Linked characters...

I've been asked about secondary characters in my Rita nominated book, The Sheikh's Convenient Princess.

Does Violet have her own story? Do the Garland Girls appear in other books?

Happily, the answer is yes and yes.

I created the Garland Agency for the book Dating Her Boss.

When Jilly Prescott arrives from London clutching her certificates for incredible typing and shorthand speeds, Amanda Garland is torn.

 Garland Girls are the creme de la creme of secretarial/PA staff and Jilly doesn't have their finishing school gloss or style but she is desperate. Her brother needs help, but he's grown suspicious of her efforts to tempt him out of a very dark place by sending him her most attractive temps. Jilly, with her uncontrollable mop of hair and a Geordie accent that elocution lessons have not been able to entirely eradicate, will at least deal with his immediate need for secretarial help.


Jilly, who has arrived in London to catch up with her childhood sweetheart, only to have her dreams smashed, touches Max's grieving heart and he sets out to help her be noticed in her friend's glamorous new world.

Amanda Garland has her own story. Self-sufficient, successful, independent but with love all around her, her biological alarm clocks goes off and she decides it's time for a baby. She is highly organised, independent and doesn't need a man - she's going to use a donor clinic to achieve her dream. That's until she meets car hire chauffeur Daniel Redford and The Baby Plan begins to unravel.

Having created the Garland Agency, whenever I need a competent woman to take charge of a difficult situation, that is - like it's very happy clients - where I always go, so the name does crop up in other books.

Finally, there is Princess Violet, English wife of Sheikh Hamad, who is determined to give Ruby and Bram a wedding that, while private, will be unforgettable.

Descended from a runaway princess who took with her the legendary gold and ruby encrusted dagger, the Blood of Tariq, I wrote Violet's story, Chosen As the Sheikh's Wife  as a special commission for the 100th anniversary of Mills and Boon.

It's a novella, but packed with action. A life-threatening situation, a marriage of convenience, a kidnapping and an attempted coup. And two lovely people falling in love.

And while I'm here talking about linked characters - one of the books in the Invitation to a Royal Wedding series, The Baronet's Wedding Engagement, by Rita award winning Jessica Hart, is free at the moment.

Here are the links -

Tule
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Kobo
iBooks

Six degrees of separation...

Actually, that title is not right. I'm not talking about separation in this blog, but connections.

One of my lovely "Team Liz" members who received an ARC of The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride had spotted a number of characters who had appeared in other books. She wrote and asked me if one of the other characters had also had a book of her own. She didn't, but the fact that she was "real" enough to give the feeling that might have was very pleasing. It meant that even though she appeared briefly, in a phone call, she had a three-dimensional quality that I hope to give to even the walk-on parts.

I love revisitng my characters and all my sheikhs are linked, either through family or close ties.

Sheikh Fayad and his lovely Princess Violet, who play an important part of this story, first appeared in Chosen as the Sheikh's Wife (with a guest appearance from my very first sheikh, Prince Hassan - His Desert Rose). I needed a country where the exiled Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ansari could make his home and where better than Ramal Hamrah? Fayad is his cousin. The fort had been his maternal grandmother's home. Perfect.

Sheikh Zahir gets a passing mention. He first appeared in The Sheikh's Guarded Heart, then got his own story in The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride.

His unsuitable bride was Diana, who worked for Sadie, (first appearance in The Baby Plan) who is the step-daughter of Amanda Garland (first appearnace Dating Her Boss), who also makes an appearance in The Sheikh's Convenient Princess.  Are you still with me? :)

When you have created the world's finest staff agency, why would you need to invent another one?

Amanda is one of those very useful women who will put in appearance whenever I need her. Her brother was the hero of Dating Her Boss; she was a bit edgy, very self-contained and I couldn't resist blowing her world apart in The Baby Plan.

Another character who gets a mention in The Sheikh's Convenient Princess is Jude Radcliffe, who met and married the adorable Talie in The Temp and the Tycoon (reported in the Daily Telegraph as one of the most downloaded books on Amazon UK when it was first published). That's the retro cover Mills and Boon used when they reprinted it for their 100th anniversary.

