Natasha Oakley - British Romance Author

Tickling my muse ....

2009-02-21T22:13:00.003Z

I'm off to Rome! I can't quite believe it but childcare is all sorted, there are copious lists left on the kitchen worktop and the school uniforms are washed if-not-quite-ironed-yet. Just the packing to go then.

First stop is Belfast where I pick up Trish Wylie. We must try hard not to talk too late into the night because our flight to Rome is disgustingly early. Not quite sure why we thought that was a good idea now ....

Then it's serious research. Oh but I love this job!!!! Have laptop will travel.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T14:52:00.008Z

There are times when I amaze myself. Normally I'm firmly grunting until I've got my drugs-of-choice (cup of tea, quickly followed by an enormous mug of caffinated coffee) whooshing through my system, but six o'clock this morning I was making Hollandaise Sauce.

'Heart-shaped Toast with Eggs, Asparagus and Truffle Hollandaise Sauce' is a fiddly little dish, but I won through. It was only later it occurred to me I should have held out for breakfast in bed myself ... Duh!

Happy Valentine's Day all!

Who's the sexiest male of 2009?

2009-02-09T17:24:00.006Z

Here's something to brighten a cold day. The result of the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual poll on 'who is the sexiest male?' has been announced. Always an eagerly awaited thing in romance author circles. This being a subject we take very much to heart, you understand.

"British actor Richard Armitage has leapt from last year's 4th place to this year topping the ratings in the Romantic Novelists' Association 2009 Valentine's poll, to take the title of Sexiest Thing on Two Legs, beating top Hollywood stars to the number one spot.

Johnny Depp, who topped last year's poll, was pushed firmly into second place, with Hugh Jackman and George Clooney mere also-rans. "Richard Armitage took 20% of the vote, more than double the count of any other male on the list," said the RNA pollster. "He was a clear winner from the off."

The RNA is not alone in admiration of the actor, as numerous online Richard Armitage fan sites will testify. The ardency began with North and South, grew by leaps and bounds with his appearance as the leather-clad baddie in Robin Hood, and shows no sign of diminishing as Spooks takes to the airwaves.

According to romantic novelists, the sexiest male celebrities of 2009 are:

1. Richard Armitage
2. Johnny Depp
3. Hugh Jackman
4. George Clooney
5. Daniel Craig
6. Sean Bean
7. Alan Rickman
8. David Tennant
9. Pierce Brosnan
10. Gerard Butler"

Can't argue with that, can you? Slightly preoccupied as I was, I didn't even vote! Nice to see Johnny Depp in second place, too. Johnny, you may remember, will never be quite happy without me in his life. I'd long suspected that fact but it was nice to have it confirmed.

It's all to do with biorhythms, apparently. The theory goes that there are three fixed cycles which start at your moment of birth - a 23-day physical cycle, a 28-day emotional cycle and a 33-day mental cycle. By knowing someone's birthday you can work out the highs and lows of their life. And, by clicking here you can find your perfect match.

Isn't that useful?

And since I know you want to ..... click here to find how you match with our Richard.

You've got 80% to beat ......

Snow

2009-02-03T12:25:00.004Z

Not that we actually have very much where we are at the moment - it's still significantly impacting my life.

Yesterday there was enough snow for a snowball fight and my children's schools were open as usual. Something they found very annoying. And I, in turn, found them very annoying. Was it my fault?? Did I instruct all their schools to stay open when others were closed???

Today ....... it's at that messy slush stage when everywhere looks very grubby and, for some reason which misses me entirely, the school my younger three go to has a 'snow day' whilst the school my eldest two go to (fourteen miles away) is open. It's a mystery! Elder two not happy. Still more snow forecast ...

Ooops!

2009-01-29T05:41:00.002Z

I've just been told off for playing my music too loud! Surely that's a role reversal????

My youngest was off school yesterday with a temperature, and will be again today, so I'm 'stealing a march on the day' and starting early. I think 5.00am is a perfectly reasonable time to have something to hum along to, don't you? Apparently not. Hey ho!

Back at the keyboard

2009-01-27T21:28:00.005Z

I've had a good working day. Lots of words streaming from my fingertips. Really does make a change to be blogging that! In fact, makes a bit of a change to have the time to blog at all.

I hestitate to say it, but I do believe my life has returned to 'normal'. Well, as normal as it can ever be with five children and a floor that's still drying out ... Plus my husband has an oncology appointment coming up and they do rather loom. But he's looking good so I'm refusing to be too anxious.

And I have a book out on the shelves in the UK and North America right now. I will eventually get around to updating my website but I'm loathed to interrupt the flow of my current WIP. It's the hero. He's really rather demanding ...

So, in the meantime, here's Romantic Times Magazine'sreview of 'Cinderella and the Sheikh':
CINDERELLA AND THE SHEIKH (4.5) by Natasha Oakley Getting a documentary about her great-great-grandmother's life made is almost as important to Polly Anderson as hanging on to her stepfather's ancestral home, and Sheikh Rashid Al Baha knows it. A breeder of fine horses, Rashid allows Polly and her crew into his country to ascertain her culpability in a bad deal he made with her stepbrother. He never expects to discover she's innocent -- or to fall in love. Polly's sweet and vulnerable, and Rashid dreads telling her the truth -- he's sure it will mean the end of their affair. Oakley begins her Brides of Amrah Kingdom duet with a well-told story. The exotic setting -- and Rashid -- add a dash of mystery and glamour.

—Catherine Witmer

And now there is nothing for it but to try and fill out my tax return. Anyone else in the UK really irritated by the 'tax doesn't have to be taxing' advert????? I don't know what form they're looking at.

A little bit distracted!

2008-11-02T21:29:00.005Z

My lovely sister-in-law is having the worst possible time so I have my five year old niece and my newborn nephew with me. It's amazing how quickly you get back into the swing of night-time feeds!

Seven children .. yes, I can do that!!!!

Romantic Times Magazine

2008-10-20T21:09:00.006Z

You'll never guess who I met at Biggleswade Library ....

a fellow member of the Armitage Army! (You may remember the Armitage Army is an online gathering of like minds in regard to almost all things regarding sexy British actor Richard Armitage. There is some difference of opinion on which character is the most sexy ...) And there was wonderful lemon drizzle cake and a chance to talk romantic fiction, too. Certainly worth washing my hair for!

Now it really is head down. Somehow in the next two weeks I have to finish this book of mine, celebrate offspring five's 10th birthday and my mother-in-law's 80th. It seems I'm on cake duty. In order to accommodate 80 candles I'm thinking a pyramid of cup cakes .... Oh and I've got to go and see David Tennant in the RSC production of 'Loves Labours' Lost'.

My latest copy of the Romantic Times magazine arrived a few days ago and I've only just got around to reading it. Harlequin 'Romance' obviously has some great books out this November in the UK and NA. There are five 4.5 ratings and one 3. Perfect Christmas stocking presents, wouldn't you say???

Meanwhile, over in Presents, my friend Kate Walker's 'Bedded by a Greek Billionaire' is a Top Pick.

Seven years after he left in disgrace, Angelos Rousakis is back in London. He'd been attracted to Jessica Marshall but knew she was too young. But she wouldn't leave him alone and when her stepfather found them in what seemed to be a compromising position, Jessica placed the blame on him. Now Jessica's stepfather has died and she learns Angelos is now the owner of the estate. When Angelos sees Jessica he expects to feel triumphant but now wonders if his hate isn't masking something else. Kate Walker's Bedded by the Greek Billionaire (4.5) is a delicious melodrama full of dizzying emotions as the reader goes along with the highs and lows as this couple finds each other again.

—Sandra Garcia-Myers

And, if you get the magazine, on page 12 is a great article by another writing friend, Trish Wylie, on why she loves comics. This is the woman, btw, who distracted me today with YouTube clips of Smallville! 'Geek', she says, 'is the new chic!'

And for those of you wondering about my floor ...

It's ... er ... ongoing. (Enter own swear word here!)

New Arrival

2008-10-14T12:32:00.006Z

I'm an auntie again!

My brother's wife has just given birth to a baby boy - Josiah. That'll mean I get my newborn fix without having to give birth again myself. Lovely!!

Cuddling will have to wait though. Tonight I'm at Biggleswade Library, Bedfordshire, as part of my committment to the UK's National Year of Reading. 7.30pm. Tomorrow afternoon I'll be at Barton Library, Bedfordshire. 2.00pm. It would be lovely if some of you were able to come along and say 'hello'.

Then I really will have to get my head down. October is 'birthday' month in my family and I have to finish this book by the end of the month too. Writing is such an annoying job to have. You are NEVER finished, NEVER satisfied ...

Looking a bit different!

2008-10-03T11:56:00.005Z

So what do you think of the new decor? Not quite finished yet - I do have a book to write (and so does Ally) but the website transformation is coming along beautifully, don't you think? I reckon I still have a bit of time before January, when 'Cinderella and the Sheikh' is released in NA and UK.

Meanwhile, my floor continues to be a disaster. India Grey's builders have become 'almost family' but I've got to try and lure mine back so they can dig up my kitchen! Long story!! Whilst I'm waiting for someone to do something other than suck in air and shake their head, my furniture is still piled up in the sitting room - although I have managed to position a sofa so it might be sat on about two feet from where the TV is stored - and I'm without a washing machine.

Perfect time to disappear into a fictional world, wouldn't you say? And my deadline is looming. WHY do deadlines always do that?

Procrastination has struck. A momentary lapse and I've bought a Portmeirion teapot. Having been exclusively 'white' for the longest time I appear to have taken a more colourful turn and I'm now nervous about the decision. What do you think? Kind of reminds me of my spirograph pictures back in the seventies ...

And, then, if the teapot is right I really need the teatowels and one of the storage pots ....

PHS birthday gift

2008-09-17T19:50:00.005Z

Okay, so my turn to give the Pink Heart man his birthday gift. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about you need to visit here!)

I've thought about it and I reckon a two year old might benefit from a pet of his own. So, it's a pink hampster cage from me!
So, to win a signed copy of my 'Wanted: White Wedding' just send me an email with 'Pink Heart Birthday' in the subject line and tell me what colour the door to Daniel's office is painted. The answer is in the excerpt! Closing date is the end of September - and I'm working in UK time.

I'm think I'm going back to bed ...

2008-09-10T07:12:00.007Z

Isn't it amazing how quickly the holiday glow fades? And I'm not talking about the tan either!

Yesterday was one of those days.

The floor remains an ...... ongoing problem. Yes, I think that's the best way to put it.

Remember how optimistic I was that I should shortly have a level floor in my house? Weeeeeeeell ..... I should never have allowed myself that glimmer of hope. It turns out there's a long line across the centre of my kitchen/family room which is damp. There's another patch in what we fondly call the music room but which I have every intention of stealing as my office in due course. So no floor for me. Not for the foreseeable future either. At some point I'm sure someone will get back to me with costings for a damp proof membrane and yet another layer of screed - but let's not hold our breath.

This means all the furniture from the ground floor of my house will continue piled up in the Sitting Room. I do have a photo of that for you but who knows where the computer lead is to transfer it.

Picture me sitting on a folding garden chair with my laptop on a tray!

The PHS Hugh Jackman Tour 2008

2008-09-01T05:15:00.006Z

The Pink Heart Society's Little Pink Dancing Guy is a TWO YEAR OLD!!!

Amazing, isn't it! And this, of course, means it's also Hugh Jackman Day.

If you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about you need to go here.

I'm back

2008-08-31T19:40:00.011Z

It's a long drive back to the UK from the Dordogne! I'm sure I'll eventually regain some feeling in my legs but that's only because I'm an incurable optimist.

But, here's the good news - it's raining. Makes the whole thirteen hour drive plus s-l-o-w channel crossing worth it. vbg

I had an absolutely fabulous time. JUST what the doctor ordered. Last summer my husband was mid chemotherapy so we didn't go away. This was designed as a real treat. Time to read, see new places, refresh my imagination and spend time 'just us seven'. It worked on all levels.

So, we began in Normandy - here:

Then went to the Loire - here:

And THEN to a small hilltop village a short drive from Brantome (you know I'd do the accents if I knew how. It's a 'hat' that goes over the 'o'.) in the Perigord region of the Dordogne.

Always assuming my editor doesn't suck in air and announce French heroes have 'limited global appeal' I feel my muse is well and truly tickled.

Now it's back to real life with a bump. I have one day to get my brood ready for school and tomorrow I'm also off to Stotfold Library to give a talk as part of my commitment to the UKs National Year of Reading. 2.30 if you are within reach of Bedfordshire.

Better have a glass of wine and decide what to talk about!

Disappearing ...

2008-08-02T00:37:00.005Z

I'm about to vanish into the ether for a few days. It's very needful or I wouldn't be doing it.

Currently I'm experiencing a moment of smugness because I have just achieved the impossible. Having had limited access to my internet connection I have managed to tiptoe my way across much debris and have successfully organised a Tesco shop to be delivered to the address I'll be staying at. I think I lost the blasted thing twice. No idea how I did that. But, hey, it's done now and if I can just shoehorn my children into the car tomorrow morning I will be able to escape the chaos of my home.

I am in a more than usual state of muddle btw.

It all started a couple of years ago when we decided to add an extension to our home. Unfortunately the bamboo floor we laid throughout the downstairs was a disaster. It's a long story but the upshot of it all was we needed to take the floorer to court only I got distracted when my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and my husband's cancer returned. Even now I honestly don't have the emotional energy to take anyone to court. So .......... we've decided to just 'bite the bullet' and sort it out. It's costing thousands! And it's MESSY. Really really messy. I'm currently sitting in rubble.

Fortunately we've been loaned a house. It doesn't have a telephone which means I'll have no distractions and can get on with my book. The downside is that I won't be online to find out what's happening at the RWA conference.

But the prospect of returning to a level concrete floor is sustaining me. I can feel the pressure lifting just knowing I will be able to draw a line and move on. And Trish has promised to text me if I do happen to win a RITA. For that I'm more than happy to be woken up in the middle of the night!

See you soon ...

Classic FM

2008-07-21T19:57:00.008Z

Fiona Harper has been waving the flag for Harlequin Mills & Boon nice and high. I always feel a nervous wreck when I give interviews which is probably why I enjoy hearing my friend's suffer.

The romance publishers Mills and Boon are celebrating their centenary this year with a special exhibition at Manchester Central Library. What's made them so successful and how do you become a Mills and Boon novelist? Writer Fiona Harper perhaps knows better than most; Plus a chance to taste some fine tea accompanied by some specially chosen opera at the Cheltenham Music Festival.

You can hear it here. Scroll down to 12th July podcast.

Now I must go and get my sleeping bag. I'm being a very good mum and am spending the night camping in the garden. Fiona has just been on MSN (while I listened to her podcast) and she is still laughing ....

Look what I've found

2008-07-17T11:01:00.010Z

Anyone else watching Francesco da Mosto's 'Mediterranean Voyage'? I'm loving it.

And, of course, I've already talked about the weakness I have for Francesco on the Pink Heart Society blog. It would seem, however, I'm fickle. The CAPTAIN! (I'm sorry, did you catch me drooling there?)

That's Captain Giulio Maresca. What's more if you google 'Black Swan' you find this:

You can hire the boat - AND the captain. Oh joy! Go see. Not exactly roughing it at sea, are they?

So, what d'you reckon, romance authors? A research trip in the West Mediterranean beckoning????

Now I really do need to go and wash my hair. It seems the least I can do since I've got to do this library talk this evening and must leave my cupboard. I don't get out often!

Bedford River Festival

2008-07-13T13:45:00.006Z

It's exhausting enjoying yourself! This weekend is the 30th Bedford River Festival. It's a bi-annual extravaganza and it's ENORMOUS - the second largest free festival in the UK, being beaten only by the Notting Hill Carnival.

It's still going but I've had enough of the crowds now and will happily shut myself away in the cupboard-I-fondly-call-my-study all next week.

Being so huge the festival attracts market stall holders from Europe and I think that's my favourite part. That aside there's live music on five stages, fun fairs, a carnival procession which winds through the town, an illuminated boat parade, a living history roman encampment by castle mound (the stones of the castle having been pillaged centuries ago), raft races on the Ouse and a whopping firework display on the Saturday night.

Oh and then there's craft stalls, face painting, a community stage, a sports village and countless bars dotted along the length of the Victorian Embankment.

For all the event is free it ends up being an expensive weekend. I mean who can resist candyfloss and kangeroo burgers?

Next one 2010.

AND

I'm giving a Library talk at Shefford Library in Bedfordshire on Thursday 17th July at 7.30. If you're anywhere near it'd be lovely to see you.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-07-07T08:20:00.000Z

That's me 21 again. I have a lovely new ipod - blue - with which to play and I'm having lunch with my dad. And how about this - it appears I'm in my power month now!

Your Birthdate: July 7

You are an island. You don't need anyone else to make you happy.

And though you see yourself as a loner, people are drawn to you.

Deep and sensitive, you tend to impress others with your insights.

You also tend to be psychic - so listen to that inner voice!

Your strength: Your self sufficiency

Your weakness: You despise authority

Your power color: Maroon

Your power symbol: Hammer

Your power month: July

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Spam

2008-07-01T07:50:00.004Z

In the space of four minutes I have just received 302 spam messages which have been caught by my filter and a further 114 which were not. In the main they're the 'Mail Delivery System' ones. Anyone else getting those?

Why does anyone send them????? I must be having some kind of understanding bypass because I just DO NOT get why anyone would bother to send them.

But, the point is, whilst I am being so blessed it's very likely I'm deleting good messages in with the bad. If you've contacted me and I don't reply please do try again.

Meanwhile it's sports' day for Offspring 5. Bad mother that I am I don't want to spend my afternoon sitting in a hot field. I have reached the stage of book creation where any time away from my hero is time wasted, but I will be there. Just couldn't cope with the guilt if I wasn't.

National Siesta Day

2008-06-25T12:00:00.002Z

Well, I'm still writing. Interrupted by sports days, school consultation appointments, drama and music productions in addition to all the usual clubs and so forth. It was sooooooooooooo much easier when they were all in bed by seven.

But ...

How about this bit of joyous news. Here in the UK it's National Siesta Day. I really like the sound of that.

According to the website (And, yes, there is a website) 'Research shows that we have a strong biological tendency to become tired in the early afternoon. A short 10-20 minute nap in the middle of a working day can increase productivity by over 30% and alertness by 100% as well as improve memory and concentration, according to NASA. Recent research shows that we can also reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%.'

And there are tips on how to do it:

'Ideally we should lie down to nap as this simulates the position we are when sleeping at night and our body can relax more easily. Wherever you are, it is important that you are as comfortable as possible, as safe as possible and you do not cause obstruction or hazzard to other people. So if your favourite place is under your desk at work, make sure your feet do not stick out causing a passerby to trip! Also if you doze off in the park, make sure your belongings are safely by your side and the strap of a bag is looped around your arm.'

Hee!

1. Lie down if possible on a bed, floor or sofa. Or you can sit back in your chair. Use a cushion or pillow if you can.

2. Set your alarm for 10-20 minutes.

3. Close your eyes. An eye mask may help to cut out bright light….or a folded newspaper.

4. Let your mind wander or think of sinking downwards. Even if you do not actually sleep, the process will relax your mind and refresh you.

5. Enjoy.'
So, that's that - I'm off for a nap. 30% increase in productivity can only be good.

It's getting complicated ...

2008-06-15T20:11:00.004Z

Maths is sooooo not my strong point!

In 'Crowned: An Ordinary Girl' Seb was 29. He was 20 when his father died. Soooo that means his sister, Isabelle, was 22 during that book and 13 when her father died.

Now - Hanif is the same age as Seb. Rashid younger.

In the book I've just written Rashid was 29. Hanif was 4 when his mother died. Bahiyaa just a baby. So that means if Prince Khalid, mourning the loss of one wife, lost no time in getting together with a second, the closest age gap I can have between the half brothers is 5 years, right? So that means Hanif has to 34. Which makes Izzy 27.

Now if I want a two year gap so that Hanif can become King .....

That means Hanif and Seb are now 36. Marianne is now 35. Bahiyaa is 32. Izzy is 29.

If that's not right, please don't tell me. This all seemed like such a good idea when I started.

Blogging at PHS

2008-06-09T07:37:00.002Z

If you want to know who he is you'll have to go over to the Pink Heart Society. It's my turn to choose a Male on Monday. It's a tough job!

Meanwhile, I'm getting organised. I have reclaimed the cupboard-I-fondly-call-my-study and have turfed out everything that isn't condusive to my working day. All of that is now spread around the other rooms of the house and I do believe I have finally demonstrated to my nearest and dearest what I've been whittering on about for months. In fact, the very last words my husband muttered as he left for work was that he'd stop off at the retail park and pick up some archive boxes. Result! I've also put in an order for a large whiteboard. And I've just this minute flexed my credit card and bought a white anglepoise lamp which suits my current 70s vibe.

It's not even 9 o'clock yet!

Trials and tribulations.

2008-06-03T19:37:00.005Z

I'm emerging from my self-imposed exile. I'd like to tell you it's because I've finished my book but, actually, I haven't. I've come to the painful conclusion I've been writing the wrong story.

At least you'd think it would be painful but it isn't in the slightest. The relief of going 'nope, this isn't going to work and I'm going to stop writing it' is a huge release. I've discovered some interesting things about myself. I am actually quite disciplined. (My mum would have been so surprised!) I am a writer who puts my bottom in the chair. I really tried but sometimes that just isn't enough.

The characters are fine. I know them. But I'm going to put them somewhere else and doing slightly different things. And I'm having a ball. Just wish I'd called a halt three weeks ago.

Meanwhile ...

Today, in the world of Harlequin Mills & Boon authors, is pay day. It's when the bi-annual royalty statements arrive and, in my case because I like to actually see it, a cheque. Always nice!

So I decided I would walk into town, let my story ferment a little, and pay in my cheque. About two miles from home the rain began. I continued on, optimistic it would blow over. Humph. You know what's coming next, don't you?

I went to the bank, stopped for coffee (and shortbread), hid in the library ... until I had no choice but to start walking back so I could pick offspring 5 up from school.

It was TORRENTIAL. And, yes, I do mean to shout. This is the best picture I could find but she's lucky - I was wearing a white skirt.

