Christmas Is Coming... Time to Treat Yourself

Here's my shamless plug for my festive novella Tis the Season to Get Lucky which has been reissued by Entangled Publishing from the Baby It's Cold Outside anthology...

My novella is out NOW as a stand-alone story and it's only 99c.. Come on, you know you deserve it.

Here's the blurb:
 
Unlucky-in-love PR manager Kate Braithwaite doesn’t think her Christmas could get any suckier. Until a trip into work on Christmas Day leaves her snowbound in the Fifth Avenue department store with her boss’s far-too-tempting playboy son Ryder Sinclair. Ryder’s rugged, reckless and none too pleased to be stuck in a place he hates with an uptight workaholic like Kate—but as the night draws on, the lights go out and the temperature rises, until they’re both wondering is this the season to get lucky?



And here's an awesome male torso... Sorry, I meant to say here's the sexy new cover!

Many thanks are due to my fellow flirtettes - Kate Hardy, Aimee Carson and Amy Andrews - Abby Green for her naughty cover quote and that cover model's personal trainer.

So if you have the urge to splurge on a sexy seasonal fling (with added fantasy shopping) then the buy links can be found on my website or Entangled's. Just sayin'

50 Glorious Books with Kate Hardy

I'm jetting off to the Cote D'Azur this morning with 50 Shades and Outlander books 3 & 4 on my Kindle, my lovely husband and NO teenage children as they were off doing other things, so am expecting a proper grown up holiday with added glamour... Talk about refilling the will. LOL!

Anyway, while I'm on that jet plane, I'm also over at Kate Hardy's blog celebrating her 50 Glorious M&B books with a recipe for my celebrated writing Brainfood. Go check it out and you might win a copy of my 2-in-1 PS I'm Pregnant.

RNA Conference... And a new Writing Comp.

Had a high old time at the Romantic Novelists Association Conference this weekend in the fabulously posh surroundings of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Have pinched a photo of myself and Abby Green at the Gala Dinner on Friday night in the historic and gorgeously Georgian Trafalgar Tavern from Kate Hardy's blog because as usual I took my camera and then left it in my bag all weekend.

So who did I see?

All the usual suspects such as Abby Green, Kate Hardy, Natalie Rivers, Joan Hessayon award winner Lucy King, Julie Cohen, Biddy Coady, Kate Walker and a host of other great writers... Plus it was a thrill to speak to Romance Minxes Lorraine Wilson, Joanne Cleary and Romy Summer in the flesh for the first time...

What was my most embarrassing moment?

Was a complete plonker when a young woman came up and asked me to sign a copy of Unfinished Business with the Duke for her. I was so shocked I said "What me? Are you sure??" I was so chuffed I then proceeded to gush all over her. Poor thing, she probably thought I was nuts and wanted to whip the book back. Mind you when it happened two more times that day I was almost getting blase about it!! What a thrill!

And what did I learn? 

That Mira Books are launching a brand new teen paranormal line... Much excitement about that.

That the big selling genres in the US Market include erotica, inspirationals (bit of a contradiction there, don't ya think?), paranormals (still??) and steampunk.

That steampunk is Victorian sci-fi (think Jules Verne basically)

That Kate Hardy has tons of good tips on how to plan your career, from time-management skills to brainstorming ideas!

That Joanne Trollope knows how to inspire romance writers everywhere to be their best (phenomenal closing speech, folks)

And last but by no means least, that Mills and Boon are doing their biggest writing competition yet. Here's what I jotted down about it....

Called New Voices it's open to unpubbed authors only (there will be a proper definition of this on the website in due course). There's gonna be a website where you enter your first chapter, and get it critiqued and where the public can vote on them. It's all happening in September. The ten finalists get assigned a mentoring team (of an author and editor) there are a couple more rounds which involve writing a second chapter and a 'pivotal moment' and the entries are judged X-Factor style by a judging panel that includes Penny Jordan no less and a public vote. The winner receives an ipad, and gets the services of an editor for a year, while the runners up get an editorial consultation.... All very exciting and a great new opportunity for aspiring authors everywhere (not just in the UK). You can find out more on www.romanceisnotdead.com when the website goes live soon... And I'll be doing a lot more about it on my blog shortly.