Are there any characters in my books that you wish had a story of their own? There are one or two who I think deserve a story of their own but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

In other news, I'm expanding Team Liz. The duties are not onerous. You have to be signed up to my newsletter (there's a link on the sidebar), "like" my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter. More importantly you have to love my books because you will receive an advance copy, in return for which you will be asked to leave a honest review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you hate it, I'd rather you emailed me and told me what bothered you - actually that goes for everyone. I will be putting an invitation on my newsletter in February with details of how to come on board.

There will be another new Liz Fielding Harlequin Romance/Cherish, Her Pregnancy Bombshell, in June 2017. And one other book this year. Maybe a short story if I can keep sufficiently focussed and everything runs smoothly at Fielding Towers.

Here are the links for The Sheikh's Convenient Princess.

Harlequin

Ibooks  Barnes & Noble

Kobo
 Amazon US
Amazon UK

The Sheikh's Temporary Princess?

The good news is that my latest book is now going through the long procedure that starts after I've finished it and my editor has said "Yes!"

Copy-editing (to catch the boring stuff like typing errors, spelling mistakes, whether I got into a muddle with my time-line and that my heroine's eyes didn't change colour half way through. (None of that happened!)

It's still without a title, although in my head it will always be The Sheikh's Temporary Princess. I'll let you know what the combined might of editorial, marketing and the tealady decide when they've made up their mind.

The publication date - so far - is February 2017 which seems a very long time to wait here's link to my Pinterest page where I gathered loads of lovely inspirational pictures of jewellery, clothes, shaded courtyards and of course my hero.

Meanwhile, allow me to introduce Sheikh Ibraham al-Ansari (Bram to those who know him), former downhill race ski champion, superb horseman - the disgraced and disinherited heir to the throne of Umm al-Basr.

He's in a jam. (Make that another jam.)  He's got a temporary PA from the fabulous Garland Agency  - the uber efficient Ruby Dance - but what he really needs is a temporary wife.

"Garland Girls" have a legendary status, but will this "Girl" live up to the billing and save him from an arranged marriage?

Serial Liz Fielding fans will remember that Amanda Garland first appeared in her brother's story, Dating Her Boss and I thought she was so interesting that I wrote her own story. It's told in the The Baby Plan.

Oh, and her step-daughter, Sadie Redford, runs the car hire company that gave things a helping hand in the Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride. Which reminds me. Sadie really deserves her own happy ending.

Classic Office Romance

It's publication day for the ebook version of a classic office romance I wrote a while back. I loved this book -  in which a very down to earth, very ordinary girl, captures the heart of the very broken Max Fleming.

Max made a brief appearance in Amanda's story - his sister - The Baby Plan,  when she fell in love with Dan a year later.

And because some characters just live on, when I wrote The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride, Dan and his daughter Sadie were on hand to prime the romance pump!

I just love it when that happens!

Backlist Books Fest!

Harlequin are continuing their re-release of my backlist with three new books in July and August.

In the UK they've started using pretty new covers to give the books a fresh new look and I'm absolutely delighted with what they've done with The Three Year Itch and All She Wants for Christmas  Don't be fooled by the title, which marketing changed from Trouble in Paradise when a December slot opened up. This book is set on a Caribbean island made for two and has nothing to with Christmas. At all.

In the US, Harlequin have taken the opposite tack and are using the original covers and Dating Her Boss happily is one of my favourite covers. A real classic.

Interestingly, catching up on these books, I've realised how much the Romance line has changed since I started writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon.

The heroes in these books are much more like Presents/Modern heroes - alpha, arrogant, tortured men.

For me, the men changed when I began writing scenes from their point of view. My first dual vp book was Eloping With Emmy (which is, incidentally available at the moemnt as an ebook for 99c) in which the hero took the lead vp role and we saw him falling in love - and knowing that it was all going to end in tears

A QUESTION OF VIEWPOINT

I had an email recently from a writer who is still at the learning stage; a rejection beneath her belt, the second book in progress. She’d been told that she should never change point of view in the middle of a scene but she’d been reading my books and was sure that I did. But wondered if perhaps she was imagining it.

