Monday, October 31, 2011

SMALL BLOG, BIG GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

Just a very quick blog - I'm away from base - with the list of winners of the Small Blog, Big Giveaway competition.

Check it out here -  winners

Thanks for everyone for taking part, following me on Twitter and following the blog!



Saturday, October 29, 2011

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

It's Sunday - and time for six sentences. This week from my new release, FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN.

Italy is all about food, about pleasure and when Sarah is invited to lunch with Matteo de Serrone, all that English restraint just melts away.


            Vivid colour, the scent of herbs and the sun-baked earth. The touch of a man’s lips for the first time in months.   
            Languorous in the still heat of the early afternoon, lulled by the faint hum of drowsy insects, mesmerised by Matteo’s dark eyes gleaming softly in the shade urging her to this one last pleasure, she leaned forward the inch required to take the grape, closing her lips around it.  Around the tips of his fingers.
            The grape exploded on her tongue, the juice dribbling over her lips, over his fingers.  And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lick it up…

For more details about Six Sentence Sunday click here

Saturday, October 22, 2011

BIG GIVEAWAY





STOP PRESS!

My lovely author, Charlotte Phillips, is through to the last four in the NEW VOICES competition!

All four here



Voting in the  Mills and Boon NEW VOICES competition ends tomorrow!  If you haven't already voted, Chapter Two of my mentor author Charlotte Phillips, HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER is on the website.

I'm practically chewing my nails to the knuckles!


There's time, too, to take part in the week long Small Blogs Big Giveaways bash.  You'll find links to other participating blogs at the bottom of the post as well as some of the prizes.  I'm offering three paper copies of TEMPTED BY TROUBLE and three copies of my eBook trilogy, Wild Justice, Wild Lady and Wild Fire.

Good luck!





The Biggest International Bookish Giveaway Online






62 prizes split between 5 winners + 6 Gift Card Giveaways!

Follow the event on twitter






HOSTS, Feat. Authors & Other Giveaways

Organized by: *Reading Romances
* Having Other Giveaways During The Event 
Hosts:

*Can't Put It Down

*The Magic Attic

Bona Fide Reflections

*Laurie's Thoughts & Reviews

My Cute Bookshelf

A Writer's Life With Liz Fielding

No Page Left Behind

*Close Encounters with the Night Kind

*Sweeping The USA

*Frugal Experiments

Alexa Loves Books

I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read

Romance Around the Corner

Coffee Beans & Love Scenes

So Many Books, So Little Time

*Sexxy Blogger
Thank you to our featured authors:
Talia Jager | Fiona Lowe | Jenn LeBlanc | Donna AlwardChristy HayesGail BarrettLorhainne Eckhart | Sarah Ballance | Sandy Wolters | Hazel Osmond | *Bianca Swann | *Natasha Blackthorne | *Barbara Monajem *Kate Hewitt Wendi Zwaduk 
Want to be the first to be contacted when the sign ups start? Leave your info here and you'll receive the information about the 5th edition: November 18 - 25. Go to the website to know more.
BOOKS (60):



GIFT CARDS:
$25 gift certificate to Amazon or The Book Depository
$15 Barnes & Noble eGift Card (US & Intl) or Gift Card (US)
$10 gift certificate to Amazon
$15.00 in books from the Book Depository
$10 in books from the Book Depository
$5 gift certificate to Changeling Press for a book of the winner's choice

(x2) $ 5 gift certificate to Amazon
READ THE FULL LIST OF PRIZES HERE






Thursday, October 20, 2011

FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN


A four star review from Romantic Times BOOKclub for FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN!

After a difficult breakup, teacher Sarah Gratton takes a sabbatical in Rome and travels to a rural village to find the woman who sheltered her grandfather during World War II and with whom he had fallen in love, though he returned to his English wife.

While searching for this mystery woman, Sarah meets businessman and vineyard owner Matteo Di Serrone. 

This is a heartwarming story with memorable characters. Fielding’s beautiful descriptions of the setting and the use of Sarah’s blog to her students as a way to communicate her thoughts bring the reader deep into the story.


