GraveTells 2012 Readers Choice Awards: Congratulations to the winners!

In our Readers Choice voting to celebrate the top stories and authors of 2012 in paranormal romance, as reviewed and featured here on GraveTells, nearly 1,200 fans came out to show support for their favorites.  With an epic total just shy of 18,000 votes, some of these races were very tight right to the end.  The Most Memorable Book category alone brought in over 2,500 votes, followed closely by the Most Engaging Author poll at just over 2,100.  What an exciting year for our genre!  Vampires and werewolves and fairies OH MY, indeed!  Now that the stressful 8 days of competition are over and the nominated authors can finally relax, below are the results of your voting…

Note: Because some books and authors won multiple awards, and to keep this as readable as possible, the awards shown below are not necessarily grouped by category.  To see all the nominees and how they were chosen, click here.  To see the final voting tally from the polls, click here.  Else, read on!

Meet your 2012 Readers Choice Award winners!

Click the image above to read our review!

Earning a whopping 6 awards in this year’s voting, Laura Kaye’s Vampire Warrior Kings most certainly took the crown!  Congratulations to Ms. Kaye on winning Favorite Novella or Short Story, Sexiest Story, Hottest Couple, Most Outstanding Series, Best Collaborative Interview (for In the Service of the King), and Favorite Author!

Click the image above to read our review!

Continuing to dominate the competition, Ms. Kaye also earned three more awards for the second book in her Hearts of the Anemoi series, West of Want: Favorite Heroine, Most Memorable Sidekick, and Best Cover Artwork!  Congratulations to Laura Kaye on winning 9 total 2012 Readers Choice Awards!

Click the image above to read our review!

An early leader in nearly every category she was nominated for, and consistently placing high in the final rankings, Rebecca Zanetti earned two awards for her Dark Protectors series, Sexiest Geek (for Provoked) and Most Original Story Universe.  Provoked was one of only two books reviewed by GraveTells this year that received our perfect-rating 5-Heart score.  You can read more about the Dark Protectors here.

Click the image above to read our review!

Always a reader favorite, J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood easily swept the Most Memorable Book and Most Compelling Hero categories, beating out Laura Kaye’s West of Want and Jeaniene Frost’s smokin’ hot hero Vlad (from Once Burned).

Finally, but most certainly not least, are our Most Promising New Author and Most Engaging Author award winners…

Both Fever and Blaze were selected as Book of the Month and Reviewer Top Picks in 2012, and Blaze received one of only 2 perfect review scores awarded by our review team this year (Provoked, spotlighted above, was the other).  The competition for Most Promising New Author was top notch, so if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Ms. Swan’s work, click on the cover images above to see our reviews of the books. Congratulations to Joan Swan on her win as Most Promising New Author!

For the Most Engaging Author category, a new award this year, the nomination selection was a little different.  The selection of nominees in nearly every other category was based largely on a book’s GraveTells review score and the impression the story/author made on our reviewer, but Most Engaging Author focuses instead on the many guests we’ve hosted throughout the year and honors those who went above and beyond, taking time out of their busy schedules (some for several days past the initial posting!) to hang out and chat with our readers.  To a book-a-holic, a cherished author is her rock star and every friendly encouragement or bit of witty banter in response to a post comment is a gift.  Of all the memorable posts we have had this last year, one in particular still stands out even though it was one of the first to be spotlighted this year, nearly 10 months ago…

In Ms. Anastasia’s guest post, where she interviewed her lively anti-hero Satan Jack, “he” boldly and shamelessly flirted with every single reader who commented on the post… for two days.  Readers loved it so much, they (you!) voted Ms. Anastasia as Readers Choice Favorite Author in February and Satan Jack’s book Crushed Seraphim as Readers Choice Favorite Story in May.  Once again, Debra Anastasia has overcome an impressive field of contenders and been chosen as 2012’s Most Engaging Author!  Click here to read her guest spot.

Thanks so much to all the amazing authors and all the dedicated readers and fans who have spent time this year with us here on GraveTells! We have some exciting events planned for next year that you won’t want to  miss, and more incredible (and incredibly addicting!) new stories to dish about with you in 2013.  It’s going to be a helluva year and I can’t wait to get started!

If you missed the Readers Choice Award voting from 2011, you can check out the winners here.  You’ll probably see a familiar face or two!

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