The Lost Temple of Karttikeya wins an EPPIE!

Okay, you’re probably tired of hearing about it but I haven’t had a chance to prattle on about the awards.

I had already convinced myself I wasn’t even really in the running before I left to attend. The finalist list was announced on a site and my name wasn’t even on it. It turned out to be just a mis-posting, but after being added as what looked like an after thought (but wasn’t), I told my frail and fragile ego that I should just suck it up and realize I didn’t have a chance of winning.

I decided to go to the event because I think it’s important to be present when a committee of your peers nominates you for an honor, win or lose. Okay, yes, there was a spark of hope I couldn’t completely drown that thought maybe my practical side was wrong and I could still MAYBE win. Then I looked at the long list of nominees with me during the awards dinner and the spark flickered lower. Then Jet Mykles, who was sitting with me, won her awards for erotic romance (so well deserved!) and I figured that was it, she won. Reasonably, you can only expect one winner per table, right? So Jet won, the brat! I’m out in the cold for sure!

I practice my gracious loser face. I used it last year when I finaled at EPICon 2007 and lost, so I just dusted it off and tried it on to see if it has gotten too tight like my clothes from last year. Unfortunately, it fit just fine. Damn.

So while I’m practicing my ‘I’m really glad you won’ smile, and listening to Lucy Monroe’s wonderful comments about GLBT romance, Lucy announces my name. I freeze, do a WTF! and jump up. I’m so surprised I can’t think of a damn thing to say. I mean really surprised. If I can’t talk, you know I must be near brain death. I didn’t write a speech, didn’t consider naming appropriate names, or even have a comment ready to champion the genre.

Now granted I was concentrating on not falling on the stairs to the stage up or down (I hurt my back before the event and plane travel and strange beds did NOTHING for it) but you’d think I could come up with at least a sentence besides “what she said”!

So since I didn’t do it then, let me thank a few people now. I want to share the awards (from the display shelve in my house) with Lynne Anderson my editor on The Lost Temple of Karttikeya (the winning novel), and with my publisher, LooseId. Since both of my EPPIE nominations have been for LI stories, I hope they are happy with me!

And I want to thank all the author who collaborated in the COLLECTOR SERIES at LI. My story is #9 in the 9 books series. Without the idea, support and imagination of this group of authors, I wouldn’t have written Lost Temple to begin with. Check them all out here: http://www.collector-series.com/

Laura