Archive for February, 2008
February 28, 2008
One Night Stand review
I just had an email from the lovely Julie from Single Titles to say my review for One Night Stand is up.
Sassy, sexy, and very, very, funny, One Night Stand is a fabulous romantic comedy by a sparkling new voice in the genre! Julie Cohen has written a terrific tale of friendship, romance and new beginnings that will tug at your heartstrings and make you laugh out loud.
Charming, romantic and wonderfully feel-good, fans of Sophie Kinsella and Jill Mansell will not want to miss reading One Night Stand!
You can read the rest of the review here.
I can tell you, I really needed a good review today because the crows are battering my head with dismal wings as I type. So thank you, Julie.
February 25, 2008
books books books
My house is too full of books!
I live in a tiny house, a two-up-two-down terrace, and every room is stacked with books, usually two and three and four deep on the shelves.
We’ve got overfull bookshelves in the living room, overfull bookshelves in the dining room/my office, and since we don’t have bookshelves in the bedroom we have books stacked up all over the floor. Today I moved some of the aforementioned books stacked up on the floor in the bedroom because there is damp on the wall behind them. The damp is because, I think, of our neighbours’ guttering which was broken and poured water onto our house for six or seven months. Now they have fixed it, but we have black damp on our walls.
I’m not sure what to do about that.
Anyway, the books. The thing is, I hate getting rid of them if there’s a chance I might want to read them or refer to them again. Plus, I’m lucky enough to have lots of signed books, too, by authors who are my friends. I did sort through the books in the bedroom (thankfully they’ve escaped the damp), and found that out of several dozen, I could bear to get rid of five of them.
I guess I’ll have to do a sort out of the books downstairs, now, and then maybe I will have a bit more shelf space. Then I will buy a bookcase for the bedroom. Which will work, until, of course, the inevitable day when I buy more books.
Got any tips?
February 22, 2008
chocolate and lust
Very nice post today…I won Phillipa Ashley’s contest so I now have some gorgeous Valentine’s chocolates to eat. I wonder how long they will last…I’m betting about five minutes.
I read Phillipa’s book Wish You Were Here the other day and it was fun, a proper romantic romance with two very likeable characters.
I also got copies of Married in a Rush in Dutch. It’s called Lust of Leifde? I thought this had something to do with lust (nice one), but Babel Fish tells me it means “Or does love like?” I have no idea what this means, but oh well.
Does anybody read Dutch? Want a copy? Send me an email.
February 20, 2008
I’m over there…
I’m guest posting on Southern Fried Chicas today about how I came up with Driving Him Wild, aka His for the Taking. The story includes Keith Urban, getting pregnant, and torturing my friends (not all at the same time).
February 18, 2008
so much fun
I am having such a ball writing Girl from Mars!
Yeah, sure, I don’t know what’s going to happen, after the next chapter or so. But the heroine, Fil, is truly a hoot. Also, I’ve had to make up the history of the science fiction comic she draws for, and drop in tidbits of episodes from it, and that is lots and lots of fun.
I keep on having to read bits aloud to my husband.
Remind me of this, will you, when I get to the suckage point?
don’t forget…
..about the Modern Heat authors’ treasure hunt, and your chance to win a whole stack of books.
The rules are here. Yesterday’s clue was on Kate Hardy’s blog, and tomorrow’s is on Heidi Rice’s.
February 16, 2008
wanna hear…
…me say “sex” a lot on live radio? You can listen to Tuesday’s BBC Berkshire interview here.
February 14, 2008
Romantic Novelists’ Association heroes
A bit of fun for Valentine’s Day:
Members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association have voted Johnny Depp as the Number One Perfect Romantic Hero in a poll to mark Valentine’s Day. According to these authors, a romantic hero should be gorgeous, deliciously sexy, intensely masculine and have a commanding presence.
‘We should be qualified to judge,’ one writer commented. ‘After all, we create these heroes on paper every day.’
The top ten male celebrities voted the Perfect Romantic Hero were:
1. Johnny Depp
2. Daniel Craig
3. Sean Bean
4. Richard Armitage
5. Hugh Jackman
6. Colin Firth
7. Alan Rickman
8. Pierce Brosnan
9. George Clooney
10. David Tennant
A second poll, taken by members of the RNA bravely admitting to being ‘over a certain age’, voted for male celebrities over fifty who’ve ‘still got it’. Remarkable for his appearance on both polls, Pierce Brosnan took the crown for the over fifties by a huge margin.
