The buzz on the Oscar Nominations, Romantic Novel Awards and the Edgar Allen Poe Awards.

First things first, if you have been living with your eyes closed in an isolation tank for the last month you may not have heard of Danny Boyle’s new film Slumdog Millionaire. Every national paper has reviewed Slumdog, the adaptation of our very own Vikas Swarup’s debut novel Q&A. Not only did it pick up countless Golden Globe’s but it has been shortlisted for ten, yes ten Oscars in the following categories:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Score
Two Nominations for Best Original Song
Cinematography
Film Editing
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing

Check out the contenders at the Oscars official website page. And don’t forget the winners are announced on the 22nd February!

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The second stellar news is that Lesley Downer’s novel The Last Concubine is one of six books that has been shortlisted for this years Romantic Novel Award! The Last Concubine is an epic history and romance combined in a passionate, exotic novel featuring the mysterious concubine of the last shogun. It’s heady stuff!

As Lesley told the Guardian: ‘”I grew up with Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and hugely enjoyed creating a romantic world of my own. I found it utterly gripping to write about a society which has no concept of romantic love. It made it all the clearer what a powerful and primeval force love is.” With these influences we feel Lesley stands a good chance at the RNA and we’ll be supporting her 110%!

The award is announced on the 10th February and an extract of Lesley’s book is going up on the Guardian website today! See what they’ve already said about it below…

The Guardian Website: Romantic Novel of the Year

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And our third heart-thumping news that I am thrilled to report is that Charlie Newton and S. J. Bolton have both been nominated for the 2009 Edgar Allen Poe Awards in the US.

Charlie Newton’s Calumet City has been nominated for Best First Novel by an American Author.

And S. J. Bolton’s Sacrifice has been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

The full list, which honours the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film, published or produced in 2008, can be found at: http://www.mysterywriters.org/

New Year’s Resolutions. I wonder how many of these have been broken by the 9th January? Hopefully our authors have fared better in their own quests to eat less, smoke less, write more and make the world a better place. Check out their New Year’s Resolutions below.

Matt Beaumont

“My New Year Resolution is to laugh heartlessly at anyone foolish enough to have made a New Year resolution.”

Tess Gerritsen

“My New Year’s resolution? To learn to read Greek. It’s a big gap in my formal education, and I’d like to correct that.”

Judy Astley

“New Year Resolution: Financial efficiency. I will open all bills and deal with them IMMEDIATELY. I will no longer dither about nervously eyeing the unpaid pile till the utilities resort to phoning for immediate payment.”

SJ Bolton

“My new year’s resolution is… to stop arguing with my editor. She always wins in the end.”

Chris Fowler

“My New Year’s resolution is…to read more international authors. There’s a whole world of surprising books out there.”

Julia Widdows

“My New Year’s resolution is to give up procrastination. (Or, to be more realistic, perhaps that’s what I should give up for Lent. Then I can start procrastinating again at Easter.)”

Simon Kernick:

“My New Year’s resolution is… not to mess around and spend a load of time navel-gazing before starting my next one.”

Stephen Clarke:

“My New Year’s resolution is… to try and stick to the resolutions I made in September. I live in France, so my year begins after the summer break- a much more logical ‘new year’ than the random midwinter 1st January date. So happy new week-after-winter-solstice period!”

Kathy Lette…

“My New Year’s Resolution (apart from a vow not to make any more New Year’s Resolutions) is to go to fewer parties. ..Discretion being the better part of middle age, I’m not going to tell you about the Strip Karoke I was performing at the time but Larry, please destroy those photos!”

Jesse Armstrong, one of the authors of Peep Show:

“My New Year’s resolution is …. to get my VAT in on time and/or find a workable solution in the Middle East.”

Claudia Carroll

“My new year’s resolution is…don’t laugh…to run the Dublin city marathon next October. Well, when I say ‘run’ I really mean,’attempt to stagger.’ With lots of toilet breaks. In fact, if I manage to crawl across the finish line before noon the following day, I’ll be a happy woman. Sore, but happy.”

John O’Farrell

“My new year’s resolution is to write a thousand words a day on my new book. I’ve managed so far by putting down all the words like ‘the’ and ‘but’ and ‘and’ but I have a feeling that filling in all gaps may take a little longer…”

Andy McNab

“My new year’s resolution is to get some freefall parachuting in as I haven’t had time for the past two years to get jumping.”

Jack Sheffield

“My new year’s resolution is… to build a ‘writing shed’ in my garden and not to grumble any more about Yorkshire cricket.”