ELIZABETH OLDFIELD

I first met Elizabeth Oldfield when a group of Mills & Boon authors were invited to tea at the historic Brown's Hotel in Albemarle Street for afternoon tea, by the fabulous Charlotte Lamb. A very memorable occasion for a very new author.

We met in the cloakroom; I was trying to get my shaking legs under control, while she was so cool, so authorly. But then Elizabeth Oldfield was the author I'd been advised to read when my first Mills & Boon was turned down. She was a star, held up as an example, an author I should study if I was ever to hope to be published.

Reader, I studied her.




A couple of years ago, after a break from writing forty Mills & Boon romances to go travelling with her husband, Elizabeth published a mainstream women's fiction book called VINTAGE BABES and it was a true privilege to welcome her as a guest here on my blog so that she could share her new venture with us.

This week, Elizabeth lost a long battle with cancer and our thoughts are with her family and friends.

She will be much missed by all those who knew her, and by her many fans in all corners of the world who loved her books.

A WINNER and REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION

Just a quick message to thank all of you who left wonderful and inspiring messages on Elizabeth Oldfield's blog. The winner was Merri, and a copy of VINTAGE BABES is on it's way to her.

Next week sees REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION go retail in the UK and US. If you all rush out and by it in the first week it might make the Waldenbooks list -- wouldn't that be great!

I've already given away at least half a dozen copies in competitions around the 'net so I won't be giving away any more, at least not while you can go out and buy it!

I will, however, be offering a copy of my September 3-in-1 BY REQUEST (including books by Marion Lennox and Jessica Hart) which won't be available in Australia or the US, and maybe a book or two from my backlist, so drop by for reviews, snippets and all the goss.

JOYE...

PAM...

Are you out there? Can you hear me?

You both won books on the guest Rita blogs but we can't send them to you if you don't email me with your names and addresses (there's an email link on my website)

Okay, I've stopped shouting now...

I'm sorry I've been neglecting my own blogging over the last couple of weeks. It's not that I don't have news. I do. My daughter survived the examination system and despite holding down a really responsible job with long hours, she now has her Masters. She was coming to Wales for the wedding of an old school friend (who now lives in Louisiana) but didn't get further than Paddington Station because all the trains were cancelled due to flooding. (Doesn't you heart go out to those people? And there seems to be no let up with the weather.) When, hugely disappointed, she battled her way home (one train running from Victoria), she found that news waiting for her. I am sooo proud!

I've had some totally fabulous reviews in for REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION, which is out next week, or available online now. This is a five star job from Cataromance:

Liz Fielding kicks off the new Secrets We Keep trilogy with Reunited: Marriage in a Million, a powerful romance written straight from the heart that is brimming with emotional intensity and compelling drama.

Go here to read more.

I've just read the second book in the trilogy, NEEDED: HER MR RIGHT and I'm here to tell you that Barbara Hannay has written a moving and wonderfully sexy romance that I just loved. And it made me cry... always a plus!

And I'm finally making headway with the novella I'm writing. Do you want a taster? Do you? Really? Oh, go on then...

‘What have we got here?’

The “expert”, a silver-haired smoothie and darling of the blue-rinse brigade, was familiar from the many evenings she’d sat watching this programme with her grandmother.

'I don’t know,’ she said, truthfully, putting the brown padded envelope she had been clutching to her chest on the baize covered table in front of him. ‘To be honest I feel a bit of a fool bringing it here --’ ... she felt better for getting that out ... ‘-- but my neighbour lived in the Middle East for a while and she thought it was interesting.’

Oh, lame, Violet Hamilton. Pathetic to blame someone not here to defend herself.


‘Well, let’s have a look at it shall we?’ He tipped a rag-wrapped bundle out onto the table in front of him.

‘That’s just how I found it,’ Violet said, quickly, not wanting him to think she routinely kept her valuables wrapped in rotted black silk. Not that she had any valuables. ‘This morning,’ she added. ‘When I put my foot through the floorboards.’ The cameraman pointed his lens at her strapped up ankle.

Terrific... This was her “fifteen minutes of fame” and already her ankle was more interesting. ‘It must have been there for years,’ she said.

Without a word he carefully unfolded the rotted silk to reveal an ornately decorated dagger. Around them people crowded in to get a closer look.

That it was old was not in doubt. The handle had the patina of hard-use and, inset in the top was a large, smoothly polished red stone the size of a pigeon’s egg. The sheath wasn’t straight, but sharply curved and adorned with fancy filigree work into which were set three similar, tear-shaped red stones, decreasing in size as they reached the curved point and looking for all the world as if the stone on the handle was bleeding along its length.

The man said nothing for so long that Violet said, ‘If I’d seen it on a market stall, I’d had sworn it was some fanciful pantomime prop. Something the genie might wear in Aladdin.’ The crowd, obligingly, laughed. ‘All glass and plastic,’ she added.

Then, as he eased the knife out of the sheath and the lights glinted off the metal, the laughter died.

‘It’s not a theatrical prop,’ he said, unnecessarily.

Stay tuned for the winner of Elizabeth Oldfield's book.

ELIZABETH OLDFIELD'S VINTAGE BABES

I first met Elizabeth Oldfield just as my third book, Instant Fire, had been published. A group of Mills & Boon authors had been invited to tea at the historic Brown's Hotel in Albemarle Street for afternoon tea, by the fabulous Charlotte Lamb. A very memorable occasion for a very new author.

We met in the cloakroom; I was trying to get my shaking legs under control, while she was so cool, so authorly. But then Elizabeth Oldfield was the author I'd been advised to read when my first Mills & Boon was turned down. She was the stellar author held out as an example...

Now, for the first time in several years, she has a new book. Not a straight romance, but a book for the baby boomer generation. A story to make us all realise that the first chin hair isn't the end of the world. Or having a life...