The top ten Over-Fifty Perfect Romantic Heroes were:
1. Pierce Brosnan
2. Harrison Ford
3. Ranulph Fiennes
4. Bill Nighy
5. Liam Neeson
6. Sam Neill
7. Sean Connery
8. Peter O’Toole
9. Clint Eastwood
10. Omar Sharif
I think you can see which particular two I voted for. Though I wouldn’t say no to Johnny, Daniel, or Alan either.
By the way, do check out my post below, which is generating some interesting discussion.
February 13, 2008
a non-romance reader reads a romance
I was Googling around for my book titles (as you do, especially when you should be writing) and I came up with this interesting blog, written by a male writer who enjoys a bit of erotica. According to his post, he has spent years mocking Mills & Boon novels, without ever having read one himself. Finally, one of his friends challenged him to read one. It happened, by chance, to be my novel, All Work and No Play…
He says:
You can imagine that my spirit rebelled at this. For a man to read Mills & Boon … well, it’s just not done, is it? It’s certainly not the sort of thing you’d admit to the chaps down at the rugby club.
But he did read it. And what’s more, before he read it, he examined his own expectations. And after he read it, he re-examined them. He concludes, in part:
All that this book demands of its reader is that the eyes scan the words and absorb them for a few moments, and that the hands keep turning the pages. I read it in the bath and in my bed and I have to admit that it was a relaxing read. It carried me along as easily as the wind carries a kite (though with less of an unfortunate effect on the hair). And at the end, when true love comes to fruition, when it becomes – for however short a time – “happy ever after”, there’s a certain sense of satisfaction.
It doesn’t shake our world. It doesn’t make us contemplate the meaning of life (let alone of the universe or everything). It doesn’t throw new light on our existence and make us see things through fresh eyes. But there’s more to life, surely, than philosophy and the search for meaning?
The friend who challenged me says she reads these books as an escape, a chance to leave the world and all its troubles behind for a while, to relax and unwind. She can lose herself in the flow of the tale, however briefly, and in that sense they are definitely good books. They ease her spirit and make life that little bit easier.
I have to say that, on the basis of this one book, the genre succeeds in meeting that basic need.
I don’t wholly agree with everything he said–if you read the comments to the post you’ll see I mention quite how much thought and effort has to go into creating a book that is apparently “unchallenging”. I also think that romances actually require emotional identification and investment from the reader–the reader has to be an imaginary participant in the relationship, rather than the passive consumer that Ro describes. The reader enjoys this emotional charge, as well as the relaxation. Ro isn’t a romance reader in general, so maybe he’s not looking for this effect from the books he reads.
But I was impressed that this reader took the time to read and think about the genre before expressing his opinions. Those of us who read and write romance know far too well that many, many people don’t.
Anyway, have a read of the whole post. What do you think?
February 12, 2008
charting and radio
Hee hee, I woke up this morning to find that His for the Taking, which is out TODAY, is number two on the Amazon Harlequin Presents romance chart, and number twenty-five on the Amazon chart for all series romance.
Of course this changes every hour. But it was a good hour to check.
I’m off to chat with Henry Kelly on BBC Radio Berkshire…you can have a listen here, around 12.20 this afternoon.
February 11, 2008
my treasure hunt clue: Oz
It’s Modern Heat Treasure Hunt day today!
If you haven’t joined the hunt yet, here’s the deal: Throughout February, you visit different Modern Heat authors’ blogs to find clues. There’s a schedule of who to visit when on the Modern Heat authors’ group blog. Then, at the end of the month, you send in all the clues for a chance to win a huge great big bumper pack of books!
My book giveaway is one of my backlist, Being a Bad Girl. I chose this one because out of all my heroes for Mills & Boon, I get the most fan mail about two of them: Angus MacAllister, from Delicious/MacAllister’s Baby, and Oz Strummer, from Being a Bad Girl. And as it looks like BaBG isn’t going to be released in the US in the foreseeable future, I thought I’d give someone a chance to read it.
Oz, properly known as Dr Oscar Strummer, Ph.D., is–well, he’s just lovely. He’s a clinical psychologist, and when he first appears, in my very first book Featured Attraction, he’s the voice of reason to his best friend Jack’s impulsive charm. Oz grew up as the eldest of six children, the son of a minister, and he has a very overdeveloped sense of responsibility. As a teen he was tall and weedy and brainy, and even though at Harvard he joined the rowing team and has developed into a drop-dead-good-looking hunk, he still thinks of himself as a nerd, analysing everyone’s behaviour from a distance. He is beautiful, caring, loving, and very lonely.
