Announcing Our Winners – Build Your Ideal Romance Audio Contest

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, AudioGals ran a five day contest asking you to Build Your Ideal Romance Audio. Participants were asked to share with us their ideal romance audiobook. But it wasn’t an actual title one had listened to. Instead, our directive to participants:

…This is the invisible wish list in your head that you use when choosing your next romance listen. Visualize yourself telling an audiobook publisher the elements you most want to see in a romance audiobook and then put your invisible romance audio wish list into writing. Finish it off by choosing a few narrators to perform your ideal listen and sharing 3 to 5 of your favorite existing romance audiobooks.

Our prize packages:

First prize          Your choice of 10 (Ten) Tantor downloads

Second prize      Your choice of 5 (Five) Tantor downloads

Third prize          Your choice of 3 (Three) Tantor downloads

We had a wonderful group of entries and it was difficult to choose only three!

 

Our Winners

First Place – Elaine

Second Place – Julie

Third Place – Kelley Raver

Congratulations Elaine, Julie, and Kelley!

All winners were contacted by email this morning.

We are publishing Elaine’s First Place entry today. We’ll publish Julie’s Second Place entry on Wednesday and Kelley Raver’s Third Place entry on Friday.

 

And the prizes keep coming…

During 2015, AudioGals will occasionally publish selected entries (other than the first, second, and third place winners). Spot your entry and contact us within 48 hours of its publication and you win a Tantor download of your choice!

 

Elaine’s Winning Entry

Contemporaries only.

Strong suspense plot with the romance alongside, NOT overshadowing the suspense/mystery arc.

Alpha Hero at least 6′ 2″ (I can settle for 6 feet but no less), dark-haired, green eyes, and a heroine who is well-educated, is a professional and not a waitress with kids, struggling to make ends meet.

My ideal romance revolves around successful professionals who are lucky enough to find true love, romance and hot sex in the cutthroat worlds they battle in each day.

The plot should involve them in their profession because I am disdainful of authors who make a hero, say, a surgeon or a SEAL, and it’s just lip-service. I must be in his professional world and not just see action in his bed!

I want a romantic suspense from the hero’s POV, for a change.

No girly talk. No weddings! I hate the pre-wedding discussions and angst over dresses, flowers, etc.

No kids – babies to teens. Too many authors use them to contrive a suspense scene and make me want to kill the kid (e.g. Sandra Brown’s Lethal).

I want to know the H/h are attracted to each other from the start BUT I do not want internal monologues from either one about the other’s anatomy or what each wants to do to the other. I want to stay focused on the plot.

HEA is a must but stop before the wedding.

Audio length: 9 – 12 hours

Narrators to perform your Ideal Audiobook: 

Phil Gigante

Tom Stechschulte

Victor Slezak

Kevin Foley

Kaleo Griffith

Natalie Ross

Julia Whelan

Kate Rudd

Susan Ericksen (but not in her JD Robb style which I detest)

Five of Elaine’s favorite romance audios:

1) ALL the Julie James contemporary romances except It Happened One Wedding. All narrated by Karen White

2) Unlawful Contact by Pamela Clare – Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

3) Breaking Point by Pamela Clare – Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

4) The Collector by Nora Roberts – Narrated by Julia Whelan

5) The Prosecutor by Adrienne Giordano – Narrated by Anthony Bowden

 

Now use Elaine’s entry as a recommendation…

Would you want to listen to Elaine’s Ideal Romance Audiobook? Then pay special attention to her five favorites! Best way to find a recommendation – matching your tastes to another listener’s.

 

Our thanks to Tantor Audio for sponsoring this event. We want to remind you that during the month of February, all Tantor romance downloads are $9.99. Tantor downloads are easy these days and the selection is large. Brenda has a new Gal Tech leading you through downloading Tantor titles to iTunes. Tantor has also recently introduced new mobile playback options. On a trial run this new option worked smoothly from Brenda’s iPhone.

Thanks to all who entered and to those who are playing along in spirit and just enjoying the results of our Valentine’s Day 2015 contest. Entrants – keep watch throughout 2015 to see if we publish your entry!

Lea Hensley