LIZ FIELDING

Dear friends

I shouldn’t be here. I have three books demanding I start them right now but before I plunge into something new I wanted to send you all a note, take time out to draw a couple of names out of the hat for signed books and tell you a little about my spring.

It started really well. My follow up book to A Wife on Paper received editorial approval and will be published as THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE in December. This is Matty’s story. I knew from the moment that she appeared on the page of AWoP that I would have to write it. I resisted for a while – I knew it would be difficult – and wrote a couple of other books, HER WISH-LIST BRIDEGROOM, A NANNY FOR KEEPS, but eventually her voice in my ear was too loud to ignore and I had to buckle down to it.

As I expected, this was not an easy book to write, but immensely rewarding and I think I did Matty justice; bags of emotion, but plenty of laughs, too.

February and March continued the upward trend with A FAMILY OF HIS OWN being shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romance Prize, the Romance Writers’ of America Short Contemporary Category RITA, and Romantic Times BOOKclub’s Reviewers Choice Award for Best Harlequin Romance. Romantic Times also nominated me for a Love & Laughter Career Achievement Award.

Since February, the countryside around my home has been bursting into that wonderful spring time flush of colour. First the acid yellow of celandines, followed by huge patches of the paler, lovelier primroses. Then the bluebells and red campion, so perfectly complementing each other, filled the hedgerows. Now all the meadows are yellow with buttercups and the lanes lined with the froth of Queen Anne’s Lace. There are lambs and baby calves in the fields around my home and along the lane a new foal is tempting me out for a walk on fine days.

I’ve been out and about during the spring. First to London for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Award Luncheon. The guest speaker was Lindsay Davis who writes the wonderful Falco books and entertained us royally. The main award went to a first book, A Good Voyage, by Katharine Davies. And the winner of the Romance Prize? The judges chose A Family of His Own from a wonderful shortlist that included books by Lucy Gordon (http://www.lucygordon.com), Marion Lennox (http://www.marionlennox.com/) and Kate Hardy (http://www.katehardy.com). I still can’t quite believe it.



Romantic Times BOOKclub awarded the book their Reviewers’ Choice Award, too. The Love & Laughter Career Achievement Award deservedly went to the wonderful Holly Jacobs (http://www.hollyjacobs.com).

In May I travelled to the New Forest to take part in the celebrations of my aunt’s 90th birthday. She’s still as bright as a button – this is a lady who takes flying day trips to Venice and Paris -- thoroughly enjoyed her ride in a stretch limo, dared us to embarrass her by singing Happy Birthday to her and kept us all in order. Terrific.

Since this is the real world and not everything can be perfect, authors who write for Harlequin Romance have been faced with the demise of their line in the United States. Harlequin Romance was the original “Harlequin Romance” and has a fond place in the hearts of readers of romance all over the world. It’s not all gloom, however. The books will continue until next August when they will be replaced with a new romance line combining the best of Harlequin Romance and Silhouette Romance. The name of the new line has not yet been decided, but there will be six books a month and readers will still find many of their favourite authors writing the kind of books they love.

Nothing is forever, as we all know, but it is the end of an era.

Finally, if you visit my website (http://www.lizfielding.com/) you’ll find excerpts and the covers of three “Liz Fielding” books out in July. HER WISH-LIST BRIDEGROOM will be published in the US. In the UK and Australia (August), A NANNY FOR KEEPS takes a bow, and in the UK one of my early books, Instant Fire makes a reprise in RISQUÉ BUSINESS.



I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Happy reading.

Love, Liz