Free Kindle Book

Old Desires will be free from 2nd - 6th March

Here are the Amazon links

USA
United Kingdom
Australia

Free Holiday Read

It's the holidays and, because I know you'll be  loading up your Kindles to catch up with your reading, this two-in-one anthology of a couple of my earlier romances that were published by Mills & Boon in the UK (and released in the US by Harlequin Romance) is available FREE  this weekend.

Here's the first page of OLD DESIRES -

‘MISS Carpenter?’

The enquiry was simply a formality. Holly had no doubt that the man on her doorstep, filling the entrance with his powerful presence, knew exactly who she was. In that, he had her at a disadvantage and she didn’t much care for it, or for the quite unmistakeable chill in his manner.

She had the feeling that, whatever the reason for his call, he would prefer not to be making it and she already wished she had kept to her usual habit of ignoring the doorbell when she was working. Except that this afternoon nothing was going right and she had almost welcomed the interruption.

Besides, one look had been enough to warn her that this man would not have simply given up and gone away. Determination was written in every austere, finely chiselled line of his face; an intensity of purpose that hardened the sensual curve of his full lower lip.

‘I’m Holly Carpenter,’ she affirmed with an unconscious lift of her chin, wondering what this arrogant and very expensively-groomed man could possibly want with her. The well-cut navy pin-striped suit gracing his square shoulders and lean, hard figure, and the telling pale blue stripe of his tie, betrayed that he was a long way from his City office. His method of transport, if the gleaming silver Rolls at the kerb could be described in so plebeian a manner, was already attracting curtain-twitching attention from a window opposite.

And here's the first page of A STRANGER'S KISS

‘I DON’T believe it! Where on earth did he spring from?’ Tara Lambert moved quickly to the door but the tail lights of her partner’s car were already disappearing into the blackness of the evening, taking with them any possibility of help from that direction.

       She glanced back to where the man was waiting across the street. He too was staring after Beth’s car, obviously wondering if Tara had gone home with her partner. Well it was too late to regret refusing the proffered lift, but if she moved quickly it might not be too late to escape.

       Shrugging her raincoat collar up high around her ears she snapped open her umbrella, stepped out into the wet evening and took off swiftly down the street.

       She had gone only a couple of hundred yards when she heard her name being called from the other side of the street. Her escape bid had not, after all, gone unnoticed. With a sinking heart she glanced around her; the shops were already closed and there was nowhere to seek refuge in the shuttered street. Even the taxi rank was deserted, although no cabbie would have thanked her for wasting his time on the short ride to her flat.

       She hurried on, urging the traffic lights to stay green and keep the traffic moving, but even as the thought entered her head they flicked to amber.

       She stopped, cursing herself for every kind of an idiot. She could have stayed in the office and phoned for a taxi. Maybe it was not too late to beat a strategic retreat.

       ‘Tara!’ Her name, much closer, startled her and she glanced back before she could stop herself. He was weaving through the slowing cars and cutting off all possibility of escape in that direction. 

Here are the links!


Amazon, Canada
Amazon, France
Amazon, Germany

 Happy holidays! 

Buy one, get one half price...

I made this new edition of two of my vintage romances

(a) because I love playing with new cover ideas - always happy to hear your opinion on those, btw.

(b) I love offering my readers a good deal. With this two-in-one you buy one and get one at half price and who can resist a bargain? :)

Here's what a few people have said on Amazon about the books -

Old Desires

This is one of Liz's earlier books re-released with a new cover. But the book was certainly not old fashioned in any manner, the author still delivered a stunning romance. I was left with a everlasting impression of love found in unexpected places under rather suspenseful and unnerving circumstances bringing forth a revelation of another kind. Desere - 4.5 stars

Interestingly, the point of view is all Holly's. Unlike many of the romance novels of today, we don't get the male POV. And do you know what? We don't want to either. It's very much Holly's story, and the story of her engagement with the reader. Maria - 4 stars

A Stranger's Kiss


This was a nice story with a no nonsense heroine and a hero who reluctantly comes to her rescue a couple of times . I liked the h/h sparring with each other and I LOVED the ending and I thought that the hero's love for the heroine was shown clearly in his actions . A good read :) .Lily - 4 stars

The perfect curl-up-happily book for a cold, damp winter's day. I hope Liz puts more of her backlist on Kindle for me to enjoy again. J. Jones 5 stars

Here's a link!