That's my good news story, but it's a huge week for, Charlotte Phillips, who made the Top 21 in Mills & Boon's NEW VOICES competition.

Chapter Two of HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER went up on the website yesterday and you can comments from 9 am (GMT) Friday. Do go and read her entry here and cheer her on there and follow her on Twitter at @charlieflips.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

NEW VOICES FINALIST

It's been an amazing week for my finalist, Charlotte Phillips, who made the Top 21 in Mills & Boon's NEW VOICES competition

It's been an amazing week for me, too, as we've worked together on Chapter Two of HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER (love that title!)  Her heroine is hurting, but she's not lying down and taking it. And her hero doesn't know what hit him!

By tomorrow, the second chapters will all be on line and I hope you'll take the time to stop by the website and read her entry here and cheer her on.

I have been cheering on all these brave souls who've put their work on show for anyone to comment on since New Voices launched. It's a huge step, they will have learned a lot in the process, and that makes them all winners in my eyes.

Pivotal moment? Bring it on!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

It's that time of the week again - Six Sentence Sunday - and this week I've chosen six sentences from the third of my Beaumont Brides trilogy - WILD FIRE.

His touch was like summer lightning, wild fire that ran between them and as he continued to hold onto her hand, his eyes too seemed to heat from within.
They were not, as she had first thought, a steely grey, but were flecked with warm gold lights that seemed to bore into her very soul and for a moment she was certain that he felt the same charge of excitement. Then steeply hooded lids came down, cloaking his feelings.
'Guard it with your life, Melanie.'
The key was warm from his body, but his hands were cool. Long, slender fingers wrapped around her warm hand and the warmer key. Hidden layers of heat, like the hidden layers of meaning she sensed behind everything he said. 


If you want to read more, there are links for the Kindle, Nook and any other reading device (including your PC - so handy for a secret read when you should be working!) on the sidebar.


And for more details about Six Sentence Sunday click here

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

WHAT'S ON MY BOOKSHELF?

With the book finished and awaiting my editor's verdict, I've had a little time catch up on my reading in the last week.

First, up is the delightful Haunting Jasmine by Anajali Banerjee. 


Jasmine, struggling after a painful divorce, has been asked to spend a month taking care of her aunt's bookstore on a west coast island off Seattle.  The bookstore is full of old books that seem to be telling her things. And some of the authors drop by to help her out with the reading group and the children's reading group. And then there's the handsome doctor who appears just when needed.

The book is a delight and I'm so grateful to Nicola Marsh for telling me about it.



I think I discovered We Are Not Alone by Kristin Lamb on Twitter. It would certainly be appropriate if I had, because Kristin is a world class expert on using Social Media.

I'm scarcely a beginner at this - I had my first website in 1997 - but I have learned a ton from this book.







White Lies and Custard Creams by the lovely Susan Alison, who I met at the Romantic Novelists' Association conference in Caerleon earlier this year is just a mad romp. A gorgeous dog - of course; a lovely man; the craziest bunch of lodgers and neighbours to be found in one house, one street, anywhere. A bit of cross-dressing and a big mystery.

A lovely time!

Giles and Florence by John Harding, was a gift from a friend, a delightful surprise arriving in my post box a couple of weeks ago.

I have started it and it's the most unusual book I've read in a long time.

I am entranced by the style - the writer is a young girl who has been denied books and "stole" reading by learning letters from packages in the kitchen. She devours books but has to keep her habit a secret.

I am entranced.

Monday, October 10, 2011

MASHUP

A few brilliant links for you to check out...

Pitch and win a critique of the first 5 pages of your manuscript by LIZ PELLETIER, senior editor ENTANGLED PUBLISHING at NICOLA MARSH'S BLOG

KRISTEN LAMB on Structure - Plot Problems: Falcor & the Luck Dragon and The Purple Tornado


SARAH DUNCAN on the eternal question - how much money will I make if I get published.

