Romancing the Convention

From your intrepid reporter, Kate Pearce



If you don't know who this guy is, you obviously aren't a Romantic Times aficionado. It's FABIO, the most famous romance cover model ever with the divine Michelle Buonfiglio from Lifetime TV's romance blog. Strangely enough, five minutes before the book fair at the convention ended on Saturday, the whole ballroom went black. I suspect Fabio had just arrived and that all power and female hormones had been sucked out of the room by his enormous...um ego.


Vampire doms get up close and personal

What can I say about a conference that includes cover models, readers, booksellers, reviewers and authors all crammed into one Pittsburgh hotel which was supposed to be renovated and yet resembled a bomb site?
It was FANTASTIC!!

For those of you who don't know much about it, the Romantic Times Book Lovers convention celebrated its 25th anniversary this year with style and the usual amount of drama. Professional it isn't, fun it definitely is. As your intrepid reporter, I forced myself to get up close and personal with a few fine sets of abs and pecs but unfortunately I don't have any pictures(that I'm prepared to show you). I'll leave others to shine instead :)


Well there is this one-I did cleavage this year, my friend Mari did shiny...


Just in case you want to go, there are workshops aimed at readers, aspiring writers and booksellers. Of course if you go to a workshop hoping for anything too in depth you're likely to be disappointed as the questions tend to be quite general. One woman in a workshop I went to about the emergence of erotic romance lines asked the Harlequin Spice editor if she could name all the Harlequin lines and their heat levels for her...that took up quite a while...

The other big draws are the publishers book giveaways and the goody room where you get free books!! What's not to like? You also get free books at most of the luncheons and dinners so bring an extra suitcase or two. I actually restrained myself due to packing issues and I still came back with 15 new books distributed amongst my belongings!


Fabulous author Samantha Kane lets it all hang out with an EC cover model.


If you like dressing up-this convention is definitely for you. Every evening a big party is hosted by either a publisher or authors. Ellora's Cave hosted their "Golden Age of Hollywood" party the first night. All their authors (such as me) get to be escorted across the stage by an EC Caveman. To be honest, I was so busy clinging onto that nice muscled arm and focusing on not falling flat on my face that the glory of the occasion kind of passed me by and I can't even remember which caveman was my escort.

Two of the contest winners at the Faerie Ball

The Faerie ball is another big night, complete with a faerie court and a costume contest. Somehow that night, I suspect copious amounts of alcohol made me forget stuff, I managed to lose my wings and my little black cardigan, and they didn't turn up the next day either. Not as soul-destroying as the RWA year I lost my Issey Miyake spiky cardigan (wail) but I digress...

Luckily for you all, I have good friends who wore great costumes to the vampire ball. Floggers, leather, gun-shot wounds and vampire teeth were much in evidence. I did hear there was some serious spanking in the bar later, but I missed that-I always do...


Here is our old friend Barry Eisler being hit on by some dom vampires and a zombie ho. He looks a little scared don't ya think?

Some people go to grope the cover models and for the classic MR ROMANCE contest on Saturday night. Some of the guys seem to like being groped and grope back. Some of them probably hate it. I heard plenty of stories about both types of behavior and it seemed about even. For the record, I was groped but didn't grope anyone-I have a 19 yr old son and most of the guys looked a leetle too young for my taste! There were of course, scandals that broke out and are running through blog world as I speak, so I'm not going to spread them here...I'm far too knackered.

I met a reader who had come all the way from Australia to buy romance novels, including mine, I met people who wanted me to sign my books and knew all about me and my characters. I also met a reader who cried when she realized who I was, (in a good way, honestly) which was a bit scary for me being a traditional emotional Brit. And I had a laugh and a few (ahem) drinks with some of the only people in the world who really understand me-other writers. It's nice to crawl out of your office and actually meet the people who read your books. I'd thoroughly recommend it!!