PRIZE WINNERS…

First things first. A huge thank you to Larry Roibal for giving us an insight into cover art production and for his time in checking out covers for authors who dropped by to chat. It’s been a lovely weekend.

Now for the prizewinners. The dh got out his panama hat and after printing out all the names (he's such a star) and a lot of shaking around, he drew out the following five names:

Melissa Leavitt, Ellen, Erastes, Maureen and Limecello.

There are five books up for grabs – The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella, Reunited: Marriage in a Million, The Marriage Miracle, A Family of His Own and The Valentine Bride.

If you’ll email me with the above listed in the order of desirability (most desire first) along with your snail mail address, I’ll do my best to fit you all to the books you’d most like. If any of you have read all five (and God bless you if you have) then I’ll be happy to substitute with something else from my backlist. Just say.

This weekend my guest will be Lucy Gordon, who’s going to tell us about her first Harlequin Presents which goes on sale in May.

BY REQUEST…

And just in case any of your have forgotten, my book The Ordinary Princess is being reprinted in the UK in May in HIGH SOCIETY WEDDINGS, with books by Barbara Hannay (Princess in the Outback) and Barbara McMahon (The Tycoon Prince). It’s also available at Amazon.ca and will, in due time, turn up at Amazon.com.

You can reserve it now at Amazon, UK here, or get it now direct from Mills & Boon here.

IN AUSTRALIA

I discovered by chance that Mills & Boon, Australia are reprinting the Boardroom Bridegrooms trilogy. You’ll find The Marriage Merger here

DON'T FORGET

THE BRIDE'S BABY will have disappeared from retail by this weekend, but it's still available at Mills & Boon here and as an eBook here -- you'll have to type Liz Fielding in the search box since nothing I do seems to give me a straight link. I have reported this.

This book is part of the A Bride for All Seasons quartet -- you'll find more about all them here as well as a chance to win a signed set of the books.

AND FINALLY

I know how much you all love a sheikh, so I'm introducing you to my latest prince of the desert, Sheikh Fayad al Kuwani, heir to the throne of Ras al Kawi. There'll be an excerpt on my website when it's updated on the 1st May, but the story starts with a jewelled Arab knife ...

“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 silver and gold-coloured 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.”

100 ARABIAN NIGHTS with stories from Kim Lawrence and Meredith Webber, is published as part of the Mills & Boon Centenary celebrations. Reserve your copy here.

ROMANTIC TIMES CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

For the last month I’ve been sitting on the most exciting piece of news, barely about to contain myself. Now I can share that on Saturday, at their Convention in Pittsburgh, ROMANTIC TIMES awarded me a Career Achievement Award for Love & Laughter in romantic fiction.

This award is self-explanatory. It’s not for just one book, but for a body of work. All those books that made someone laugh out loud at the same time as they reached for the handkerchief.

If it had been planned it couldn’t have coincided more perfectly with the celebrations for my 50th Harlequin Romance, THE BRIDE’S BABY.

I was also nominated for Best Harlequin Romance again, but this year had to concede the honour to Trish Wylie, to whom very many congratulations. You’ll find a complete list of winners here.

Another champagne moment for someone else, too – Jan Jones, who guested here last week has just sold her Regency romance with a bit of adventure, Fair Deception to Robert Hale Ltd!

Her prize went to Natasha, by the way. We need a snail mail addy, Natasha, when you have a moment!

What else?

Oh, yes, this week’s guest is artist Larry Roibal, who has produced the covers for a number of my books, including two award winners. I’ll be giving away five books with Larry’s special covers this weekend (The Marriage Miracle, The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella, Reunited: Marriage in a Million, A Family of His Own and The Valentine Bride), so do drop by and talk about that most fascinating of subjects – The Cover. Get a little insight into how Larry goes about the production of the perfect cover and ask him those question burning a hole in your brain.