ARR2025: Save the date
Venue contracts are signed for ARR2025, so please save these dates:
- Brisbane, Saturday 22 March 2025
- Sydney, Sunday 23 March 2025
- Melbourne, Saturday 29 March 2025
- Perth, Sunday 30 March 2025
We’ve listened to the feedback from readers and will be changing the format of the events a little for 2025. Our plan is to make each day feel more like a mini-convention:
- we’ll be adding panels/talks in the morning
- we’ll be adding an author-hosted luncheon (each table hosted by an author; number of spots will be limited); in Perth it will be a high tea
- signing will be in the afternoon only
- pricing for reader tickets will be reduced
- you will have the option to pick exactly which sessions you want to attend
- there will also be a VIP upgrade option.
The Expression of Interest forms for authors and vendors are now open:
Join us on the FB group to keep up to date with announcements.
PS—Save the date for the Awards Dinner too: Friday 28 March in Melbourne.
ARR2024: wrap-up
Last month we held our fourth series of Romantic Rendezvous events—with special guests Cathy Maxwell and Kate Meader. It was a pleasure to spend so much time with Cathy and Kate; both are simply lovely.
We’ve had some really great feedback from ARR2024 and we’re so happy with how the events went.
The Brisbane event (Sat 9 Mar) had 35 authors and one (very last minute) vendor. Then was Sydney (Sun 10 Mar) with 32 authors and two vendors; Melbourne (Sat 16 Mar) with 38 authors and three vendors and Perth (Sun 17 Mar) with 21 authors and one vendor. That is well over the promised 100 authors across the four events.
Overall we sold 230 reader tickets for these events. The numbers in Perth were higher than they had been any other year, so that was good to see. Numbers in Sydney and Melbourne were lower. While the overall number was down on previous years, it didn’t seem to affect the atmosphere on the day. Authors and readers had plenty of time to chat. Our authors encompass nearly all of the subgenres, so the readers had a wide range to choose from.
In Melbourne we also indulged in a special High Tea at Collins Coffee House. The food was just lovely and the company was amazing! A lovely way to spend an afternoon.
We also had fantastic VIP bags this year—everyone was so spoilt!
Here are the official photos from the events:
That’s a wrap for 2024. Planning is already under way for our 2025 events. You can find out more here, or join the Facebook group to keep up to date.
[Based on articles that first appeared in ARRA’s April 2024 newsletter.]
Feature book: Buffalo Dust
Buffalo Dust by Mel A Rowe
Series: Elsie Creek #9
Subgenre: rural romance
Release date: 23 Dec 2023
Publisher: self-published
Format: ebook and print
Length: 338 pages
RRP: $5.99 (ebook); $29.69 (print)
It’s official. I want to visit Elsie Creek, and I’m a city slicker with zero tolerance for heat, flies, mossies, crocodiles, etc. But I want to see the ‘big sky’ out there. I want to meet the locals, and I certainly want to give Cecil, the ageing water buffalo, a (very cautious) pat and offer him a bunch of daisies to eat. I want to have a spit roast at the hotel, and a cocktail at the Sandfly Bar—of course made in dashing style by Felix.
Anyway. This is Jordi and Luke’s story.
Jordi, her sister and brother-in-law run a florist shop up north. Jordi makes the delivery run down to Elsie Creek once a week, a long overnighter she loves doing. As the ‘flower-shop girl’ her flowers bring joy to the locals—with details of the happy recipients often broadcast over the local radio in a colourful segment called Dramas From the Dinghy.
When she’s a bit vague about accessing some addresses, she often does a quick run through the Bottle Shop drive-through. ‘Bottle Shop Luke’ is only too happy to help her out with his big smile and gentle manner. Plus, he knows where absolutely everyone lives.
Jordi seems vulnerable, shy, and fragile, and Luke’s got a protective streak a mile wide. We know something traumatic has happened in the past, something very awful. Jordi still hasn’t come to terms with it and Luke seems to know about it. And poor Jordi’s future’s in a state of flux, with the possibility of her sister and brother-in-law moving away. She’s caught between the past and the future and doesn’t know what to do.
There’s a special reason why Luke longs to get to know Jordi better. They have met before, but Jordi doesn’t really understand how until fairly late in the book, when the action totally heats up. It’s such a heartbreaker of a scene.
Meanwhile, there’s a million-dollar barramundi fishing competition happening in Elsie Creek. Every fisherman in the Territory wants to win the amazing prize money. Wait, isn’t this crocodile country? My word it is, and yes, there’s big scary crocodile strife on the river during the fishing comp. Terrifying, actually.