Amazon, Canada
Amazon, France
Amazon, Germany

First Page Friday

It's Friday and time for a teasing glimpse at the first page of OLD DESIRES, when the infuriatingly arrogant (no, let's be honest, he's just plain rude) Joshua Kent arrives unannounced on Holly Carpenter's doorstep with an invitation he is not aboujt to let her refuse.

‘MISS Carpenter?’

The enquiry was simply a formality. Holly had no doubt that the man on her doorstep, filling the entrance with his powerful presence, knew exactly who she was. In that, he had her at a disadvantage and she didn’t much care for it, or for the quite unmistakeable chill in his manner.

She had the feeling that, whatever the reason for his call, he would prefer not to be making it and she already wished she had kept to her usual habit of ignoring the doorbell when she was working. Except that this afternoon nothing was going right and she had almost welcomed the interruption.

Besides, one look had been enough to warn her that this man would not have simply given up and gone away. Determination was written in every austere, finely chiselled line of his face; an intensity of purpose that hardened the sensual curve of his full lower lip.

‘I’m Holly Carpenter,’ she affirmed with an unconscious lift of her chin, wondering what this arrogant and very expensively-groomed man could possibly want with her. The well-cut navy pin-striped suit gracing his square shoulders and lean, hard figure, and the telling pale blue stripe of his tie, betrayed that he was a long way from his City office. His method of transport, if the gleaming silver Rolls at the kerb could be described in so plebeian a manner, was already attracting curtain-twitching attention from a window opposite.

It will only cost you 99c (77p) so to read on, click -

Amazon US  
Amazon UK
or Amazon wherever you are in the world. 

Harlequin Junkies

It's Monday, it's freezing and I'm going to the dentist this morning, but it's not all bad news.

I'm guesting over at Harlequin Junkies today and giving away a copy of OLD DESIRES. Pop by and leave a comment for the chance to win.

Kindle freebie

It's been a great week, with wonderful guests, and it isn't over yet. Tomorrow, Barbara Douglas will be here to tell us about her new book, The Nanny Who Saved Christmas.

Today though, is the final day of the free Kindle download of OLD DESIRES at Amazon US and Amazon UK - actually Amazon everywhere! - so I wanted to talk a little about how that's gone.

Actually, it's been amazing. I've had an unofficial Street Team helping me get the news out there and OLD DESIRES shot up into the top 20 Kindle free downloads on both sides of the Atlantic and is still in the top10 contemporary romances as I write, so a huge thank you to everyone who has tweeted the news, put it on Facebook or hosted me on their blog

I know this is a bit irritating for those of you who read on a Nook, or Kobo or Sony eReader but I promise that in February, when my deal with Amazon is done, I'll post a free promo voucher for Smashwords on my blog so that you can all get the same deal.

