And the RITA goes to...

Boys and girls! It's the big day! The day of the Romance Writers of America's RITA/Golden Heart ceremony. What's that, you ask? Only the biggest award out there in the romance writing industry. The Oscars of romance, if you will. The RITAs are for published books, while the Golden Heart represent the unpublished up-and-comers we hope to see on best seller lists in years to come.

And who won this year? Oh, baby. There's a lot of awesome in this group.

There's a link to the complete list of winners below, but I'm gonna gush about a few notables. On the Golden Heart side, two Rubies won this year! Mad congrats to CJ Eernisse Chase (Inspirational) and Elisa Beatty (Regency Rockstar Goddess of Epic Proprotions who also won two categories of the Royal Ascot Historical Romance competition this year, why the hell is this woman not published yet?). Yay, RUBIES!

And in my category, the Single Title Contemporary Golden Heart baton was passed to Lizbeth Selvig - who I met a couple years back at the Emerald City Writers Conference and who it is safe to say rocks some serious socks. Congrats, Lizbeth! (I wasn't able to be there to give out the Golden Heart, so they got Roxanne St. Claire to fill in. I'm sure Lizbeth didn't mind the substitution... given that it was Rocki-freaking-St.Claire. Dude.)

Roxanne St. Claire with RITA winner Kresley Cole.

On the RITA side, there was much "woot, woot"-ing at Casa Andrews as the announcements went out and some of my All Time Favorite Authors got the nod. (Oh, the awesome! I can hardly contain myself!)

Sherry Thomas won Historical for Not Quite a Husband (which I will confess I haven't read yet though it is on my TBR pile right now but I was lucky enough to crash a dinner with her at RT this year and I can vouch for the deep, deep awesomeness she possesses). Congrats, Sherry!

Then two of my hero-worship favs won back-to-back! Julia Quinn for What Happens in London (Oh-my-freaking-god, I loved that book) won the Regency Historical and joined the RWA Hall of Fame for winning her third RITA! And then Kresley Cole took home her second Paranormal Romance RITA for Kiss of a Demon King (which was that one with Sabine the deeply badass anti-heroine and I love to see the tough-girl heroines getting the RWA love).

Finish the night off with Kristan Higgins taking home the Single Title Contemporary RITA for Too Good to Be True (brilliant!) and... well, it's a pretty sweet line-up.

Mad congrats to all the RITA and Golden Heart winners and nominees! Enjoy every second of your most deserved recognition!