READING…

Isn’t it just wonderful when you find a new author? A couple of weeks ago my dd was telling me about a first book she’d just read called GARDEN SPELLS by Sarah Addison Allen and was desperate because she couldn’t find the author’s second book, SUGAR QUEEN in her local bookshop.

Being a totally fabulous mother , I found it on Amazon and gave her a copy when she came to see us over the May Bank Holiday. In return she gave me her copy of GARDEN SPELLS. And then, because I was desperate for the second book, too, Michelle Styles generously sent me her copy of SUGAR QUEEN.

These books are magic. Literally. As well as being delightful romances, things happen that don’t happen in the ordinary world. According to Sarah, when I checked her website this morning, when she wrote GARDEN SPELLS she had intended to write a book that was about the reunion of two sisters, but then the apple tree started to throw apples and – like her heroine, Claire -- her life has never been the same again.


In SUGAR QUEEN there’s a girl living in Josey’s closet – and blackmailing her over her secret stash of sweets and paperback romances -- a crazy maid, the mother from hell and the mailman. And then there’s Chloe, whose one true love has cheated on her and who is plagued by books. Titles such as Old Love, New Direction; A Girl’s Guide to Keep Her Guy and Madame Bovary (an awful warning!) will turn up and refuse to stay in the trash.

This morning, having read the second book in a can’t-put-it-down rush, I went to Sarah’s website to see what else she’d written.

Sadly I’m going to have to wait until 2010 for her next book, the one in which the wallpaper changes pattern by itself. Such imagination!

Fortunately, there’s a new Susan Elizabeth Phillips to help plug the gap – although if anyone can suggest anything else that has the SAA touch, or any great books you've read lately, word of mouth is the best way to, um, spread the word!

You're welcome to start here.

ONLINE READ

I've just discovered -- it's a good idea to click on links and check them once in a while -- that my online read, THE CINDERELLA VALENTINE, is no longer "online". It has disappeared, gone, vanished into the ether. They used to stay there for years, but now these little stories have been rounded up to be sold as telephone downloads (for which the author does not get any money -- we were paid up front).

I do wish Harlequin would let authors know when this happens -- there's nothing more annoying for readers than clicking a link, hoping for a dollop of romance, only to discover that what you're hoping to find just isn't there any more.

I imagine that, sooner or later, like THE SECRET WEDDING, my Cinderella will be available as a phone download from eHarlequin. When that happens -- and they won't tell me when, I'll have to keep checking -- I'll let you all know.

In the UK, they've starting selling a few entire books as telephone downloads. I was interviewed on Radio 5 Live! about this on Easter Monday. All those people playing with their mobiles on the train, could now be reading a romance. I love that!

I've also removed the Mills & Boon link to BOARDROOM BRIDEGROOMS, because it's sold out.

Thank you all for that.

It is still available at Amazon, or The Book Depository, where they offer free delivery, and also in Borders in Fforestfach, Swansea.

I know, because I saw it there yesterday, where I also found NATURAL BORN CHARMER, the latest Susan Elizabeth Phillips, which cost £12.99 in trade paperback which is a scandal -- and frankly, I'd much rather have an ordinary paperback because it's easier to handle. But for SEP I'm prepared to suffer.

And today PURE PASSION is launched in Wigan by north-west libraries. Lucky readers in the north-west to have such a fabulous library service.