Meanwhile here's an excerpt of Old Desires to whet your appetite -

‘Ready to go?’  Holly nodded and he pulled on the helmet for her and fastened the strap beneath her chin.  ‘Very fetching.  Don’t forget to hold tight.’  He put on his own helmet and then climbed on an enormous black machine.  She sat very primly behind him, her hands scarcely touching the sides of his waist.  Then he started the machine and without further warning moved off and she threw herself at his back and clung on for dear life.
    Roaring up the lane, the stab of the headlamp into the dark the only source of light in a black world, was bad.  As dreadful as it could be.  But it was nothing to do with the noise of the bike, or the speed with which the hedge flashed by them.  It was her body pressed against the supple leather of his jacket, feeling the steady reassuring hammer of his heart against the crazy counterpoint of her own, beating much too fast.  It was her arms around his waist, her hand clasped desperately under his ribs.  That was what she feared.  The unavoidable closeness and what it was doing to her.
    Then it was over.  They were in front of Highfield and she was sliding quickly from the machine in an effort to escape, her legs wobbly as she had known they would be.  She fought desperately with the uncooperative strap of her helmet to remove it before he could help her, touch her.  But her fingers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, find the release and after he had removed his own helmet he bent to do it for her.
      She shivered.
    ‘Are my hands cold?’ he asked.
    ‘No.  Yes.’  With his long fingers brushing against her neck she couldn’t think clearly.
    ‘Well?’ he asked, pulling the helmet off and putting it with his own on the seat of the machine and leaning back against it. ‘Which is it?’
    ‘They’re cold,’ she managed before turning quickly away, determined to get inside before she betrayed herself totally. ‘Thanks for the lift, Joshua,’ she said, from the doorway.
    ‘Holly?’  His voice grated against her spine and she stopped and turned slowly back to face him.  He hadn’t moved.
    ‘Yes?’ she asked, from the safe distance of her porch.   
    ‘There was something else.’
    ‘Can’t it wait?’  She fumbled desperately in her pocket for her keys.
    ‘I don’t believe it can.’  Her margin of safety proved illusory as in a stride he was beside her, his eyes smoky dark as he searched her face.  It was a look that seemed to touch her, stroke her, burn her up until she thought she would cry out.  After a moment, or it might have been an age, in which she felt as if she was suspended at the top of a roller-coaster, waiting for that dizzy freefall plunge, he spoke.  ‘I don’t believe it can wait another moment.’ 
    She closed her eyes in an effort to blot out the desire in his eyes, not quite trusting it, but knowing that it was far too late for her to fight the echoing response he must all too clearly see in hers.  Knowing that she was helpless to resist.
     He took her face between his hands, tilting her face upwards and holding it cradled in his long fingers, until she could bear it no longer and her long lashes fluttered open.  ‘Please…’ The word, barely more than a sigh, escaped her lips, but whether she was begging for release or capture she scarcely knew.  Until he kissed her and by then it was too late.
    His lips were cool as they began to feather her face with butterfly kisses, each touch to the delicately veined lids of her eyes, her temples, the smooth curve of her jaw  the gentlest, teasing caress, that gradually turned her bones to jelly.
    She was trembling as at last he slid his hands inside her jacket and pulled her tight against his chest and held her there.  
    ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, her eyes jet dark in the sudden shaft of moonlight breaking through the clouds,
    He laughed, very softly.  ‘If you have to ask, my darling Holly, I must be doing something wrong.’  But he wasn’t doing anything wrong, she was quite sure of that.  In fact as his lips continued their philandering progress, she had the very definite impression that he was an expert.  Then he raised his head and she moaned very softly. 
    ‘Don’t stop,’ she protested.
    ‘I haven’t stopped.’  His arm tightened about her waist, drawing her so close along the length of him, that suddenly she didn’t have any breath for words.  And then that was no longer a problem, because she had something else to occupy her mind as his mouth claimed hers and she knew he had spoken nothing but the truth.  He left her in absolutely no doubt of his meaning.    
     Her lips parted under the sensuous prompting of his tongue and she responded with an urgency that at once shocked and elated her, her arms snaking around his neck, pulling him down to her until with a groan he wrenched himself free.
    His ragged breathing matched her own as they stood just inches apart, staring at one another in stunned amazement at the reality of what had just happened to them both.
    ‘Holly ...’
    She shook her head.  It wasn’t a time for words.  Her hand fastened on the cold keys in her pocket and she held them for a moment, clenched tight in her fist.  Then, her cheeks flushed with bright colour, she extended her hand and offered them to Joshua.
    For a heartbeat they hung from the tip of her finger, glinting in the fitful moonlight between the two motionless figures, then he reached out and his fingers closed around them and she surrendered them into his care.  He turned to the door, fitted the key in the lock.  The sound of the lever drawing back in the mechanism was like the crack of a pistol in the unnatural silence and then the door swung open.

Christmas is Cancelled...

I have another guest today, helping me celebrate my 20th anniversary. Aurelia Rowl is an online friend who has been a wonderul supporter of my books and it's a huge pleasure now to be able to be able to talk about her Christmas novella - Christmas is Cancelled. I love that title ad the cover is gorgeous, too!

I've asked her to tell you a little about her book and for those of you who wonder how a writer's brain works, here's how the story came to be written.

...

Christmas is Cancelled is one of those stories I didn't plan. I was actually in the middle of a different story, and I was about to go off on a Summer family holiday abroad, but then I saw it...a submission call for Christmas stories up to 15K words, with the deadline just after I returned from holiday. "I can do that," I thought to myself, "and I might be able to get it done before we go." Ah, those immortal words. The laptop ended up coming on holiday too, of course, but I'm jumping ahead of myself. Having made the decision to 'give it a go', I fired up Scrivener and stared at the blank page. I had no characters, no setting, no ideas and certainly no outline. 

