PARTY TIME!

Welcome! Choose the cocktail of your choice from the barman, draw up a lap and sit down, we're about to party!

It's been twenty years since the day I signed my first contract with Mills and Boon for a book called AN IMAGE OF YOU - and two other titles.  An awful lot has happened in that time.

We've built a house. The kids grew up, went to university, flew the nest. My daughter got married and made me a grandmother and my son had a book of his own published.

And of course I've written sixty books for Mills and Boon - #60 is FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN out in December - and another three for someone else.  That's a lot to celebrate.

Writer friends will be dropping by to help me celebrate this week.  They're bringing along some good looking men to help the party go with a swing, and have books to give away as door prizes, so when you can stop ogling the pecs, leave a comment so that you name can go into the draw.

Meanwhile, my fellow author and webmistress, Ally Blake, has raided her own stash of fit blokes to serve our every whim.

Olive, anyone?

Don't all rush, now. There are plenty more where that came from!

But now to the guests.  Ally will be back later in the week with her latest book, but first to drop by is -

- the lovely Anna Campbell and she's brought a wicked English rake to the party.

He's London’s most notorious seducer, Nicholas Challoner, who lives solely for revenge…

The dashing, licentious Marquess of Ranelaw can never forgive Godfrey Demarest for ruining his sister—now the time has come to repay the villain in the same coin. But one formidably intriguing impediment stands in the way of Nicholas’s vengeance: Miss Antonia Smith, companion to his foe’s unsuspecting daughter.

Having herself been deceived and disgraced by a rogue—banished by her privileged family as a result and forced to live a lie—Antonia vows to protect her charge from the same cruel fate. She recognizes Ranelaw for the shameless blackguard he is, and will devote every ounce of her intelligence and resolve to thwarting him.

Yet Antonia has always had a fatal weakness for rakes…


I have read this book and believe me, she has a fight on her hands!

Anna has three copies of Midnight's Wild Passion to give away.  

So here we have a game of truth, dare, kiss, promise... To win a copy of this book, I dare you tell me your secret passion. 

And while you're thinking about that, here's another of Ally's butlers in the buff with a jug of delicious fruit punch - livened with a touch of something naughty, to cool you down.

 Okay? Glass in hand, a little blini to stave off the hunger pangs.  Here's Nicola Marsh joining the party with her man of the moment, the utterly delicious Rob Lowe.

I asked Nicola about her new book GIRL IN A VINTAGE DRESS and she told me that the idea was originally sparked by an article in a Sunday newspaper magazine on retro charm schools. 

"Lola Lombard strutted onto the blank pages fully formed and I didn't look back.  Of course, I had to pit her against a hero her opposite in every way to ensure guaranteed sparks and a pic of Rob Lowe in a business suit fitted the bill.  Mind you, having to research loads and loads of Rob Lowe pics once I’d cast him was no hardship either!

I can't argue with that, and if you aren't lucky enough to win a copy of Nicola's Girl in a Vintage Dress here, you can win it as part of her 7 book giveaway at
http://nicolamarsh.blogspot.com/2011/07/prize-pack-giveaway.html

Meanwhile, tell me about a dress that you once owned that still makes your heart beat faster. That you wish was still in your wardrobe. And why it holds such special memories. Only the truth now!

I'm also delighted to welcome my RIVA/Harlequin Romance colleague, the witty, wonderfully emotional author, Jessica Hart   Jessica is not only a fabulous writer, but she's a great teacher, too. She regularly teaches hopeful authors in the lovely Tuscan countryside, and last year mentored writers in Mills and Boon's New Voices competition.

She has volunteered Kevin Costner as a butler, so order yourself up a Martini or two!

And she's offering a copy of her latest Harlequin Romance, The Secret Princess, as a door prize today.  It's bang up to the minute with its royal wedding theme and you won't want to miss it, I promise you.


For a chance to win, all you have to do is tell her who you'd choose as your Prince Charming!  Be honest, now. And husbands and partners do not count!


 And come back tomorrow when I'll have more guests, more books, more gorgeous men.