COME HOME TO ME - LARAMIE AWARD WINNER!

I just returned from a week-long "working vacation" in Colorado and Wyoming. One of the first emails I saw when I checked my computer was an announcement that the Laramie Awards first place winners for their 2014 entries were announced. 

Talk about Deja Vu! 

Last month, I was on my return trip home from a family vacation (but my husband is resigned to the fact that any vacation to Yellowstone is also a information gathering and research trip...he's married to a writer. We never stop writing).

...anyways, we were on the drive home, and I received a message from a fellow writer that COME HOME TO ME was short listed for the Laramie Awards. 

My first reaction was "Huh?" The name of the awards sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I was still on cloud nine for DIAMOND IN THE DUST being a finalist in the RONE awards (winners will be announced in September)

I couldn't remember exactly what the Laramie Awards are, and why COME HOME TO ME would even be in the running for this award. When I did some digging, I remembered that I had submitted the book for review nearly a year ago, so I forgot all about it! It all came back to me, though. 

I remember chatting with my editor about writing competitions and how I had entered YELLOWSTONE HEART SONG in a few before it was published, and how I was not a fan of these things. 
She casually suggested that I should try entering another competition, and the Laramie Awards came up in the discussion. I looked it up, and quickly dismissed the idea. The only book I had out at the time that could even remotely qualify as an entry was COME HOME TO ME (the first book in the Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series, set along the Oregon Trail). The deadline for submission was a few days away. She told me to enter.  She prodded me with "What do you have to lose?" and "It'll be good for you," along with "It's a great book, you really need to enter."
Yeah, but it's a time travel book! was my argument.
In her normal fashion, she argued back that it was more than a time travel book. It was a well-researched western historical. 
So, on the last day to enter, I sat at the computer, staring at the entry form late that night. It was shortly before midnight when I hit the "submit" button. 

Fast forward to today. The winners were announced, and I couldn't be more speechless that COME HOME TO ME won its category! WOW! What an absolute honor and humbling experience. I couldn't be more in shock when I saw my name and the title of my book as one of the winners. 

A huge congratulations to all the winners, a few of whom I know and consider my online writing friends. 

The LARAMIE AWARDS for WESTERN and CIVIL WAR FICTION Official First Place Category Winners

Chanticleer Book Reviews is honored to announce the First Place Category Winners for the LARAMIE AWARDS 2014 for Western, Prairie, and Civil War Fiction, a division of Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Writing Competitions.

The Laramie  Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Western fiction. The First Place Category Winners will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala held in late September 2015.

Chanticleer Reviews is proud to be a literary affiliate of the Historical Novel Society.

The LARAMIE FIRST PLACE 2014 Award Winners are:

• Historical: Rebecca Rockwell for The Last Desperado 
• Jacqui Nelson for Between Heaven and Hell 
• Contemporary Western: Jared McVay for Not on My Mountain
• Adventure: Lorrie Farrelly  for Terms of Surrender
• Classic: Ken Farmer and Buck Stienke for Nations
• Debut Novel: Juliette Douglas for Freckled Venom Copperhead
• Romance/Humorous: Jacqui Rogers for Much Ado About Miners
• Civil War: Christi Corbett for Along the Way Home
• Boys YA: Elizabeth Ward for Wolf Eye’s Silence
• Blended Genre: Peggy L. Henderson for Come Home to Me
• Drama: Michael J. Rouche for A River Divides: Book Two of Beyond the Wood
• Literary Western: Theo Czuk for Heart Scarred