So, that's a whole lot of people who know far too much about me! I'm sooooo going to put that in a book some day.

I'm not here ...

2008-05-29T16:37:00.003Z

Honest!

What a poor, sad, neglected blog this is.

I'm just dropping by to say I'm alive, I'm happy and I have steam coming off my keyboard. It's just I really do think my editor would prefer it if my words appeared in my WIP rather than here.

See you later .......

Jessica Hart's 50th Book and Chocolate Day

2008-05-06T14:59:00.004Z

Not only am I mid-Sheikh, but I'm a busy blogger today. I'm helping celebrate at Jessica Hart's.

I'm also blogging over at the Pink Heart Society blog today. It's Temptation Tuesday and it's pretty much all about the need for chocolate when suffering deadline stress.

I've dubbed today Chocolate Day and anyone with a recipe and a blog will hopefully combine the too. Any recipes emailed to me from non-bloggers will be posted here.

So - this is from Sharon in Shrewbury and it looks amazing. Thank you! Feeling less stressed already.

Melting Chocolate Puddings

Serves 8

Ingredients
7 oz (200 g) dark chocolate (75 per cent cocoa solids), broken into pieces
7 oz (200 g) butter, diced
2 tablespoons brandy
4 oz (110 g) golden caster sugar
4 large eggs, plus 4 large egg yolks
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2½ oz (60 g) plain flour

To serve:
a little pouring or whipped cream

8 mini pudding basins, each with a capacity of 6 fl oz (175 ml), generously brushed with melted butter.

First of all place the broken-up chocolate, along with the butter and brandy, in a large heatproof bowl, which should be sitting over a saucepan of barely simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Then, keeping the heat at its lowest, allow the chocolate and butter to melt slowly; it should take 6-7 minutes. Then remove it from the heat and give it a good stir until it's smooth and glossy.

While the chocolate is melting, place the sugar, whole eggs, yolks and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl, place it on a tea towel to steady it, then whisk on a high speed with an electric hand whisk until the mixture has doubled in volume – this will take between 5 and 10 minutes, depending on the power of your whisk. What you need to end up with is a thick, mousse-like mixture that, when you stop the motor and lift the whisk, leaves a trail like a piece of ribbon.

Now you need to pour the melted chocolate mixture around the edge of the bowl (it's easier to fold it in from the edges) and then sift the flour over the mixture. Using a large metal spoon, carefully but thoroughly fold everything together. Patience is needed here; don't be tempted to hurry it, as careful folding and cutting movements are needed, and this will take 3-4 minutes.

Now divide the mixture between the pudding basins (it should come to just below the top of each one) and line them up on a baking tray. If you like, the puddings can now be covered with clingfilm and kept in the fridge or freezer until you need them.

When you're ready to bake the puddings, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C). Remove the clingfilm and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 14 minutes if they have been chilled first, but only 12 if not; after that time the puddings should have risen and feel fairly firm to the touch, although the insides will still be melting. Leave to stand for 1 minute before sliding a palette knife around each pudding and turning out on to individual serving plates. If you're cooking these puddings from frozen, give them about 15 minutes' cooking time and allow them to stand for 2 minutes before turning out. Serve absolutely immediately, with some chilled cream to pour over.

As the puddings cool, the melted chocolate inside continues to set, so they can, if you like, be served cold instead as a fudgey-centred chocolate cake with whipped cream.

This recipe is taken from How to Cook Book Two and The Delia Collection: Chocolate.

2008 Year of Reading

2008-05-02T10:30:00.010Z

Guess what I'm going to be up to this year? As if the title of this post wasn't a clue. I'm now Bedfordshire's 'Writer in Residence'.

It's all part of the UK's Year of Reading. It's a government backed initiative to promote a love of reading. Setting aside the fact I earn my living writing books, as a mum of five this is something I really want to be involved in. The hope is that the campaign will reach people who don't consider themselves 'readers'. The slogan is 'Reading - Anytime, Anything, Anywhere'. I'm all for taking the snobbishness out of books. It should be fun!

NYR was formally launched on 1st April. If you're in the UK you will be seeing a fair bit of this advert.

Spot the Harlequin Mills & Boon? To save you much peering I can tell you it's a 'Modern Heat' - 'Public Scandal, Private Mistress' by Susan Napier.

As part of the National Year of Reading, a scheme has been set up to link authors and libraries together. Each of the 149 participating library authorities now has a 'writer in residence' and I've been chosen as Bedfordshire's. 9 of the 149 authors selected are published by Harlequin Mills & Boon. The other 8 being:
Michelle Styles - Northumberland
Louise Allen - Peterborough
Susan Stephens - Kirklees
Kate Hardy - Norfolk
Nicola Cornick - Wiltshire
Sharon Kendrick - Hampshire
Caroline Anderson - Suffolk
India Grey - Cheshire.

I have no doubt I'll be telling you lots more about all this as the year goes on. It would be kind of fun if a 'writer in residence' actually had a go at writing in residence, wouldn't it? I can tell you now I'm not doing it unless I can have a flask of coffee by my left elbow at all times. Addiction is a terrible thing.

And here's a glimpse of how the advert was made.

The Next Survivor Series ......

2008-04-28T22:49:00.004Z

This isn't at all writerly but it made me smile ...

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.

He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.

A test will be given at the en d of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.

Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.

The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

After you get done laughing, send this to as many females as you think will get a kick out of it and as many men as you think can handle it.

Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed!

Oh, and I've got a book to write and my children have got nits and given them to me!!! Just perfect!

Happy St George's Day

2008-04-23T12:23:00.004Z

Today is St George's Day but, unlike pretty much everywhere else, here in England we don't have a public holiday for our national saint. There's a bit of a campaign going on about that at the moment. :)

Locally we do our bit. In fact, the largest St George's Day celebrations in the country are held each year at a place called Wrest Park which is down the road. If it's not raining I'll go and bring you back pictures ...

I know. No stamina!

Meanwhile, if you are based in the UK you have to go read today's post over at the Pink Heart Society. We've been asked to help with a hugely exciting project. Here's a taster of what you'll find there.

Hi there, my name’s Julie. I’m a documentary maker and a fan of romantic fiction. I want to make a warm, intelligent documentary that celebrates the Mills & Boon publishing phenomenon in the year of its centenary. I want the film to take us into the personal worlds of Mills & Boon novelists and avid readers, to uncover the secrets of Mills & Boon’s enduring success and find answers to the perennial question ‘What do women really want ?!?!’.

I’m at the very early stages of research and at this point I’m very keen to chat to avid fans of Mills & Boon novels, to hear what it is about the books that they love so much. I would also really love to hear from Mills & Boon novelists, to learn more about their lives & writing. I had a really exciting and inspiring meeting with Kate Walker last week and she very kindly offered to make this posting on my behalf. So please do get in touch if you would be willing to talk. All discussion at this point would be off-camera and you’d be under no obligation to appear in the final documentary.

I look forward to hearing from you and telling you more about my project.

All the best
Julie Moggan
juliemoggan@yahoo.com

Romantic Times Award

2008-04-21T15:12:00.003Z

I've been holding on to this bit of news for a while and very difficult it's been. The Romantic Times Convention is over I'm allowed to say I won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Harlequin Presents of 2007 with 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride'.

Here's hoping readers who discovered me as part of the Niroli continuity series will come and find me in the Romance line.

Trish Wylie won 'Best Harlequin Romance of 2007' which her lovely 'Rescued: Mother to Be' and Liz Fielding won a Career Achievement Award.

A day in my life ...

2008-04-19T07:54:00.004Z

I have to admit, even by my standards, this is a bit of a stinker.

8.45am Take offsprings one and two three miles to ATC hut. Need to be there by 9.00am.

9.30am Take offsprings three and four two miles to Frontiers Club.

10.30am Take offspring five to football.

12.00pm Pick offspring five up from football.

12.30pm Pick offsprings three and four from Frontiers Club.

1.00pm Pick up offsprings one and two from the hut.

3.30pm Offspring four to the Athletics Stadium.

4.45pm Offspring three to Pizza Hut for a party.

5.15pm Collect offspring four from the Athletics Stadium.

6.00pm Offsprings one and two three miles to nearby village for a pizza/movie party.

8.30pm Pick up offspring three from Pizza Hut.

10.00pm Pick up offsprings one and two from pizza/movie party.

And somewhere in there I need to cook, find the school clothes and write 2000 words.

Oh and, apparently, the laptop is now ready for collection. Must find out what they've done to it before I accept it back into the fold.

Lincoln Book Festival - Press Release

2008-04-18T21:19:00.004Z

Janet, in the comments for the previous post wanted to know what I'm going to be doing at the Lincoln Book Festival so here's the Press Release.

The Lincoln Book Festival passionately presents…

100 Years of Romancing Readers
Celebrate 100 years of Mills & Boon with top romance authors Kate Walker, Trish Wylie, Natasha Oakley and Kate Hardy

Saturday 17th May 2008, 6.00pm, Lincoln Drill Hall, Lincoln
On Saturday 17th May, award-winning Mills & Boon authors, Kate Walker, Trish Wylie, Natasha Oakley and Kate Hardy discuss the world of romantic fiction and what it takes to write for Mills & Boon. From first glances until happily ever after, this lively discussion, commemorating the Mills & Boon Centenary, offers participants the chance to hear from four of today’s leading romance writers…

About the 100 Years of Romancing Readers debate:
As part of the Mills & Boon Centenary celebrations, the Lincoln Book Festival presents four influential romance authors for a unique opportunity to take part in a spirited conversation that celebrates the world of romantic fiction. The evening will also include an audience Question & Answer session, along with a book signing. The event will take place from 6pm - 7.30pm on Saturday 17th May at Lincoln Drill Hall. Tickets are £5, concessions £3.
The panel will feature bestselling romantic novelists:

KATE WALKER – Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife; The Duke’s Secret Wife
TRISH WYLIE – His Mistress, His Terms; Her One and Only Valentine
NATASHA OAKLEY – Crowned: An Ordinary Girl; Wanted: White Wedding
KATE HARDY – Sold to the Highest Bidder; The Doctor’s Royal Love Child
ANDSUZY CLARKE – Mills & Boon editor

Come and join Mills & Boon for a glass of bubbly and have your say…

About the panellists:

KATE WALKER published her first novel with Mills & Boon in 1984 and hasn’t looked back. She writes for the Mills & Boon Modern line and has had over 50 books published. The second edition of her award-winning The 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance is being re-issued on 8th April 2008. For more information, visit her website and online blog at http://www.kate-walker.com/
Kate will be leading a workshop on writing romance on Saturday 17th May, 2 - 4pm in the Ruston Room at Lincoln Drill Hall.

TRISH WYLIE has always been a keen writer. Now on her 16th title, writing for the Romance and Modern Heat lines of Mills & Boon, Trish’s creative passion looks set to continue unabated. Her latest book, Claimed by the Billionaire Bad Boy, is published in May. To find out more, visit her website and online blog at http://www.trishwylie.com/

NATASHA OAKLEY began her career in the world of theatre, before turning to writing. Her first book was published by Mills & Boon in 2004 and she writes for the Romance series. Natasha’s 2007 book, The Tycoon’s Princess Bride, is short-listed for the Romance Writers of America Prize (The RITA). For more information, visit http://www.natashaoakley.com/

KATE HARDY has been writing romantic fiction since 2002 and has so far produced over 25 books for the Mills & Boon’s Medical Romance and Modern Heat lines. With a passion for writing, and also for cooking, Kate often combines the two, including recipes in her stories and creating heroes and heroines with gastronomic flair. Kate’s book, Breakfast at Giovanni’s, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Prize for Romance in February 2008. For more information, visit http://www.katehardy.com/

About the Mills & Boon Centenary:
In 2008, Mills & Boon celebrates one hundred years of publishing history. This iconic imprint has grown to become the UK's undisputed market leader in romantic fiction publishing; a household name entrenched in the hearts and minds of its global readership.

· A Mills & Boon book is sold every 3 seconds
· 10 million Mills & Boon titles were sold in the UK last year
· 130 million Mills & Boon books are sold worldwide each year
· In 2007, 1200 unsolicited manuscripts were submitted, of which only 27 went on to be published
· Mills & Boon books are sold in 109 countries and have been translated into 26 different languages

Lincoln Book Festival:
From Friday 9th May to Sunday 18th May, Lincoln turns literary as the Lincoln Book Festival brings together authors, fans and book-lovers of all ages for 9 days of discussions, workshops, signings and chances to meet your favourite literary idols. Featured authors include Colin Dexter, Iain Banks and Steven Berkoff.
For further information, visit http://www.lincolnbookfestival.co.uk/

Kate Hardy, Trish Wylie, Natasha Oakley and Kate Walker
are available for interview.
For further information, or to schedule an interview,
please contact:Laura Meyer at Midas Public Relations
on 020 7590 8903 or email laura.meyer@midaspr.co.uk

Don't we sound great! And we didn't even write that!!! vbg

It'll be lovely if any of you can join us.

OMG!

2008-04-17T19:41:00.004Z

I am having THE most brilliant 2008.

'Crowned: An Ordinary Girl' has just finalled in the National Readers' Choice Awards. The winner will be announced at a reception on Thursday evening of the RWA National Conference - which, of course, I'll be missing. It seemed like such a good plan to take the children to the Dordogne this year but I'm experiencing a pang of regret I didn't decide to do the conference instead. What a truly bad mother I am! Or, maybe, I'm a good one because despite the massive temptation I'm still resisting ...?

I have, quite literally, just finished reading 'Crowned'. Twenty-five minutes ago as it happens. I don't usually re-read my books btw but I've decided to give Prince Seb's younger sister a happy ever after and I needed to check what I've already said about her. Actually not so very much, which has surprised me since she is so vivid in my head.

The only things I find I'm committed to is that Isabelle would have been 13 when her father died (assuming I've done my sums right), she's the youngest of three children, she's got a reputation as Andovaria's wild child and was twenty-two when Seb married Marianne. That gives me a lots of lovely choices.

Oh dear!

2008-04-16T15:34:00.005Z

Now I've bought a light for the cupboard-I-fondly-call-my-study. Just one click again. I'm beginning to think India Grey is in the right of it. She has a study without access to the internet - and a lovely cream leather chair.

My light is designed by Black + Blum. I like their things. Their sellotape holder is one of the most practical things I've ever bought. It's heavy enough to let you pull tape off with one hand. How sensible is that!

I'm thinking about work spaces again because I've come to the conclusion mine isn't working for me. The main gripe I have is that it's invaded. Often. It means when I come back to whatever I'm doing it's been moved or things have been placed on top of it. I think I've become so much 'white noise' now when I complain about it.

Any ideas?

But now I must stop shopping, stop blogging, stop thinking what I need to do about my poor neglected website - and WRITE.

Cabin Fever

2008-04-15T22:57:00.005Z

My children are back at school after the Easter break, my husband is stealing my car to get to work ... so really there is no excuse not to sit my bottom in the chair and get on with the WIP. I know, as a career author, I ought to say I begin at 8am and finish at 7pm having produced x number of words but the truth is ... I don't write like that.

I'm still struggling to get a feel for what's happening in this book and, right now, I feel like I'm squeezing a turnip through a sieve. I've come to accept that's part of my process. Just what I do. The huge downside of working like this is that I reward myself with food and, courtesy of India Grey, I now know Sainsburys is selling Ikea Dime bars. That won't help any.

Eventually I will speed up, the book will get finished and I will forget all the labour pains.

In the meantime, I've read a lot of blogs (cf the dime bar post). I've bought an outfit. Just a click away! Hopefully it will fit or I'll be a scary Mills & Boon panelist at Lincoln's Literary Festival next month. I've added twenty or so books to my Amazon basket. Fortunately felt guilty enough about the outfit not to click 'buy now'. I can now tell you James McAvoy's wife, Anne-Marie Duff, used to go out with David Tennant. I'm not sure how useful that information will be but it's now forever lodged in my brain.

And, this evening, I took myself to see George Clooney. Anyone else seen 'Leatherheads'?

Okay, I don't get it!

I know I was at a disadvantage because I've no idea how American football is played. (Truth be told, I have no idea how English football is played ...) But, I don't think I'd have liked the movie any better if I did. It's a strange one because it kept me entertained but I just kept feeling it could be so much better. Maybe it's because it harked back to the old black and white movies I love and ... wasn't. George Clooney isn't Cary Grant any more than Renée Zellweger is Rosalind Russell. There's a fair amount of slapstick which seemed out of place to me. And, worst of all, I think I connected with the wrong character ...

But good to be out of the house.

PS No news on the laptop yet!

Customer Service

2008-04-12T19:24:00.004Z

is a concept entirely unknown to PC World. If you've not got time to read this blog I can summarise what's to follow by saying DO NOT BUY A LAPTOP FROM PC WORLD. And, yes, I do mean to shout.

I have just wasted another blasted day and I'm so cross you wouldn't believe it.

Remember my laptop died and I replaced it with a Toshiba? I liked the fact it has a curved front which is kinda kind on the wrists ...

Anyway I also bought my daughter one for her birthday. Not two months later it has packed up. I can cope with this. These things happen, BUT it's how things are handled once they've gone wrong that matters.

My husband and I took it to our local PC World and explained that while our daughter was using it the screen froze. She turned it off and it refused to turn back on. Man in PC uniform tried one or two things and confirmed it wouldn't start.

And this is where it starts to become ridiculous.

We can't have an exchange because we've had the laptop over 28 days. This is regardless of the fact it's had very moderate use, never been on the internet and is 'like new' being less than two months old. He then says has to go 'back to Toshiba' and this will take up to six weeks. They have to determine whether or not it was misuse in the home or a computer fault. Once they have made this decision they will decide whether to offer us a repair. Repair not a replacement note!

I'm fairly spitting tacks at this point but it gets worse.

It'll be easier FOR US if we contact Toshiba direct. They have a collection 'as and when' whereas if we phone it will be collected much quicker. He also said we could remove my daughter's coursework by plugging it into my computer at home.

Home we went and tried to save her work - but you can't. Whatever is wrong with the thing isn't allowing anything that simple. I also do a little internet searching on my customer rights. Apparently you shouldn't let a retailer send you to the manufacturer direct. You bought from THEM.

So back to PC World. Different man. This one much more irritating. Now he REALLY doesn't want to do anything to help. We remain calm, polite, but determined he will provide some level of customer service. We insist he signs a piece of paper as to the condition of the laptop we've left with him. We've taken photographs too. Belt and braces. I have zero confidence now.

And that's it. We wait now to see how reputable Toshiba are ... I'll let you know.

But we are without a laptop for an indefinite period. Can you imagine how I'd be feeling now if it had been mine that had died?????

If you are a writer of anything, if you in any way depend on your laptop for your work, derive any kind of pleasure from using one, DO NOT BUY FROM PC WORLD.

Boy, but I'm cross.

Winning Streak

2008-04-05T20:26:00.005Z

Today was the Grand National. Even for a non-horsey person like me this is a big deal. For my extended family it means the 'family sweep'. At stake is a rather battered silver cup which I would show you except I was the holder for 2007 and I'm afraid I've not looked after it as I should.

We randomly pick three horses - one fairly hopeless, one okayish and one with a chance. This year, I'm pleased to say I lost. The cup goes to Auntie Mary! But, morally, it was my victory and my brother is still reeling from the shock. 'Comply or Die' was my choice (because he liked the going) and if only I'd had the courage of my convictions I'd be counting my winnings tonight. I'm not going to tell him my source either!

Tomorrow is my dad's 70th birthday so I've been chopping vegetables for England. Really not much energy left tonight for anything but a glass of wine - or two.

But I have written my Pink Heart Society blog for Monday. It's my turn to pick the Male on Monday. Jude Law, I thought.

If you arrive early you'll find a fabulous post by the lovely Kate Walker and Biddy's update on her writing progress. Biddy is an aspiring Harlequin Mills & Boon novelist and her posts always make me laugh. Go see.

And today I bought a car

2008-03-27T01:15:00.002Z

I'd feel a whole lot more confident if I knew what I was doing. It would be better if I had the information with which to make the decision. Post chemo my husband is still making decisions about what he wants to do next.

We seem to have spent ages discussing the two small car option, versus the naff--seven-seater-plus-small-car-children-can-learn-to-drive-in option, versus the mini-bus with sensible small car option. And then it all became clear. My dad, who has the habit of saying important things at pivotal points of my life, said, 'yes, but that's life, isn't it? Not having all the information.' And all became clear.

I've bought a Ford Galaxy. It holds all children. Will do the school run. We will struggle with holiday packing but .. hey ... it's a car and I'm not that interested anyway. And it's petrol. I know, I know .. diesel has better mileage but have you seen the price of them??? To be honest, I'd rather pay in installments.

2002. And I will run it into the ground. Now anyone who knows anyone who has ever driven one must tell me that's the right choice.

And I thought the laptop was difficult.

Meanwhile, in an effort to make this writerly, book is doing okay!

WOW!

2008-03-25T21:43:00.014Z

Guess what happened to me today???

There was I feeling slightly smug because I've just sold my version of 'El Sodh' - a phrase coined by the wonderful Sophie Weston for a sheikh book that is more than usually tricky to write - when the phone rang.

'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' has finalled for a RITA in the Contemporary Series category. How brilliant is that!

What's more I so nearly didn't enter. Remember the truly horrendous year I've had? Well, during all of that I allowed my RWA membership to lapse without realising. So I had to enter at the non-member rate at the last possible minute.

Besides which, I'd decided not to do competitions this year.

Now I'm busy wondering whether I really *ought* to make the trip to the RWA conference. It's not that I don't want to it's just that it's kinda the wrong side of the States for me. :)

Apparently this kind of good news comes at a cost. There was I ready to celebrate. I'd even decided to stuff the diet when Trish says I've got to blog - and went on saying it.

I discovered long since there's no point fighting.

'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' is book 4 of a fabulous continuity I was asked to write for. The premise was fun:

The Mediterranean island of Niroli has prospered for centuries under the Fierezza men. But now, as the King’s health declines, and his 2 sons have been tragically killed, the crown is in jeopardy. Who will rule?

In practise writing it felt a little like being given a jigsaw puzzle with no picture guide.