Between locals, water buffaloes, fires, crocs, and a grandmother with difficult health issues, this is quite a story. The romance is all the sweeter for the fabulous community side of things interrupting all the time.
Mel A Rowe has created a wonderful town with eccentric and lovable locals, some of whom have already had their own stories told. It might be a bit hard at first for a newbie to drop in at story #9, but just go with the flow. The locals have a way of endearing themselves to you whether you know them or not, and Mel’s love of the outback shines through. Enjoy!
reviewed by Malvina
A review copy of this book was provided by the author.
Release day: The Wild Lavender Bookshop
Today is the official release of The Wild Lavender Bookshop by Jodi Thomas (ebook and paperback, Zebra). Here’s the blurb:
From beloved New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas, a slow burn romance that’s the epitome of comfort reading and features an “inviting setting and quirky, good-hearted characters” (Publishers Weekly).
Perfect for fans of Robyn Carr and Susan Mallery!
Return to the unforgettable world of Someday Valley, Texas, in this tender, uplifting novel of hearts in search of second chances.
The trees that circle Someday Valley near Honey Creek are dressed in their fall finest, providing a pretty backdrop for the local businesses—including the little bookshop loved by schoolteacher Cora Lee Buchanan. There, under the watchful eye of owner Noah O’Brien, Cora Lee and her sister, Katherine, meet each Wednesday. Their talk mostly revolves around one subject: their father, known to everyone in town as Bear.
Both Cora Lee and Katherine worry about Bear Buchanan. They’ve no idea Bear has a secret life of his own. As for the sisters, Katherine, beautiful and self-absorbed, is in search of her third husband, while Cora Lee is in love for the first time. On warm nights, she climbs up to her building’s roof to chat with Noah and listen to the melody of the water below. Yet there is more intrigue afoot in Honey Creek …
Andi Delane has arrived in town to hear the last wishes of the father she never met. She was shocked to get a letter from lawyer Jackson Landry, and she has few expectations—of this mysterious will, or of Deputy Danny Davis who’s been assigned to protect her. But fall always brings changes, and this year there will be enough to alter not just the lives of those who call Honey Creek home, but the future of Someday Valley itself …
Jodi dropped by today to tell us a little about this book:
I enjoyed writing this book for two reasons. One, I love bookstores. When I wrote about the bookshop, I had fun describing the people I see in bookstores and libraries everyday. Two, I enjoyed writing a character who had no idea where he was going in life. I could so relate to his drifting!
You can find out more about this book at Jodi’s website or buy it from here.
Guest blogger: J Mary Masters
Why is the romance genre treated with such condescension?
My introduction to the romance genre was certainly via Georgette Heyer, whose books I devoured in my teenage years. And I’ve re-read many of them quite recently too. They are clever. Sharp. Witty. And they contain principal characters we can admire—a clever, sensitive hero (even if he doesn’t initially appear to be so) and an equally clever, independently minded heroine to act as a counterpoint. Certainly, they are sometimes surrounded by pompous men or bird-brained females, which only serves to bring them into sharper relief.
I have read the excellent biography of Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester. Nearly fifty years after her death in 1974, her books are still being read and written about. In fact, in a New York Times article (Alexandra Alter, 30 Oct 2023), the subject of posthumous revision of her work in modern editions to remove blatant Jewish stereotypes such as the description of the villainous moneylender in The Grand Sophy is discussed, with modern readers apparently offended by these descriptions. Perhaps there is more sensitivity to this type of thing in New York than I realise. I would have thought it was enough to add a foreword to indicate the book was written in different times. I wonder what Australian romance readers think.
For all that, Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels must be acknowledged as the foundation on which the Regency romance genre was built. Fifty years after her death, only now is her contribution to literature beginning to be acknowledged. In another hundred years, perhaps she will rank alongside Jane Austen, whose work has been shamelessly exploited, in my opinion, because it is out of copyright.
And speaking of Jane Austen, was there ever a better opening line than this: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ (Pride and Prejudice) I have the collected works of Jane Austen on my shelf and take it down from time to time to remind me of what has inspired romantic novelists for generations.
Now, if I think about my own books and my own male protagonists, you can see Georgette Heyer’s influence in my work. Clever men (not always making good choices). Intelligent women (bruised by some of the choices their men make).
But I started this by asking why the romance genre is treated with such condescension. The Australian Book Review, to which I subscribe, would rather publish a blank page than write about a romance novel. Good Reading magazine, with its more commercial bent, would rather write about ‘serious’ fiction—or crime—or Australian rural noir.
The romance genre is actually a broad church in my opinion.
From delightful pieces of confection, consumed like fairy floss, to more substantial longer reads.