Mills and Boon Writing Comp and Workshops

Just got wind of a great new M&B event being planned in conjunction with the National Trust here in the UK this month.

The NT have some stunning stately homes where they'll be running M&B writing workshops in June with some of my favourite authors including Kate Hardy at Blickling Hall in Norfolk (pictured on the right, pretty inspiring eh!) and India Grey in Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire.

And the National Trust is also running a short story competition, and the winning entry will be published in the very up-market The Lady magazine. Definitely worth a look if you're in the UK this June and fancy being an M&B author.

Check out the details here.

In other news I got some German copies of my third book The Tycoon's Very Personal Assistant... Was a bit surprised to see my hero Zack's name had been changed to Nicolas.... Until my friend Kate Hardy pointed out that Zack means Ball in German...

Hmmm, can see why they changed it now. am thinking Ball Boudreaux's not the greatest name for a hero!

Heidi Rice... USA Today Bestseller!!

Woohoo!! There's snoopy dances galore in North London today with the release of the latest USA Today bestseller list and the news that Public Affair, Secretly Expecting has hit the top 100 (at 100, but who's counting right??).

Can not believe it. I'm so excited and feeling ever so slightly smug. Who said you can't do movie star heroes in category romance? All you have to do is make them Irish and super-sexy and all moody and intense and articulate like Colin Farrell and you're all set (cheers Colin, what a great muse you turned out to be). All right, I'll shut up now before my head gets so enormous it starts lolling onto the keyboard.

Am also sending my Modern Heat stable mate Kelly Hunter a high-five who's RT top pick book Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate also made the list. Yay Kelly! And here's another high-five to Kate Hardy whose latest Good Girl or Gold-Digger? got a coveted 5-star review from Cataromance.

It's official: Modern Heat Rocks!

Schmoozing at AMBA

Had a fab time at the AMBA lunch on Thursday at a bijou location in London's Covent Garden. As usual I forgot to bring my camera (actually I don't even have a camera!!) so the wonderful Kate Hardy was sweet enough to take a few snaps for me. From left to right there's me with Fiona Harper, the Modern Heat posse of Kate and new author Lucy King and the inimitable Sharon Kendrick. What a laugh, a great time was had by all. The great women who write for Mills and Boon is one of the big benefits of writing for them IMHO.
Okay, enough schmoozing... Also yesterday, the article about my book club experience came out in The Telegraph and it was really good. Casilda Grigg, the journalist who wrote the piece had some excellent things to say about the event and made some interesting observations about how it's not actually possible to just knock off a Mills and Boon in your lunchbreak. Anyone who reads this blog of course will know what a flipping struggle it is to write these books (or anyone who's ever tried to write one) but it's nice to have that little myth popped in a major British newspaper.

Casilda also managed to mention that Pierce Brosnan is my muse (probably because I mentioned it about 100 times) so I'll be expecting a call from him shortly. And even better in the article's main photo of me I only have one chin! I'm so proud...

Banging My Own Drum.... And Mickey Rourke's...

Just a quick note to say my latest Presents is now available online at eharlequin and already flying high in both the bestseller list and the ebooks bestseller list. How wonderfully thrilling!

Just what I needed to get me cracking the whip on my latest WIP. If you remember that's my 'be kind, rewind' epic which I had to start from scratch again a few weeks back. Am plugging away at it, and it's finally taking shape into something really fabulous (honest!). But boy this one is hard work. Remind me again why one should never make a bad boy Irish movie star your hero (thanks again Colin Farrell, this is all your fault, buddy).

Am sneaking a day off at the RNA lunch tomorrow (snow allowing) to cheer on my Mod Hot buddy Kate Hardy and fellow Presents author India Grey who are both up for the coveted Romance Prize. Well, done Ladies. And remember, as Jonathan Ross said at the BAFTAs last night, everyone who's nominated is a winner really.