My hero - Domenic Vincini, a man scarred inside and out.
My heroine - Isabella Fierezza, beautiful and keen to promote tourism on Niroli.

That was it. And off I went.

Carol Marinelli and I became friends through it. She's a real sweetheart and I borrowed her Luca and loaned her my Isabella.

All eight books of the series are still available.

Book 1: The Future King's Pregnant Mistress - Penny Jordan
Book 2: Surgeon Prince ... Ordinary Wife - Melanie Milburne
Book 3: Bought By the Billionaire Prince - Carol Marinelli
Book 4: The Tycoon's Princess Bride - Natasha Oakley
Book 5: Expecting His Royal Baby - Susan Stephens
Book 6: the Prince's Forbidden Virgin - Robyn Donald
Book 7: Bride By Royal Apointment - Raye Morgan
Book 8: A Royal Bride At The Shiekh's Command - Penny Jordan

UK and North America

Am I allowed to drink wine now???

Fun, isn't it!

I know I shouldn't say this, but ....

2008-03-24T23:36:00.006Z

I like good reviews.

I really like them from the Romantic Times Magazine because I don't have to do a single thing to get them. :) They review, as a matter of course, every romantic novel which is released in the States.

What's particularly lovely about this one is that 'Wanted: White Wedding' was the book I was writing when my lovely mum was first diagnosed with terminal cancer. I tried writing it while I was sat in hospital waiting rooms surrounded by the smell of anticeptic. Eventually every time I opened the darn document all I could feel was a churning sick feeling. So, I took a deep breath and deleted the lot and started again. I was only allowed to write curled up on the sofa with a glass of red wine within touching distance.

So, a hard book.

It's out in NA and the UK in May so there's plenty of time to tell you more about it - but here's the review:

Back in her hometown to visit her grandmother, dotcom millionaire Freya Anthony remembers quickly just why she left. She's still the target of vicious gossip because of her slightly wild past, but that doesn't seem to worry widowed auctioneer Daniel Ramsay. After a rocky start, Freya and Daniel become friends, then lovers--and even his rebellious daughter, Mia, warms to her. But Freya's wealth is a problem. Once Daniel learns about it, he wonders what he can possibly offer her. Natasha Oakley's Wanted: White Wedding (4.5) has its share of deeply touching moments, but what makes it stand out are the humor and the wonderful characters.

—Catherine Witmer

Lovely, isn't it!

Oh joy!

2008-03-20T22:40:00.004Z

I've corrupted fellow Romance author Donna Alward. It took a while, but my job is done. World domination, one romance author at a time. (There are days, you know, when I feel slightly sorry for Richard. Other days I tell myself every girl must have a hobby. :))

Donna's even sending me links to Richard Armitage fan videos on YouTube now. I feel so proud. vbg.

Want to see her favourite of the day?

Meanwhile, I'm not here. For reasons I haven't worked out I've now become nocturnal. It's approaching 11pm and I'm about to settle in for my day's work. Don't you feel sorry for my family!

Good Grief!

2008-03-19T00:04:00.006Z

One of my very good friends has had an offer to publish her novel today. (That's not the 'Good Grief' part, incidentally.) When it's all settled and the ink has dried on the contract I'm sure I'll be telling you a whole lot more about that.

But, the point here is that it sent me off on a trawl around the web looking up information on different publishing houses - and I happened upon some information about the Oxford Literary Festival. In itself, because I already know all about it and won't be there, not particularly interesting.

But, then I found this:

So what is the secret of writing a good Doctor Who story, apart from an inexhaustible supply of strange people in hoods and shadowy figures lurking in dark corners of the universe? Justin Richards and some of his fellow writers – Terrance Dicks, Mike Tucker, Colin Brake and Steve Cole – will explain all at the festival on April 5.

And I read on. You can, too, if you click here.

The bit that made me splutter on my coffee was this:

There is a team of 10 writers, but not all of them write full-time. They are paid a flat fee of £5,000 per book, with a bonus if a title sells more than 50,000. That’s about the average sale, says Richards, but bonuses are not unknown.

Authors, we are told, have four months to 'turn out a story'.

Am I reading that right? £5000 for four months work? I just bet 'not all of them write full-time'! You couldn't on that money, could you?!?!

And then there is this bit:

These reasons might put off some big-name authors who have been linked with Doctor Who. Philip Pullman, JK Rowling, Anthony Horowitz and Stephen Fry have been mentioned. “I have spoken to a few big names,” says Richards, “and the attraction is obvious but there are reasons why they wouldn’t want to do it.”

Hmmmm, yes! Can't say I'd be keen either.

Happy St Patrick's Day

2008-03-15T10:22:00.004Z

If there is an ounce of Irish blood in you you'll be celebrating nowish - there's some debate about the day. For all that and a whole lot more you need to visit the Pink Heart Society blog.

I'm a very healthy mix of English, Scottish and Welsh but it seems my ancestors didn't leave the mainland. Just as well really because they'd probably have been the ones stealing other people's lands. So I can hold my head high and wish everyone Beannachtam na feile Padraig and leave you with an Irish toast.

May the frost never afflict your spuds.May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms.May the crows never pick your haystack.If you inherit a donkey, may she be in foal.

Sláinte!

Mills & Boon Centenary

2008-03-12T20:46:00.005Z

Here is the official author photograph taken by Philippa Gedge Photography at the Mills & Boon centenary party - I'm half a face somewhere in the middle. In fact, I'm peeking out from behind India Grey.

Which means I can continue to pretend I look like the photograph on my website. I was twenty-seven then and now I'm .... er ... not. And I'm not having any more photos taken until I can fit back in my wedding dress. At least that was the plan and it's not going terrible well. vbg.

Just love it when a plan comes together.

Trish Wylie, btw, missed the photo altogether because she was talking to the BBC - as you do!

Rusty people carrier RIP

2008-03-11T17:42:00.005Z

Oh heck! Has it really been that long since I blogged?? Doesn't time fly when you are busy!

Anyway, book in and new book gently simmering. I am at the stage where I'm wondering whether I really ought to see if I can unbury my desk. Never a very nice prospect because the chances of finding something I really should have dealt with a while back is, sadly, high!

I am having to be a little bit distracted from all things creative because my car has died and I need to buy a new one. To be absolutely honest, the mechanic has managed to get me back on the road but it's definitely temporary. Current top speed is 53mph and it's a bumpy ride.

All in all it was a fairly humiliating experience. What is it with mechanics?????? Or is it just the ones I meet? Maybe it's the impression I give???

Mechanic: "Any chance you might have put in the wrong fuel?"
Me: Ah, let me think....... I've been driving this car for nine years. I do think I might just have got the hang of filling it up with diesel in that time ....

Bah!

It got slightly worse - but then I'm afraid I set myself up.

Mechanic: "What you need, love, is a minibus." (Remember I am the original old woman with so many children ....)
Me: "Yes, but that's not got a lot of street cred, has it!"
Mechanic: "Not a lot of street cred in what you're driving."

Humph!

But I still do need to buy a car and I HATE that even more than I hate buying laptops.

Money no object I could do it just fine. Obviously colour is the most important thing and general image. Yes, I am that shallow.

Only I do have a hideous school run which racks up 60 miles a day. I need to transport five children and a cello. Any suggestions???

Fortunately I have had some lovely news to bolster my spirits - but I can't tell you yet! I know, I know. What was the point in mentioning it! :)

Earthquake

2008-02-27T08:09:00.006Z

That was interesting! At a little before 1am - and please note I was at my laptop working away in what we grandly call the 'music room' - the large keyboard to my right began to rock. This is where I get to look not too bright. So, I look over my shoulder to check I'm not about to be attacked. I have no idea why other than it was 1am and I'm of an imaginative disposition! Then I get up and try and steady the keyboard, but can't. Then I frown a bit. Everything appeared to be normal so I went to make a cup of coffee ....

In my defence, last night was the first earthquake I have ever noticed. Apart, that is, from the simulator at the Science Museum which I don't think counts. Apparently last night's tremors measured 5.2 on the Richter scale which makes it the biggest earthquake to hit England in 25 years. My children slept through the whole thing which leaves them feeling a little bit miffed. :)

Storage

2008-02-25T13:45:00.005Z

Apparently 'storage' is one of the most 'looked for' things in buying a new house. By women, that is. Presumably because we are the ones who put everything away???

Post house extension I lost all my book shelves. I did make an urgent trip to IKEA to buy multiple packs of Billy bookcases but I've now overstuffed those to the extent that all shelves are bowing. I'm waiting - not too patiently - for my husband to make some new ones. Note to all: Do NOT marry a man with a degree in furniture design. Yes, he can make it BUT you will be waiting a very long time for him to do so and he will not pay anyone else to even when he's ill!

But I digress. I got sent a fabulous link today. I must have been moaning particularly loudly. :)

Okay so that's looking down from the top. What do you think?

The staircase is designed by Levitate Architects and is made in English oak. I'm in lust. Beats the average loft staircase hands down, doesn't it. Unfortunately I live in a house that has the wrong kind of roof struts for a loft extenstion so I am still looking for the perfect storage solution for my books.

All suggestions welcome!

Handbags at dawn

2008-02-23T19:39:00.009Z

Up to now I have always taken the view that if a man doesn't come easily he really isn't mine. I have never stooped to fighting with my own sex over one. But all that is about to change. Trish Wylie is stealing my boy.

She's busy creating a new hero and would have you believe this is Luca Moretti.

Hmmmm, I don't think so.

I know my hero when I see him. That's His Highness Prince Rashid Al Baha and he's mine!

Her defence will claim the hair length makes a difference. She can have him with short hair and I can have him with long. ANYONE out there prepared to accept that???

Rashid Al Baha is fully formed. He's a smidge over 6ft 2", blue eyes, tall, dark, handsome and most at home in the wide open spaces of his desert home.

Talking of wide open spaces you might like to look in on Liz Fenwick's blog which has some great pictures of Oman on it. Lovely. Borrowing all of those for my pinboard.

He is not an Italian wafting around Ireland, whatever the hair length. At least not until I say so. :)

Oh and for those of you who want to conduct your own research on this particular hero inspiration - HE MOVES!

I'm in Hebrew - and I've been a little bit naughty

2008-02-20T16:15:00.005Z

'Crowned: An Ordinary Girl' is in Hebrew. That's a new one for me. I was just about to give up trying to work out what language it was in (and, in fact, what book!) when I discovered a tiny paragraph in English. Hebrew it is!

And it's a lovely, classy looking book. Heroine on the front is ABSOLUTELY nothing like my Marianne though. I really must get a scanner! She looks like a model rather than a serious academic. Think black spiky hair hanging over one eye in a way that makes any mother reach for a hairslide, glum expression and no need of a bra. Actually, that's good because this girl hasn't got one on.

All good fun.

Distracted me just that little bit from my wip - and this is where the naughty bit comes in. I've just booked a villa in the Dordogne.

Ooops. It's so easy to 'click', isn't it???

You do want me to write a book set there, don't you?

It's a bit of a trek. On a good day it's a seven hour drive from Calais so I'm now toying with the idea of stopping off en route. Can't decide whether I should do a couple of days in the Loire or a few multi stops. Oh decisions, decisions ....

Now that all sounds very glamorous, doesn't it! Back to my own version of Sophie Weston's famous 'El Sodh'. Really, really want to get this book done and out of here.

Romantic Novelists' Association Hero Poll

2008-02-14T16:54:00.002Z

Members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and that would include me, 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

My own personal favourite 'hero' is Richard Armitage.

If you've yet to see him as John Thornton in the BBC production of 'North and South' get thee to amazon. It's an absolute gem and I envy you seeing it for the first time.

Johnny Depp is fine, though. In fact, over at the Pink Heart Society we checked out our biorhythm compatibility and I discovered Johnny's life will not be quite complete without me. I'd long suspected that! Not sure I'm a devotee of the biorhythm theory but it's a great way to avoid working.

See how you do.

Have a great Valentine's Day!

And in the Telegraph ....

2008-02-13T09:36:00.003Z

And in the Telegraph, that's one of the UK's broadsheets, you'll find:

Mills & Boon: These days, girls want a wizard lover...

Nothing reflects the changing attitudes to relationships over the years more than the romantic novels of Mills & Boon. Glenda Cooper turns some pages.

A sheikh. A tropical idyll. A lace nightgown torn in passion. And the chance to pursue a career as a paediatrician. No wonder Sigmund Freud asked in frustration: "What do women want?"

But in the run-up to Valentine's Day, if any man would like to know the answer then he should head for Paradise Road in south-west London and the headquarters of an empire built on giving women exactly what they want.

I am, of course, referring to Mills & Boon, which now sells a book every three seconds in Britain.

The publishing house celebrates its centenary this year, still churning out potboilers with titles such as The Sheikh's Convenient Mistress, Taken by the Bad Boy, Falling for the Rebel Heir and The Italian Surgeon Claims His Bride - along with about 50 others this month alone.

Started by Gerald Mills and Charles Boon with £1,000, M&B published Shakespeare, socialist tracts and textbooks as well as romances. It wasn't until the post-war years that it concentrated on the latter, and it now has a £21 million turnover, selling 130 million books a year in 26 languages, courtesy of its stable of 1,300 authors.

The books have simultaneously been claimed as feminist tracts (the woman's point of view is always central, in accordance with "Lubbock's Law" - the critic Percy Lubbock maintained that the best fiction, such as Madame Bovary, worked when the author wrote from the heroine's perspective); derided as "misogynist hate", and blamed by the then Archbishop of York, John Hapgood, for the rising divorce rate in Britain. ("One might as well blame the Lassie films for the incidence of abandoned dogs," wrote one critic in response).

M&B has long been the butt of jokes but, after a century of success, the books provide a fascinating insight into how women's lives and desires have changed, as a peek into the archive - some cardboard boxes in its Richmond HQ - reveals.

The uninitiated assume that M&B storylines and the nature of the hero are set in stone - indeed, the publisher issues guidelines for authors to follow. But it wasn't always the case.

The earliest heroes tend to be imperialist adventurers who, towards the end of the Edwardian era, still represented an ideal. The heroines are equally intrepid, with Dorothy Gale, in Louise Gerard's A Tropical Tangle (1911), going off to be a nurse in darkest Africa.

In the shattering aftermath of the First World War, a different type of hero emerges. The golden youths who died in the trenches were the brothers and fiancés of M&B authors, so vulnerable boy heroes populate the 1920s romances, while it is women themselves who are presented as sexually assertive.

In Denise Robins's Women Who Seek (1928), the heroine Eve pursues an adulterous relationship with her lover. M&B had no problem with extramarital sex until the more prudish 1950s.

As the Depression years take hold, heroes are father-figure types; passion comes a poor second to hunger. The heroines tend to have jobs - even after they get married, which was not common at the time.

As the Second World War begins to dominate storylines, there is a focus on women in uniform who display a markedly pragmatic attitude. When Vanya, a nurse, finally gets together with Damon at the end of Jan Tempest's Westward to My Love (1944), she is ecstatic to find he has been posted close to where she lives: "Then I can still do part-time at St Keverne's [hospital]. You won't mind if I do?" she asks him.

"Anything that's OK by you is OK by me, my sweet," he replies.

Ironically, it was only when M&B ditched its other genres and focused on romance that female characters became less assertive. Alan Boon, son of founder Charles, who took over after the war, was an advocate of the alpha ale concept (a belief that the female of any species is attracted to the strongest male).

At the same time, as women retreated back into the home, losing some of the freedoms and financial independence of the war years, M&B turned to jet-set fantasy with heroines following their alpha males to increasingly exotic locations.

It was in the 1960s and 1970s - as the women's movement gained impetus - that M&B developed its anti-feminist reputation. This was largely due to its star author, Violet Winspear, a spinster who lived with her mother and cats, but who introduced a far racier tone into M&B novels.

In an interview in Radio Times she described her heroes as "the sort of men who are capable of rape; men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with". This quote would haunt Winspear - and M&B - for the rest of her career.

Certainly M&B books from this era are disturbing. In Anne Mather's Beware the Beast (1976) the sex scenes between heroine Charlotte and alpha male Alex Faulkner are uncomfortable to read ("Charlotte's struggles were to no avail… she sobbed against his chest when he tore the nightgown from her").

The feminist researcher jay Dixon has argued that M&B novels are, in fact, acting out the struggles of the women's movement. "Sex as a coercive weapon is condemned in the novels," she writes, "both by the direct opposition of the heroine and by the endings when sex becomes an expression of love not of power.

This type of M&B, so abhorred by feminists… shows that women are aware of misogynist violence but they do not leave it there… The novels attempt to explain why this should be so and offer a solution based on the power of love."

In the 1980s and 1990s, when many of the battles of the women's movement had been won, M&B authors ushered in more sympatico New Men as heroes, and increasing numbers of career women - lawyers, journalists, petroleum engineers - as heroines.

In Claire Harrison's 1986 book Diplomatic Affair, the hero even resigns from his job as a diplomat when he realises that accepting a promotion would mean his lover would be unable to continue her work as a paediatrician. And in Penny Jordan's The Sheikh's Virgin Bride (2003), it is Petra who insists on the reluctant hero taking her virginity.

So what do today's M&B tell us about us? Sexual violence of any kind is now taboo, according to Clare Somerville, M&B's marketing director. But are we more liberal than our predecessors? Surprisingly not.

Gay characters are never heroes or heroines (although they sometimes appear as secondary characters), and as jay Dixon points out, until recently there had never been a black heroine in M&B.

Even today, they are confined to the Desire imprint, described as "passionate, daring and provocative love stories" or the black romance series, Kimani, published by Harlequin, M&B's owners in North America.

As for the alpha male? Well, he remains a fictional fantasy. "The thing is, it's fantasy," says Somerville. "It is demeaning to women to suggest we don't know the difference between reality and fantasy. No one suggests that men who watch Top Gear think that that's what driving every car is going to be like."

Today M&B offers 12 different styles for the romance-hungry reader - from M&B Blaze, the most sexually explicit, to M&B Intrigue, which specialises in unlikely paranormal romance ("Two hundred years after the Raintree clan defeated them, the Ansara wizards are rising again…").

A reflection, perhaps, of the fact that women have more choices available to them than ever before - or is it that we still can't make up our minds about what we want? Take comfort, though. As long as there is M&B, there'll always be a sheikh available…

There we go! What will I blog about next year. May I say the word 'churning' always makes my teeth grate? If it's so easy why aren't more of the people who try writing for Mills & Boon successful???

Heaven help me, back to my shiekh!! :)

The centenary year continues ...

2008-02-10T18:45:00.000Z

Well, I'm back home and at work in the cupboard-which-passes-for-my-study. (I've put that in for my editor who would really like this book.) The offical launch of Mills & Boon's centenary year, held at the Wallace Collection (left), was fun but I've got to say the best part was catching up with writing friends.

I'll tell you all about it another day because I honestly do have loads of words to do this week, plus a library talk tomorrow AND it's half-term holiday week so I have my children 'not bothering me but just wanting to know ....'

I love it really, but it does slow me down.

For now I have the latest article to appear in the British press.

Ready? Got yourself a coffee??

The Great Escape

From classic romances to raunchy romps, Mills & Boon novels have been satisfying readers' fantasies for 100 years. But they aren't as easy to write as you might think, reveals Kathryn Hughes.

Saturday February 9, 2008
The Guardian

In the mid-1980s, I was working on a glossy women's magazine and not enjoying it at all. Straight out of Oxford, I had thought this was going to be a training ground for being a writer, and discovered that it was something else entirely. As I recall, most people working on weeklies and monthlies at that time were victims of a similar (dis)illusion, and consequently there were an awful lot of sour-looking faces. Over at TV Times, so the rumour went, every single sub was secretly working on a literary novel during office hours, with the result that any request to cast an eye over next week's listings for the Royal Variety Performance was met with pained looks and theatrical sighs.

At my magazine, we had more modest ambitions: we wanted to write a Mills & Boon, on the principle that if anyone could do it, surely it was us. For, above all, we knew how to produce copy so transparent that you could dive into it and not notice you were engaged in the act of reading. What's more, we understood what women's lives were like. Not in the way that was increasingly debated with worried frowns in seminar rooms up and down the country (this was the decade when "women's studies" emerged in universities), but in terms that made sense to us. We weren't fussed about the patriarchy, but we did know what it felt like to ache with desire for an outfit by Wendy Dagworthy, a boyfriend who spoke French, or the knack of getting your hair to look like Kelly McGillis's in Top Gun.

This ambition to write a Mills & Boon ran round the magazine like a craze, the kind of thing that used to happen at school when everyone suddenly decided to dab their pulse points with musk oil or carry their books in a BOAC bag. And, just as at school, we all pretended that we were hardly aware that other people might have had the same idea. I'm pretty certain that there was a briefing pack we all sent off for: Mills & Boon has always been democratically alert to the ambition of its readers to become writers. After all, producing commercial fiction has for centuries been one of the few ways that women can make a professional wage while staying at home to look after others.

The would-be author pack was welcoming but realistic. Everyone thinks they can knock off a Mills & Boon, but it's harder than it looks. The really important thing, said the bumph sternly, was not to condescend to your readers. Clearly, the company had grown weary of submissions from smarty-pants who attempted to ventriloquise a mass-market fiction voice while failing to disguise that they felt it a bit beneath them, rather like Dick Van Dyke doing cockney.

Yet, I felt, that caveat could not be directed at me. I worked, after all, for a women's magazine and had already endured quite enough condescension during my baby-sized career not to wish to inflict it on anyone else. So, feeling myself naturally advantaged with both skills and insight, I set to writing a Mills & Boon. I did what you're supposed to, and stuck to what I more or less knew. So my heroine was a journalist (tick) who is sent to interview (tick) a hotshot financier (cross) in Luxembourg (double cross). I'd never been to the place, but I liked the way that it managed to be exotic and accessible at the same time. Crafty, and surely exactly the kind of subtle calibration of reality and desire that Mills & Boon was after.

In the event, I got a letter back from the company saying that, although the manuscript wasn't right, it was worth persevering. In other words, I should start again with another story and set of characters. While this wasn't great, I knew enough about rejection letters to know that it wasn't a brush-off either. So I was feeling decidedly perky, until the assistant editor of the magazine sauntered in and announced that, as a result of her submission to Mills & Boon, she'd been called in for a meeting. Obviously, they'd liked her synopsis and three sample chapters more than mine. Since I knew that I was a better writer than her - I was, I was - I gave up in a huff, with the consoling thought that perhaps, after all, you really did have to have a touch of the shop girl in you to write such trash successfully. It's amazing how snooty you become when turned down by Mills & Boon.