My own books hardly fit the genre really, but they don’t seem to belong anywhere else, since describing them as a ‘family saga’ seemed to belong to another era of publishing altogether. Mind you, there is a hefty dose of romantic entanglements in the lives of my key protagonists.
To check out my books, go to website—there are links to free reading of each book. All five I’ve published so far are connected. A family series of 1 to 4 and the book 5 is a fork in the road for one of the key characters. (One reader commented that she wanted to ‘take him by the shoulders and shake him’ and tell him to ‘wake up to himself’. I laughed at that. Getting an emotional response is what every author wants.)
My final message is: I think we should all work to elevate the standing of the romance genre, because it gives more pleasure to more readers than any other genre. And it’s fun! Enjoy your reading. And for the writers out there, enjoy your writing.
You can find J Mary Masters here: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
First Born Son
To the world beyond, Philippe Duval, eminent surgeon, husband to Julia, father to Pippa, appears to have a settled life other men would envy. What could possibly upend it?
Could it be his lingering interest in a beautiful woman who should now be out of bounds? A woman he turned his back on to marry his long lost love Julia Belleville.
Or could it be what emerges unexpectedly from his early life?
Brought up in poverty by his single mother among America’s wealthy elite on Long Island, he has always seen himself as an outsider. Not belonging. Never welcome. Shamed for his illegitimacy. Rescued only by his own determination to succeed. Or so he thinks.
As father and daughter head to New York, their plans appear straightforward. She will work a short internship at a Manhattan hospital while he attends medical conferences.
But he does not know Pippa is desperate to flesh out the details of his early life of which he has told her very little.
Yet even as she begins to delve into his early life, events overtake her. And they overtake her father too who is left to wonder if an unseen hand had guided his life in ways he never understood.
As events unfold over which he has no control, Philippe’s life takes a dramatic new direction. And with that new direction comes new possibilities and temptations that will rock the foundations of his life, including his marriage.
His life will never be the same again.
Release day: Surprise Proposal, Outback Inheritance
Today is the official release of Surprise Proposal, Outback Inheritance by Kandy Shepherd (One Year to Wed #3) (ebook and paperback, Harlequin Romance). Here’s the blurb:
The key to Cinderella’s inheritance…
When Anastasia finds herself in need of a husband, she turns to her best friend, millionaire tycoon Connor.
She’s always carried a torch for the guy from next door, but anything romantic is completely off-limits. The relationship might be faux, but once she’s wearing Connor’s ring, Ana’s very real desire for him becomes impossible to hide any longer…
Especially when his “I do” kiss feels anything but fake!
Kandy dropped by today to tell us a little about this book:
This book is #3 in a four-book linked Wed in the Outback series created by Aussie authors—me, Michelle Douglas and Ally Blake—joined by English author Rachael Stewart. Our stories centre around four very different sisters, a multi-billion-dollar outback property, and a tricky will that states all four sisters have to be married within a year to inherit. We four authors had such fun brainstorming ideas for our four heroines and their wonderful heroes. We got so deeply into the sisters’ stories, we sometimes called our fellow authors by her heroine’s name instead of her own! My sister, Anastasia, is the secret sister, who lived behind a wall of secrets and lies that comes crashing down at the reading of the will. I loved writing this book and hope you enjoy reading it! By the way, this is the Australian title for the book. In North America and the UK, this book is titled Cinderella and the Tycoon Next Door.
You can find out more about this book at Kandy’s website or buy it from here.
Release day: Falling for the Trauma Doc
Today is the official release of Falling for the Trauma Doc by Susan Carlisle (Kentucky Derby Medics #1)(paperback and ebook, Harlequin). Here’s the blurb:
It’s off to the races with Susan Carlisle’s latest Harlequin Medical Romance as a physician’s assistant and trauma doc treat patients at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby…while trying to resist each other!
The man she shouldn’t fall for!
Callee needs to move on from a huge loss, and the way to do that is to armor plate her heart. So when trauma doc Langston arrives at her clinic to temporarily conduct research, she knows she’s in trouble. Not only is he helpful with patients, but their chemistry is electric! Is Langston the guy to take a leap with, when he isn’t planning to stick around?
Susan dropped by today to tell us a little about this book:
And they’re off! That’s what the announcer says when the horses leave the gate at the Kentucky Derby, which is the first weekend in May in America. I love horse racing. There is nothing like the anticipation of the thundering of horse hooves coming around the curve into the home stretch. The beauty of a thoroughbred horse running full out, or the colour of the jockey’s silks blowing in the wind and the tradition of the 150-year-old event is not to be understated. It is the greatest two minutes in sports. And that is true. I know from experience. I attended the Derby a few years ago and that is where I got the idea for my book Falling for the Trauma Doc. I have put all that excitement of the Derby into the book. Even including the people who work behind the scenes to bring the Derby to life. If you are looking for romance and the fun of horseracing this book will be just the story for you.
