Princes and Sheikhs?

There's something about a sheikh... Or a prince...

They are the ultimate fantasy romance hero. All powerful, rich beyond imagining, men who control kingdoms with the click of a finger, can sweep a woman away not just on a horse, but in his private jet and make her feel like a queen. Men who cannot show the slightest hint of weakness and for whom falling in love is the hardest thing in the world.

Where does a man, who spends his entire life in the spotlight of the public gaze, whose every move is recorded by the paparazzi - or even the man in the street with a mobile phone - get to meet the special one, whether she's princess or PA, showgirl or shop girl? And when he's struck by cupid's dart, how will he know that the woman of his dreams is marrying him rather than his rank, status, wealth?

In such circumstances, the arranged marriage must seem a very attractive option. No doubt about it. Everyone knows what they're getting.

It's easy to see why the sheikh/prince hero makes the romance writer's mouth water. Putting an ordinary girl in his path, challenging everything he believes and watch him lose his heart is irresistible.

My question is this. In this modern day and age does the sheikh/prince hero still appeal? Do younger readers enjoy them? Would they rather have a billionaire tycoon? Or just an ordinary guy - with none of the hassle that a public marriage involves?

The Sheikh Who Loved Her

I just love the covers of the Special Editions that Mills and Boon releases - three-in-one collections of bestselling romance for a new audience.

And the company you get to keep!

The fabulous Kate Hardy and Susan Stephens. Just so special.

What we have here, is Ruling Sheikh, Unruly Mistress from Susan Stephens. Proud, curvy and pregnant- the heroine, not Susan!

Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh from Kate Hardy pits Lily French against seductive playboy, Karim.

Her Desert Dream finds lookalike Lydia standing in for a world famous woman and meeting her match in the disinherited Kalil al Zaki.

It's available online now from

Mills and Boon, Australia
Mills and Boon, UK

Her Desert Dream is also available in a single title digital edition in the US

Follow Liz on Twitter @lizfielding
Follow Kate on Twitter @katehardyauthor
Follow Susan on Twitter @Susan_Stephens

HOOK HEAVEN!

According to Horace Bent of The Bookseller on Twitter, this morning, 13 books with “Angel” in the title have made the Sunday Times best-seller list in recent months. With my own “angel” book on the shelves in November, you can imagine how happy this made me. Not that I’m anticipating the Sunday Times best-seller list, you understand, but a girl can dream of being a "Heat Seeker"!

CHRISTMAS ANGEL FOR THE BILLIONAIRE is part of the “Changing Places” duet being published by Harlequin Romance next November and December, in which Lady Rose and her look-alike, Lydia Young, change places for a week.

The second book is HER DESERT DREAM in which another of the Khatib cousins, Kalil al Zaki (the first two are in The Sheikh’s Guarded Heart and The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride) from Ramal Hamrah, gets himself into all kinds of bother when he falls for the “people’s angel”.

Here he is -- just for a treat :)





An angel and a sheikh in the same duet. Hook heaven!

Just now, I’m writing a book for the exciting new ESCAPE AROUND THE WORLD mini series. Josie – who first made an appearance in The Bride’s Baby (still available free at here – is in Botswana, attempting to bring order out of the chaos of a “celebrity” wedding at the fabulous tree-top Leopard’s Lodge on the bank of the Chobe River.

Fortunately, Gideon McCloud, hors d’combat and flat on his back in the next door tree, is there to lend her a sympathetic ear, his shoulder when the bridesmaids get stroppy, half of his super king size bed when the sleeping arrangements prove inadequate. He’s exactly what a girl needs when she’s thousands of miles from the comfort of her office and without a mobile phone connection. Maybe.

The only question now is, how can I get “angel” into the title?

FREE BOOK MONDAY ON DANICA'S BLOG

Danica, or Dream as some of us know her, is giving away a copy of Reunited: Marriage in Million on her blog this week, bless her. She also has some interesting stuff to say about the writer's journey. Worth checking out.

SCARY TUESDAY

As for me, having woken up a cold sweat after a really nasty nightmare, only to discover that the stairs light had gone out so that it was totally dark, I now have to go and visit Bill, my lovely dental surgeon. He hails from New York, but has lived here in Wales for a v. long time.

One of my wisdom teeth is showing its age and needs a little attention. With a drill. Whimper...

Meanwhile the wip is still creeping along. Manda is now on terra firma -- I left that poor woman hanging around by her fingertips for far too long but she really needs to stop giving Jago such a hard time.

FINALLY

Copies of my new sheikh book arrived while I was in London. Breakfast at the Churchill in Portman Square with my editorial team from Richmond was instructive. We talked a lot about popular themes and discussed future books, but I thought it would be fun to throw this one open to my blog visitors. I'm looking for comments on what kind of stories you really love. Is it the sultry sheikh riding out of the desert? The nine-to-five office romance, with love blossoming around the water cooler? Does the word baby in the title make you reach for a book, or bride? Are you a died in the wool Cinderella fan? Will a handsome prince float your boat?

Share your reading desires with me this week and on Sunday I'll put all the comments in a hat and draw one at random to receive a copy of THE SHEIKH'S UNSUITABLE BRIDE, which won't be available anywhere (unless you're a Reader Service subscriber) until next month.

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.