The winners of this year's Festival of Romance Awards were announced yesterday evening at a gala occasion in Bedford to open the weekend-long Festival of Romance. The winners were:

Best Romantic Read:

Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman

Best Historical Read:

The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtenay

Best Short Romance:

Dancing with Danger by Fiona Harper

Best Ebook:

Miranda's Mount by Philipa…

A market research company is looking for women who are active romance readers (6+ books per year) and who own an eReader (Kindle, iPad etc) to take part in some research about enjoyment of the genre. The focus group is being organised by SCB Partners and participants will discuss what they love about reading romantic fiction.The focus group takes place this Tuesday evening, 30 October, in Hammersmith, London and those taking part will…

The Festival of Romance taking place in Bedford next month is providing a unique chance for writers to pitch their novels live to a panel of publishers. On the panel listening to and giving live feedback to the pitches will be editors from Mills and Boon who publish across many genres and romantic fiction…

Bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy has died peacefully in hospital yesterday following a short illness. The 72-year-old author sold more than 40 million books worldwide during her career and touched on relationship issues that struck real resonance with her readers. Several of her books were adapted for the screen including the Circle…

An American blogger has landed her first book deal with erotic fiction publisher Xcite Books after winning a competition to find new talent. Xcite Books launched its first ever writing contest at the Festival of Romance in the UK last October in the hope of finding a writer and book that embodied the spirit of erotic…

In a blog published today by the Telegraph newspaper, Scottish author Allan Massie pays tribute to the "extraordinary talent" of the late romance author Penny Jordan who died recently. Penny Jordan wrote over 190 romance novels during her long career. Writing mostly for Mills and Boon, she was one of the world's best known romantic fiction…

A US writer of science fiction and fantasy has launched a scathing attack on romance novels. Cale McCaskey, who describes himself on his blog profile as a "sexy, single, white male" claims that romance novels are "purposely meant to be a lessor work."  "If an author classifies their own story as romance, that tells me that even they don't think much of it," writes McCaskey in his blog, dated…