My escape route from journalism came another way. I got a PhD place and a full grant - those were the days - and no longer needed to come up with ways of financing what I really wanted to do, which was to think and write about the 19th century. Once ensconced in a seminar room of plastic chairs studded with fag burns, I was obliged to confront just what I had been doing when attempting to dream up that story about a pretty young journalist with a heart-shaped face who manages to tame a wealthy financier with a hard-to-place accent and a way with the ladies. Urged on by my new, serious-minded friends, I concluded that, after two and a bit decades of internalising the patriarchy, I had unwittingly become its handmaiden. In other words, in trying to write a Mills & Boon, I had not only oppressed myself, but I had become an instrument of oppression to others. Thank heavens the publisher turned me down.

Things have changed since then. That thuggish impulse to police women's fantasy lives, not to mention their reading habits, has slipped away from feminist discourse. Taking the long historic view, you can see how Mills & Boon novels emerged from a venerable tradition of serialised fiction aimed at working-class women. In the 1920s and 30s, publications such as Peg's Paper gave weary mill girls and factory workers a repeating roundelay of love affairs between raffish milords and little Cinderellas to sweeten the odd 20 minutes of what would now be called "me time". That Mills & Boon romantic fiction really took off in the Depression likewise suggests that it provided a much-needed escape from an increasingly grim economic landscape where jobs, let alone passing marquises with cruel smiles, were distinctly scarce.

But so what? Just because something has been around a long time doesn't make it good or right. Sterner souls than mine would argue that here is post-feminism doing its usual thing of trying to elevate the sugary scraps fed to women to keep them sweet into some kind of rich and self-determining culture. In any case, Mills & Boon novels have changed, or rather they are always changing, which is why they are so successful: each year, 200 million copies are sold worldwide, and 60 new titles are produced in the UK alone. When I tried my luck in 1986, there was a lot of talk about how the novels had had to evolve to take account of women's entry into the professions (that's why my heroine was a journalist, not a nurse). Acutely sensitive to readerly desire, Mills & Boon continually polls its readers for their reactions to its current crop of novels, then tweaks future texts accordingly. It's a permanent process of cultural feedback.

That's why there are now 12 distinct strands to Mills & Boon (in literary publishing, they'd be called "imprints"), ranging from the kind of classic romance I tried to write 20 years ago to ones set entirely in hospitals, or in crinolines. And then there is the Desire series. The Desire brand comes as the biggest shock to anyone who lazily thinks they already know what goes on in Mills & Boon land. In these books, the hero has an erection by chapter three and isn't afraid to use it. In fact, he "thrusts" and "explodes" so often in the course of exactly 55,000 words that it's amazing he finds time to run a finance company/a ranch/a whole desert kingdom.

The heroine in a Desire book, meanwhile, won't be a virgin because that would be weird (if no one else fancies her, then how can the thrusting, exploding hero?), but she will be a born-again celibate. Some trauma - the death of an earlier love, even a divorce - will have left her in sexual limbo for months, if not years. It's the hero's job to guide her back into a full erotic life, which ends, if not with marriage, at least with something that feels very like it. And if this still doesn't strike you as quite saucy enough, then you're probably a candidate for Mills & Boon's latest addition to the stable, the Blaze imprint, in which the hero and heroine barely have time to swap a bit of witty banter before getting down to business in a variety of locations culled from a reading of Hello! magazine.

That a Mills & Boon novel will present its reader with a fantasy of romantic fulfilment, in which the alpha-male hero voluntarily gives up his evasive ways and commits to monogamy with the heroine, is a given. What is less immediately apparent is the way that the novels also provide a fantasy of "upper-class" life. Sometimes this upper-classness is expressed in terms of money, with a shipping magnate or a sheikh as the hero. In other cases, the fantasy is rooted, no more accurately, in the English class system. For instance, in The Once-a-Mistress Wife, the hero is "an English lord" called Kane Brentwood (not a name you see very often in Burke's). Although this peer of the realm can thrust and explode with the best of them, he has the distinctly non-U habit of saying "pleased to meet you" on being introduced to new people. This perhaps explains why he is no longer tramping the ancestral grouse moor, but instead runs an investment company in Manhattan.

Since both the setting and the author of The Once-a-Mistress Wife are American, perhaps these jumbled class signifiers are inevitable. Less understandable, and therefore more interesting, is when they pop up in a British title. In English Lord, Ordinary Lady, by Fiona Harper, the punk-heroine Josie is on the run from her smart background (she's actually "Lady Josie", but never uses the title). Eventually, she is obliged to go home, which gives us the chance to see what she's been trying to escape from all this time. Her mother, presented as a model of autocratic hauteur, spends her time running a finger along the mantelpiece for dust and ticking Josie off for her "inappropriate" behaviour. In fact, she's a ringer for Hyacinth "Bouquet".

The fascination with social class that runs through Mills & Boon is fitting given that the company started life in 1908 by producing not romantic fiction, but etiquette books. The Edwardian period, flush with cash and all sorts of new kinds of mobility, was full of people trying to ease themselves into a different station from the one into which they had been born. How-to manuals were predicated on the belief that there lay, just out of reach, a finer way of life that could be accessed if only you knew the entry code - which fork to use, how to tie your scarf. That these books were always slightly "off" in their representations of how things were done in the best circles (for what peer of the realm or society lady would really need to make a living by advising the plebs how to enter a drawing room gracefully?) didn't really matter. At some level, readers knew that their Cinderella moment of transformation, in which they threw off their everyday persona of clerk or typist and passed unnoticed as a lady or gentleman, would never actually arrive. Reading about it, imagining that moment again and again, was enough.

Just as these early Mills & Boon etiquette manuals spoke to the desire for social transformation, so the company's more recent fiction provides a permanent waiting room for the emotional and material life that you always felt should be yours. That the moment of arrival never comes is what drives the seemingly unstoppable sales (the books are even being published in Polish now, for all the new immigrants). As with pornography - to which Andrea Dworkin famously likened romantic fiction - this hankering for a set of different, better circumstances is endlessly catered to. How apt, then, that when I wanted to change my life all those years ago, it was to Mills & Boon that I turned first.

That's it!

Meanwhile, over at the Mirror, they've reviewed Trish's book. Go see her blog.

And it's my choice to come up with the Pink Heart Society nomination for Male on Monday ...

Ooooooooh Errrr!

2008-02-03T00:04:00.000Z

The power of love: 100 years of romantic fiction
It was a perfect match: two publishers with a taste for romance and an eye for a market. A century on, millions of readers are still besotted with Mills & Boon. But what is their secret?
Saturday, 2 February 2008

This one was in the Independent and is so vitriolic I'm laughing. I can't quickly see who wrote it, perhaps they're too ashamed to put their name to it, but I would love to know what agenda they have going on. Can't stop to comment on it either as I'm too busy making my millions! :)

Has a sheikh ever read a Mills & Boon romance? Sheikhs feature a lot in these million-selling novels, but are seldom found reading books in them (too much wooing and stamping and looking cruel); but were they to read Desert Rapture or The Moonlit Oasis or The Falcon's Mistress, would they be surprised to discover how often they fall in love with rather ordinary-looking British women, with coltish virgins and plain-but-plucky athletes? Would they be interested to learn how invariably they're described as possessing strong jawlines, high cheekbones and jet-black eyes?

A whole 80 years after Rudolph Valentino made female audiences swoon with his desert-based wooing, fictional sheikhs can still, mirabile dictu, be found ordering women around in Mills & Boon plots. So can other alpha-male stereotypes, especially cowboy ranchers, business moguls, billionaires (mere millionaires need not apply any more) and swarthy plutocrats of indeterminate employment, known only as "the Spaniard," "the Italian" and inevitably "the Greek".

They're all at the heart of a publishing phenomenon which celebrates its centenary on Thursday, and can boast some extraordinary statistics. Their books are translated into 25 languages and sell in 100 international markets. They have a stable of 1,300 authors around the world, many of whom make millions but most of whom prefer to lurk behind noms de plume. A jaw-dropping 35 million titles are sold every year worldwide, seven million in the UK. Flying in the face of public condescension (and mainstream publishing trends), they publish 70 new titles each month and pulp any unsold copies after three months. For an organisation concerned with melting hearts and stumbling moonlight confessions, they're ruthless as a sheikh.

Many stories attest to their efficiency. When the Berlin Wall was breached in 1989, and the people of East Berlin emerged blinking into the light of freedom, one of the odder gifts they received was a Mills & Boon novel. Harlequin, owners of the imprint, had watched the collapse of Communism with interest and calculated that, if there was one thing the newly-unshackled female population had missed over 25 years, it was romance. They directed their West Berlin office to thrust 750,000 free copies of Penny Jordan's A Reason for Being into the chilly hands of East Berlin's lovelorn hausfrauen. It was a characteristic Mills & Boon move, combining shrewd commercialism with the chance to spread the narcotic fluid of boy-meets-girl through a lot of new veins. They've always known romance sells and they've sold it better – and with more focus and sophistication – than anyone else.

The company was launched in 1908 by Gerald Mills and Charles Boon, young entrepreneurs with £1,000 to spend. They meant to publish books on several subjects, including travel and crafts, but their first production was Arrows from the Dark by Sophie Cole – a romance. It sold modestly (1,300 copies in six years) but history, of a kind, was made. The house published early work by PG Wodehouse and Hugh Walpole, and made a name for itself as the "Promised Land" for new writers, where the efforts of fledglings would, unusually be welcomed. By 1913, Charles Boon had spotted where their natural market lay. "I am certain that the bulk of novels published are devoured by women before they can reach men," he told the Daily Citizen.

The company discerned a growing appetite among women readers for escapist reading and decided to concentrate on hardback romantic fiction. They had two unique selling propositions: their brightly-coloured, eye-catching jackets, picturing lantern-jawed heroes and fleeing beauties swept on to galloping horses by desert bandits; and the fact that their target audience was middle- and upper-class women, who would never have sullied their eyes with the "mill-girls' romances" of the late 19th century.

Depression and the Second World War did wonders for the escapism market. Romances flew off the nation's shelves with the speed of Hurricanes. On the back of every new M&B title, an advertisement pictured a well-to-do woman declaring, in Celia Johnson tones, "I always look for a Mills & Boon when I want a pleasant book. Your troubles are at an end when you chose a Mills & Boon novel. No more doubts! No more disappointments!" In other words, you always knew you were going to get a happy ending. With the decline of the circulating libraries, through which their early books were mainly sold, the company arranged for their books to be sold in newsagents all over the country. They also sold titles by direct-mail catalogue, and made a lucrative serialisation deal with Women's Weekly.

While their fortunes sky-rocketed, however, their reputation declined in the new age of television, rock '*' roll and Sixties radicalism. Mills & Boon as a generic concept seemed hopelessly outmoded, its romantic plots empty slush, its characters plaster mannequins, its whole ethos bland, vanilla-flavoured, elderly. Bookshops that stocked their titles consigned them to a ghetto shelf, as if embarrassed by them. Indeed, they often seemed interchangeable commodities to their readers. When I worked for a summer in a London library in 1976, I found a line of pencil marks inside the back cover of Moonlight Over Cordoba and told the boss someone was defacing books. "That's the Mills & Boon readers, poor old dears," she replied, "They put their initials in the back to tell themselves they've already read that one."

Despite the image problem, the pastel tide of romance has become oceanic. Today, Mills & Boon sell more than ever, in more countries than ever. From next week, they'll print books in India for the first time (beginning with the irresistible Virgin Slave, Barbarian King) looking to take a chunk of 300 million English-reading consumers. They've established a romantic presence in the lucrative Japanese Manga market. And they've just announced that they'll be launching, through W H Smith, a dozen titles in translation (such as Ksiaze Pustyni, Tejemniczy Ukochany or Mysterious Lover, Desert Prince) to cater for Polish émigrés.

I went to meet the top brass at their HQ in the appropriately named Paradise Road in Guildford, Surrey. In a building of breathtaking ugliness, the editorial director of Harlequin Mills & Boon Ltd – the grand panjandrum of worldwide romance – turned out to be Karin Stoecker, a tiny Canadian dame in her 50s with a briskly logical manner and no trace of stars in her eyes. "It's hard to talk about the Mills & Boon demographic because we have people from all ages and income brackets reading us," she said. "Forty years ago, authors and readers were from a higher socio-economic class, and now it's more widespread, but that has a lot to do with the way education has changed in the last 50 years. People read by life-stage and mood than for any other reason." Meaning? "When they have time on their hands. When you find yourself at home with young children, and you can't get out of the house and you'll read anything with adult words in it." She is under no delusion that Mills & Boon deal in literary masterpieces. "They're books you don't get too involved in. One woman said to me years ago, 'I love your books, I can put them down any time.' She meant she could also pick them up again and go right on where she left off, without thinking, 'Oh God, what have I forgotten?'"

The sea-change in the company's post-war fortunes was its decision to split its titles into genres, and to package and market them accordingly. "Before that," said Karin, "we just trusted the readers to know which kind of books they liked. Now, the mass market for romance is fragmented, and it's a matter of managing multiple niches." They rely on readers' advice, but rather more on the instincts of their authors, who invariably began life as M&B readers. Of the 12 niche imprints, "Modern" always features jet-set luxury, "Romance" deals in the now-traditional sheikhs, ranchers, billionaires and tanned Europeans (their titles are hilariously interchangeable: The Spaniard's Captive Bride, The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride, Wedded at the Italian's Convenience and my favourite, The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin). "Historical" is love accessorised by ruffs, doublets and mob caps. "Medical" is basically Holby City with more heaving bosoms. The "Blaze" imprint promises readers fairly explicit smut, even going so far as oral sex (with ice cubes) and hot lesbian action. "I was on the team that worked on that," said Lesley Stone, a senior editor. "It was a spinoff from the Temptation series in 1995, which was light and flirty and fresh, and everyone liked the extra sex, so Blaze became a series by itself. Just like a TV spinoff." Did the readers actually say, "We'd like some soft porn, please?" Lesley looked aghast. "It's not soft porn. They just wanted it to be more realistic. People do go on holiday and they do have flings. They'll have sex, but it would still end up as a committed relationship, and it's still character-driven so it's still a romance."

Uniquely among publishers, the staff undertake to read every manuscript and treatment sent in by aspirant writers. Karin Soecker and a team of 20 editors take a day off each week to read them. "The most common mistake people make," said Jenny Hutton, a young editor who occasionally sounds just like a Mills & Boon heroine, "is when they've worked at the plot rather than really got to know the characters. You need a strongly constructed heroine to take you through the story and hero who the reader's in love with the minute he appears." But aren't romance heroes, from Mr Darcy onwards, complete bastards when they first appear? "But that's the talent of the author," said Ms Hutton, "You may have a hero whose life has gone wrong in the past, but the author can make you like him. You can have a flawed character but you can show his good qualities and how he's affected by the heroine, and how he changes through the story."

I suggested that Mills & Boon heroes hadn't changed much in 50 years, that they were invariably cruel and bossy. "Oh I don't know," breathed Jenny. "There may be a touch of ruthlessness about them, but really they're just taking the reins of the situation, they're in control of what's going on, and the heroine is the only one who gets in through the chink in their armour." Shouldn't they be more charming, along the lines of Jude Law or Hugh Grant? "Nah," said Karin dismissively. "You couldn't trust them to be faithful. There was a time in the early 1990s, when what we might call the beta male dominated. He was much more the guy next door, like Tom Hanks. He probably worked for somebody and had all the stresses and neuroses of someone like that. But you deal with the kind of person in real life." "When you're married to Joe, or Dave, or Jeff," said Jenny. "You really want..." "Niarchos" said Karin with finality.
What was going on with modern Mills & Boon heroines? Most of their titles involved women being captured, or ravished, stolen or "taken" – generally imprisoned rather than courted.
"I think there's a secret desire, particularly among busy successful women," said Karin with determination, "that for one day, for two hours, they can abdicate responsibility from doing it all. That somebody else will make the decisions. The point of the hero is more about his having the power to make it happen, than his being ruthless and cruel. Really, it's all about the total abdication of responsibility."

But all this endless repetition of being captured and taken... Can that really be women's secret desire in 2008? "The heroine is much more in charge in the books now," said Lesley. "She's appalled by the sheikh's behaviour and says, 'But he can't do such a thing in this day and age.' And the sheikh says, 'Yes I can, because I rule this kingdom.' But of course it'll work out fine, because they'll fall for each other..."

Look, I said, Where is the fantasy about female empowerment? Why isn't there a title like The Virgin's Convenient Sheikh, when the tables are turned? "The thing is," said Jenny, "readers often know that the sheikh is, in fact, at the virgin's mercy because of her strength of character. He wants her and is thrilled by her and that's what people know they'll get out of the story."
But, I persisted, wouldn't it be a brilliant sub-genre if the girl were the proactive character who imprisons the irate Spaniard? "But that would mean," said Karin, "once again, the woman's gotta do all the work. This is not a fantasy for women any more. Lose that idea right now."
"Yes, ma'am," I said. Anything you say.

What an idiot! So glad I'm not writing that kind of nonsense for a living.

The deed is done!

2008-01-31T20:07:00.000Z

Decision made - and thoroughly unpleasant it was. But here, after much angst, is the newest addition to my family.

At the moment, my love for it is not unconditional but we're working at the wrinkles in our relationship.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that a new laptop would be exciting, but actually it's *really* irritating. I suppose it all comes down to wanting it to 'just do'. There's not the smallest part of me that enjoys customising it or discovering how to do something a new and better way.

I miss my old laptop, so loved I'd worn the letters away with use.

I miss my floppy discs. I like them sitting, colour coded and labelled, in my box. Easy to find everything I've ever written. What is it with these memory sticks????? Already I have no idea what's on them. What's worse is the time it takes to safely remove them when you get the wrong one. Bah!

Also, the 'edit' button is on the top left of the screen, but the 'find text' one is then over on the top right. Who thought that was a good idea???? I'm sure there will be an easier way of doing that, BUT I DON'T KNOW IT.

I hate transferring information from one machine to another. *Such* a waste of time. And after I've done it I'm only where I was before I started.

But, enough, it is mine and we will work through these things.

In the end I narrowed the decision down to a 'Toshiba' because it has a curved front edge. Good for the wrist I thought. And I sacrificed size for lightness. Trish Wylie swung me in that direction. She's still not recovered from lugging her laptop around the States last summer. No doubt she'll be doing it again and I can feel smug that, should I go, I would find it much easier. :)

I'd love to go to the RWA conference this year, but I doubt I'll be able to find the time or the childcare. This year, fellow Harlequin Romance authors, Jessica Hart, Barbara Hannay and Barbara McMahon, are giving a workshop. The working title is "Emotion, Emotion, Emotion: Writing Romance with Global Appeal". Lovely choice, I think. The 'Romance' line really does have global appeal. Anyone have any good ideas what to do with the foreign copies I get sent??? The novelty has already worn off and I'm rather overrun ....

My laptop has died!

2008-01-29T22:41:00.000Z

And that's all I have to say, really. Humph.

Oh, and if Ms Johnson is around anywhere and would like to order me a replacement that'd be great. I swear it's worse than buying a car. That's so much it's easier, don't you think? Obviously colour is the most important factor, then a place to put the coffee cup while waiting for children to finish assorted clubs.

The thing about a laptop is I JUST WANT IT TO WORK. How difficult is that??? I don't find them intrinsically interesting. I don't want to spend half a day discussing it. I just want it to handle text in Word. Producing text being my job. Light would be good, since there are times when I've lugged my old laptop around and wished it didn't weigh as much as my eldest son's school bag, but it's not essential. I probably won't even put it on the internet because I have a 'big' computer for that. I certainly won't play games. Might be tempted by DragonSpeak at some point.

Of course there isn't a sales person in the country who believes me and I'm convinced they haven't really grasped the complexities of what they're selling anyway.

I've just spent the longest time looking up differing specifications on the web (big computer) and I've decided it's a degree subject. Anyone care to tell me what the difference between a DVD-SuperMulti Dual Layer Optical Drive is as compared to a DVD SuperMulti Dual Layer. And do we care anyway??? (No please don't! My will to live is ebbing ....)

Bah!

Courtesy of the Times ...

2008-01-28T22:12:00.000Z

I give you India and some Fun Facts! The links are here and here.

I've known about the India market for quite a time, but this is what appeared in the Times (on the 24th I gather). The 'Romance' line is likely to feature quite heavily, apparently.

Mills & Boon starts a local love affair with India
Rhys Blakely in Bombay

It is the consummation of one of the longest — and most breathless — romances in global publishing: a new chapter will start for Harlequin Mills & Boon next month when it sets up shop in India. Readers in the sub-continent — including, apparently, a significant number of men — have been swooning over the romantic novels since the days of the Raj. However, the Mills & Boon books found piled high on India’s bookstalls find their way into the country even though the publisher has never had a long-term distributor.

All that will change on February 4, when titles such as the recent Virgin Slave, Barbarian King begin to print in India for the first time and Mills & Boon, which celebrates its centenary this year, becomes the latest Western publisher to target India’s 300 million English-reading consumers. In 2005, the Indian Government allowed foreign groups to own non-news publications wholly for the first time, triggering a rush of interest. Last October, Condé Nast, the American publisher, launched Vogue India, the first 100 per cent foreign-controlled magazine. GQ, its men’s equivalent, is expected in a matter of months.

Mills & Boon, which sells nearly 200 million romantic novels a year, believes that its wares — with their virginal, vulnerable heroines and tall, dark heroes — hit a unique chord.

“India is crazy about true romance,” Andrew Go, the head of the Indian operation, said. “Look at the basic Bollywood plot: boy meets girl; conflict; happy ending. We carry across that trend. We say we sell four books a second, Actually it’s 4.4. If I can take that to five, I’m a hero.”

India has the potential to hit Mr Go’s target: the popularity of the country’s lending libraries is declining as India’s burgeoning middle class opts to buy rather than borrow.