Here's Elizabeth to tell you a little about it.

After writing 40 Mills & Boon romances over 18 years, I retired from the romantic genre. I wanted time to relax, go travelling with my alpha male husband and, finally, to attempt a long-held ambition of writing mainstream women's fiction. VINTAGE BABES is the result.

Whereas a proliferation of chick-lit is targeted towards younger females, few books cater for the older women - yet more than 50% of women readers are over fifty. VINTAGE BABES explores the sometimes scary, sometimes comic business of being female and of 'a certain age'.

Carol - divorced, fifty-plus and a reporter on a small-town newspaper - has one grumble; the way friends and family will try to fix her up with a Mr Wonderful. No thanks! She's perfectly content on her own, free to wield the TV remote control and shave her legs in the bath with no-one bellyaching. Then life shifts into the kick-ass mode.

Jenny, Carol's meek plump housewife friend, is eager to find herself a job, but her husband disapproves. Can she summon up the confidence to do what she wants?

Tina, a glamorous, recently-widowed gold-digger has one major problem - she hates getting older.

When the three women work-out together with Max, an exotic personal trainer, all their lives are changed.


And here's an excerpt:

'OHOC, OHOT, WLTM a WOCA with GSOH. That'd suit you.'

I looked across at Melanie. 'I beg your pardon.'

'Own house, own car. Own hair, own teeth,' she translated. 'Would like to meet a woman of a certain age with good sense of humour for a long term relationship. Interested?'

'No thanks. And you shouldn't be logging onto encounter sites and printing out details in company time and at company expense. Eric may have let you get away with murder, but Mr Lingard would not approve.'

'He isn't here.'

'Makes no difference.'

If she had a spare moment and, I suspected, whenever she was left in the office alone, Melanie scanned what seemed to be a never-ending scroll of lonely hearts 'males eager to contact females.' When I had asked why a girl in her twenties should need to forage for dates in such a way, I had been informed that 'everyone does it.' I'd also been informed that there are specialist sites catering for vegans, poets and herpes carriers. Wow!

Courtesy of the net, Melanie had even gone speed-dating where, in the course of one evening and after sipping a free cocktail, the organisers had introduced her to eighteen members of the opposite sex and allotted her three minutes to talk to each. So much for romance! Whatever happened to old-fashioned courting?

Melanie had subsequently met up with two of the men and afterwards given me a detailed - too detailed- account of what had happened. While not wanting to go all the way on a first date and be viewed as 'easy', she had agreed to blow jobs. Crikey! In my youth, a lad would've considered himself fortunate if a girl had held his hand. Melanie had not, however, felt inclined to see either of the guys again. And vice versa.

'I am a well-mannered, healthy and intelligent businessman, looking for an older solvent lady who -'

'No!'

Melanie popped a Smint in her mouth. She sucks them continuously. ''Wouldn't you like to team up with a guy? There's a lot on offer for the silver surfer market.'
I stiffened. 'I am not a silver surfer.'

'You are nearly.'

I disagreed. To my reckoning, you don't rate as a silver surfer until you clock at least sixty and more like sixty-five. I was a long way off that. A mere chick. A funky chick, too. But I wasn't prepared to argue the point. Not with someone who regards thirty as 'past it'.

'What I wouldn't like,' I said, 'is to fix to meet a guy over the Net and find myself lumbered with a well-mannered, healthy and intelligent serial killer. Or rapist.'

Melanie rolled her eyes skywards. 'That is so last millenium. On-line dating is just window shopping. You chat for two or three weeks, then arrange a get-together in a public place. If you're sensible, it's perfectly safe. How about this one? JLFAS. Just looking for adulterous sex.'

I shuddered. I'm not saying my moral compass is superior to anyone else's, but I would never sleep with a married man.

'Spare me.'

VINTAGE BABES can be viewed at Accent Press or on at Amazon.

Question: Who is the woman over fifty whom you most admire - and why?

A signed copy of VINTAGE BABES will be sent to the provider of the most impressive answer.

ANOTHER WINNER...

Jackie Braun is back from a relaxing week by the lake and she has now drawn Pam as the winner of her signed book. Email me, Pam -- there's a link on my website -- with your full name and snail mail addy and I'll pass it on.

I still haven't heard from Joye!!!

Don't forget to comment on the Elizabeth Oldfield blog about VINTAGE BABES. You've got until the 25th!

TWO WINNERS...

Barbara Hannay (congratulations again, Barbara!) and Fiona Harper (now recovered from jetlag) have now drawn their Rita blog winners.

Joye was drawn by Fiona, and Becky was drawn by Barbara, so send me an email with your full names and addresses and I'll pass them on.

I'm blogging over at the Pink Heart Society today about the SECRETS WE KEEP trilogy, and my book REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION, which kicks it off. A copy of the book will be in the Pink Heart hamper at the end of the month.

And don't forget that a signed copy of Elizabeth Oldfield's VINTAGE BABES is up for grabs -- leave your comment below for a chance to win this hugely enjoyable book.

ANOTHER WINNER!

The dh has drawn the winner of the Rita blog for Domesticating Luc and it's Eva!

Since I was unable to connected with Sandra Paul, the prize is a copy of my August release, Reunited: Marriage in a Million. Email me with your full name and snail mail addy, Eva (there's a link on my website and I'll get the book in the post to you.

Joye, are you out there? I haven't heard from you yet -- you won Fiona's book.

And don't forget that there's a copy of VINTAGE BABES by Elizabeth Oldfield to be won. Leave a comment telling us which over-50 woman you most admire, to go in the draw. Is some famous public figure? An actress who eschews the plastic surgeon's knife and loves her wrinkles (Helen Mirren stand up and take a bow!), or someone in your own family?