The Aphrodite Award
Named for the goddess of love, beauty, and desire — born from the sea off the coast of Cyprus, the eternal embodiment of longing and connection. Aphrodite did not arrive quietly. She rose from the waves, fully formed, impossible to ignore. The best romance set in Greece does exactly the same — it arrives, and you cannot look away.
The Aphrodite Award is presented annually to the best romance set in Greece.
The book set in Greece that made you fall in love — with the characters, the landscape, and the idea of living differently. Romantic fiction and love stories where Greece is the setting that makes everything possible — where the light is different, the pace is different, and the person you meet on a harbor wall in August changes everything.
Romance, broadly defined
Romance here is a wide net — from a slow burn that takes a whole summer to a love story that turns dangerous by the second act. What unites the category is feeling: longing, tension, and a Greece that makes falling — for a person, a place, a different life — feel inevitable.
This may include:
Romantic Suspense — love stories tangled up in a mystery, a chase, or a secret worth keeping
Contemporary Romance — meet-cutes, second chances, and love stories set against modern Greek life
Slow Burn — longing, tension, and a Greece that makes the wait worth it
Dark Romance — love that’s dangerous, obsessive, or edged with menace
Presented at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Scoring criteria
· Narrative tension: Does it compel you to keep reading?
· Originality: Does it do something the genre hasn’t seen before?
· Character: Do you believe in the people on the page?
· Reader impact: Will you think about this book a month from now?
Eligibility
Publication
Must be published in English between
October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026.
Setting requirement
The book must be a romance or love story set in Greece — ancient, historical, or contemporary. Greece must be a meaningful presence in the story, not merely a postcard backdrop.
How to enter
Publishers submit directly. Community members may also nominate indie authors using a verified Amazon review of at least 50 words.
How it works
Publisher route
- Submit your title.
Publishers submit directly between September 1 and December 31, 2026. Submission fee applies. - Eligibility check.
Our team checks all submissions and nominations against eligibility rules. The book must be published in English between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, and meaningfully set in Greece. Books failing eligibility are removed. Publisher fees are refunded. - Community votes for the longlist.
Thriller Book Retreat and Solo Travel to Greece members vote on all eligible titles. The 6 titles with the most votes become the longlist. Publishers of longlisted titles are formally notified by Imagine Press. - Panel reads and scores. The Greece Fiction sub-panel reads the longlist and scores each title across four criteria — Authenticity of Greece, Originality, Character, and Reader Impact — each scored from 1 to 5, for a total of 20. Rania Stone holds the casting vote. Results sealed immediately. Individual scores are never published.
- Winner announced at the gala
The Aphrodite Award is presented live at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Community route
- Submit your title.
Community members nominate an indie author’s book by posting a verified Amazon review of at least 50 words and submitting the nomination form. - Eligibility check.
Our team checks all submissions and nominations against eligibility rules. The book must be published in English between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, and meaningfully set in Greece. Books failing eligibility are removed. - Community votes for the longlist.
Thriller Book Retreat and Solo Travel to Greece members vote on all eligible titles. The 16 titles with the most votes become the longlist. Longlisted indie authors are contacted personally — many will not know they were nominated. - Panel reads and scores.
The Greece Fiction sub-panel reads the longlist and scores each title across four criteria — Authenticity of Greece, Originality, Character, and Reader Impact — each scored from 1 to 5, for a total of 20. Rania Stone holds the casting vote. Results sealed immediately. Individual scores are never published. - Winner announced at the gala
The Aphrodite Award is presented live at the Homer Awards gala ceremony at the John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, on October 22, 2027.
Key dates
Submissions open September 1, 2026
Submissions close December 31, 2026
Voting Starts, January 1, 2027
Longlist announced February 15, 2027
Shortlist announced
May 1, 2027
Gala ceremony October 22, 2027
A note for Greek publishers
The Homer Awards welcome submissions from Greek publishing houses. If your catalog includes English-language titles — or Greek works translated into English — published between September 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, we encourage you to submit.
For questions in Greek, write to us at info@homerawards.com, and we will respond accordingly.
Submit as publisher
Nominate an indie book you love
About Aphrodite
According to Hesiod, when Cronus severed Uranus’s groin and cast his item into the sea, white foam gathered at the surface, and from that foam Aphrodite arose, fully formed, radiant, carried to shore on a scallop shell by the winds.
She came ashore on Cyprus, though some accounts say Cythera — both islands claimed her. The Aegean always has claimed more than its share of beautiful things.
She was not simply the goddess of romantic love. She governed desire in its widest sense — the longing for beauty, for connection, for the thing just out of reach. She was the force that drove people to do extraordinary things for reasons they could not entirely explain.
The artwork
Sandro Botticelli (c.1445–1510) The Birth of Venus (La nascita di Venere) c.1484–1485 · Tempera on canvas 172.5 × 278.5 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence CC0 Public Domain
Perhaps the most recognized painting of Aphrodite ever created. Botticelli depicts the exact moment described by Hesiod — the goddess arriving from the sea, carried by the winds, born fully formed from the waves.
The Homer Awards use public-domain classical paintings from the Greek tradition to represent each award.
Join the community
The Aphrodite Award is nominated by two communities — Solo Travel to Greece and Thriller Book Retreat. Join either community to nominate your favorite romance set in Greece.