LIZ FIELDING

AND MY GUEST THIS WEEK IS...

Well, I’m still here although still minus the broadband connection, and Gunnar hasn't yet decided who is the winner of Anne McAllister's book. It's been snowing in his part of the world and that it tough on a dog, but I'm sure he'll have it sorted by Monday.

But right now there is nothing on earth that would keep me from introducing my guest this week, the glamorous, multi-talented, Ally Blake.

Ally and I have never met, but we really bonded over the books we wrote for the The Brides of Bella Lucia series. Our heroines were half-sisters and when my heroine, Louise went to stay in Melbourne with Jodie, we wanted to be sure that our characters didn’t behave, well, out of character.

It was terrific fun exchanging scenes, cocktails, and supporting characters and when I decided that my website needed a new look, it was the multi-talented Ally who I turned to.

She writes great books, too; her lovely Billionaire on Her Doorstep is very high on my list of best ever Harlequin Romances.

This month she has a new book, FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR, on sale in the US and UK, but I’ll leave her to tell you all about that.


MY SECRET HELPER...

I love my husband. Adore him to bits. Feel beyond blessed that all those years ago at the local TV station he walked past the conference room and caught me sneakily eating a chocolate bar when I was meant to be partaking in a serious meeting.

He’s so lovely he tries to help come up with ideas for new books for me all the time. Problem is he’s really terrible at it. Horrendous even. So much so when he tells me his ideas, I’ve found the best thing to do is stick my fingers in my ears and say, ‘La la la,’ really loudly until he gets the hint and leaves me be.

He tries. He really does. ‘Why can’t he be a football player and she can be his best friend’s girlfriend?’ he says. I’m serious. And this is even one of his better ones!

But there was one night, snuggled together in front of the TV, watching a random eighties movie, when he came out with a pearler. Out of nowhere, in one long stream of consciousness, he gave me such a lovely, poignant beginning to a romance novel I could scarcely breathe lest it float away before I’d written it down it.

From that moment FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR, my current North America and UK release, was born.

Needless to say he’s proud as punch and will likely tell everyone he meets that he practically wrote the thing too. Which, I add here just for the record, he most certainly did not. Though he did make me dinner, did rub my feet, and did do lots of other things to help make this book possible.

Yet, just to be safe, in future I think I’ll let him stick to naming my characters’ pets ;).

Here’s a small taste of what my husband can inspire me to write. Hope you like!

Through a gap in the seemingly never-ending wilderness, Hud was blinded by a pinpoint of light. He held up a hand to shield his eyes and tugged his rucksack through the heavy brush until he found himself face to face with the old pool house.
A half-smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and pressed against the backs of his tired eyes as echoes of more long forgotten recollections tickled at the corner of his mind. Dive bombing. Performing pretty darned legendary back flips off the diving board. Lying on his back in the water for hours simply watching clouds shift past the pitched glass roof, wondering if his mum and dad looked up if they would see the same clouds while trekking some thrilling spot on the other side of the world.
He levered his heavy rucksack to the ground, and left it where it lay. Claudel was fifty metres off the road, behind a ten foot brick wall, and a ten minute walk through a pine forest to the nearby township of Saffron. If anybody was lucky enough to find his shabby old khaki bag they were welcome to the raggedy clothes, and just as threadbare passport within. It wasn’t as though he’d be needing them to head through a different kind of wilderness with his trusty Nikon camera slung over one shoulder and a hunting knife slung over the other with his team of documentary filmmakers at his back any time soon.

He cricked his neck, pressed his hands into the tight small of his back and glanced upwards to find brilliant red bougainvillea creepers seemed to have swallowed half the long building, leaving the hundred odd remaining white-framed glass panels that had survived the tests of time, thick with dust and mould. He could only hazard to guess how foul the inside might be after not having been blessed by a human touch for a good ten years.

‘If memory serves correctly...’ he said out loud, the sound of his voice raspy and deep in his ears after hours of non-use. Then he made his way around the back of the building to find the door was ajar, at an odd angle, askew on rusted hinges, as though it had been yanked open.

Instinct born of years spent stepping unannounced into dark, secret places he stepped quietly - toe to heel - over a small pile of worn broken glass and inside the pool house where his feet came to a giveaway scraping halt of boot soles on tessellated French tile.

The pool house was clean. The mottled green tiles around the margins sparkled and the dozen white marble benches were spotless. Miniature palm trees in plant boxes edging the length of the room were luscious with good health. And the water in the pool shimmered dark and inviting against the black-painted concrete bottom.
A sound broke through Hud’s reverie. A soft ripple as water lapped gently against the edge of the pool. And he was hit with the sense that something was about to break the dark surface. He held his breath, squared his stance, squinted into the shadows and watched in practised silence as...

A mermaid rose from the depths.

From there everything seemed to slow; his breaths, his heartbeat, the dust floating through shards of sunlight, as the nymph waded through the water, away from him, leaving a trail of leisurely wavelets in her wake.

Water streamed over hair the colour of brandy. It ran adoringly over pale, lean, youthful arms. And as she swayed up the steps, water gripped to her willowy form as long as it could before cruel gravity claimed it back to the dark depths.
Hud felt like he ought to avert his gaze. Like he was too old, too cynical, too jaded to be allowed such a vision. But those same qualities only meant that his curiosity far outweighed his humility, and his eyes remained riveted to the back of the exquisite stranger.

I’m writing my next Harlequin Romance right now, and my hero has a young daughter. Problem is I am struggling to come up with a name! I could ask my hubby but I thought I’d ask you lovely folk instead just to mix things up.

Whoever picks the perfect name for a 4-year-old moppet with dark curls and a penchant for getting as muddy as humanly possible wins a signed copy of FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR!

FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR
Harlequin Romance - North America and the UK March 2008
Mother’s Day Gift Selection - Australia & New Zealand April 2008