By the way, you could hear the cheer across Islington when they announced Mickey Rourke as the Best Actor winner. If I've got one film recommendation so far this year, it's go see The Wrestler. Rourke is a genius and, as much as I love Sean Penn, I hope he wins the Oscar too. 

Get Ye to the Pink Heart Society...Or Movietalk

Just another quickie to say get thee to the Pink Heart Society on Friday or What's on TV's Movietalk blog where I will be waxing lyrical about the new Hugh Jackman/Nicole Kidman romantic epic Australia.

Is it the ultimate guilty pleasure movie? Quite possibly.

Also had some fab news from fellow Mod Hotter Kate Hardy to say she's up for the RNA Romance Prize again this year. Now, as she won it last year with Breakfast at Giovanni's I'm thinking Wow!! And my Modern mate India Grey is also up for the award, so hopefully they'll be lots of reasons to celebrate come February 10th when they announce the winner at the RNA luncheon. That's certainly shaping up to be a shindig and a half.

Am still plugging away at the current ms, which has turned into the stream-of-consciousness romance novel from Hell. Still sticking to my motto though, through gritted teeth: Write, write, write, edit crap at later date. 

I'm starting to think though that slash and burn might be the best technique for the editing stage... 

Oh and don't forget to vote for eharlequin as the best blog in the history of the known universe (or something like that) at the webblog awards. 

Party Time...

Oh, alright, it was a week ago and all those other super-efficient romance writers have had their photos up on their blogs for over a week. But hey, at least I remembered my camera this time, and not only that I actually got it out of my bag and took a grand total of three pictures! 

So here they are, from my wild and wonderful afternoon and evening at the AMBA lunch and the Mills and Boon Authors toast afterward. Held at Browns restaurant in St Martin's Lane right next to Trafalgar Square, it's our annual opportunity to swan around and pretend that romance authors really do have uber-glamourous lives. 

Fabulous to meet Natalie Anderson for the first time, who had come all the way from New Zealand... Plus me old mates Kate Hardy and Julie Cohen. So here's a photo of the Mod Hot Posse, looking all glam of course. (The reason I'm not smiling is because when I do I always look like I have rigor mortis, it's not because I wasn't enjoying myself, honest).

Here's another pic from the lunch itself. I got sat next to the big chief at M&B Karen Stoecker so I was trying very hard not to sound like a complete ninny. Jennie Lucas who was sat on the other side rather unfortunately lost her voice that morning, so had to spend the whole lunch using a pad to jot down her responses! But luckily she's a writer...

And last, but by no means least, here's Abby Green and Natasha Oakley (my fellow RITA nominee this year) trying to figure out all the info about widgets from the nice man from the technology department. What the heck's a widget? seemed to be the main topic of conversation as I recall.

So on to more nuts and bolts stuff. Emailed the final version of my ms this morning, all the revisions have been okayed and it's just got to be line-edited now. Then I should get the official word that Book Five is a goer! Yippee. Will keep you posted about the next title.

A Belated Merry Christmas..

I've once again been neglecting my blog duties. Just back from Cambridge where I had a very nice Yuletide with my extended family of sisters, in-laws, nieces, nephews, etc. So great to have someone take care of the turkey detail for once — meant I could concentrate on the far more important business of spreading the good cheer.

I've got Bedded by a Bad Boy going large in the US in January under the brand new title of Bedded by a Playboy. It briefly topped Harlequin's ebook bestsellers list earlier this month so I have high hopes for it in the US, where it will — rather dauntingly — be in the new Presents Collection: 'Pregnant Mistresses'. But at least it's in great company with my fellow Mod Heat authors Natalie Anderson and Kate Hardy. If you fancy picking up a copy of Playboy in the States, just click here.

And have a fab New Year. My resolution? To finish my fourth book in time for my deadline on Valentine's Day and to start blogging more.