Winners of the Diabolical Anniversary Contest!

by Mary Jo

This was one seriously difficult contest!  If there had been space for longer excerpts, it probably would have been easier, but with seven writers represented, that would have been humongously long.  Plus, we’re all writing historical romances, most of them set around the same time period.  My hat is off to all of you who were willing to take a guess.

If it’s any comfort, while you struggled to identify the writers, we struggled to come up with an equitable way to distribute prizes and reward both accuracy and speed. 

And now for the identifications!

Only two of the books have been published (Susan King and Nicola Cornick)—the others are in the pipeline, which was still another form of confusion: 

1) Susan King as Sarah Gabriel, The Highland Groom (1/09)
 
2) Nicola Cornick, An Unlikely Suitor (published)
 
3) Jo Beverley,  The Secret Duke (4/10)
 
4) Pat Rice, Mystic Warrior (7/09)
 
5) Andrea Pickens w/a Cara Elliott—To Sin With A Scoundrel  (3/10, I think)
 
6) Anne Gracie, To Capture a Bride (9/09, I think)
 
7) Mary Jo Putney, untitled 2010 Lost Lords novel (5/10)

Now, for the winners.  No one got all of the authors correct, but two people got five right, and two people got four right.  So—the two people who got the five correct answers will get two books each, and the two who got four correct answers will each get a book.  The books will be come from the authors in the order of the list above.

Top winner—Cheryl C., the first to come up with 5 correct answers.  She’ll get books from Wenches #1 and 2: Susan King/Sarah Gabriel and Nicola Cornic.

Co-winner, who also got five correct answers—Liz M.  She’ll get books from Jo Beverley and Patricia Rice.

Second places (four correct answers): 

First runner up is Stephanie.  She gets a book from Andrea Pickens. 

Next runner up is Cyclops8, who has a good eye for a being that has only one eye. <G>  She’ll get a book from Anne Gracie.

That leaves one book—the ARC of Loving a Lost Lord, my July book.  Because this was such a difficult challenge, we decided to give book #7 to a person chosen at random from all those who had the courage to enter.  And the ARC winner is--PamBook! 

A few observations on the contest.  The most commonly guessed correct answer was for Nicola Cornic after the very knowledgeable Laura Vivanco correctly identified the author, title and series.  Nicola had thought that book was read by maybe 7 people, so she was gratified.  <G>

Pat Rice’s book was also identified quite often, possibly because it’s the third book in a trilogy and had a lot of clues for the perspicacious.  I think Anne Gracie and I were confused with each other the most often—we were both honored by the comparison. <G> 

Thanks so much for playing with us!  I wonder what we’ll do next anniversary. <g>

Mary Jo

Comments

[liz m]

Yay! I expected to be embarrassed shamefully! (That said, I feel kinda guilty winning so close to another contest -)

[Helen]

Congrats to the winners

It was fun trying to guess and again congrats on the anniversary Ladies

[Carol]

Congrats to all the winners.
Carol L.

[theo]

Congrats to all the winners! That was hard so pat yourselves on the back and enjoy your books :-D

[Mary Jo Putney]

From MJP:

Liz, your last win was luck. This one you earned! Congratulations to you and the other other winners, and thanks for helping us celebrate three years of consistent, quality communication.

Mary Jo

[Virginia DeMarce]

Laura Vivanco had mentioned the entire "Steepwood Scandal" series on Teach Me Tonight, favorably enough that I went out and scrounged up all of them (in a kind of mix of singles and two-fers). Nicola Cornick's book was the most interesting of all sixteen of them.

Now I have them in a small shopping bag and wonder what to do with them. They really aren't, as a series, keepers, but after having gone to the trouble of finding them all, I hate to separate them from their relatives by dropping them in the Friends of the Library receptacle.

[Virginia DeMarce]

Anne Gracie's upcoming book is listed on amazon.com as To Catch a Bride.

[cheryl c.]

I can't believe that I got 5 out of 7 right because the "test" was really hard! Thanks, Wenches, and Happy Anniversary! :-)

[Pam P]

Congrats winners!. Great job Cheryl and Liz, I was so off. Thanks for the ARC, Mary Jo, I've been waiting to read it.

[cyclops8]

Thank you. Congrats to the winners.