THE LADY & THE PIRATE by Johanna M. Bolton has been awarded the prestigious Royal Palm Literary Award for Best 2011 Romance Novel.
According to Bolton, the novel was first conceived when she was 16 years old and fascinated with sailboats, the sea, and a TV show called “The Buccaneers.” She dragged the manuscript around with her for the next 50 years, adding to the story now and then. Finished just last summer, Bolton entered the book in the Royal Palm competition on a whim. She only learned she had won on Sunday morning while she was appearing at Necronomicon Science Fiction Convention in Tampa, Florida where she was a guest speaker. Primarily a science fiction and mystery author, Bolton had no plans to ever write a romance, but this tale was so different that it demanded she tell it.
The book’s title has been changed. It was a difficult decision, Bolton admitted, “but I don’t think it will make that much of a difference — the manuscript is still the same. However, I called the story THE PIRATE’S LADY since — well since the books inception. But when I typed the name into Amazon’s search engine, I came up with plus two pages of Pirate Lady’s. The new title, LADY AND THE PIRATE, only raised one other book.” And some early readers, she added, liked this title better.
You can get a copy of LADY AND THE PIRATE for Kindle and as a treebook from several online sources including Amazon.com.
How do you like the new covers? The first one (with the redheaded girl) I was told made the book look too much like a YA novel. So I got a new cover.
This one (with the bare chested male) is more “mature” but it’s not historical enough. So the third cover, lace and a saber, er, cutlass) looks like the one I’ll keep.
What do you think?
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