News, Celebrations and Tournaments

Of Birthdays and Blogoversaries

I can’t believe it's March already, at this rate I’ll blink and it will be Christmas again. I’m actually happy that this month came so fast because on the 21st Romance Around the Corner will be celebrating its first year anniversary. The blog went live on the 9th but the 21st was the day we posted our first review, so that’s the day it counts. We need to plan something special to do that day, but to be honest, just the fact that you’re reading us and we continue to post reviews is special enough for us. Also, my birthday is March 28th and the blog has been the best present I’ve ever given to myself (although I once ate two whole racks of BBQ ribs which comes a close second, and as the most delicious present I’ve ever eaten, followed but the worse birthday indigestion that shall not be named).

Shameless Self-Promo

If you are a blogger or an author, don’t forget to enter our Shameless Summer Giveaway Hop, because steamy book deserve some love and we love excuses to look at pictures of naked men. It’s a summer hop, so there’s still plenty of time to sign up but it’s never too early for some self-promotion. 

Wanted: Guest Reviewers

We are looking for Guest Reviews/Reviewers. If you write reviews in places such as GoodReads, Amazon and Librarything, and love blogs but don’t want to have your own, or if you do have your own blog but would like to be a guest here, we would like to invite you to write a guest review or two for our blog. The main requisites are that you review a romance novel or fiction with strong romantic elements, and that the format of that review matches ours, that means that it has to be a detailed review. If you would like to give it a try and you think your style fits ours, please send me a link to one of your reviews at brie.clementineATgmail.com and the title of the book you would like to review for us. This is not a permanent position, so no pressure for you to come up with a specific amount of reviews a week or anything like that, just a sporadically guest review.

NOTE: if you happen to like Lesbian Fiction or F/F romance, we would love to invite you to review a book for us. We have neglected that genre, so we will give those books priority.

It’s that time of the year: DABWAHA

Are you familiar with the DABWAHA Tournament? I guess you probably are, but just in case, it’s an annual Competition put together by the fantastic people over at Dear Author and by Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Each year they choose eight books in eight different categories, for a total of sixty-four books, to go against each other in the ultimate battle of the romance novels. The books compete in tournament-like brackets and readers get to vote which book wins each round until just one book remains. It’s lots of fun and there are prices for the winners, and most importantly, it’s another list filled with the best of the best books of the year, so it gives us the opportunity to discover books that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. 

This year is going to be particularly tough. I have read and love most of the books, in fact my Best of 2011 list is filled with contenders, so I know I’ll have a hard time choosing. Last year the tournament kicked my butt, I ended up choosing Meljean Brook’s Here There Be Monsters, a novella that did pretty well considering, but I knew it didn’t have a real chance. We’ll see how it goes this year. 

To find out who the nominees are and start preparing for the ultimate book battle, you can visit the official DABWAHA website. And no, I have no idea what DABWAHA stands for, but I bet is long and it makes no sense.

That’s it for today, happy Wednesday!
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