But then came the spark...my heroine was having a really bad day and to top it all off her train was cancelled, leaving her stranded on Christmas Eve with nowhere to go. And then came the hero...he's had his share of trauma all right, but even I didn't realise just how bad things had been for him until half way through the book. That same book which has already passed the story limit and deadline for the initial submission call, but it demanded writing nevertheless. Taking my chances with the curve ball I'd be thrown--by turning it into a New Year story instead--it was even known as 'A Resolution Too Far' for a while. Except I wasn't being true to the story. 

I decided to let the other deadline go, and left the manuscript languishing on my laptop, two-thirds complete, with the ending mapped out in my mind. The school summer holidays had landed and writing time was almost non-existent. I gave no thought to writing until I saw the final call for Breathless Press for 'Holiday Cheer' stories; something I'd seen previously but discounted because of the heat level it demanded, but then I decided to go for it anyway. Not to mention the characters wouldn't leave me alone, always perstering...nagging...demanding to be heard. Lesson learnt - never ignore your characters! 

I happened to comment in a group on Facebook that I was 'going for it', and the editor herself offered me lots of encouragement to get my manuscript sent in, even though I didn't believe it to be polished enough. All I had to do now then, was finish it. The editor at this point dropped the bombshell that the deadline was in just a few days, not the end of the following month as I thought. And it was still the school holidays. Great! Cue several late nights, then almost to the minute of the deadline, I managed to hit send. Less than a week later, the contract arrived and I am delighted to share the resulting book with you today...

Here's the blurb

Matilda 'Tilly' Carter didn't think her day could get any worse, but even Christmas had just been cancelled.

The one girl Dean Watson has sworn never to have—never even expected to see again—just flared back into his life and into his home—his sanctuary—like she belonged there. Christmas would certainly be more bearable with Tilly around though…


And an excerpt...

Tears welled in her eyes, clouding her vision. She turned and wandered blindly toward the exit as the first tear escaped, forging a track down her cheek for the rest to follow. Tilly took in a lungful of air and then another. Having made a spectacle of herself once already, she really didn't want to be the cause of yet another scene.

The crowds swarmed around her, with students and family members heading home for the holidays only adding to the usual rush-hour melee of commuters. They jostled past, threatening to swallow her whole, as they rushed en mass in the opposite direction, using their briefcases and suitcases as a battering ram.

It was suffocating. She had to get out of there. Breaking into a run, broken heel or not, she raced through the doors and out into the biting December chill. Her waterlogged eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, dreary sky after the bright station lights, but she didn't dare slow down, desperate to escape the throng of festivities and merriment.

Carol singers assembled outside burst into a jovial rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," full of joy and happiness. Didn't they know Christmas had just been cancelled?

"Ooof!" Tilly smacked her shin against the edge of a low bench, too dark to see as she tried to dodge the growing audience. She ended up sprawled across the bench, dropping the handle of her suitcase with a loud clatter.

At least the pain shooting down her leg gave her an excuse to be crying. Unfortunately, it meant she had to stop running too. Not good. Whenever things got too tough, too intimate, or too confrontational, you could rely on her to make a run for it. Running away was what she did best...

A tall figure loomed in the edge of her vision, something vaguely familiar about the man's loping gait. In an effort to see him more clearly, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, then cringed inwardly at the black streaks now etched all over them. Great. She could add impersonating a panda to her day from hell as well then.

The mascara stung her eyes, rendering her unable to focus properly. She blinked furiously as the man strode past her, talking into a mobile phone in a deep voice that resonated throughout her body and made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A surge of adrenaline rushed to her legs, numbing the pain as her subconscious told her to run. Now!

The cloaked figure stopped mid-stride as if he'd heard her gasp. "Mike, I've gotta go," he barked into the phone, hanging up instantly. He backtracked until he was standing right in front of her, his tone changing from a growl to one of surprise. "Basmati?"

Great. She hadn't heard the nickname for years—nine years, four months and...sixteen days, to be exact—and even then, only one person had ever actually used it. She screwed her eyes tightly shut, shaking her head from side to side. No. No way. There was absolutely no way this could be happening to her. Not now. Not today of all days... Talk about kicking a girl when she was down.

And finally - a trailer!

Christmas is Cancelled is available to buy here 

To find out more about Aurelia, or to check out what projects she's working on right now, you can visit her website www.aureliabrowl.com

PS Don't forget OLD DESIRES is free to download from Amazon until midnight PCT on Thursday! It made the top ten in the UK yesterday!