You can read more about this book at Susan’s website and buy it from here.
Release day: Marrying Her Outback Enemy
Today is the official release of Marrying Her Outback Enemy by Michelle Douglas (Wed in the Outback #4) (ebook, Harlequin Mills & Boon). Here’s the blurb:
“MARRY ME, LINCOLN.”
Rose has put everything into running her family’s farm, so she’s furious that her father’s will states she must marry to keep it!
All she can do is propose—to anyone. She picks Lincoln—her neighbour, her enemy and the man she once shared a pulse-racing moment of passion with…
She offers him a coveted plot of land in return—but she’s still surprised when he says yes to making her his billion-dollar bride!
Michelle dropped by today to tell us a little about this book:
I remember reading Lucy Walker outback romances when I was a teenager and falling in love with the landscapes, the isolation, and the resilience of the heroes and heroines who peopled those pages. I found those books so compelling … and utterly romantic. So in large part Marrying Her Outback Enemy is my homage to all of those old outback romances I loved so much. Creating an archaic will stipulation, and then pairing the seriously capable Rose with flirtatious bad boy Lincoln was almost too much fun. If you love the allure of the Australian outback, clever competent heroines, and heroes with shoulders as broad as the horizon, then Marrying Her Outback Enemy is definitely going to be your jam.
You can find out more about this book at Michelle’s website or buy it from here.
Feature book: A Pregnancy Bombshell to Bind Them
A Pregnancy Bombshell to Bind Them by Annie West
Subgenre: contemporary romance
Release date: 17 Apr 2024
Publisher: Mills & Boon Modern
Format: ebook and print
Length: 264 pages
RRP: $5.99 (ebook); $8.99 (print)
Laura is modelling on location in Queensland when she meets Vassili Thanos, a businessman on holiday from Greece. They bond over a ridiculously overloaded fruit mocktail, which turns into dinner, tales about travelling, and a growing attraction.
There is a kiss, a night together, then both of them prolong their stay, despite work calling. Their time together is magical, even if it is out of character for both of them to have a fling like this.
Inevitably, their idyllic time is shattered by an urgent phone call summoning Vassili home. He is reticent about the call; it seems to be something he can’t discuss with Laura. With no real claim on him she can’t press him for more information and they part, his last words being: But we’ll see each other again.
Famous last words indeed. When Laura idly searches Vassily on her phone, she discovers he’s a very very wealthy man. She’s also completely horrified to discover he’s engaged. Which is why she can never ever be with this man, ever again. He has lied to her, something she’s sworn she will never let a man do to her again.
Vassili is puzzled when Laura blocks him on her phone. He’s desperate to contact her to continue their relationship, but months go past with every effort stalled.
He’s appalled when the ever-hungry media run a story suggesting Laura’s pregnant, and he is the potential mystery father after their time together in Queensland. This changes everything, and the family situation in Greece becomes hugely volatile.
Vassili, of course, immediately heads for Australia. Laura is horrified to see him, especially when the media follow the scent of the juicy story. Her friend Jake is very protective—and please can we have his story, Annie? He sounds wonderful!
Is there any chance that Vassili and Laura can be honest with each other about their pasts? Laura hates dishonest men, but Vassili would have to break the trust of someone he loves to tell Laura the truth about himself. Can they find their way through this?
What a rocky road to love! This book was completely compelling, and I did fall for Vassili and admire the very strong Laura (and thoroughly enjoyed the quick glimpses we had of Jake). I read it in one lovely afternoon. Annie West is truly the Queen of Romance.
reviewed by Malvina
A review copy of this book was provided by the author.
ARRA newsletter #177
The April issue of the ARRA newsletter is out today. Members should have received the download code via email.
Here’s a quick run down on what you can find in the newsletter this month:
- save the date(s) for ARR2025
- author EOIs for ARR2025 are now open
- save the date for the next Awards Dinner (in Melbourne)
- wrap-up of ARR2024
- wrap-up of High Tea
- we talk about Reading lists, awards and reviews
- win a $10 gift card—if you can Find the Heart!
Plus our regular columns—romance roundup, diverse reads, reviews, freebies and upcoming releases.
If anyone has any publishing news or deals to report, please send information through. And we are always looking for authors to do a Q&A for the newsletter. If you haven’t done one yet, please contact us at arra.editor@gmail.com.
Happy reading everyone!
Australian Romance Readers Association 