The full Mills & Boon portfolio will not be unleashed. Steamier series will be held back, but there are also suggestions that titles will be tailored to India, which Mr Go says represents “a new pool of creative talent”. Mills & Boon “has never been prejudiced” on where its writers hail from, he added — which some would say is an understatement. To feed its readers’ voracious appetites, the company carries formulaic advice on its websites for aspiring writers to follow (If only it were that simple, Mr Blakely!). Mr Go expects more Indian authors to join the Mills & Boon ranks this year.

Nevertheless, success in India carries its challenges. Mills & Boon will sell books for just 99 rupees (£1.30) each. “The margins here are lower than anywhere else,” Mr Go said. “No one rushes into India. This is a long-term project.”

And on the 25th came Eight Fun Facts:

1. Thirty five million Mills & Boon titles are sold each year worldwide. Think we have a stiff upper lip? Seven million romantic novels are sold in the UK alone . . .

2. . . . which translates into a Mills & Boon book being put through our tills every 3 seconds.

3. But it’s not just us: Harlequin publishes the books in 26 different languages and they are sold in 109 countries.

4. Over the past 50 years the characters have had phenomenal luck in love. There have been 10,325 weddings (latest statistics show there were 244,710 non-fictional marriages in England and Wales in 2005), a lip-smacking 29,500 kisses (real-life statistics unavailable) and 35,250 hugs (a paucity considering the number of marriages).

5. Some 1,300 authors are employed by the publisher, approximately 200 of them through the UK office.

6. With its monthly readership of more than 1 million, Harlequin Mills & Boon is a UK Top 10 adult fiction publisher.

7. Enduring love? We’re a fickle lot. Mills & Boon series books have a shelf life of only one month. To keep up with demand, they are released in two shipping cycles each month (the first and third Friday, should you be waiting). (Though available from M&B/Harlequin websites and Amazon much longer ...)

8. There are, therefore, approximately 70 titles published every month in the UK

That aside, I'm blogging over at the Pink Heart Society today. My turn to nominate a Male on Monday. Hot on the heels of Burns Night I've picked Ewan McGregor.

And the Daily Mail has us too!

2008-01-27T13:29:00.000Z

Help! I'm addicted to Mills and Boon
By ANGELA EPSTEIN
Daily Mail

Racing around Tesco the other day, my trolley dash was brought to an unexpected halt by the sight of a striking couple whose compelling appearance snagged my attention. The man was tall, lantern-jawed (hollow-faced??? Is she sure????), the expression on his ruggedly handsome face unreadable but utterly mesmerising. Edging closer, I could see the fragile blonde by his side thought so too; for though the upward tilt of her delicate chin hinted at defiance, the way she leaned into his muscular body was suggestive of a woman almost liquid with desire.

The chemistry between the two was so electrifying that suddenly all thoughts of my weekly shop were abandoned and replaced instead by a desperation to know how such a captivating partnership had come to pass. And so with one fluid movement, I grabbed the Mills & Boon paperback on which they were cover stars and quickly concealed it in my trolley as though it were a topshelf magazine. (Now, Liz Fielding would be proud of me because I don't do that. In fact, I invariably end up giving the lady at the checkout my business card. :) )

Wedged in the cart between a multi-pack of loo rolls and a bag of King Edwards, the passion fuelled pair looked terribly out of place (after all the man on the cover, I was soon to learn, was a Greek shipping magnate who made Bill Gates look like small change). But at least my embarrassing purchase could be hidden from view.

Yes, my name is Angela and I'm a Mills & Boon addict. I've tried to suppress my shameful obsession for more than 20 years. But as the world's most famous purveyor of romantic fiction celebrates its centenary - founded by Gerald Mills and Charles Boon in 1908, the firm began to concentrate on romantic fiction in the Thirties - I feel it's time to come clean about my craving.

I know what you're thinking, that I'm just a sad, romance-starved fantasist, incapable of appreciating good writing. But I'm actually an emancipated woman with a frisky, adorable husband and a degree in English literature which enables me to quote vast tracts of Shakespeare.

How, then, could my literary heritage and position as postmodern woman have been supplanted by an obsession with these soufflÈ-light, sausage machine fantasies? (Hmmmm. Thanks, I think ....) Well actually, the genesis of my addiction was profoundly ironic. Having spent my years as a student ploughing through mountains of classics at break-neck speed, ("read David Copperfield for Thursday" was a typical task), I couldn't face reading anything which smacked of high art or serious scholarship for years after I graduated.

And so, while on holiday, to enjoy my freedom before I joined the rat race, and in a state of acknowledged literary burn-out, I found myself picking up a dog- eared Mills & Boon romance from the shelf of my rented apartment. With patronising amusement I challenged myself to survive the first chapter. I ended up devouring the entire book, as well as the other yellowing M&B titles around the flat.

Reader, I was hooked.

After that, whenever I stumbled upon one of these paperback romances I couldn't resist flicking it open. In fact, when I began work as a trainee reporter a couple of months later, I found myself buying dog-eared copies from the open-air book stall near my office, hiding my furtive purchases behind my newspaper on the train home. As an intellectual snob, I was hideously embarrassed by my addiction. Yet still, I couldn't help myself.

So I raced through Darkness Of The Heart, pored over The Passionate Lover, and lapped up No Longer A Dream. It was an unfathomable compulsion. Particularly since I quickly discovered the narrative in each book observed the same pattern: young, spirited virgin collides with rich, successful sexually magnetic older man in a story seasoned with succulent adjectives.

They fight, they deny, they smoulder and despair before acknowledging their lifechanging attraction in a blizzard of passion and an inevitable marriage proposal. And yet the more I read, the more I found there was something sweetly addictive about the crisp writing style, the restrained glamour of the settings, the slightly out-of-date attention to detail found in the heroine's Broderie Anglaise bolero or her lover's avocado hors d'oeuvre.

This was a world which nudged reality but filtered out its grimier details.
Above all, I couldn't resist the hero.

A character flawed by his desire to possess his unsuitable conquest. Not such a stretch from Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, I weakly told myself. I even tried to write one myself, inspired to make an attempt after interviewing a matronly M&B author who spent her days as a shorthand typist and her nights decanting her wild imagination onto sheets of A4.

How difficult could it be? It was only when I found it impossible to stretch the uncompromising passion between "Rex and Jacey" (my hero and heroine) beyond the first two chapters that I realised writing for this publishing institution demands a rare touch.

Though I've long since returned to reading "good books" as well, I still can't resist my fix of Mills & Boon and often have two disparate titles on the go. Which is why, after yesterday's spontaneous purchase, my Greek millionaire and his conquered blonde were nestling together underneath Tess Of The D'Urbervilles. Now there's an eye-watering image - and perhaps the starting point for yet another bodice ripper. (We were going so well, but that term 'bodice ripper' is annoying. Who writes that???)

As below, the pink is me!

And we're in the Observer ...

2008-01-27T13:09:00.000Z

And here it is:

Who said romance was dead?

In the time it takes you to read this page, Britons will have bought 100 novels by Mills & Boon, now in its centenary year

Francesca Segal
Sunday January 27, 2008
The Observer

'Men are so beaten into submission these days,' says Jilly Cooper. 'They're so wet and worried and confused that one simply has to reach into romance novels to find a proper hero.'
That prince of sales figures, Harry Potter, has shifted 400 million books in his 11-year career. But when you realise that 200 million Mills & Boon novels are sold worldwide every year, it's all too obvious that Jilly Cooper has a point. (Don't you just love that paragraph!!)

A Mills & Boon paperback is sold in a UK bookshop on average every 6.6 seconds. Compare this to our domestic market for literary fiction, where some critically acclaimed novels sell so few copies that the author might well have been better to bypass the publishers and knock them off on a photocopier. As it reaches its centenary, Mills & Boon is a truly astonishing phenomenon.
In 1908, the company was launched as a publisher of general fiction, as well as etiquette guides and manuals for modern living. One contributor wrote under the rather progressive pseudonym of 'Gentleman With a Duster', but its list also featured Jack London, PG Wodehouse and Hugh Walpole. It became clear very quickly, however, that romances outsold all else. The character of the list has changed immeasurably, but if the company has retained anything from those first years, it is its policy of encouraging new writers alongside its stars.

It was Charles Boon who realised that the future of the company lay with women's fiction and during the First World War, as life became harder and men more scarce, he began to focus on the escapist romance novels for which the house is now known. And yet there has always been a pervasively sneering attitude to them, the name synonymous with saccharine sentiments, prehistoric gender roles and risible sexual euphemism. Why, with 3.2 million devoted readers in the UK and 50 million worldwide, has such snobbery persisted?

'I think it's partly because they're cheap,' says Joanna Bowring, co-curator of the Mills & Boon centenary exhibition at Manchester Central Library, 'and also because they're considered disposable literature. And they're almost exclusively read and written by women and so have never been taken very seriously.'

Mills & Boon is a very serious business. Its highly stylised category romances are published in 12 distinct series, whose content ranges from the innocent to the explicit; from cosy, domestic love stories to glamorous international dramas. A reader picking up a hot-pink Romance novel will never be subjected to the graphic, lust-fuelled scenes in a flame-covered Blaze story. Some follow the quaintly traditional path most associated with the novels - virgins, chaste kisses and wedding bells, while others have evolved to represent their current readers and show single mothers, divorcees and mistresses, the complex structures of modern families and relationships.

Their specificity is astonishing - one series, Medical Romance, is peopled entirely with hunky doctors and pretty nurses, while Modern Romance is filled with an alternating catalogue of Greeks, Italians and Arab sheikhs. Nocturne, launching later this year, will focus on the improbably narrow niche of paranormal passions.

Read one you enjoy and the colour of jacket will guide you to the others in the same series, sharing enough elements that you will never be disappointed. It is this repetition of both plot and characters that inspires criticism, but it is also what keeps readers reaching for the shelves or, in the case of subscribers, the letterbox. Committed readers receive up to 70 books a month by post and such is their faith in the consistency of the brand that they simply take what's new rather than selecting individual titles.

Like Disney, everything in the Mills & Boon universe is tightly controlled. Fans have learnt that they can depend on them completely for the security of a happy ending. As one subscriber from Fort Worth, Texas, explained: 'They give faith when you need it. You know everything will be all right and the man is not a swine.' They tap into a fundamental need for reassurance, a small domain of predictability in a world where bad things happen. This is the awesome power of the romance novel and the reason why the relentless attacks of literary snobs on both the prose and the frequent use of cliche is redundant. No one believes they're great literature, nor do they need to be. They're cherished for their simplicity. Sometimes, all we want is a break from wondering what's going to happen next.

'Romance novels provide a glimpse of what we feel life could be,' says another fan from Australia. 'The heroes are always thoughtful and confident and can always take care of the women they love.'

Over the years, a frequent objection has been that romance novels cause women to become dissatisfied with their lot, encouraged to expect a Lancelot when they ought to be happy with a more readily available Don Quixote. It is only when talking to Kate Walker, one of the company's most successful authors, that I notice the subtle sexism implicit in this concern and, indeed, in many of the oft-repeated attacks on the novels. Does romance encourage women to foster unrealistic expectations? Does science fiction give men unrealistic expectations about inter-galactic space travel?

'I think,' corrects Walker, 'that the readers are aware of their escapist value - and that we've never actually met a sheikh or a Greek billionaire. And in any case, the problems that I give the characters are familiar ones that can't be solved with money or power. In that sense, it's the same issues your plumber could have with his missus, but in a glamorous setting.'

Walker has been applying this formula since 1984 and in that time has sold more than 12 million copies of her books in 67 different countries. But, like a great many Mills & Boon writers, she began 'because it's a job that a woman can do to support herself for independence while having a family. There are very few publishers that have such a strong female history. Even the heroines have traditionally been working women, not housewives. Yes, it was a company started by men, but the women have sustained it'.

Just as, in turn, it has sustained the women. 'A friend of my mother's had been abandoned by her husband,' says Walker, 'and she made a life for herself and her two kids by writing Mills & Boon novels. As a company in which women have always been so important, strong and professional, there isn't one to match it.'

But feminist critics have long attacked the books, citing retrogressive plots, passive women and the reinforcement of the dominant male. 'It means they haven't read one since the Sixties,' explains Walker. 'I couldn't write a passive woman if I tried. Yes, the men are strong, but my heroines give as good as they get.' (Hurray for Kate!!)

While the heroines have evolved since the early days, the heroes remain much as they were a century ago. 'There's always been a subtle undercurrent of force throughout the books and that's never changed from the earliest ones. Even later, when other aspects are influenced by feminism and the shifting attitudes outside the novel,' observes Joanna Bowring, 'the men are masterful and stern.'

This was expressed rather less subtly by Violet Winspear, a popular writer who caused a furore in 1970 when she declared that her male characters 'must frighten and fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape'. (How many times to you reckon we're going to read that quote this year???) A shy spinster who lived with her mother and a cat, it's easy to dismiss Winspear as out of touch with her contemporaries and her books did have unusually darker elements. But a quick glance at the titles of current releases in the racier and more cosmopolitan Modern Romance series suggests that dominance is still dominant. The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife; The Billionaire's Captive Bride; The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife; Surrender to the Sheikh; Taken by her Greek Boss - all of these are 2007 publications.

Stories in which male dominance remains the norm stand accused of setting back women's emancipation, our hard-won rights to a partner instead of a ruler. They are considered outdated, no longer representing what women of today really want, but none the less encouraging such desires to linger. The fundamental flaw to such an argument is that Mills & Boon has always been a minutely sensitive gauge, polling relentlessly and reacting instantly to the changing tastes of their readers. Whatever appears on the pages is there because the readers want it. (Oh yes!!)

This goes to the heart of what makes Mills & Boon's success so remarkable: while many of the details have evolved over the years, the core of the stories has remained the same. Every reader I spoke to expressed a similar sentiment - they reached for a romance novel for its promise of a happy ending. It's all there on the back of one of their earliest paperbacks - 'Your troubles are at an end when you choose a Mills & Boon novel. No more doubts! No more disappointments!'

It has been calculated that dedicated modern Mills & Boon readers will have seen their characters sharing some 30,000 embraces and tripping merrily to the altar at least 7,000 times, more than enough happily-ever-afters to cheer the most jaded of readers. Jilly Cooper puts it best: 'After all, life's bloody tough. Mills & Boon is much better than binge drinking.'

· Readers, Writers and Romance, an exhibition celebrating Mills & Boon's centenary, will be staged in Manchester Central Library from June, before touring the north west into 2009

And, in case you haven't guessed, the bits in pink are all mine!

M&B in the papers again ...

2008-01-26T15:15:00.000Z

Can I just say I don't actually search these things out??? They are sent to me, usually by people who see 'Mills & Boon' and "know" I'll be "interested". Of course, I am! Even if they make me splutter in inarticulate indignation.

This one doesn't, apart from the first paragraph.

'Melissa Katsoulis learns to write a Mills & Boon novel' for the 'Times' (one of the UK's broadsheet newspapers). As ever, here's the link if you'd like to see the piece in situ, otherwise it's below with their choice of picture. Not so sure about that. I think she'll end up with all kinds of back problems if writes like that.

There comes a moment in every unpublished novelist's life when she wonders, is it time? Time to change her name to Valerie Lafayette, take to bed with a box of chocs, a dreamy smile and a big pink notebook and begin her career as a romantic novelist for Mills & Boon.

And why should she be ashamed to admit this? Perhaps because Harlequin Mills & Boon, which celebrates its century this month, is considered by most to be pretty much the lowest form of novelising.

But this is the publisher that launched P.G.Wodehouse and Jack London. An M&B is bought in the UK every few seconds and its books are devoured by millions of women the world over. Plus, it allows readers to stipulate the kind of stories they want and supplies tailor-made multipacks of books to their homes - usually four a month. How democratic can you get?

The readers and writers of romance are, of course, women. And herein lies the politics. Critics argue that supplying conventional love stories to non-literary readers is not the best way to empower them. That the writers of such titles as The Playboy's Plain Jane are reinforcing an outmoded version of femininity and oppressing their sisters. Others just think the writing's bad. But they probably haven't read one recently.

Kim Young and Tessa Shapcott, senior editors of Mills & Boon's Romance series, are visibly riled by these “patronising” views. When I meet these two warm, friendly (and decidedly romantic-looking, with their tumbling tresses, pink jackets and flowing skirts) ladies at their HQ in Richmond, they present a united front against those who seek to tell their readers what not to read.

“It's like the Gothic romance boom of the 18th century,” says Tessa, “with everyone getting in a twist about what women should be reading. We have a unique understanding of how women operate emotionally. Our writers tap into thoughts you don't admit to having. And the fact is, you can think like that. You can! And you won't die!”

She also points out that their millions of readers are not stupid. They are simply women who want to escape to somewhere lovely. “Escapism is absolutely key. You can take risks, too - writing about child loss or illness, for example. But there's always a happy ending.”

If you've never read a Mills & Boon, you may not know that they do not read like Roy Lichtenstein cartoon bubbles. Nor are their heroines weak, humourless Barbie dolls. The Millionaire Tycoon and his English Rose, for example, stars a blind woman who runs her own PR company and has many a witty observation to make about attitudes to disability in the workplace and the bedroom.

So I was emboldened to have a go. Choosing the right genre is crucial if I am actually to enjoy writing it (as I must if I expect anyone to enjoy reading it). “Medical” was a no-no (how can anyone find hospitals alluring? I'm loath to touch so much as a doorknob in those places these days, let alone a man). “Blaze” - the explicitly sexy series - was out, too. To sit at my desk thinking up new euphemisms for erections is not my idea of a relaxing afternoon. “Modern” takes us into a world of A-list glamour, and I'm not sure I have the credentials. Historical was tempting, but in the end I decided to go for good old-fashioned “Romance”. The real deal. Books in this series concentrate on the interior obstacles to love, rather than exterior ones. They are about feeling emotions, not each other.
But there are rules I must adhere to if my story is to make the grade. The hero, for example, can have a few endearing imperfections, but could not have a murder conviction or occasionally use cocaine. “Yes, he has to be perfect,” says Kim. “The one you deserve. Immediately you see him you fall in love with him.”

Ah, him.

With trepidation, I present my opening chapter and synopsis to my prospective editors. My story, The Oligarch, His Wife, Their Yacht and His Lover, is about Lucy, a twentysomething from a country village who goes out to stay with her retired parents on an idyllic Greek island. The previous summer she had had a wonderful romance, with a local lad, Costas, but the affair had ended badly after he disgraced himself with a local good-time girl, claiming temporary insanity caused by a batch of dodgy ouzo. But morally robust Lucy refuses to take him back. Swearing off romance for the summer, Chapter 1 opens with her staring out to sea from her bal-
cony, vowing to let no man turn her head as long as she is on the island ...

“At that moment, several miles out to sea, Nikolai Alexievich swept his thick black hair out of his icy blue eyes, leant on the polished oak rail of his massive yacht and trained his binoculars the balcony of a little pink house on the shore. ‘Darling,” he called to his wife in Russian, “we're going ashore - there's a little property I want to add to my portfolio ...'”

My instructors liked my scene setting (I'd furnished the balcony with some nice geraniums in terracotta pots, and Nikolai's binoculars with a crystal monogram). But I'd made two schoolgirl errors: my characterisation of Nikolai as a philanderer and unscrupulous businessman (he goes on to ruin the island with a new super-yacht marina for his coarse billionaire mates) is, well, a bit racist. Point taken. And I certainly can't have “something stirring under the crisp white linen of his monogrammed robe” when he sees Lucy in her bikini. “But I meant his heart!” I half-heartedly profess, before being reminded that in the Romance series, sex takes place strictly behind closed doors.

Finally, Tessa told me a thing or two about female character development: “She's on a journey - there might be moments when you think ‘No! What are you doing!' But ultimately she's going to do good. And show, don't tell. We don't want long passages of introspection.”

Heading home from my day at Romance HQ, I feel cheered by democratic literary sisterhood that Mills & Boon espouses. And, making up love stories is fun. And after three or four years, they tell me, you can expect to earn a nice living from it. With their policy of encouraging promising authors to branch out into mainstream publishing, I'm wondering: could this be a whole new way forward for me as a writer?
Will I, as they suggested I should, write some more of my story and send it back to them? Watch this space ...

Tips for aspiring romance writers:
Many Mills & Boon books have an aspirational, international location. So have fun choosing a location, but don't get bogged down in local politics. And don't drown the reader in facts - you're not writing a travelogue.

Base your story on universal emotional truths. Not just love and death, but renewal, justice, truth, strength, contentment, passion and tenderness.

Tie in these truths with the desires that are common to most women: unconditional love, safety, affluence and success.

Make your characters resonant and believable as well as aspirational. Have them communicate with plentiful dialogue, and motivate their actions soundly.
Be very careful to conform to the sexual mores of your chosen series - nipples at dawn are not right for Romance but for Blaze, they're a prerequisite.

Who is driving your story? Make sure the conflict always comes from the main characters and their emotions - not from the supporting cast.

But remember: conflict isn't a continual argument between the hero and heroine!
Layer the drama with highs and lows, advance and retreat.

There should be more internal than external drama between the hero and heroine - devices such as unexpected pregnancies (“secret babies” in M&B speak) are good. They're a way of creating sustainable conflict that is emotional for the couple yet easy for readers to relate to.

To develop your heroine convincingly, feed her backstory through the action of the book, avoiding “chunking” - shoving in lengthy chunks of interior monologue.
Last, but not least... have fun!

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the web, Trish Wylie is busy defending our choice of career. There are phrases in there I just love! Go see.

Mills & Boon

2008-01-22T16:27:00.000Z

Michelle Monkou is the second person this week to ask me what's the difference, if any, between Harlequin and Mills & Boon - so here goes.

Mills & Boon began in 1908 here in the UK. It published all kinds of fiction, including P G Woodhouse and brought Leroux's 'The Phantom of the Opera' to the UK.

The First World War brought about a market for an escapist romance read, which was consolidated during the depression and then then Second World War. By the 1960s Mills & Boon were publishing eight romance series titles every month.

It's in the 1970s that the Mills & Boon story becomes entwined with that of Canada's Harlequin as the two companies merged.

These days Harlequin and Silhoutte are both divisions of Torstar, which is a Canadian publishing and media company.

