BLOG PARTY DAY 3!

Are you keeping up? Maybe a little camomile tea to settle the nerves after all this stimulation.  A cucumber sandwich to keep your strength up. A little strawberry tart? A big fat prawn or two?

What's your favourite party food?  Just say the word and one of our lovely butlers will be at your elbow with a tray. :)

We've still got lots of partying to do, so call over one of the butlers to give you a little massage - Hugh anyone? - to ease out the wrinkles, and then we can party on because I have a very special guest today.

Leah Ashton, our newest author, signed after being mentored by Jessica Hart in the New Voices competition held by Mills and Boon last year. Her first book, Secrets and Speed Dating, will be published in a special pack in September this year in the UK.

Here's Leah to tell you a little bit about her extraordinary year.

Meet the very delicious Tom Harley, a man who looks remarkably like my hero in Secrets & Speed Dating, Dan Halliday :) Dan is just like Tom - tall, strong, a fabulous smile and incredible sky blue eyes that you could just fall into. Tom is an ex-Australian Football League premiership player (and captain), who is now a football commentator, which means I can show a photo of him looking very dapper in a suit, also.

Dan isn't a footballer, he gets his lovely muscles from swimming every morning at Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Western Australia. During the day he manages his two super successful - and super trendy - bars, and he thinks his life is trundling along absolutely perfectly - until he meets Sophie Morgan. Sophie's world is full of to-do lists and plans while Dan has learnt that life can't be micro managed. But then Dan finds himself part of Sophie's latest project.

You may have already met Dan last September, during the Mills & Boon New Voices competition, which I was fortunate enough to win. Dan has grown and changed just a bit since then, but he's still the hero I fell in love with when I first typed up my entry. New Voices was such an incredible experience, everything about it was just so new and so huge - from the number of entrants (over 800!) to the prize on offer (publication!). I ummed and ahhed over entering, but I am just so glad I took that deep breath and dived in - because now by the time that New Voices 2011 begins this September, Dan's story will be a real life, published book! I am just over the moon excited :)

It's been a whirlwind since I submitted my entry last year - from the shock of finding out I made the Top 10, to the next nerve-wracking month of the competition, the euphoria of winning - and then the really difficult bit - writing the rest of the book! While some of it was a lot of hard work, I wouldn't change a thing. My writing has improved a hundred-fold through the experience of working with my mentors, but also I had the amazing experience of having readers read my work and provide their feedback - and that support just blew me away.

Thanks to New Voices I now have my first book about to come out, and my deadline for my second book rapidly approaching. I'm just starting out on my writing career with Mills & Boon, but I sincerely hope that I will get to write lots and lots of books for them in the future. I am in awe of Liz and her achievement - 20 years and 60 books - WOW! Congratulations Liz, I loved your books well before I was published. Your books, and your career, are such an inspiration to me.

Thanks, Leah.  Many congratulations on your new career. May Dan be the first of many heroes in your life!


So, here's the question - who would you cast as the hero in your first romantic novel?

Next up is the lovely Sophie Page - better known to some of you as Sophie Weston.  She's written a basketful of books for Harlequin in the past, but this year she caught the zeitgeist with her latest book, To Marry a Prince, published just before the royal wedding.  This is a truly delightful book with a genuine Prince Charming who wins the kind of heroine we all hope a man in such a difficult position will find to share his life.

Here's what Sophie has to say about her inspiration and her book -

The Ordinary Girl and the Prince is the first fairytale I read. 

When the Royal Engagement was announced in 2010, it brought it all back - the anxiety, the excitement, the big happy (and yes, okay, slightly tearful) smile when Everygirl married her One True Love. Only this time, just for a moment, it felt sort of personal - a happy ending in our time, as it were.

To Marry a Prince is a story for every girl, of any age, who has ever dreamed of finding her Prince.  It’s set today (with a few variations, as you would expect). It’s Britain, Jim, but not quite as we know it. The wondrous Terry Pratchett would say we have gone down the other trouser leg of Time and taken a slightly different turn in history.

A long time fan, I pre-ordered this book for my Kindle and devoured it in great big romantic chunks. My favourite bit is probably the nightmarish New Year's Eve party - wild Scottish country dancing, knocking HM's tiara off; lots of fun and very romantic.

Okay - you're at the New Year's Eve party at Balmoral and you've just knocked the tiara off the monarch's head. What would you say!

Okay, time topause for a little refreshment, I think! (I hope you spotted the Thai Coconut Prawns back there!

And onto our next guest, the truly lovely Ally Blake, who has supplied so many gorgeous pictures for us to drool over.

I'm particularly fond of this one, an oldie but totally gorgeous hottie who is an example to all those foolish men who think they need a face lift when they reach the age of the bus pass.  Guys, we love that lived in look. Truly. Think Cary Grant, think ... well, think Paul Newman!

Ally's latest book confusing, has two titles, depending where in the world you are.  This is the UK cover - THE WEDDING DATE, which is part of the new RIVA series.  In the US it's released as a Presents Extra with the title THE ROGUE WEDDING GUEST, but wherever in the world you are it has Ally's witty, emotional voice.

And has this gorgeous guy as its hero.

All work and no play means that Hannah’s crush on her gorgeous boss - blockbuster adventure TV show producer Bradley Knight – has no chance of fading gracefully away.   So the opportunity to go home to Tasmania for her sister’s wedding for a long weekend is just the break from work - and Bradley – she so badly needs.

One problem - Bradley has a gut feeling that if his most able assistant goes back to her beautiful island home, she might find more reasons to stay than to come back.  Thankfully, the stunning, raw, rugged scenery of Tasmania is just the kind of place he could set his next TV show.  It only makes sense that he tag along!

This book is set in the wilds of Tasmania.  Where in the world would you go to go for a romantic escape!

Three great guests, three fabulous books up for grabs. And tomorrow there'll be three more friends dropping by.  See you then!