PURPLE HAIR AND STEPFORD WIVES...

Do you remember when I posted a picture of Josie, the heroine of the ESCAPE AROUND THE WORLD book I was writing last year -- the girl with purple hair who first appeared in The Bride's Baby which you can still download for free at here if you haven't already read it.

Here's a reminder in case you missed that post.

I posted it, you might recall, because I knew -- I've had a lot of covers -- that Josie would end up looking like a Stepford Wife on the cover artwork of the book. It's sad, but apparently a fact that readers are put off by anything remotely different, but I wanted you all to know how I saw her. Purple boots, Zandra Rhodes punk clothes - we had a lively discussion about bags if you remember - and that hair.

Black and purple. They were her trademark colours and she wore nothing else.

Anyway, just in case any of you thought I was being a little bit negative about it, the cover of A WEDDING A LEOPARD'S TREE LODGE was posted on Amazon today and here it is.

Actually, I think the model is the same woman who appeared on the cover of The Baby Plan -- a very elegant and dynamic business woman with a personal fortune, a world away from Josie in just about every way.

That said, it's a really lovely cover. No really. The nicest one I've had in a while.

And obviously the heroine's neat little green shirt couldn't possibly have been purple -- it would have clashed with that sunset.

Of course if they'd used a slightly different palette for the sky, mauves, pinks... They could even have made it reflect on her hair a little.

No. Not another word. Lips zipped.

MILLS & BOON...

... have just added review buttons beneath their online book sales.

If you loved a book, it's always great to let the publisher/author know and this is such an easy way to do it. Here's a link to the website

I'm sorry I'm not being terribly communicative at the moment. I'm pinned to a deadline and I'm in a twitch waiting for a major family event to happen. You'll know as soon as I do!

VALENTINE'S DAY FUN IN FRANCE...

7 nouvelles pour la St Valentin, Lucy Monroe, Sharon Kendrick, Leanne Banks, Sandra Marton, Liz Fielding, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Joanne Rock

UN PLAY-BOY TROP SEDUISANT de Lucy Monroe : Bethany s'envole pour Rome avec un seul désir en tête : vivre une semaine sous le signe de la passion ...

PATRON ... ET AMANT de Sharon Kendrick : Entre Joséphine et son patron, rien n'aurait jamais dû se passer. Et pourtant ...

L'ENFANT DU MILLIARDAIRE de Leanne Banks : De son aventure passionnée avec Garrett, Haley a eu un enfant ... mais Garrett s'est volatilisé et ignore qu'il est père. Jusqu'à ce que le destin fasse de nouveau se croiser leurs routes, quatre plus tard...

A LA RECHERCHE DE L'AMOUR de Sandra Marton : Rio n'a aimé qu'une fois : Esmé - et elle a osé le quitter. Aussi est-il bien décidé à retrouver la jeune femme pour la reconquérir ...

BRULANTE ATTIRANCE de Liz Fielding : Comment garder son job ? C'est le défi que doit relever Polly face à l'irrésistible Luc. Mais celui-ci lui fait perdre tous ses moyens ! ... (Also known as The Cinderella Valentine)

LA FIANCEE EVADEE de Vicki Lewis Thompson : Au moment de dire « Oui », Priscilla n'est plus du tout sûre de vouloir se marier. Elle prend alors la fuite. Mais pas seule...

UNE RENCONTRE IMPREVUE, Joanne Rock : Madison avait la ferme intention de prendre du temps pour elle, et elle seule ! Mais voilà que sa rencontre avec un bel inconnu fait chavirer ses résolutions ...

Here's the link!

And don't forget to vote at eHarlequin -- link on the next post down!

Blog Challenge Awards

It's time to vote on the people who've kept you entertained on the eHarlequin Blog during the last twelve months.  

The categories are:

Favourite Group Author Blog

Blogger Who Comments Most

Blogger Whose Reviews You Love

Blogger Who Sparks Our Interest

Authors Blog You Can't Pass Over

It won't take a second.  Just click ...   here


AND A SPECIAL OFFER...

Romance is definitely in the air as Valentine's Day swiftly approaches. Leave nothing to chance in 2010 ~ make sure the men in your life deliver with this exclusive offer of 30% OFF all books and eBooks at www.millsandboon.co.uk until the end of January!

To claim your discount go to Mills and Boon and start shopping.

Enter the code CUPID11 into the promotion code box as you check out and your discount will automatically be applied to your order.

I'VE BEEN TAGGED BY KATE HARDY...

...and now I have to tell you seven things about me that you don't already know.

Oh, dear. Is there anything left?  You all know about the chocolate addiction, the fact that I loathe housework, struggle with my weight, cook - intermittently, that my son had his first book published last year and I am about to become a grandmother courtesy of my dd.

I'll try, but stop me if you've heard this before...

1 I'm going to Rome in the spring.   You won't have heard that.  It's very new news since I only booked yesterday! This will be our second trip and we'll have more time to fit in stuff we missed a couple of years ago. We'll know not to wear ourselves out before being faced with the climb up to the Palantine.  And this time I'm defo going to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain because I want to make certain that it won't be my last visit!

2 I started wearing spectacles when I was three years old. Those little round metal ones that these days look cool, but back then there was no choice. The specialist told my mother that he couldn't do anything for me until I could read the letters off the board. Yeah, right... I showed him!

3 My daughter was addicted to mauve when she was tiny -- a colour unheard of in children's clothes back then. I used to accost total strangers in the street if I saw a child wearing something in any shade of mauve and ask where they'd got it (I was the archetypal embarrassing mum). She still remembers the mauve jumper I knitted her (out of pure desperation!).