What we have is branding.

Here in the UK Mills & Boon brand recognition is incredibly high, so that's what they use. In fact, 'Mills & Boon' is even in the Oxford English Dictionary as 'a (type of) popular romantic fiction'.

Following this???

In the UK our shelves have both Silhouette and Mills & Boon books on them. My books have the Mills & Boon logo (above). In Australia my books are marketed as Harlequin Mills & Boon and in North America I'm simply Harlequin (right).

In the lead up to the launch of the new Romance line my 'Millionaire Dad, Wife Needed' was released in NA as a Silhouette Romance.

Globally it gets even more complicated, but it's all the same parent company.

And then we have the lines. I write Mills & Boon 'Romance' in the UK, 'Harlequin Romance' in NA, Harlequin Mills & Boon 'Sweet' in Australia, but my latest release, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' is Mills & Boon 'Modern' in the UK, Harlequin Presents in NA and Harlequin Mills & Boon 'Sexy' in Australia.

Clear as mud, isn't it. :)

I still hide the cover when I read a Mills & Boon

2008-01-21T14:03:00.000Z

That's the title of author Fay Weldon's piece on Mills & Boon in today's Telegraph. And it made me smile because ... so do I. I've just received my hardback copies of 'Wanted: White Wedding' and I've got the most beautiful cover. I think my favourite so far. Both my hero and heroine are perfect. If Freya's dress is not as I described it I'm prepared to accept I'm being picky. But ... I'd still hide the cover if I were reading it in a public place.

For me, being in the UK, it's the very lurid pink flashes across the front. These pink flashes being the result of a hugely expensive marketing process when the Romance line launched back in September 06. For others, I know, it's more about what they think other people will think if they're seen clutching a small romance.

Anyway, here's what Fay Weldon has to say. I did warn you it was going to be that kind of a year.

Well, good for them. Mills & Boon have made their centenary - 1908 to 2008 - and are still going strong. They endure literary and intellectual scorn, provide women with what they want, and it pays off.

Only love me, love me, love me and how happy we will be! sells 200 million books a year worldwide; that's six books every second from bookstall and corner shop, seldom from "proper" bookshops. And just as the 19th century saw Penny Dreadfuls - lurid tales for boys - blamed by the magistrates for the rise in crime, so feminists will blame the Mills & Boon romances of the 20th century for spouting "patriarchal propaganda" and even encouragement to rape.

I daresay it is true of Mills & Boon tales that they perpetuate female folly by suggesting that love and marriage is the answer to a woman's problems, and not the beginning of them, but I hardly think it is any worse than that. Are we not entitled to a little wishful thinking? Is it not better anyway to read, than to sit in front of TV watching East Enders shout, snarl and rape?

Shrewdly, Mills & Boon have kept up with the times. Since the Thirties, when they abandoned "proper" publishing and concentrated on romance, the nature of the heroine and the lover has changed. It started as pure romance - poor girl gets rich man; then in the Forties, and wartime, there was a boom in medical romance which still flourishes today on TV. The Fifties meant Hollywood glamour, with girls swooning in the embrace of exotic men, while the rebellious heroines of the Sixties are leaving home - in the arms of the right man, of course.

In the Seventies the girl becomes career-orientated; the Eighties and Nineties we find more open sexual content - and yet more feisty heroines. And where next? I suspect heroines, exhausted by too much multi-tasking, may just want to stay home and have babies.

There are two puzzles here: why does the success of Mills & Boon so incense some, and what is there about them that so attracts others? I, too, reading a Mills & Boon novel on a train, am tempted to hide the cover from public view. But why? They are often well enough written, if on occasion littered with exclamation marks. They are sanitised - but that in itself is an attraction. The reader of a modern Mills & Boon romance is in charge of her own responses. In the text the hero's "thigh muscles strain beneath tight jeans" - but it is left to the reader to decide whether that means an erection, or just tight jeans.

If the tension between potential lovers is that the girl "lost her innocence" to the suitor's father, the reader can interpret that as she wishes - rape, seduction or just a sexy conversation. And, my theory is, it's for this very reason the books appeal so: the books are interactive, so the reader is in control of the fantasy.

As Chesterton put it in 1901, writing about the rise and fall of the Penny Dreadful, "The simple need for some kind of ideal world in which fictitious persons play an unhampered part is infinitely deeper and older than the rules of good art, and much more important. Every one of us in childhood has constructed such invisible dramatis personae, but it never occurred to our nurses to correct the composition by careful comparison with Balzac." Nor should we literary folk try comparing Come Back to Me with Atonement.

Any novel takes a certain slice of life and deals with that. No novel can take on the whole pie chart of our existence and deal with all human experience. The more "literary" the novel, the wider the slice that is attempted, and the more likely it is to fail - and bore. The genre novel contents itself with dealing with a certain slice: the thriller deals with that part of our experience that involves danger; the detective story with our curiosity; sci-fi echoes out alienation in space and time - and so on. The genre novel "takes us out of ourselves" while the literary novel keeps us firmly and sometimes painfully in our own lives, informing us as to our own natures - which is why it is taken seriously and gets reviewed. The Mills & Boon novel takes a peculiarly narrow slice of female life, and so tends to get despised. But it sells.

My mother made a good living for a time writing romantic novels. People queued round the block for the next instalment of Velvet and Steel, by Pearl Bellairs. And my, it packed an erotic punch. Alas, she was one day struck by a pang of conscience: was it right, she wondered, to fill the heads of young girls with pernicious nonsense? She decided the answer was no, stopped writing romances, took a job in a biscuit factory and the family lived in righteous poverty thereafter.

And here's the link if you want to read it in situ and/or leave a comment.

So what do you reckon???

Still feeling bouyant!

2008-01-18T17:23:00.000Z

And just look at what the lovely Kate Walker sent to help us celebrate. I still feel fairly shattered, but I suppose that's to be expected, and it's going to take a bit of time to sort out all the consequences from the last year and a bit. We'll get there and meanwhile I'm smiling!!

Which I think is pretty darn good considering I was the guest author at a book group this week. It was an .... interesting experience. I don't think there was a reader of romance there. There certainly wasn't a reader of series fiction in the room and I felt the full force of that. :)

I think my favourite question of the evening was, 'Before you wrote for Mills & Boon did you *actually* know anyone who read them???'

Er .. yes, I must have because there's a Mills & Boon book sold every five seconds in the UK alone. We're published in 26 different languages and sold in over 109 international markets. It's impressive stuff and it honestly mystifies me as to why people are so sneering.

It's almost as though they make an assumption that only ignorant women would choose to read series fiction when, actually, the statistics show something else entirely. Moreover, scratch beneath the surface of these 'intellectuals' and you often discover avid viewers of soaps and reality TV. Not exactly high-brow viewing, is it!

I think most women read different things at different times in differing moods. It's all about choice. What's truly wonderful about category fiction is that in the space of a long hot bubblebath you can experience the rush of falling in love. There are days when I really really want that. Other days I'll go for the book about the one legged lesbian who robbed a bank and then murdered her lover. Not often I admit. :) But you know what I mean.

This almost constant criticism was the reason why Trish, Ally, Nic and I set up the Pink Heart Society. Tomorrow I'm blogging over there. It's my turn to write the Weekend Wind-Down. Come and find me.

I think I'm going to like 2008

2008-01-15T15:52:00.000Z

I was beginning to wonder whether my blog was forever destined to be the depressing corner of the romance writing world - but it would seem I'm to have a break. I'll try and pass that on in your direction. :)

Yesterday was a turning-point day for me and mine. Scan results day. You'd think I'd be used to it all now. My husband was first diagnosed in 2000 and 'scan results days' have been a regular part of our lives ever since. But they really do loom on the horizon. Pressure building. All the different possibilities and outcomes swirling around your brain.

Actually, I think I probably handle it very badly. I seem to live all my troubles twice over. Once in my head as I imagine what might happen, and then again when they actually do! Must try not to do that!!

Last year, whenever there was the chance for things to go well or badly, they went badly. Like a pack of cards house everything has been falling down around me.

But this time it was all good.

The chemo has worked better than expected. And my husband has been put on a two year maintenance programme. MabThera isn't yet licensed by NICE for that use in England so the fact there's funding for it is amazing. For the moment I'm going to set aside any altruistic concerns about how unfair it all is and just be grateful.

Permission to get on with our lives.

Today I've let myself sleep. Not the most writerly of pursuits, perhaps, but it was necessary. And now I need to re-focus on my Sheikh.

Actually, I have two of them, Hamza and Rashid, on the go. I also seem to have created a nice future heroine in the shape of Minty. She would take over Rashid's story if I let her. And I'm wondering whether she might do very nicely for Nick, the close friend of Seb in 'Crowned: An Ordinary Girl'. Just a thought!

All About Romance

2008-01-13T18:41:00.000Z

Here's a nice bit of news ....

All About Romance have their interim results up for their Readers' Poll Awards and my Crowned: An Ordinary Girl has been nominated. That means a few people will have voted to say it was their favourite series read of 2007. How lovely is that!

Donna Alward is there as Best Debut Author. Trish Wylie's 'Bride of the Emerald Isle' has appeared in the Second Interim Votes.

Voting is taking place here.

Meanwhile I'm trying to keep relaxed and write a bit. Tomorrow is a big day for us as a family. Yet another oncology appointment, but this one will determine whether my husband needs more treatment or whether we get a breather. Difficult to type when you've got all your fingers crossed.

Ally Blake

2008-01-09T11:02:00.000Z

My fellow Pink Heart Society editor and writing pal, Ally Blake, is on YouTube.

I hate the fact she's so thin after having given birth so recently. Bah!

Brilliant job, Ally!

Soundtrack

2008-01-07T11:54:00.000Z

I seem to have been working on my current wip for the longest time. I swear it's not my fault. 2007 was the worst year I've lived yet and I'm now in that miserable limbo time while we wait for scan results to see how successful my husband's chemo has been.

But what does seem to have happened recently is the shock of having my blessed life unravel rather spectacularly has receeded. It just 'is'. Considering I'm a natural 'fixer' it's a little strange to be in a position where there's absolutely nothing I can do to make anything better.

And with acceptance has come the head space to get writing. So many people have said I must find it helpful to be able to disappear into a fictional world. Well, I'm here to tell you I think it depends how pressing real life is. This year there have been times when I've been so physically and emotionally shattered I've had nothing left to give to my fictional world.

But, now, yes. Disappearing into a world I'm controlling is delightful. Long may it last!

One of the negatives about writing a book over a long period is it can feel stale. So for the first time I've really bought into the collage idea. I'm surrounded by fantastic pictures that click me into the mood with a look. Yesterday, Trish gave me a present of my very own soundtrack - and do you know it works!

I'm a little amazed because I love quiet. There's something about this soundtrack which is working for me. Best not question it, eh!

So ........ here's what I'm listening to! Or part of it, anyway. The whole thing is 50 minutes long.

'Amazing' is kind of directional. It's where I'm headed. 'High' is more of a mood piece I think.

Picture me now with my headphones on looking a complete twit!!

2008!

2008-01-01T23:00:00.000Z

I wish you and yours the loveliest 2008. May enough of your dreams come true to make you believe the rest will follow in 2009. :)

Am I the only person to dislike New Year??? Honestly, I find it a little scary and given the choice I would take to my bed and let the new year arrive all by itself. One thing I'm certain about - I'm absolutely thrilled to see the back of 2007. I can't imagine a more horrendous year and I can't quite summon up enough confidence to look ahead with unalloyed optimism.

But since I've been force feeding my daughter 'Anne of Green Gables' I've been reminded of Marilla's wisdom. When faced with Anne's 'Have you ever been in the depths of despair?' Marilla replied, 'No, for that would be to turn your back on God.' So, we'll go with that.

It's all started well. Committed foodie that I am I decided the year needed to start with a feast and I slow roasted a leg of lamb as instructed by Rachel Allen in 'Rachel's Food for Living' which I was given for Christmas. It's fantastic. Will absolutely do that again. And probably most everything else!

Plus I've just watched the first part of Andrew Davies's adaptation of 'Sense and Sensibility'. It's wonderful. I'm afraid I've already indulged my Amazon habit and pre-ordered it which I may end up regretting because Andrew Davies sometimes takes liberties with much-loved books in a way I hate. The opening scenes tonight were a little questionable.

I was watching with my daughter who doesn't know the story and they mystified her. Currently, as she should be, she's falling completely in love with Willoughby and identifies absolutely why Marianne wouldn't want a man of 35. I certainly don't want to spoil the experience for her by explaining what actually was going on in that first scene!! (Which if you didn't see it was a man's hand undressing a young woman ...)

I do wonder why someone doesn't reign Andrew Davies in at times. I found his recent adaptation of 'A Room With A View' annoying. It was so lovely and then, for reasons I simply don't understand, he killed the hero in the first world war. Why????

But, enough already. I have a words to write before I'm allowed to go to bed.

Trish is back - and other good news

2007-12-28T01:56:00.000Z

Whilst it's lovely to have her at the other end of MSN - the best thesaurus in the business - it does mean my fun on her blog is over. And I'd found the most perfect research trip for her. Such a shame.

But here it is! The spa town of Lisdoonvarna in County Clare, Ireland, hold an annual matchmaking festival. There has to be a book in that. She ought to go, don't you think!

I've had some lovely news. My contribution to the Niroli series, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride', has been nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award. The full listing is HERE.

Fellow Pink Heart Society pals Trish and Ally are nominated in the Harlequin Romance category. I'm over in Harlequin Presents - which is kind of fun. It's a particularly nice award to be up for because you don't have to do anything to enter. The shortlist just appears. And, like Trish, it's my third year running. It's just the most lovely feeling.

Trish's blog

2007-12-26T23:24:00.000Z

I still have control of Trish's blog. Hee. And it's Boxing Day so my feelings of festive goodwill have largely evaporated.

I'm having fun. Go see.

Now it's back to work on my book. I do wish I'd been able to take a research trip to the middle east. My dad spent a huge chunk of his working life there so that's helping - but there's nothing quite like walking the ground for yourself.

Hey ho!

Twelve Days of Christmas Letters

2007-12-22T19:14:00.000Z

Okay - well I'm blogging everywhere. Trish's new internet cable hasn't arrived yet which means I'm still minding her blog. Oh the responsibility!! And the temptation!!!!!!!!

But, today I'm feeling festive and I've decided to be kind. Go see the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' I found on You Tube. Here's a written down version. Different, but it still makes me smile.

December 25th

Dearest John,

I went to the door today and the postman delivered a partridge in a pear tree. What a delightful gift. I couldn't have been more surprised.

With dearest love and affection,
Agnes

December 26th

Dearest John,

Today the postman brought your very sweet gift. Just imagine, two turtledoves. I’m just delighted at your very thoughtful gift. They are just adorable.

All my love,
Agnes

December 27th

Dear John,

Oh, aren't you the extravagant one! Now I must protest. I don't deserve such generosity. Three French hens. They are just darling, but no more. I must insist.... you're just too kind.

Love,
Agnes

December 28th

Dear John,

Today the postman delivered four calling birds. Now really! They're beautiful, but don't you think enough is enough? You’re being too romantic.

Affectionately,
Agnes

December 29th

Dearest John,

What a surprise! Today the postman delivered five golden rings. One for each finger. You're just impossible, but I love it. Frankly, John, all those squawking birds were beginning to get on my nerves.

All my love,
Agnes

December 30th

Dear John,

When I opened the door there were actually six geese a-laying on my front steps. So you're back to the birds again, huh? Those geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbors are complaining and I can't sleep through the racket. PLEASE STOP!

Cordially,
Agnes

December 31st

John,

What's with you and those birds? Seven swans a-swimming. What kind of joke is this? There's bird poo all over the house and they never stop the racket. I'm a nervous wreck and I can't sleep at night. IT'S NOT FUNNY. So stop with the birds.

Sincerely,
Agnes

January 1st

OK Buster,

I think I prefer the birds. What the hell am I going to do with eight maids a-milking? They've even brought their own cows. Now there is cow poop all over the lawn and I can’t move in my own house. Just lay off me. SMART-ASS!

Ag

January 2nd

Hey,

What are you? Some kind of sadist? Now there's nine pipers piping. And man do they pipe. They haven't stopped chasing those maids since they got here yesterday morning. The cows are upset and are stepping all over those screeching birds. No wonder they screech. What am I going to do? The neighbours have started a petition to evict me.

Ag

January 3rd

John,

Now there are ten ladies dancing. I don't know why I call those women ladies. They've been with those nine pipers all night long. Now the cows can't sleep and they've got diarrhea. My living room is a river of cow dung. The commissioner of buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause why the building shouldn't be condemned. I've called the police. They know where you are.

One who means it,
Ag

January 4th

Listen,

What's with the eleven lords a-leaping on those maids and aforementioned "ladies"? Some of those girls will never walk again.

Those pipers ran through the maids and are now after the cows. All 234 of the birds are dead. They have been trampled to death in the orgy. I hope you're satisfied!

Your sworn enemy,
Miss Agnes McCallister

January 5th

From the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe

This is to acknowledge your latest gift of twelve drummers drumming, which you have seen fit to inflict on our client, Miss Agnes McCallister. The destruction, of course, was total. All correspondence should come to our attention. If you should attempt to reach Miss McCallister at Happy-Dale Sanitarium, the attendants have instructions to shoot you on sight. With this letter, please find attached a warrant for your arrest.

Dewey, Cheatem and Howe
Attorneys at Law

Be warned! Sometimes romance is best in small doses.

And now I'm off to a Christmas Drinks Party. Most years I have to run the gaunlet of men who sneer at romance generally and women who feel they should. Oh well! I shall search out the kindred spirits - oh and maybe take a copy of my tax return. That usually silences most people! Solvent authors are a rare breed.

I'm going to live!

2007-12-17T19:52:00.000Z

Well, the world is still fuzzy but I'm now upright. Still can't drive - which I suppose has a few advantages. Can't get to the supermarket, can't do the school run .....

I've just put the phone down on Trish Wylie who is without an internet connection at the moment. She wondered if I'd like to post an update on her blog for her ....

Hee!!!

Well I have. Go see.

Now I have absolutely no time to update my own. I'm so irritated at having lost a week on my book. You know, it's when you can't write you really understand how important it is that you do it!!!

Can't talk now. Have a sheikh to sort.

Here's my boy ...

I'm sick!

2007-12-15T18:43:00.000Z

I feel dreadful - and have done since Monday. I appear to have an inner ear infection and I'm not able to sit up for long without the world spinning. I can't even read.

I'm so not a good patient. And I have soooooo much to do.

It's an ill wind ..

2007-12-07T17:12:00.000Z

that blows nobody any good. Isn't that how the saying goes??????

This week's Guardian piece on Mills & Boon has proved the truth of that. I've had lots of fun. First off, I discovered a really amusing blog on the subject which you can find here.

And a beautifully reasoned response here.

Then I got to listen to Trish argue 'our' case on BBC Radio Ulster. Now you've got to really picture what was going on to get the full enjoyment out of that situation. She's ill. Bird flu she says. (Obviously that's not funny.) And she's had a bit of a fight with the dentist and he won! (Again, not immediately amusing.) But follow it all through. There she is dosed up to the eyeballs, new plate in pocket so there's some possibility of speaking clearly ...

Let's pause for a moment and appreciate the glamour of that!

Then she's forced to read something from one of her books. Ha!

Now I like reading aloud. It returns to me my first love and, even though I say it myself, I do it well. But I do not like reading from my own books. It's so embarrassing. Add in to that the fact Trish was asked to read from her next release - which is a Modern Heat. Read any of those recently??????

I must be a really horrible person because I thoroughly enjoyed that. Very difficult, apparently, to find something suitable for late tea-time consumption.

And then there was the interview itself. My absolute favourite bit was the part where Finola Meredith said that she 'liked romance', books like 'Jane Eyre' for example.

What a gift!!!

Even with Toby Stephens as Rochester I do feel there's a need to suspend disbelief just a tad. Rochester????? Is she serious?

Now stand up and be counted all women who fantasise about falling for a potential bigamist. Let's be clear about this, that's a man who is lying to you.

Back to the typeface. I have steam coming off the keyboard ....

Oh - and I'm blogging over at the Pink Heart Society. Come see.

Here we go again ....

2007-12-05T12:58:00.000Z

As I've said here before, with Mills & Boon's centenary year just around the corner I'm braced for criticism as the media spotlight shines on us. What's so particularly annoying is that the negative swipes usually comes from people who haven't read a M&B for years, if ever. To date not one crass remark about my career choice has come from anyone who has read anything I've written.

Anyway ...

The Guardian newspaper here in the UK is today carrying the article below. Actually, I quite like it because Abby Green, as her real-life alter-ego Daisy Cummins, does a fine job in defending what really shouldn't need to be defended.

Get a coffee and settle down!

Mills & Boon: 100 years of heaven or hell?

Mills & Boon enjoys a huge readership, but has attracted furious critics during its 10 decades in business. Daisy Cummins explains why she is proud to write for the company, while Julie Bindel just wishes the books would go away.

Daisy Cummins and Julie Bindel
Wednesday December 5, 2007
The Guardian

A fine romance

Mills & Boon books have long been an easy flogging horse. Many assume they are only read by the hopelessly unfashionable and out of touch, desperate for tales of helpless heroines swept off their feet by dashing, mildly brutish heroes.

In fact, though, the person reading an M&B is far more likely to be a successful, highly intelligent woman in her 20s or 30s. And neither these women nor the heroines they love are waiting for a man to come and rescue them. M&B has moved on and sexed up.

Next year sees the firm celebrate its centenary and high sales figures continue to speak for its success. Two hundred million books sold worldwide per annum; 13m shifted each year in the UK.

As the daughter of a single-parent feminist, I was hard-wired from an early age to balk at the merest whiff of sexism. Yet, after finding a M&B in my Irish Catholic grandmother's room one summer, I was hooked. I had discovered an exciting world of feisty heroines and hard-muscled heroes. Sexual tension simmered and exploded. And there was always a happy ending. The hero and heroine were equal partners and every conflict was happily resolved, not necessarily in a marriage but with a firm commitment for the future. For me, the child of a revolutionary and somewhat bohemian background, it was a welcome - albeit, at first, slightly guilt-inducing - contrast to the anger at men I had witnessed growing up.

