, detailed, perceptive reviews. Am I the only one who didn’t already know about this blog?)
Hi, Cecilia!
Thank you for visiting my blog! (You can’t imagine how excited I am that you did!)
Again, very excited for June when your book is released!
Have a great day!
I think it’s wonderful you’re acknowledging your success – what a huge impact you’ve had this year! And I agree with Tin: can’t wait for A Woman Entangled.
Well, I’m still working on finding a healthy relationship with reader response. It’s tricky. For me there’s no possibility of just not caring what readers think, as you hear sometimes of highbrow writers doing, because this is such a personal genre. On the other hand, you can’t get so caught up in reviews and reader reaction that you’re trying to guess what people will like and shape your output to that instead of writing something with its own integrity. (Or I guess you can, actually, but I don’t want to be doing that.)
Anyway I can’t wait until you’re going through this same stuff and we can discuss!
I guess I don’t see it so much as validation as affirmation. It’s wonderful that you’re allowing yourself to feel this and enjoy it. Let go of the shoulds, and enjoy it as part of the package. You worked your fingers off. You fretted, probably lost sleep, threw entire chapters out (probably), kept your cool when someone told you that the darned thing didn’t work and needed to be redone from, oh, page 15 on. Somehow you juggled a home and family at the same time. You did the work. Now enjoy the fun. You have by God earned it.
Had I done a year-end list, both of your books would have been at the top of it. Because They Are Just That Good.
Thanks. A place (or two) on your theoretical list means a lot to me.
“Let go of the shoulds” is excellent advice for a lot of situations. I should really make more of an effort to follow it ;)
I hope you get lots more recognition! I re-read both your books and they were ever better the second time.
Thanks, Sanna. I’m so glad the books merited a re-read!
So glad to hear your books are getting the attention they deserve — and such a wonderful surprise to hear you like Ruthie Knox’s work! “A Gentleman Undone” and “About Last Night” were my two favorite romance reads of the year, but I thought I was eccentric for loving two books that were so very different in historical period, tone, and mood. Your post has prompted me to think about what the two books share: breath-taking emotional chemistry and sentences that get it so exactly right that they deserve re-reading (and highlighting on the kindle!). Over the Christmas holidays, I used your opening phrase “slick to the elbows with the lives of other men” from the first page of “Gentleman” to argue with other English professors that some romances are wonderfully written and do NOT conform to the commonly held stereotype of a cliched and formulaic read.
Oh, you’ve made my month by championing me among the English professors! I’m humbled and flattered :)
I loved About Last Night, and I actually did see at least superficial similarities to A Gentleman Undone. Both featured sharp-edged, sexually forthright heroines keeping the patient, decent-to-the-core hero at arm’s length. It struck me, when I first read ALN, because the emotionally available woman/emotionally unavailable man pairing is a lot more common in romance. But then as the year went on I saw more and more books with that kind of dynamic, which makes me glad. Relationship variety in romances is a good thing.