ROMANTIC NOVELISTS' ASSOCIATION Regency Day

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Six Sentence Sunday

For this week's SSS - for more details about that see here - I've taken this little snip from the second book of my BEAUMONT BRIDES trilogy, WILD LADY.

When I wrote WILD JUSTICE, I had no notion of writing a trilogy but when my editor read it she said, "Three girls, three books and can I have the first chapter of the second one this week so that I can use it as a teaser in the back of the first book."

Of course. No problem...

Gulp.

I have to tell you, that if I'd known I'd be writing Claudia's story, I'd have made her nicer, which really would have been a shame!

This one has a "heroine in peril" plot, and a self-appointed bodyguard.

Claudia, who could usually reduce a man to stuttering incoherence in less time than it took to say it, was seriously shaken to discover that this man was quite immune to her particular brand of magic. 
     Insurance? 
     That was all that bothered him? He wasn't in the least concerned about her health, the fact that she might have broken her neck? Apparently not. As their eyes met across the wreck of her car she received the very strong impression that he was quite prepared to break it himself. Well, the day was still young and if her anonymous correspondent was right, he might yet get his wish; the thought was enough to drive the smile right off her face.


Actually there are seven sentences, but one of them is only one word and that's allowed.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

I'M DONE!


I'm done! The book has left the building - although, as always, I woke up realising that I'd missed out something I meant to put in at the end.

Never mind, once my editor has read it, there will be revisions. Between now and then I'll be making little notes about all the things that always occur the minute I have to stop concentrating totally.

I have been struggling - as always - with ideas of a title.

It has a single mother in danger of losing her job and her home; the bad boy who left the area when she was a kid (she was posh, he was poor - times have changed); a donkey (inciting incident, cute meet...); old secrets; four dogs, a one-eyed pony. Oh, and there's the whole fairy godmother thing going on.

Any ideas? Please...

Monday, October 03, 2011

The nights are drawing in, there's a nip in the air so obviously it's time to get out the knitting that's lain abandoned in a basket in a corner of the sitting room since the clocks went forward at the end of March.

I hadn't knitted in years. Who had? But then I kept seeing books with knitting heroines and I remembered the pleasure of it. I used to love knitting. But still I didn't actually hunt out my pins. But then my lovely granddaughter arrived and I found myself walking into the wool shop in the Arcade and drooling over the patterns, the yarn.

It was a whole new world. No longer were baby clothes restricted to white, pink, blue or yellow. Babies wore strange and beautiful colours. Yarn was gorgeously soft Cashmerino I went knitting crazy for a while, but then the days grew longer, the garden called and projects languished.

There's the panda jumper I'm making for my granddaughter.

The shrug for my daughter (a really difficult pattern and I don't think that is going to ever get finished. And there's a pile of patterns and wool that I bought in a rush of enthusiasm.

Would she like this cupcake hat?


She does love a hat.




Or what about this frog outfit?

Probably not. She's not a baby any more, but a a little lady. Time for that ballet cross-over I think.

Yay, to the end of the wip and hooray for knitting!

Saturday, October 01, 2011

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

For this week's SSS - for more details see here, I've dipped into the first of my BEAUMONT BRIDES trilogy, WILD JUSTICE.  It has a revenge plot, old secrets, new secrets and a heroine determined to take back control of her life from the man whose mission in life is to destroy it.

      Fizz. God, but how it suited her. Best kept chilled - inclined to erupt when shaken.
     The thought of making love in a four-poster bed had been simmering in her head, fanning the damped down fire. Her deliberate lack of interest had alerted him and he had known then that he would take her there; that she wouldn't, in the end, be able to resist the romance of it.
     But while he had thought to melt the ice a little, it seemed that unwittingly he had used a blow torch because now she had said the words, there was no way of taking them back.


Recently re-released as an eBook with this exciting new cover, you can download it for free from Amazon UK, Smashwords, Nook. It will cost you all of 99c from Amazon US.  Links on the sidebar.

Have a lovely day!