Book Bloggers’ Novel Of The Year Award – Round One

I already talked about being on the panel for the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award at the beginning of the year. The authors all signed up and the lovely people who are helping out the organisation made a list of all the entries. There were two I read before, one I have on my TBR, and two author names I recognised. So I’m really excited about discovering new awesome authors.

Selection

I made a selection of books I’d want to read based on genres, covers, and blurbs. There were a few books that I was interested in but they were from a genre I don’t read much, so I wouldn’t be able to form a good opinion of the book. I skipped those and left them for the avid thriller, horror, and romance readers. My list was still pretty long, almost half of the books that signed up. So I knew I’d get ten books from my books.

There was one without much information: a very short blurb, no clear genre indicators, or inspiring cover. I still put it on my list despite all that giving it the benefit of the doubt. I suspected this one to be in my selection and I was right. Let’s hope it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

I won’t talk about which books I’m reading until after this is all over to keep things fair, but it’s an interesting mix.

Round One

Round one is basically a quick round to see if the books capture our interest at all. We judge them based on a few pointers, send back our opinions of the thousand-word excerpts, and we’ll see who goes on to round two. All the panellists have ten excerpts to read with a deadline a few weeks away. I’m going to start reading them this weekend and hope I’m done before the end of next week.

Reading 10k words won’t take long, but it’s the scoring that will take more time. This isn’t a review, this matters more. I want to honour the authors by giving the book the attention it deserves.

I’m curious what others will think of the books and which ones will advance to the second round. Good luck to all authors and have fun to all the other panellists!

Come back in a few weeks to hear more about round two and my experiences so far.