4 At a smigdeon over five feet tall and with size 4 shoes, I was the tallest woman and had the biggest feet of any woman on my mother's side of the family until my daughter overtook both at around the age of 10.

5 I renewed my passport today, which means it's ten years since I went to Washington RWA with my dd and met some lovely ladies including Anne McAllister, Anne Gracie, Grace Green, Shannon Short amongst them and got a bit of reputation on the dance floor.   The lady in the post office checking my photograph to make sure my ears showed said I hadn't changed a bit.  Wrong.  I've put on weight and the hair is white instead of blonde (it was white then, the blonde was courtesy of L'Oreal!)

6  I had a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch.

7 I took my driving test four times before I passed (I was incapable of reversing around a corner), but I've been driving for 45 years without an accident.

LORDS OF THE DESERT - SPECIAL OFFER!

I've just received my author copies -- a meagre two which, because it's a reissue, is all I'm entitled to -- of this gorgeous book.  The cover, needless to say, has blown me away.

There are three Lords of the Desert volumes, each containing three books and here's the deal.  If you go to the Mills and Boon website, click on the "Lords of the Desert" icon on the right hand side, you can buy all three for the price of two.  (You can, of course, by them separately, but golly, who would want to!) 

My title is THE SHEIKH'S GUARDED HEART, which is the first of the Ramal Hamrah books -- Lucy and Hanif's story.  (You may have come across them in The Sheikh's Unsuitable Wife and Her Desert Dream and wondered about their story.)

It's at the emotional end of my personal writing scale.

Lucy Forrester has just discovered that the man she trusted has run up huge debts on her credit cards, fraudulently borrowed large sums of money against the house she’s inherited and that far from having an exciting new life with him, he’s disappeared leaving her broke.

And then it gets really bad...

Because it's a reissue there is no "read inside" feature, but here's an excerpt...
 
THE room was cool, quiet, the light filtering softly through rich, coloured glass; lapis blue and emerald, with tiny pieces of jewel bright red that gave Lucy the impression of lying in some undersea grotto. A grotto in which the bed was soft and enfolding.Lucy drifted away, back into the dark and the next time she woke the light was brighter, but the colours were still there and although she found it difficult to open her eyes more than a crack, she could see that it was streaming through an intricately pieced stained glass window, throwing spangles of colour over the white sheets.

If the tiny explosions of pain from every part of her body were not sufficiently convincing, the hand at her shoulder, a low voice that was becoming a familiar backdrop to these moments of consciousness assured her that she was awake.


'Be still, Lucy Forrester. You're safe.'


Safe? What had happened? Where was she? Lucy struggled to look up at the tall figure leaning over her. A surgical collar restricted her movement and one eye still refused to open more than a crack, but she did not need two good eyes to know who he was.
Knife in his hand, he'd told her to be still before. She swallowed. Her throat, mouth were as dry as dust.


'You remember?' he asked. 'The accident?'


'I remember you,' she said. Even without the keffiyeh wound about his face she knew the dark fierce eyes, chiselled cheekbones, the hawkish, autocratic nose that had figured so vividly in her dreams.


Now she could see that his hair was long, thick, tied back at the nape with a dark cord, that only his voice was soft. But the savage she'd glimpsed before she'd passed out appeared to be under control.


But she knew, with every part of her that was female, vulnerable, that the man who'd washed her as she lay bloody and dusty on a hospital couch, was far more dangerous.


'You are Hanif al-Khatib,' she said. 'You saved my life...'

SNOWED IN...

On Twitter, yesterday, there were a few snide comments about how all it took was "a flake of snow" to bring Britain to a standstill.

In case any of you think we're whining about a flurry or two, can't cope, here-- courtesy of Anne McAllister in the States, who in turn got it from Anne Gracie in Australia -- is the true picture. From space.

That isn't a flake or two. The entire country is covered with the stuff. And if we seem to be struggling, well the truth is that we haven't had this kind of weather for years. Discussion on loops are recalling memories of the dreadful winter of 1947, when a postwar Britain suffered in ways we can't begin to imagine. No central heating, coal in short supply, midwives unable to get through to deliver babies.  Water frozen in the pipes, vegetables frozen in the ground.  And then came the floods. 

I was brought up on memories of that flood, when the water came up to the top of Aunty Amy's cooker.  It was gas, so they used the burners and camped out upstairs until the waters receded.  No evacuation in those days.  There was no where to evacuate anyone to. 

I do remember the bad winter of 1962/3 and a few people mentioned one later in the 60s, but I was living in Zambia then and missing out on the freeze.

We do have snow storms. Mostly they're regional and within a few days a thaw sets in. This started before Christmas and we're forecast more of the stuff on Sunday. 

We're not up to our armpits in the stuff as they are in some parts, but there is no way we'd attempt our drive, or the road out of the village. (I've done the sideways slip on the ice at the bottom of the hill and believe me, it's not a fun ride!)

A few hardy souls are getting through. Our postman, Steve, is a hero. "It's all right if you keep going and don't meet anyone coming the other way..." was his stoic response to a query about the narrow road through the village. The driver who delivers prescription meds struggled through yesterday. The milkman is making it, too, in his four-wheel drive. But the refuse hasn't been collected (the men will all be working on the gritting lorries keeping the main roads open).  And the kids are having a whale of a time. 

I'm not whining.  We're warm, there's plenty of food in the cupboards to keep us going and as long as the electricity stays on (with overhead cables that's not a given), we'll be fine.

I hope you're all warm, dry and safe where ever you are.   Take care.