I know a lot of writers and writing tutors insist that you should never change viewpoint in the middle of a scene and there are sound reasons for that, the major one being not to confuse the reader.

I have to tell you that I recently read a crime novel from an important mainstream publishing house where the mid-scene viewpoint changes were so bad that I had to keep back-tracking to catch them and whoever edited it needed a slap. This is actually rare in crime fiction, but the two detectives (both male and heterosexual) were so closely involved over a past case that their thoughts were entwining rather like a pair of lovers and I suspect that was the author’s reason for using this technique.

My first twelve books were written from the heroine-only view point, which was the norm back then. I broke out with Eloping With Emmy but stuck with one viewpoint per scene until, four books later, I wrote Dating Her Boss.

I was in the middle of a scene in which they were dancing; it was a big scene — one of those pivotal scenes that were part of the recent Mills & Boon New Voices competition — and I wanted the reader to know what they were both feeling. Not her now and him remembering later, or vice versa. It was important for both of them and I wanted the reader to feel that in the instant it was happening. So I switched viewpoint mid-dance.

Re-reading the whole scene now I can see that in places it was a little loose in execution but at no time is the reader in any doubt whose head they’re in. And that’s the trick of it. Make it clean, make it clear and you’ll keep the reader with you.

Here’s how I did it —

Putting her arms about his neck, laying his head against his chest was by no means a penance, and her lips softened into a smile as he put his hands about her waist and pulled her closer so that she was listening to the slow thud of his heart overlying the sensuous beat of the music. Two hours ago she’d been enduring hell at the hands of Rich Blake; quite suddenly she was being transported to heaven.
        Max shifted his hold slightly, so that his hands rested on the soft curve of her hips. It was heaven and it was hell too. Like the pain when frozen fingers began to thaw, and for just a moment he felt dizzy…

I did this intuitively but it’s a writing technique and therefore something that can be learned.

Using a character’s name, as I did here, is one way of doing this. Writing a short paragraph, no more than a sentence, describing something neutral such as a sound – something outside the internal thoughts of the characters – to divide two viewpoints will also help.

I confess that having once started I did get a little carried away, changing backwards and forwards with abandon. These days I think carefully about it and don’t do it nearly as much but in what is basically a two-hander romance (as with Harlequin Mills & Boon) I think it has a place, adding internal movement to what would otherwise be static scenes. As long as you make it clear whose head you’re in, because sloppy changes won’t get past an HMB editor.

But don’t just take my word for it. Nora Roberts, who’s sold more romances than most of us can ever dream of changes viewpoint at the drop of a hat and the millions of readers who love her books, send them flying up the bestseller charts time after time, don’t complain. The only people who tut are those who are obsessed with rules rather than telling a brilliant story.

Rules are for grammar. The rest is imagination.

I'M BACK!

Well, almost. Having dillied and dallied amongst the chocolate shops, tulip fields and windmills for far too long -- in solid sunshine! -- I'm now into the deadline cave. There will be a full report with pics as soon as the wip is delivered, but meantime here's a little glimpse of the temptations to come...

Right now, though, I'm more excited about introducing my next guest blogger, who's kindly given up her own precious time to help me celebrate my 50th book.

I first met Natasha Oakley a year or two when she was placed next to me at a Mills & Boon author lunch. She'd just sold her first book and I was so taken with her that I rushed out and bought FOR OUR CHILDREN'S SAKE, the minute it hit the bookstores. I was not disappointed. It was an amazingly mature first book and since then she has gone from strength to strength.

This year she has been nominated for a RITA, is shortlisted for the National Readers’ Choice Award and has already won the Romantic Times award for 'Best Presents of 2007' with her book, The Tycoon's Princess Bride. It says "Presents" on the cover, but truly, it is a "Natasha Oakley", guaranteeing a strong story, fabulous characters, great humour and a deeply embedded emotional core. If you haven't already read one of her books, don't wait! Give yourself a treat!

Natasha...