Which is, obviously, why he borrows a motorcycle and leathers, puts on a fake tattoo, and roars into a charity bachelor auction. Where good girl Marianne Webb sees him:
With a roar, the most extraordinary sight Marianne had ever seen exploded onto the stage.
The motorcycle was a blur, a flash of red and silver. Marianne hardly noticed it. What she saw was the man.
He was big, and tall, and strong. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt that exposed the muscles of his arms. On the golden skin of one of them, she glimpsed a tattoo. She couldn’t tell exactly from here, but his hands looked big enough to wrap around her waist and meet on either side. His hair was blond. Streaks of it looked as if they’d been bleached nearly white by the sun. It wasn’t that long for a biker’s; it didn’t reach his collar. But it was wild. As if the wind belonged in it.
“After that entrance, ladies, Oz needs no introduction,” said the auctioneer. “Who’d like to start the bidding for our biker boy? Do I hear eighty dollars?”
A forest of hands went up in the audience. “A hundred dollars to the lady in blue, and do I hear a hundred and twenty? Good, one-twenty to you by the jukebox, will anybody give me one-fifty?”
His long legs were encased in black leather. Marianne imagined how the leather would smell. How it would be warm from him. How, when he stood up from the bike, it would fit the contours of his body.
And what a spectacular body. Even his muscles had muscles. He was one hundred per cent male, from his blonde hair to his leather-booted toes. Testosterone-ridden.
Dangerous.
“And that’s two hundred and fifty dollars. Girls, that’s the highest bid we’ve had so far this evening, let’s go as high as we can. It’s all for charity. And a date with Oz, of course. Who’ll give me three hundred dollars?”
Hands were still waving, blocking her vision of the man on stage. She stood on tiptoes so she could see better.
That wasn’t enough. There were still arms waving around everywhere. The bidding seemed to be reaching some sort of a frenzy.
Marianne planted her hands on the bar and hoisted herself up onto it. She scrambled onto her knees on the slippery polished wood.
There. A clear view at last. Clear enough to see his tattoo: a sword and a snake. And that he wasn’t wearing leather pants; he was wearing chaps. The black leather framed and drew attention to his crotch, covered in snug faded denim, straddling the flaming red motorcycle.
This man wouldn’t be polite. He wouldn’t worry about rules. He would do exactly what he wanted, and forget the consequences.
This man was the baddest bad boy she’d ever seen in her life.
So here’s my question: What two big phallic symbols are on Oz’s fake tattoo? (Hint: it’s two paragraphs from the end of the excerpt.)
Don’t forget you need to collect all the answers to win, and then email them to the contest address on the Modern Heat blog.
For the next clue, visit Trish Wylie’s blog on the 13th!
February 10, 2008
not working
My new year’s resolution ended up being to take Sundays off.
As you know I sort of squeeze writing in whilst taking care of the Fecklet. As writing and promoting two to three books a year is pretty much a full-time job, I end up working most every spare moment I have. But I decided that I deserved one day a week not to write.
So today I got up with the Fecklet at 6.30 (he was awake at 5.30, but he spent some time talking to himself in his cot). We had breakfast and played, and we watched the end of North by Northwest together, as I had fallen asleep while watching it last night. Then, when the Fecklet went down for his nap, when usually I would be writing like crazy, I took a nap too. Then we took Dave to where he was meeting his new tour.
Then we ran errands together. We bought him a new car seat, as he is far too big for his old one. This required a screaming tantrum (from him, not me, though it was close) because the Mothercare lady was too close and I was too far and it was gone time for lunch. Then we went to Tesco’s cafe and shared a jacket potato with beans and all was suddenly right with the world. After shopping, we came home and played and he had his afternoon nap while I read a book and did some housework.
Then we went to the park for an hour to play in the last of the sunshine. Fecklet, newly on his feet, is loving climbing up the slide and crawling through the tunnel they have there. We made friends with a little girl who likes babies. Then we came home, he had tea and a play and a bottle and a bath, and he is now in bed.
I plan to have dinner with my book, then retire to bed with my book. That’s a book I’m reading, not one I’m writing.
I like working, but I like not working too.
