Last week was a bit of a wild ride. Lots of book signing, lots of my favorite writers, and not one, but two awards for The Mischief of the Mistletoe.

It was a very good week.

Here’s a brief recap in pictures. Oh, and if you were at RWA and have pictures, please send ’em along!

RWA kicked off a week in advance with a pre-RWA party hosted by Cara Elliott. She, Sarah MacLean and I all read from our RITA-nominated novels. As Sarah pointed out, my poster was proportional to my height.

The actual conference began on Tuesday, with the Literacy Booksigning, which raised $46,000 for literacy charities.

I lucked out alphabetically. Thanks to being in the W’s, I always get to sit next to the lovely Michelle Willingham— and next year I’ll have Beatriz Williams on my other side! (Okay, cheating a bit here. The photo of Beatriz is from the pre-RWA party.)

Joanne played fairy godmother for me, stopping by with the gift of a magical Pink Carnation bracelet. Isn’t it gorgeous? I wore it all week, for luck. The three plaques are Pink I, Black Tulip, and, of course, Mistletoe.

Smart Bitches Trashy Books made a montage of the event (you can find me about two-thirds of the way through).

I went straight from the signing to a reception thrown by the Detroit chapter of RWA, where two wonderful things happened: I got to sit next to Karen White— and Mistletoe won the Booksellers Best Award for Long Historical Fiction.

And that was only Tuesday.

There was a History Hoydens get together on Wednesday (photos hopefully forthcoming!) and various other
festivities and merriment. Sarah MacLean and I did a workshop together on Thursday about plotting your fictional series (and we were sort of color-coordinated, depending on whether you think my dress is green or blue). After the workshop, I got to gossip about 15th century Scotland with Darci Hannah, admired Miranda Neville’s hat, and spent a long time hanging out in the bar with Deanna Raybourn and other writer friends.

Huge congrats to Deanna, who hit the NYT list that morning! (She always looks gorgeous, but you can tell she’s glowing.)

Friday began with the NAL booksigning, where I got to sign large piles of Orchid Affair…

… and hang out with Cara Elliott, who was there under her new historical mystery nom de plume, Andrea Penrose.

Then it was time to go home and get glammed up for the RITA awards. I was lucky to have three very good friends also up for RITAs: Cara Elliott, Deanna Raybourn, and Sarah MacLean (the three lovely ladies in black below). And since my editor couldn’t be there, Sarah let me hang out with hers. (Have I mentioned recently how much I love Sarah?)

Here’s where my narrative gets a little dodgy. Julia Quinn got up there and read out the winner for Best Regency Historical– and I remember very little after that.

They played theme music for each of the winners. I have no idea what my music was. If anyone was there and remembers, let me know?

I know I somehow got myself up on stage without falling over anything. I know I thanked people. Other than that, I’m drawing a blank, although I have been informed that I kept a death grip on that statuette throughout my speech. (Apparently, other peoples set theirs down on the podium while speaking. Like I was letting go? Um, no.) I gather I also used it to gesticulate.

Little known Pink fact: The Duke and I was a big inspiration for Pink I when I started writing it back in 2001. So it made it even more meaningful that the award came from Julia Quinn. It was rather surreal.

I don’t have any pictures of my own from that portion of the evening, but Kristan Higgins (whose books I love love love) was kind enough to send me this one. Note the iron grip on the statuette! I wasn’t risking anyone taking it away.

By the way, that’s Joanne’s bracelet on my wrist, Mistletoe side up.

I also babbled incoherently at Barbara Vey. If I wind up writing a series about root vegetables, it’s all the fault of that little statue.

As you can see, it was a very busy and exciting week. And there’s a sequel! I was chatting with Sarah Wendell, of Smart Bitches, and the topic of Turnip’s missing love scene came up. Details to follow soon, but it looks as though, to celebrate Turnip’s RITA win, he may be getting that missing love scene….