My mother knew I read them and said nothing, giving her tacit permission. She understood the need to balance things out. I now write for M&B myself, and am supremely proud to do so. My last book, The Kouros Marriage Revenge, was about a devastatingly gorgeous Greek. I write under the name Abby Green purely for the thrill of having a pseudonym.

Let's start with the first old chestnut that's used against these books: that they are pulp fiction written in purple prose. Well, they have never been presented as contenders for literary prizes and therefore need not offend anyone who would denigrate them on this basis. These books started out as serials, novellas written to appeal to women who would pick them up for an exotic, escapist treat. And, as with any successful business venture, the original formula has stayed largely the same. Man meets woman, they fall in love, there is a conflict and, ultimately, a happy ending. It is the paradigm behind every great literary romantic work.

Detractors believe that these books perpetuate the stereotype of the doormat woman, taken by a boorish hero, crushed in his arms and transformed into a newer, different type of doormat. They suggest that this fiction encourages women to subscribe to a mythical fairytale, in which men are always the saviour. What drivel. The women who populate these books come from as disparate and wide-ranging economic situations as the women who read them. To say they are all mindless romantic illiterates yearning to be saved is lazy ignorance.

I consider myself a feminist. Not perhaps in the sense that my mother would have called herself a feminist. That fight was fought, and necessarily. For me, feminism means being economically independent; able to pursue the career of my choice without being thwarted; free to make decisions concerning my body, or my vote. I have never struggled with sexual discrimination.

Lovers of romantic fiction, of M&B, know our own minds, we know our own expectations of love and romance. We can separate fantasy and reality. We are not stupid. So go forth in public, ladies - and gents, if you like - take your copy of Bought for the Frenchman's Pleasure or The Italian's Captive Virgin and read it with a smile on your face, cover held high, proud in the knowledge that you are sticking two fingers up to the begrudgers of romance.
Daisy Cummins

To find more about Abby Green and her books visit her website here.

In the opposite corner is freelance journalist, Julie Bindel.

Julie Bindel is a freelance journalist. She writes for the Guardian newspaper and Weekend magazine, and various other British and European newspapers and magazines. She is the co-editor of The Map of My Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys (Astraia Press, 2003) and several book chapters and research papers on sexual violence and the criminal justice system. A founder member of the feminist law reform campaign Justice for Women, Julie believes that doing paid work, however ethically and responsibly, is not enough, and remains a committed political activist. Julie has written investigative features on international prostitution, sex tourism in Jamaica, stalking and harassment, transsexualism, being a lesbian schoolgirl, the beauty industry and serial killers. For a bit of light relief she has written on the death of the hostess trolley, female orchestra conductors, fancying Camilla Parker Bowles and hating vegetarians.

Detestable trash

Fifteen years ago, I read 20 Mills & Boon novels as research for a dissertation on "romantic fiction and the rape myth". It was the easiest piece of research I have ever done. In every book, there was a scene where the heroine is "broken in", both emotionally and physically, by the hero. Having fallen for this tall, brooding figure of masculinity, the heroine becomes consumed with capturing him. The hero is behaving in a way that, in real life, causes many women to develop low self-esteem, depression and self-harming behaviour - blowing hot and cold, and treating her like dirt. But all comes right in the end. After the heroine displays extraordinary vulnerability during a crisis, Mr Macho saves the day and shows her he cares.

By this time (you know how uppity women can be), our heroine is so fed up that she does not comply when he grabs her inevitably small frame in his huge arms, and attempts to take her to bed. And so begins the "gender dance" - man chases woman, woman resists, and, finally, woman submits in a blaze of passion.

My loathing of M&B novels has nothing to do with snobbery. I could not care less if the books are trashy, formulaic or pulp fiction - Martina Cole novels, which I love, are also formulaic. But I do care about the type of propaganda perpetuated by M&B. I would go so far as to say it is misogynistic hate speech.

Why do I care so much about books that few take seriously? Are there not more important battles to fight? Challenging the low conviction rate for rape certainly seems more urgent than trashing novels that perpetuate gender stereotypes, but there is no doubt that such novels feed directly into some women's sense of themselves as lesser beings, as creatures desperate to be dominated.

One argument from M&B apologists is that the heroine has moved with the times. True, she is now more physically active and sexually imaginative. The modern-day character often dares to have sex before marriage, knows what she wants in terms of her career and personal life, and even has a sense of humour.

As a result of the changing heroine, the hero has been required to catch up. But rather than becoming a "new man", it seems he has become even more masculine and domineering in order to keep the heroine in line. This is how the rape fantasies so integral to the plot have been able to persist.

Take this description of a recent M&B novel, The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife: "Tilda was regretting her short-lived romance with Rashad, the Crown Prince of Bakhar. Now, with her impoverished family indebted to him, Rashad was blackmailing her by insisting she pay up ... as his concubine! Soon Tilda was the arrogant Sheikh's captive, ready to be ravished in his far-away desert kingdom."

Or Bought: One Island, One Bride: "Self-made billionaire Alexander Kosta has come to the island of Lefkis for revenge ... He doesn't count on feisty pint-sized beauty Ellie Mendoras to be the thorn in his side! ... There's a dangerous smile on Alexander's lips ... As far as he's concerned Ellie's a little firecracker who needs to be tamed. He'll seduce her into compliance, then buy her body and soul!!"

Or Virgin Slave, Barbarian King: "Julia Livia Rufa is horrified when barbarians invade Rome and steal everything in sight. But she doesn't expect to be among the taken! As Wulfric's woman, she's ordered to keep house for the uncivilised marauders. Soon, though, Julia realises that she's more free as a slave than she ever was as a sheltered Roman virgin."

The first two were published this year, the third comes out in January.

In 1970, one of M&B's regular writers, Violet Winspear, claimed that her heroes had to be "capable of rape". Another, Hilary Wilde, said in 1966, "The odd thing is that if I met one of my heroes, I would probably bash him over the head with an empty whisky bottle. It is a type I loathe and detest. I imagine in all women, deep down inside us, is a primitive desire to be arrogantly bullied." These comments may have been made some time ago, but the tradition seems to continue in the many M&B novels that depict female submission to dominant heroes.

My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men. M&B novels are full of patriarchal propaganda.

I can say it no better than the late, great Andrea Dworkin. This classic depiction of romance is simply "rape embellished with meaningful looks".
Julie Bindel

Here's the link if you want to see the article in situ.

What do you think?

The Guardian has a 'Response Column' if you'd like to write a reply. The editor is Jonathan Harker and his email is jonathan.harker@guardian.co.uk should you wish to give an opinion direct.

Personally, I don't know that I'd trust any of Julie Bindel's research on any subject if she relies on something she read fifteen years ago and can't trouble herself to read more than the back blurb of three current releases before writing an article for a national newspaper. Particularly when she must know not one of those authors will have written that blurb. Like the cover art and titling, it's a marketing decision.

I have a feeling that the more I think about Ms Bindel's article the more irritated I'll be. She quotes authors who were writing thirty odd years ago! It's just lazy.

Nor does she seem to have any awareness of the different lines which are now released under the M&B banner, concentrating entirely on the Modern/Presents line. Fair enough, perhaps, since it is hugely popular but ...

I feel the need to splutter inarticulately. Please feel free to add in your own swear word here!!!!

I'm going to get on with writing my book. I'm just too busy to spend any more time on such drivel.

Finding the hero

2007-12-01T23:46:00.000Z

I'm having a wine break. I would just like to point out it's nearly midnight and I haven't done my word count for the day so my bottom is still firmly in the chair. The next person who even suggests writing series fiction is 'easy' is liable to be smacked in the face. And, I promise, I'm not usually a violent person.

But, I digress.

I had an email today from an unpublished writer who wanted my take on 'casting' characters. Do I really use actors as the basis of my characters? Do I fill out character charts? Do I ever get muddled and forget the colour of their eyes?

So, the answers are: sometimes/sort of, never and fairly often if my writing time is broken up.

I've said in in a number of places that I 'used' British actor Richard Armitage as the 'hero inspiration' for my character Domenic in 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride'. And, I suspect that's what prompted the question.

Anyone who has read 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' will know that Domenic isn't Richard Armitage. Domenic is from an island called Mont Avellana. Richard's English. Domenic has brown eyes and Richard blue/grey.

But he helped - and it was all to do with the expression in his eyes. Finding Domenic was tricky. For a start he wasn't my creation. Not in the beginning. He was part of an editor-led continuity series which means I had certain 'facts' I needed to work around.

'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' is the fourth book in the Niroli series and I was asked to write it because the editors felt my 'voice' would suit the story they had in mind. Once the contracts were signed I was given 'The Bible'.

So, what did I know? Domenic was a hotel owner with light, slightly curly brown hair. He had brown eyes, was 6ft 2" tall, a lean and toned physique (so someone explain the muppet I've got on the front cover) and aged 34. It's not a lot to go on, is it? And I couldn't deviate because if any of the other six authors mentioned him we'd be contradicting each other.

I knew, too, that he was 'scarred, both emotionally and physically, from the tragic fire in which his wife and child died'. I had the same amount of infomation on Isabella Fierezza and some 'Key Themes' (scarred hero, traumatic pasts, forbidden love, working together). And that was me.

Now find the story.

Find the hero.

Make it 'real'.

Every book is different. It's inception is different. At least for me. If you really want to get to grips with what fellow author Trish Wylie calls 'backward casting' you need to check out her website here. I don't work the same. At least not always.

For me, ideas come from everywhere. Sometimes I begin a book with the 'hook'. As in now when my editor has 'suggested' I might like to try a sheikh story. It could just as easily been an 'office' one or 'royalty'. These are 'hooks' which we know readers like and since we're in the business of entertainment ...

Sometimes I begin with a place. For example I wrote 'A Family To Belong To' because I happened to be on the Isle of Wight when I started writing it.

Some books start with the hero or heroine. It can be a line in a movie which starts you off. Sometimes a picture. It's not 'them', it's the way they make you feel when you look at them.

For 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' I needed to find the characters which would make the 'facts' possible. So, why would Isabella go to Mont Avellana? Because she had to. What kind of man would be fascinated by her?

I decided he needed to be quite intense. Brooding. Passionate.

And that's what I meant about Richard Armitage being my hero inspiration for Domenic. My character's physical characteristics were set by the demands of being part of a continuity. Domenic is a burns survivor. He doesn't look like this.

BUT ...

When you look at this photo what do you 'feel'? I think there's an intensity in the eyes. A sense that he's really looking at the person out of sight. And, that's what I needed for Domenic. When he looks at Isabella he really looks. He really sees the woman she is.

And I suppose that's the fantasy. What woman doesn't want to be really seen???

Now wine over I need to go back to my WIP. With a Sheikh who doesn't really have a picture. Well, he does. Sort of. But, I'll tell you about that another day.

Clearing my desk

2007-11-29T08:05:00.001Z

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.
Peter De Vries

This is not a picture of my desk - mine is much worse! Or it was, until I started sorting it at about 6.00am.

It all began when offspring 4 mentioned school cooking. Let's not discuss the fact I find myself experiencing constant low level anger at his having to take in every single blasted item he needs, or that I have to make the same - usually revolting recipe - in order to bulk everything up to feed a family of seven ... School cooking day means you have to have the orange cookbook. Well, who knows where that is ...???

I bite down on the suggestion it might have been better to have got everything sorted last night. After all, what's the point at this stage???

In vain did I argue that, his being the fourth child, I remembered perfectly well what he needed and could type out the 'method' in about five minutes.

Add in to that the usual disasters - missing gum sheild, mango chutney added erroneously the someone's chicken sandwich when his brother KNEW he didn't like mango chutney, a lost homework sheet, 'impossible' geography homework which is due in today (anyone ready to draw a flow diagram on the life of an orange recycling sack??) and you have an accurate picture of my morning so far.

I have this recurring pleasant dream that one day I'll go to the 'cupboard-I-fondly-call-my-study' and find everything is exactly where I left it. The reality is sooooooo different. Anyone and everyone 'just' pops in to do some thing or other and 'just' pushes my things to one side 'for a moment'.

So, at the time I would naturally still be sleeping, I'm bleary eyed and trying to work out which bits of paper are actually connected to my WIP, which bits seem to hold lists of Christmas wants (presumably so I will notice them), which bits are school letters ...

Anyway you get the picture. Rather sadly I've discovered the letter inviting me to go have a smear test. REALLY don't like those.

Also discovered my half filled out tax return. We're at that time of the year again when there's an irritating man announcing 'tax doesn't have to be taxing' every time I turn on the radio. I don't know what form he is looking at!

(I can't let Trish have all the cat pictures, now can I!!)

And then I've been reminded it's competition time again. I'm really not sure about all that, but having started last year it's hard to not to play again. However, I may have to rethink. I've just tried to enter one online and can I get it to go through???????????????? Don't answer that!

I need a coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then book. I'm not even going to think about how many words I need to write today .....

Behaving badly!

2007-11-24T19:21:00.000Z

I had a lovely chat with my editor in which we adjusted all my deadlines and, in fact, titled the next two books. I'm still chuckling over that. Well, that and the fact I've somehow got to get a white wedding into a sheikh book. A little tricky! Still, I love a challenge ...

And I've been writing. Only I'm a tiny bit stuck .... and I'm sitting at the 'big' computer - which is always dangerous. I've indulged my amazon.co.uk habit under the guise of 'Christmas shopping', I've had a quick look at 'You Tube' and then a new thought occured to me. THEATRE. Quickly followed by 'I wonder what's on ....?'

I've now booked to go and see 'The Country Wife' at the Theatre Royal in London.

"One of the greatest and funniest comedies of the Restoration, The Country Wife tells the story of Horner, a notorious and lascivious man - about - town and his ingenious scheme for the rampant and mass seduction of the women of London society. By spreading the false rumour of his own impotence, he gains the sympathy of the husbands of the town and, more importantly, free access to their wives.

Meanwhile the newly-married Pinchwife desperately attempts to keep his naïve country bride from the clutches of predatory London bachelors. When she and Horner meet, events spiral out of his control…

Award-winning actors David Haig, Patricia Hodge and Toby Stephens lead the company in Wycherley’s dazzling comedy. Joining them is exciting young actress Fiona Glascott in the title role."

Now, I reckon this is acceptable because Toby Stephens is playing Horner and I reckon that could be construed as 'hero research', don't you?

Then I wandered over to the RSC site and found that I've accidentally bought tickets to see 'Loves Labours Lost' NEXT YEAR. Grief! I can't even manage to plan next week so what did I think I was doing ...?

Anyway I reckon that can be justified as an 'educational experience' since I'm taking all my children to that one. What do you think???? And, maybe 'hero research' again as David Tennant is playing Berowne. You'd better get a move on if you want to book any yourself because to get seven seats together I'm a fair way from the action.

Oh and he's doing 'Hamlet', too. Sacrilege maybe, but I find that play depressing.

As is 'Romeo and Juliet'. I took my daughter and my eldest son to see a student production of that last night. I've now seen it ... umpteen times and I've come to the conclusion I just don't get it. Firstly, why didn't Juliet just run away with Romeo as soon as he was banished? I mean, it wasn't as though she didn't know marriage to poor old Paris was on the cards. And, am I the only person who thinks everyone being 'sorry' isn't a very upbeat ending - however nice the statue???

Now, enough is enough. If you haven't seen 'Romeo and Juliet' recently you won't know what I'm talking about and my credit card has been flexed enough. Send me back to work.

Thinking Positively!

2007-11-13T19:00:00.000Z

I had one of those epiphanic moments last night. You know the kind that stops you in your tracks and makes you look at something again with fresh eyes.

Last night I met up with some writer friends - a nice mix of published and unpublished, fiction and non-fiction. I suppose we manage to catch-up every two or three months to swap writerly news and life stuff. Always nice to have a reason to get dressed! :)

So, we began ...

It's now just over a year since my lovely mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I spent the beginning of 2007 trying to make it possible for her to die at home. And I failed. Although I know she was happy to go to the hospice in the end, I still wish it had been possible.

Then, just in case things weren't bleak enough, the decision to pull funding on the place where my husband worked coincided with the reappearance of his cancer. Redundancy and illness is never a great combination, is it! Consequently he's spent the last six months redundant AND on chemo.

Anyway, I gave my update on all that - and my friends ask how my writing is going. The answer to that is 'slowly'. Still slowly. Under normal circumstances I write a fairly comfortable 2000 words a day. 50,000 publishable words in a couple of months. That's just not been happening this year.

For a start I've been incredibly tired. Bone tired. And, with five dependant children, I'm juggling lots of things. On the whole I think I've done well. The children are doing fantastically well. I'm so proud of them. But, of course, sometimes they've needed to talk - sometimes my husband has needed to - and by the time they've finished with me I feel like a wrung out wet towel. None of that is conducive to a productive writing life.

And that means I've committed the unforgiveable sin for an author under contract - I've missed my deadlines. I'm so cross about it, feel incredibly guilty, but I've reached the point of acceptance and my editor at Harlequin has been absolutely wonderful and very very supportive of me.

Sue, a published author sitting next to me, remarked 'your sales must be good!'. And I kind of shrugged and said I thought they were okay and that the last three books had made the Waldenbook Bestseller lists and the Romantic Times' Magazine had chosen 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' as a Top Pick.

And that was that. We talked about other things and laughed a lot. I stuffed the diet and plumped for sausages and mash with an onion and balsamic vinegar gravy ...

Much later on someone said something and I replied that I thought thought the whole millenium had been fairly grotty. Then Sue provided my epiphanic moment. She said that, considering what I'd just been telling her about being on the bestseller lists and a Top Pick, she didn't think I knew how to celebrate the good things when they happened.

And, you know, she's right! This last year I've had some lovely things happen to me, all mixed in with the bad. There wasn't one person at that table who wouldn't like to be on a best seller list. Some who are still hoping to sell a book. How selfish am I!

I feel like I've been in a dark tunnel for the longest time. I don't 'do' depression. I have friends that do and I've seen how wretched that is. I've always been a glass half-full kind of a girl, but I think I've been as close to it as I'm ever going to get. I've been really busy getting through the day-to-day, making sure everyone else is okay, and I've not really paid any attention to me.

Now, tomorrow is my husband's final chemo day. Which is great, isn't it! Only he, of course, doesn't feel so great about it because he's going to be sick for the next week and continue to feel tired and ache for a few weeks after that. And then he has to find a job. Oh and then there's the scan in January and the prospect of a stem cell transplant looming after that.

And that's what I'd gone to dinner thinking. You know, I hadn't realised how negative I've allowed myself to become.

So, let's do better. Tomorrow IS the last planned dose of chemo. And my last three books HAVE been on the Waldenbooks Bestseller Lists, my contribution to the Niroli series IS a Romantic Times Magazine Top Pick and my editor is really wanting my next book whenever I can get it to her. I think I need to look up and see the light at the end of this particular tunnel, don't you?

Time for some positive thinking!

It's all Trish's fault

2007-11-08T17:14:00.000Z

Again. There was I happily writing up a storm. Hero behaving himself reasonably well when that orange light starts blinking at the bottom of my screen to say that Trish wishes to talk - despite the fact I'm still showing as 'away'. That woman knows me too well!

On her blog today - click here - you will see she's replied to my Dear Trish letter. It's very funny. But I do feel she doesn't fully appreciate my Richard Armitage addiction. So rather than clog up her comments box anymore I'm going to post some 'hero inspiration' here.

Now, that's quite enough of that. Coffee break is over and I have a book to write.

Oh, and tomorrow I'm blogging over at the Pink Heart Society. Come play.

Selling well, writing slowly!

2007-10-14T22:02:00.000Z

Now you see this is bad!

I allowed myself to pop into the 'cupboard I fondly call my study' for the time it took to drink a mug of coffee in order to delete the 567 spam emails I've collected over the weekend and I'm still here twenty minutes later - and my coffee is cold.

By the by, why do people bother to send SPAM? Surely to goodness it can't work. And it's certainly not very specific, is it? A goodly proportion of mine are offering to enlarge a body part I simply don't possess.

It's not as though I've actually spent much time looking at the emails either. I thought I'd quickly 'google' Oman - as you do when you're writing a sheikh book and want to get your dishdashas straight - and have been very badly sidetracked. As I far too often am.

Memo to Self: THIS IS WHY I'M WRITING THIS BOOK ON MY LAPTOP WHICH HAS NO ACCESS TO THE INTERNET.

And then, of course, I couldn't resist MSNing Trish to check she's not making too much progress on her WIP.

Actually this was a good move. First off, contrary to her own blog, she has not got her fingers on her keyboard all the time. Right at this moment she is watching 'Smallville' which makes me feel much better.

Secondly, she knows how to check the Waldenbooks Bestseller List and I'm on it. 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' came in at number 10 for the week ending 6th October.

Now send me back to work ..........

Not so guilty pleasure

2007-09-27T15:50:00.000Z

Did you listen to Radio 4's programme?

I'm breathing a sigh of relief. All told I think it was a fair and balanced programme. Within the first minute or so I was laughing as my fellow PHS editor, Nicola Marsh, had her book, 'Two Week Mistress', picked off the stand in the foyer and the blurb read out. Nice that the inclusion of a wombat made it sound fun.

Presents/Modern author Sharon Kendrick did a great job countering some very silly arguments. As did the editors. And really what's to defend? M&B is a global brand and our books sell in millions. One look at the figures should surely silence most critics.

I listened politely to Mary Evans criticisms of the genre and my considered response is that she has a staggeringly low opinion of the intelligence of women. She's just rude. We know, of course we know, that our lives will not be perfect ever more if we only meet the right man. For a start there just aren't enough 6ft 2" Greek billionaires going around! (Incidentally I have never written a hero like that although I thoroughly enjoy reading them when other authors do. And if you'd like to buy my latest release, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' you'll discover a disfigured hero. Just thought I'd mention that since the implication was you wouldn't find him.) That's the point though. It's fantasy. It's life as we wish it was.

The year I've just lived through has been my bleakest yet. My mum died of ovarian cancer. My husband was rediagnosed with his cancer and we are currently mid chemo. Horrendous timing because he's also been made redundant. And I have five dependent children who are firmly looking at me to keep things steady for them. It's not fun.

