A "Kiss" that's Anything But Vanilla

And it's also available direct from Harlequin US and Harlequin Mills and Boon in Australia

THIS WEEK I'M NOT...

at the Romantic Novelists' Association 50th Anniversary conference in Greenwich.

This has to be extremely bad planning, because while I sit here in my jammies at the crack of a Saturday dawn, all my writing mates are, right now, stirring, groaning and reaching for something to soothe the ravages of a night partying at the Gala celebration dinner.

Of course I am also missing out on the shocking heat in London and remain cucumber cool and headache free in a rather damp Wales.

Which would you choose?

Yes, I thought so.

Next year I'm going to have to plan my deadlines with rather more precision, since I've been roped in to give a talk or something. (I need plenty of notice of these things - a year should be about enough to come up with something interesting.)

Meanwhile my world is bounded by all things ice cream.

Elle, the heroine of my story (working title SCOOP!) has just gone for a ride in Rosie with a dishy bloke who's turned up at her door with a 1962 Commer Ice Cream van that is about to turn her world on its head.

(The dishy bloke might have a little to do with that, too!)



Oh, and just so that you know I really was working when I was pretending to be on holiday last week - here's my research photo.

This giant ice cream was spotted on the station at Paignton, where I boarded a steam train to Dartmouth. The sight of it moved me to go inside and buy one, although it wasn't a Whippy but some delicious west country dairy cream ice scooped onto a cone.

The jolly nice young man who served me wrapped it in a napkin (something Mr Whippy never did when I was a kid) and for which I was extremely grateful since it was a hot day.

Some books are just more fun to research than others.

RESEARCH

I think one of the best things about starting a new book is the research. The excuse to browse for books -- my latest acquisition is OF SUGAR & SNOW, the history of ice cream making by Jeri Quinzio. Okay, so Nero poured honey onto snow, but actually, no, that's not ice cream!

I've also been having chats with the charming Ian at Mr Whippy, who has been giving me the lowdown on the how the music jingle works. I'd assumed something boring like a button. Apparently not.  Back in 1962 (which is when my heroine's ice cream van was on the road) the driver wound it up each time - he even sent me a photograph of the mechanism. Such tidbits of information are gems that the author can take full advantage of.

And then, of course, I had to buy a book about making ice cream. And I've been looking at eBay to check on ice cream makers - although I'm manfully resisting actually buying one.

I will, very soon, actually have to get down to writing, but for now I'm just having fun.