Lots of Cool News to Report!!

So the excitement of RITA announcements has finally worn off and while I didn't get a nomination myself this year (boohoo!!) I'm thrilled to bits that my mates Abby Green, Sarah Morgan and Kelly Hunter are all up for an award in the Series Contemporary Category. You go, girls!! And as Abby's my roomie at the conference in NYC I shall be basking in her reflected glory big time! I've read her nominated story Breaking the Sheikh's Rules and thought it was fabulous. Plus my little sis Nemone has a dedication as she has an uber-glam job in horse-racing and helped with the horsey details. So I feel super-connected to this book! Can't wait for the awards ceremony (where I have invited myself as Abby's Date) and now have a perfect excuse to buy a new posh frock. (I have included pictorial evidence that I do know Abby and am not just your ordinary stalker!)

In other news, I've also agreed some M&B workshop dates which I'll be doing in three London libraries in April to coincide with M&B's Big Fat Royal Wedding Hoopla: So if you want to come join me for some pearls of wisdom about writing for M&B and lots of chat about hunky guys (not necessarily princes, as I shall probably go a bit off-piste there, having never written a royal romance!!) then here are the times and places:

April 12th, 7.30pm-9.30pm, Uxbridge Central Library

April 14th, 6pm-7.30pm, Stoke Newington Library

April 26th, 6pm-7.30pm, Shoreditch Library

You'll need to contact the libraries themselves to sign up for the event, and I'll post contact details nearer the time, but it is free of charge.

And last but not least, I have a title for my Selfridges/Christmas book... Drum roll please..

"On the First Night of Christmas" 

Love it! Classy and evocative and maybe a little less cheeky than my suggestion which was 'Tis the Season to Be Naughty'. Think the book's out in the UK in December this year (but don't quote me on that as it hasn't been confirmed yet!!). Can't wait to see the cover, but am thinking a sexy guy and some tinsel would do the business.

Cupcake Winners Announced

Hey all

So the Cupcakes comp is now closed. I nabbed my youngest son to pick the winners out of his favourite hat... And as usual he got a bit carried away and picked out FOUR!! So no cupcakes for him then!

Anyway, here are the four names picked out of the hat in the order they came out (here's hoping none of you live in Outer Mongolia or the postage is gonna kill me!):

Biraj Trivedi


Ann Murphy


Desere Steenberg


Wendy S Marcus


Just email me your snail mail addresses and I'll post off your signed copy of Cupcakes and Killer Heels this morning. Comisserations to everyone else. But don't worry, you can always buy a copy!! Hint, hint. It'll be available on the M&B website in the UK on April 1st and is hitting Amazon (and UK and Irish book shop shelves) in May... So not long to wait now at all.

Am busy getting stuck into my next book, which is a linked book to Cupcakes, and involves a maverick North London bad boy turned Hollywood scriptwriter called Nick Delisantro (Ruby's brother, who is mentioned in Cupcakes but doesn't appear) and a bookish ancestral geneologist from West London called Eva Redmond. Studious and conscientious  Eva is about to discover her wild side when she is sent to San Francisco (where Nick lives) to tell Nick he's the illegitimate heir to a fortune in Italian real estate but can't quite get the words out when she engineers a meeting with him at an upscale SF art gallery opening and he immediately starts flirting with her, inviting her for a ride on his motorbike. She's never been on a motorbike before in her life and has never flirted with a guy before, either, and especially not a guy as hot as Nick. Uh-oh!

Having a great deal of fun so far, which is probably famous last words but I live in hope this one is not nearly as much of a pineapple as the last one (but I always say that don't I).

Another chance to win a copy of Cupcakes and some Barcelona boasting!

Many thanks to all those who have already entered yesterday's competition to win a copy of my new book Cupcakes and Killer Heels (and cheers for the comments about the sneak peek.. that was the idea, to get you all hooked... Brawahahaha!)

Anyway, there's another chance to win a copy on The Pink Heart Society today if you leave a comment on my extremely interesting and informative post about where my ideas come from, why inspiration is everywhere but why it isn't as important as you think... Or something like that! I've also included some great pictures of my recent weekend trip to Barcelona to make you all jealous... Sorry, I meant to say, which are extremely relevant to the post. And that smug smile on my face in the photo of me in Barcelona last weekend illustrating this post is entirely coincidental, by the way.

Anyhow, nip on over to the PHS and stick a comment up, so far the only one is from Abby Green and I've already sent her a copy! So she ain't getting another.

Win a Copy of Cupcakes and Killer Heels!