50 books! From my perspective, currently chugging my way through a book that feels as easy to write as pushing a turnip through a fine sieve, that seems almost an impossible achievement. That’s 50 heroines, 50 heroes, 50 black moments ... Shattering. Fortunately I have a large glass of wine to one side of me so I am just about coping with the thought of it.
It’s particularly lovely to be asked to blog in celebration of Liz’s amazing achievement because one of those fifty books is part of the reason I now write category fiction. I’ve already said something about the reasons why I stopped acting and started writing on Jessica Hart’s blog this month so I won’t repeat myself here other than to say that it was a ‘surprising’ decision because I wasn’t a ‘writer’. Not the kind who scribbled stories from the time they could hold a pen anyway.

My creative outlet was theatre. I was passionate about that - and I read a lot of plays, searching for exciting audition speeches mainly. Apart from that it was Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart and assorted nineteenth century literature. I have a bit of a weakness for Anthony Trollope. And Dickens. Oh and Austen.

And I watched movies. Still do. (My favourite of all-time is a little black and white film called ‘Hobson’s Choice’. It stars the late great Sir John Mills as Willy Mossop, the shy boot maker, who marries the ‘master’s daughter’. Not that he particularly wants to at the beginning. You’ve got to watch it if only to see the scene where he’s getting ready for his wedding night. The morning-after-the-night-before is rather lovely too.) I really hadn’t read much contemporary fiction and I certainly hadn’t read a Harlequin Mills & Boon.

I approached my new ‘career choice’ very methodically. Romance was a fairly easy decision. That’s the best bit of any movie, isn’t it? Best bit of any book. Besides I really wasn’t in a place where I wanted to write anything with an unhappy ending. I’m still not.

Then I looked at what sold. Now that was really interesting.

Harlequin Mills & Boon is a publishing phenomenon. One book sells every 3 seconds in the UK alone. And how about this – in the past fifty years there have been 10,325 weddings, 29,500 kisses and 35,250 hugs. Wonder who actually went through and counted those??? vbg

Only I’d never read a Mills & Boon. I remember looking at the turning display unit in my local library and wondering quite where to start. English heroines I thought. ‘Write what you know’ and all that. I picked up ten books, quite at random, and took them home.

The first book off the pile was Jessica Hart’s ‘The Convenient Fiance’ which I absolutely loved. The second was a book I didn’t like quite so much so I shan’t tell you anything about it. Then I read a ‘regency’. (Still quite tempted by the idea of writing a regency romance, you know.) The next book was Liz Fielding’s ‘Dating Her Boss’ – and it was brilliant. I loved Max, tortured by regrets after the death of his first wife. Gilly who had far too much hair until it was tamed in a real Cinderella moment. You’ve got to love the moment where Max sees her transformed. The kiss on the stairs is perfection. And why is it men have such a thing about angora jumpers???

That trip to the library really did seal my fate. I had a new direction. But more than that I had discovered a lovely way to unwind. I still think a ‘Liz Fielding’ romance is a pretty perfect way to escape life’s grot life.

This month I have one of my own romances on the shelf. It’s called ‘Wanted: White Wedding’ and I wrote it during a particularly bleak time. My lovely mum was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer and died a few months later. There’s a lot to be said for disappearing into a world you have complete control over.

My fellow Pink Heart Society editors ‘cast’ their books. I don’t always. But for ‘Wanted: White Wedding’ I did.

So here is Freya and Daniel and a short excerpt from Chapter One:





“Get that, will you?”

“I’m -”

“The phone. Take a message,” a disembodied male voice shouted, followed by a grunt. “I’ll be through in a minute.”

“I -”

“Phone! Just answer the phone!”

For a brief second she wondered whether she’d inadvertently stepped into a farce, and then Freya shrugged, stepping over a pile of vinyl records and an old gramophone to reach the other side of the desk. What did it matter? And at least it would stop that infernal noise ricocheting about.

“Ramsay Auctioneers,” she said into the receiver, her eyes on the closed door.

“Daniel? Is that you?”

Hardly. She rubbed a hand across her eyes, the humour of the situation finally reaching her. “I’m sorry, Mr Ramsay isn’t available at the moment. May I take a message?”

“Can you tell him Tom Hamber called, love?”

