Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Trophy seeking

The past few days have had some interesting ups and downs. On Saturday night I was at the district swim meet. My team was the long shot to win, but I was hoping and praying we could pull it off. My swimmers did great, they dropped time everywhere, and even broke a school record. And we still took second place. Oh, well. There's always next year.

Though I would have loved for my team to have walked away holding that trophy, I got just about everything else I wanted on Saturday night. Nearly everyone who had a shot at advancing to Regionals did so. Several kids outperformed even my expectations and we walked out of the meet knowing that as a team we had done our best.

Yesterday, I was playing the underdog role once more. You see, the finalists for the Whitney Awards were being announced yesterday morning. I was extremely fortunate last year to have my novel, The Deep End, named as a finalist and I admit I was hopeful that at least one of my novels would earn me that honor once more.

What I didn't expect is what actually happened. BOTH of my 2008 novels were named as finalists...and they are competing AGAINST each other. That's right. Freefall and Royal Target are both finalists in the mystery/suspense category for the Whitney Awards.

I find myself both excited and mystified. You see, while both of my books can certainly be categorized as suspense novels, neither one of them are purists in the category. Freefall would really be better classified as government action/intrigue with some romance thrown in. Royal Target I consider more of a romance with some government suspense thrown in.

With this said, and knowing that judges are likely to vote for a book that truly fits the category, I want to congratulate all of the Whitney Finalists. And until April 25th I will continue to wonder which of the other three authors in the mystery/suspense category is going to beat me out not once, but twice, to win the award.

3 comments:

Karlene said...

Congratulations on the double-nomination. I loved Freefall and think the nod is well deserved. I just bought Royal Target yesterday and will be reading it soon.

Traci Hunter Abramson said...

Thanks Karlene!

Jordan McCollum said...

I haven't read Royal Target yet (it's sitting on my counter To Be Read pile, AKA the really high priority pile), but I've read the rest of your books that are out so far and I do think Freefall was your best to-date. (But just watch, I'll say that about Royal Target when I'm done, too, I'm sure—I like each successive book better than the last.)

I've had a lot of with the "romantic suspense" genre, too, but since RS is so often a mystery, suspense or thriller (which is what I would have classified the suspense element in Freefall) with a major romantic element or subplot. Would you have place them in the romance category instead, even though they're not straight romance, either?

Congratulations and good luck! At least the odds are in your favor!