Okey, dokey, so the nice postman delivered a huge box of brand new books yesterday. Yippee! Cupcakes and Killer Heels has finally arrived. As you know I love the cover and the title, so am mighty proud of this book.

Anyway I've got a couple of autographed copies to give away. All you have to do is take a gander at the fiendishly clever question below (you'll  probably have to check out the sneak peek on my website here for the answer, unless of course you're clairvoyant) and then send your answer to heidi@heidi-rice.com by Monday 21st March (that's next Monday for anyone without a calendar) to be included in the prize draw.

Question: What is the name of Ruby Delisantro's cupcake-making business in Cupcakes and Killer Heels which she has printed on the side of her VW Beetle in glittering pink lettering?

 

PHS... Teen Movie Madness

Hopefully still soaking up the rays in Barca, but due to the wonders of technology can post a quick note that I'm at the Pink Heart Society today (virtually speaking!) blogging about the wonderfully witty and self-aware teen movie Easy A... A high-school pastiche of The Scarlet Letter! Without Demi Moore in it, you'll be glad to know.

So come check it out.

Party Time! Barcelona-stylee!

So bought myself a new frock and some killer heels (rather appropriately)  and had a high old time in the exceedingly posh surroundings of One Whitehall Place on Monday for the RNA's Pure Passion Awards. Great to see the legendary Penny Jordan picking up a special award (she's written 180 books, how is that even possible when she looks so young!!) and while I will confess to rooting ever so slightly for my Presents pal Abby Green in the Love Story of the Year stakes (absolutely adored Bride in a Gilded Cage), I was chuffed to see Louise Allen pick up the award. I have it on very good authority that her book The Piratical Miss Ravenshurst is terrific so will be adding it to my TBR list. Also much enjoyed Jojo Moyes pointed speech when she picked up The Romantic Novel of the Year trophy for her book The Last Letter from Your Lover. She noted the way commercial fiction was patronised by the BBC's World Book Night panel (and yeah Jojo, I was screaming at the telly too) and pointed out that 'just because a book is commercial doesn't mean it isn't good'. Too right!

Anyway, after much yaking with fellow authors Fiona Harper (who very kindly let me pinch the photos from her blog), Ms Abby, Natalie Rivers, Julie Cohen and Philipa Ashley (I think we defo had the best table!), some fine canapes and rather too much champagne (not even going to mention the Flaming Meringues, folks, but needless to say they deserved their upper case status), Tuesday was a little bit of an anti-climax. Always tough to return to a manuscript you think you've finished, even if the revisions this time were surprisingly minor. Still, my editor, who I had a chat with at the Pure Passion do had spotted a few problems and as always once I got stuck in (and had a couple of paracetamol), I found it surprisingly satisfying to come up with solutions...


Have now sent the ms off again, with that fiendishly clever lose-end-typing-up epilogue attached (I  love writing epilogues -especially if my couple have finally co-operated and actually deserve their happy ever after). So am off to Barcelona for a couple of days to celebrate tomorrow with my very best mate where we plan to do lots of drinking, partying, swimming in our hotel's roof-top pool (assuming it's not snowing) and doing some late-night tapas while admiring the local talent (from checking out the Barcelona football team, I'm expecting the men to be very easy on the eye).

I will of course also be researching the city for a future book... because I'm a consummate professional, me.

Merry Christmas in March!

Yippee, heard from my editor about Jace and Cassie's story... AKA my Christmas/Selfridges book.. And she loved it. With only one page of revisions (which is actually a record for me!) I'm feeling all warm and glowy and Christmassy inside, and even a little smug. Good to know that re-writing that first chapter 20 times was worth all the blood, sweat, tears and torn out hair I put into it.

Of course, on reflection I have also realised that the reason these books seem to get harder and harder to write - but on the upside the revisions get slightly less humungous - might be because my crap-o-meter is now so well developed I suffer the torments of hell before handing the book to my editor, instead of afterwards. Which is great for her, but maybe not so great for me - when I consider how many sleepless nights, how much shouting-at-kids and how many panic attacks I had over this story. But hey, that's a writer's life, right? It's exactly like being a teenager again, the extreme highs are all the more euphoric when compared to those extreme lows - those nights when you lay awake and think 'I hate these bloody characters', 'how did I ever do this before?', 'this book is total shite and it's never going to get any better'.

Or then again, maybe I'm just slightly nuts and it has nothing to do with being a writer...

Okay, enough with the reflection (and the discovery that I may have mental health issues!)... Now all I've got to do is write a one-thousand word epilogue that manages to tie up the many lose ends I left dangling during the story that I stupidly figured I'd handle in the epilogue. Way to go, Sherlock!

Why do I suddenly see several more sleepless night in my future?