Her right eyebrow flicked up and she reached over the scattered papers for a pad of florescent stick-it notes. In her real life she’d have paused to tell Tom Hamber she wasn’t his ‘love’. She might even have told him that while she could pass on a message she was by no means certain she would ...

“Have you got that? You won’t forget?”

“Tom Hamber called,” she said dryly, drawing a box around the two words she’d written. “I think I’ll manage to remember.”

“Tell him I need to speak to him before midday.”

Freya added the words ‘before midday’ to the note, then turned at the sound of a loud crash. “I’ll leave him a note,” she said in to the receiver. Whether he actually found it really wasn’t her problem.

“That’s it, love.”

She set the receiver back on its cradle, ripping the top note off the pile. One thing she was certain of: there was no way on earth she was going to let her Grandmother sell anything valuable through this crazy set-up. She looked at the confusion on the desk and stuck the note firmly on the telephone.

“Thanks for that.”

Freya turned and found she was looking up into a pair of brown eyes. Very definitely up. At five feet ten - more in heels - it wasn’t often she had to do that.

Why did that feel so good? Some deep Freudian something was probably at the root of it. He had to be at least six foot two. Quite possibly more. And those eyes … Dark, dark brown and sexy beyond belief.

“I was holding up one end of a table and couldn’t let go.”

Freya pulled her eyes away from his and wrapped her sheepskin jacket closely around her. “Right.”

“Did you get a message?”

“Yes. Y-yes, I did. Yes.” The corner of his mouth quirked and she stumbled on, feeling as foolish as if she’d been caught drooling. “It was a Tom Hamber.”

“Ah.”

“He wants to speak to Daniel Ramsay before midday.”

“I can do that.”

The most horrible suspicion darted into her head.

“I’m Daniel Ramsay.” He smiled, and Freya felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath her.

This couldn’t be Daniel Ramsay. From her grandmother’s conversation she’d conjured up a very different picture. Someone altogether more parochial. More …

Well …. less, if she were honest. Much less. Truthfully, this Daniel Ramsay looked like the kind of man you’d quite like to wake up with on a lazy Sunday morning. A little bit rumpled and a whole lot sexy.

“You’re a little late.” Then he smiled again, wiping his hands on the back of dark blue denim jeans and the effect was intensified. “But not to worry. I get here about eight thirty, but I told the agency nine thirty was fine.”

He held out a hand and she automatically held out her own. His wedding ring flashed. Of course a man who looked like this one would be taken. They always were - even if they pretended not to be.

A familiar sense of dissatisfaction speared her. It was amazing how many men said they were separated when the only thing keeping them apart from their significant other was temporary geographical distance.

She was so tired of that. Tired of the game-playing.

Daniel bent down and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. “I’ve got the key to the inner office here. I’ll show you where everything is and then I’ve got to drive out to the Penry-James farm.”

“I’m not -”

He stood straight. “Which part didn’t you get?”

“I understood you perfectly, but I’m not from any agency.”

“You’re not?”

“Merely a potential customer.”

His hand raked through his dark hair. “Hell, I’m so sorry! I thought -”

“I was someone else.” It didn’t take the mental agility of Einstein to figure that one out. It was vaguely reassuring to know he didn’t actively intend to run his business in such a haphazard way.

Sudden laughter lit his eyes, and she fought against the curl of attraction deep in her abdomen.

“So you’re not the cavalry after all? Perhaps we’d better start over?”

“Perhaps,” she murmured, feeling unaccountably strange as his hand wrapped round hers for the second time. He had nice hands, she registered. Strong, with neatly cut nails. And a voice that made her feel as though she’d stepped into a vat of chocolate.

But taken, the logical part of her brain reminded her. And, apparently, the kind of man who, if he wasn’t actually preying on her grandmother, was certainly making the most of an opportunity.

And my question:

What was your first Liz Fielding experience? I will give away a copy of my RITA nominated book, ‘The Tycoon’s Princess Bride’, to the person whose comment makes me smile.

Thanks, Natasha! You've got until Sunday evening (US time) to leave a comment. In the meantime if, like me, you can't wait to buy Wanted: White Wedding just click the title.