The thing is I know I'm not alone. I know there'll be people reading this who are experiencing similar life issues. Some of you will be coming out of dark times and others of you slipping into them. That's life. Real life. And I don't want to write about that. I don't want to read it either. Nor do I want to see movies, however clever, that make me feel miserable.

Other people are welcome to read and write what they like but I'm tired of apologising for wanting a happy ending. I want to escape into something 'safe'. I want to believe my life can change for the better in a moment.

Does that make me a 'rather miserable, rather disappointed, rather jaundiced' person? According to Mary Evans it would seem it does. But I disagree. You know, I'm standing upright, I'm holding things together, I'm managing to do all that without medication AND I enjoy what I'm writing. Most days. :) What's more my books have hit the Waldenbook Bestseller Lists.

I think I'm going to go have a coffee and get back to work. If you missed the programme, and it's really entertaining listening, you can catch it here. It's called Guilty Pleasure.

Guilty Pleasure

2007-09-24T13:36:00.000Z

It's all beginning. With Mills and Boon turning 100 years old in 2008 there will undoubtedly be an upsurge of media attention. Here's a programme not to miss if you've got access to BBC Radio 4 at 11.30am UK time. (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4)

Guilty Pleasure: a Hundred Years of Mills and Boon.

Here's what Jane Anderson says about the programme in the Radio Times:

"Comedian Lucy Porter admits to feeling a sense of shame in being caught reading a Mills and Boon romance on public transport. But, as she finds out on visiting Romance HQ, aka the Mills and Boon offices in the aptly named Paradise Road in Surrey, these works of fiction shift 200 million copies each year. There's a strong feminist contention that Mills and Boon encourages women to settle for less than they're worth, but Fay Weldon argues back that we should let writers write what they want and readers read what they want."

Chris Campling writes:

"Someone you know has read, possibly even written, a Mills and Boon romantic novel. There is no shame in this. In fact, so little shame is there that people pour out of the woodwork to talk to comedian Lucy Porter for Guilty Pleasure - a Hundred Years of Mills and Boon (Radio 4, Thursday, 11.30am).

Some of them are successful M and B writers, including Roger Sanderson, the imprint's only male novelist. The only one to admit to it, perhaps. Others are not so fortunate. One failed contributor to the oeuvre tells Porter that having her contribution, the intriguingly titled Fires of Zanzibar, knocked back so damaged her confidence that she was put off writing for six years. Luckily when Helen Fielding did get her nerve back she came up with Bridget Jones, so it all worked out in the end.

Porter's programme is full of nuggets like that, as she talks to editors and executives and roots through the company's enormous archives - 100 years of slim volumes full of bursting bodices takes up a lot of space.

In the interests of balance, though, she also talks to those critics who argue that the novels are formulaic, badly written, sexist and for people who are unhappy. One can see the truth of the first three gripes, but the fourth? What's wrong with writing and publishing books that make unhappy people happy?"

Okay, I'm braced. I have no doubt parts of the programme will irritate me greatly - as has some of the above. We'll see ......

The Glamorous Life of an Author

2007-09-22T17:10:00.000Z

No, really! Sometimes, not so often I admit, but sometimes it really is glamorous. Wednesday saw me don my best clothes and take the train to beautiful Richmond where the Harlequin M&B editorial team are based. It's always a little dangerous because you emerge from Richmond Station and are immediately plunged into shopping paradise. I suspect it's a cunning plan by the editors to keep up all so in debt that we're truly motivated to write another book!

This year my editor and I took a short stroll to the newly opened Fishworks.

Over the most incredible seafood I think I've ever eaten we discussed my career to date and what's planned for next year. I've come home very fired up with ideas swirling about in my head.

Yesterday it was back to London again. This year Mills & Boon held their 'Celebratory Toast' at The Oriental Club in Stratford Place. I love seeing inside all these amazing places. The Oriental Club is tucked behind Oxford Circus. How amazing is that!

Apart from it being nice to catch up with author friends it wt was wonderful to hear how well Niroli is selling. Everyone seems to be very excited about it. The box sets have been the biggest seller on the M&B site EVER. My 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' will hit the selves at the beginning of October.

Trish Wylie has to fly back to Ireland today so that's all the blogging I intend to do. We are going to make the most of the last of the summer sunshine, sit in a quiet cafe and put the world to rights.

But before I sign off I have to give my gift to the little jumping man.

The Pink Heart Society is celebrating the first anniversary of its launch this month and to mark the occasion we're giving away the largest bundle of goodies ever. Writer of fiction I might be but there isn't a word of exaggeration when I tell you the prize is absolutely fantastic. To be in with a chance of winning you have to follow the Treasure Hunt and make a note of all the presents given to our birthday boy.

So here's mine:

He's been a bit over-excited with all the attention so I'm going to settle him down with something soothing.

A Hot Pink Cocktail

1 1/2 oz Tequila Rose
Hot Chocolate
Whipped Cream

Fill with hot chocolate and top with whipped cream. Serve in coffee cup.

And don't worry about the alcohol content because pink hearts age differently from the rest of us!

Time to Vote

2007-09-16T18:27:00.000Z

Having just found this on Liz Fielding's blog I make absoslutely no apologies for copying it over here. I'm fairly certain she won't sue me! :)

It's time to vote for your favourite book from the following list at the North-West Libraries TIME TO READ -- PURE PASSION website. This is a wonderful initiative from a very supportive library region with romances from every genre and for every taste on the list. Just click on the link at the bottom of the list, then on the VOTE HERE button at the top right hand corner.

A Step In The Dark by Judith Lennox

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Brown Owl’s Guide To Life by Kate Harrison

Deceived by Nicola Cornick

Decent Exposure by Phillipa Ashley

Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard

Gardens of Delight by Erica James

Going Dutch by Katie Fforde

His ’n’ Hers by Mike Gayle

Home Truths by Freya North

Love Potions by Christina Jones

Mounting Desire by Nina Killham

PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

Rainbow’s End by Eileen Ramsay

Reunited:Marriage in a Million by Liz Fielding

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Tall, Dark and Handsome by Nisha Minhas

The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Undead and Unwed by Mary Janice Davidson

Okay, that's the list. Now click here and VOTE

If you're not in the UK I'm afraid you'll have to cheer from the sidelines because they do seem to be asking for a UK postcode.

I know many of these authors from the Romantic Novelists' Association and have loved their books but Liz writes for Harlequin Romance, as do I, and that swings my vote.

It's between you and the ballot box!!

Look what I found!

2007-09-16T04:25:00.000Z

I just want you all to know it's 5.23 am and here I am. A little bleary eyed but I've had that oh-so-important first shot of caffeine and I'm about to get down to some work.

But, during that coffee, look what I found - Romance Novel TV. How completely brilliant is that. I've spent far too long author spotting at the RITA awards and must stop now!

I'm not allowed to blog anymore today either. This quiet will be punctured far too quickly and I've got a book to write.

Chemo Day and writing anyway

2007-09-12T13:00:00.001Z

Today is my husband's fifth chemo session. They happen every three weeks and they take the entire day. Five or six hours of slow dripping. I've nipped back home ready to do the school run and then I'll return to the hospital, pick him up and bring him back to sleep.

This really has been THE most grotty year. But we've had some good news so despite it all I have to say I'm feeling bouyant. The latest scans show it's working better than expected. Just another three sessions to go after this one.

Meanwhile I've still got to finish my copy edits on 'Wanted: White Wedding'. I'm finding them so irritating to do because my head is busy with another story and I'd like to be able to get on with it.

This is just one of many images I've found of my fictional Amrah. If I tell you it's even more beautiful in my head you'll understand why I'd prefer to be there than conscientiously going through copy edits.

I'm so pleased to want to write again. For such a long time it's felt like a huge effort. Over on eHarlequin there's a wonderful blog on what keeps authors writing. I've loved reading it. You'll find it here.

There have definitely been weeks where I wondered whether I'd ever flick my laptop open again. The time I spent at the keyboard was time wasted, to be honest. And then suddenly I'm back. It's a europhic feeling.

I suppose all artists, whatever their sphere, have to accept that creating anything is not the work of an automaton. It's all about personal investment. I think I'm really lucky to have had an editor who believed in me and kept me going. Painfully slowly but still at the 'typeface'.

And, of course, my fellow Pink Heart Society editors - particularly Trish who nagged shamefully. Don't forget to keep looking at the PHS blog this month. You need to follow the Treasure Hunt to be in with a chance of winning this months fantastic hamper.

And the Winner .......

2007-09-04T12:18:00.001Z

The Pink Heart Society annual Hugh Jackman tour was great fun. If you missed the main event pop over here and find all the links posted for some wonderful pictures. Much though it pains me to say it I think this is my favourite:

I reckon the honours for that have to be shared between Michelle Styles, who found it, and Julie Cohen, who posted it. I suppose some credit also ought to go to the photographer ... and maybe a bit to Hugh's parents. :)

Today at the Pink Heart Society we're beginning the massive Birthday Treasure Hunt. The hamper prize is utterly droolworthy. Time to go play!

Well, for you. I'm not allowed to win it and I must make myself sit down to my copy-edits. So far I've discovered my delinquent teenager is no longer allowed to say 'It's pissing down out here'. Gone with a flick of the editorial pen and replaced by 'pouring'. Accurate but not particularly mouthy is it? Is 'pissing' particularly offensive????

Anyway, 'tis gone. Ever onwards ...

PS - For Trish who appears to have entered into a war of the Jackman YouTubes. I see yours and I up you with this!

PHS Hugh Jackman Tour 2007

2007-09-03T22:35:00.000Z

Fortunately it's effortless to find pictures of this man on the web. I've used up a fair few on my PHS blog this morning but I've still got one or two more! If you've absolutely no idea what I'm talking about you need to pop over to the Pink Heart Society and read all about the annual Hugh Jackman Tour!!

I've narrowed my personal selection down to two.

Hugh Jackman - the family man.

I'm still not sure about his beard but this is a lovely, natural photo of Hugh with his wife Deborra-Lee and their daughter Ava Eliot Jackman.

Only then I came across this one of Hugh Jackman in front of BOOKS. That has to be about perfect! You choose.

And here, as promised on my PHS blog today, is Sandra Garcia-Myers review of my Niroli book, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride', for the Romantic Times Magazine.

Princess Isabella Fierezza wants reclusive Domenic Vincini to build a resort she hopes will increase tourism to Niroli. A scarred burn victim who tried, but ultimately failed, to rescue his family from a fire, Domenic senses something in his soul awaken when he meets Isabella. But he's afraid of caring too deeply for someone, so he rejects her. But Isabella doesn't give up that easily. Will he realize, before it's too late, how lucky he would be to have a second chance at love? Natasha Oakley's beautifully crafted story shimmers with emotion. The Tycoon's Princess Bride (4.5), the newest addition to the Royal House of Niroli series, is a terrifically poignant tale about looking beneath the surface to the soul and recognizing your soul mate.

Reviews honestly don't come lovelier than that! And it was a TOP PICK which is just pure icing on the cake.

Anniversaries and new beginnings ...

2007-09-01T21:32:00.000Z

Missed me???

I'm just about holding my head up out of the water now. My husband is now halfway through his chemo and coping well. Hopefully it's working well. We'll find that out at the next scan which is looming close. Meanwhile I'm getting used to having him about the house. Love him as I do it's still an adjustment. He's sooooooo noisy. It seems wherever he's been he leaves a radio on, the TV, something! Has anyone else got one like that???

So things are settling into some kind of a pattern. Not great but ... doable. I reckon that's the best word to describe what's going on with us. And the children are fantastic. Messy but fantastic. (I actually found a used yoghurt pot beside the sofa this morning. Mothers everywhere please join me in a corporate howl of outrage!)

I've decided this is the day to re-start my blog. The 1st of September seemed an auspicous choice because this was the day we launched The Pink Heart Society - a blog in praise of category fiction. We being Trish Wylie, Ally Blake and Nicola Marsh. It's been such fun and hugely successful. So much so, in fact, we had to find ourselves another editor to share the workload. We four became five with the addition of Jenna Bayley-Burke.

Can you believe The Pink Heart Society has been going a whole year?

We begin our second year with the addition of some columnists. We've been so snowed under of late. So Annie West, Anne McAllister, Kate Walker, Samantha Hunter and Fiona Harper have come to help. Should be fun shouldn't it!

The whole of September is given over to celebrations and you should just see the hamper we're putting together. It's droolworthy.

Come and play.

Right now I've got copy edits I should be doing for 'Wanted: White Wedding', a Sheikh story to finish but I'm not doing either. Instead I'm about to hunt around for the perfect Hugh Jackman picture. There's a reason for that but you'll have to come back on Monday to find out what it was.

It's nice to be back!

More bad news!

2007-06-16T18:06:00.000Z

I'm so sorry about this but I'm here to report more bad news.

As anyone who's read my website knows the reason I started writing was because my husband was diagnosed with cancer. At the time our five children were 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1 years old. I kind of took stock of where we were and realised I was never going to say 'mum, will see you all in ten weeks' and disappear off on some acting job. It was the end of one passion and the beginning of another.

Unfortunately my husband's cancer has now returned and he begins his chemo on Tuesday. I'm glad, of course, there is treatment but I will freely confess to feeling very low about what's ahead of us. It's particularly difficult for our children because of my mum's very recent death from cancer. Additionally a good friend who was initially diagnosed with her cancer at about the same time as my husband is now in her final days/weeks and will leave behind a 7 year old.

Tough days. The upside is that our children are now older. The youngest is now 8 and the eldest 14. The big downside is that this diagnosis has also coincided with him being made redundant which introduces all kinds of additional worries.

I very much suspect that this blog will continue to be shamefully neglected. I think, perhaps, I shall try and post something once a week and I'll try not to be too depressing.

Niroli

2007-05-18T14:53:00.000Z

You might have noticed I've not been blogging for awhile. My mum's illness and recent death meant that I got terribly behind with my writing - and I'm still busy catching up.

But ...

I couldn't resist taking time out from my current WIP to show you this.

It seems such a long time ago I was writing my contribution to the Niroli series. The first book, Penny Jordan's 'The Future King's Pregnant Mistress', is released in NA and the UK in July 2007. My book, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride', is the fourth in the series and will appear in October 2007 unless ........

Unless you would like to buy the whole set right now! Over on the Mills and Boon site it's possible to do just that - click here!

And ...

2007-04-10T11:39:00.000Z

Ally Blake has just returned from a short break away to discover she's also finalled in the HOLT with her lovely 'Meant-To-Be Mother'.

A nice showing for the Pink Heart Society girls!

Here's the complete list of finalists in the Traditional category:

Meant-To-Be Mother by Ally Blake
Here With Me by Holly Jacobs
Rescued by Mr. Right by Shirley Jump
Accepting the Boss's Proposal by Natasha Oakley
Project: Parenthood by Trish Wylie

Now back to work. I've got steam coming out of my ears ....

Yipidee Do Dah!

2007-04-07T06:30:00.000Z

It's been a long time since I did this. I'm nearly back. Promise. Just the small matter of a book to finish before I'm allowed to! (Editors are sooo demanding.)

Meanwhile, I've had some good news.

I came home yesterday to find a message on my answerphone saying that 'Accepting The Boss's Proposal' is a finalist for the Holt Medallion Award.

Such a nice message to come home to!! And I've not deleted it yet so can play it over and over. I know the English accent does all kinds of funny things to American ears but it's entirely mutual. How *do* you make 'category' take that long to say????

'Accepting The Boss's Proposal' is turning out to be a very 'lucky' book as it's also finalled in the Romantic Novelists' Association Romance Prize. On the whole I'd say my first year of competition entering is going quite well!

Writing buddy Trish Wylie has also finalled in the HOLT with her wonderful 'Project: Parenthood'. BTW do pop over to her revamped and beautifully shiny website. She's between books and has been very ... er ... helpfully putting together a hero database. Not that I'm looking, of course, I've got a book to finish ....

Oh and do go read all about the preparations for the Romantic Novelists' Association Award Lunch at the Savoy over at eHarlequin. I'm blogging there soon but have really got to keep my nose to the grindstone and catch up on my writing proper.

I'll be back as soon as I've written this hero of mine into shape!

Missing me??????

2007-02-13T21:47:00.000Z

You're in the wrong place! To celebrate the final merge of 'Harlequin Romance' and 'Silhouette Romance' into the brand new and very exciting 'Romance' line I've been asked to blog on eharlequin.com throughout February.

Come and play by clicking here. Currently we're discussing what makes for an unforgetable hero and have just agreed a good sense of humour is a 'must'.

Normal service will be resumed here in March.

If you're here to check up on the progress of my diet - it's so bad I'm not telling!!!

Weigh in Day again!!!

2007-02-04T07:36:00.000Z

Now that's better!

It would seem the trifle didn't do lasting damage then. Let's hope the chocolates I inadvertantly swallowed last night won't either!!

Don't forget to come and keep me company while I'm blogging at eharlequin.com.

Blogging on eHarlequin.com

2007-02-01T18:49:00.000Z

Today is offspring 2's birthday - and, can you believe it, we didn't even have a cake! She opened her presents a little after six in the morning and then we dashed about the day as normal having decided to move the main family celebrations to the weekend.

Tonight was offspring 3's violin lesson, offsprings 1 and 2 had ATC (Air Training Corps) but offspring 1 couldn't go because he had 'options evening' at school. So, I've spent the evening trying to make head and tail of the current UK exam system.

In my day, it was all exam based and even the very brightest didn't do more than 8 'O' levels. Now you've got to try and work out whether you'd get better results from a subject that has a higher coursework content ...

The one thing I'm certain of is that if Offspring 1 goes ahead and picks French and German he can expect absolutely no help from me!

On top of all that I'm blogging on eharlequin this month. Somehow I agreed to that in a rash moment. I suppose it seemed like a good idea because February was then a long way off and was going to see the final merge between Harlequin Romance and Silhouette Romance.

Of course, it's still the final merge month. It's just it's no longer a long way off!

I'm hoping it's going to be a two-way type of conversation. So if there's anything you want to know about me, about what it's like to be an author and how I approach my writing, do come and play by clicking here.

It's looking like tomorrow I'll be talking about how having been an actress has affected the way I write.

Breaking News!!!!

2007-01-28T15:41:00.000Z

Here's a piece of news it's been hard not to share - 'Accepting The Boss's Proposal' has been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association's 'Romance' Prize.

Click here to see my competition. :)

I'm really thrilled and very flattered at the company I find myself in. Exciting, isn't it!

Now if ever a girl had a good reason to stick to eating vegetables this has to be it. What shall I wear to lunch at the Savoy in London?

More Public Humiliation!

2007-01-28T07:50:00.000Z

It's weigh-in day.

Ooops!!!!

Don't regret it though. The memory of that trifle will have to carry me though the next month.

Public Humiliation!

2007-01-27T14:53:00.000Z

Over at the Pink Heart Society blog it's Hamper Day. Not only that Ally has decreed we must share the name of our first love. There's nothing quite like humiliating oneself in public, is there!

Just consider, since the launch of our group blog in September, I've found myself on a diet I hadn't planned to go on and am spending far too much time googling pictures of Richard Armitage and Rufus Sewell. Now I've had to tell you about my adolescent fantasy. Any aspiring writers out there ought to seriously consider the personal cost of selling to Harlequin!!!

After a bit of thought - for I was a fickle girl - I plumped for Michael Praed as 'Robin of Sherwood'. There was something about all that chest hair which delighted my girlish heart.

Naturally I saw myself as a latent redhead. Judi Trott's hair really is worthy of any Mills & Boon heroine. I can feel the envy washing over me as I type.

Incidentally, 'Robin of Sherwood' is available on DVD in the UK and will be soon (13th March) in the USA and Canada. I've just put it on my amazon rental list. I feel it's time for me to experience a 'blast from the past'.

You'll have to come back tomorrow to hear how much damage the Tipsy Laird Trifle did to my diet. Since it was delicious, I suspect lots.

Now I must write. Daniel, my hero of the moment, has a teenage daughter who's causing me quite as much trouble as she is him. When Cordelia's grown up a little more I shall probably give her a story of her own because she keeps trying to take over this one.

I'm beginning to think this book wants to be something quite different.

Burns Night

2007-01-25T14:22:00.000Z

Tonight is the night to honour Scotland's favourite son. Certainly the night to curl up in front of a roaring fire and read poetry. If you're planning on doing the full Burn's Night Supper you might want to click here.

This is probably the time to confess I'm not doing anything until tomorrow night. If you're going to imbibe whisky it's better not to have to get up too early the next day. I've finally decided against making cranachan as my contribution. I'm going to make a version of Tipsy Laird Trifle. I think! You were not at all helpful, by the way.

This one is the creation of TV chef James Martin.
Ingredients
6 tbsp whisky
1 orange, juice and zest
5 trifle sponges
450g/1lb raspberries
110g/4oz white chocolate, grated
1 carton good quality fresh custard
400ml/13fl oz double cream
1 tub mascarpone cheese
55g/2oz toasted flaked almonds

Method1. Mix the whisky and the orange juice and pour in a shallow bowl. Slice the trifle sponges in half horizontally. Dunk each piece in the whisky and place them in the bottom of the trifle bowl.
2. Scatter the raspberries over the top, then the chocolate.
3. Top with the custard.
4. Whip the double cream until half whipped, combine with the cheese and spoon over the trifle. Scatter the toasted almonds over the top just before serving.

Sounds nice, doesn't it, and not too time consuming to make because I really need to concentrate on my book. Despite having committed the unforgiveable sin of delivering it late, at the moment it's still heading for a December 07 slot which means I get to make it Christmas. I'm threading decorations through as we speak.

I may even succumb to snow. The practical side of my brain is whispering that it rarely snows in December in this part of the world. (End of January is more usual.) But, this is life turning out the way we want it and I always hope for a white Christmas.

It's about ten minutes until the school run - which is why I'm allowed to blog. (I put that in for my poor editor.) When I get home again I'm going to be very bad and settle my brood down in front of a DVD and hide away and write.

I'm feeling more bouyant now than I have in weeks. I've just heard my mum has made it through her operation okay. Next step will be to discover how much of the cancer they've been able to cut away. But that's for another day. Right now, I'm going to enjoy where we've got to.