03 Apr Essex author a contender for the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award f
Essex-based author Anita Belli is among the contenders for The Romantic Novelists’ Association’s (RNA) prestigious Joan Hessayon Award for new writers, for The Traveller and The Rose, published by Endeavour Media.
The shortlist is made up of authors whose debut novels have been accepted for publication after passing through the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme. Each year 250 places are offered to unpublished writers writing in the romantic fiction genre. As part of the scheme, they can submit a complete manuscript for critique by one of the Association’s published authors as well as attend RNA events which offer opportunities to meet and network with publishers, agents and other published authors.
This year’s competing novels include historical romance, paranormal romance, contemporary romance and romantic comedy, and explore a variety of themes which include family, secrets and loss.
Anita Belli’s The Traveller and The Rose, set during the Spanish Civil War, is the story of young Englishman Kit Brown, who falls in love with his Spanish friend Fernando’s vivacious twin sister Rosa. Their relationship, already impossible, is made worse by the mounting political tensions in a country in the throes of massive social change, where strangers are unwelcome.
