It's getting to feel a lot like Christmas...

One of the fun things about being an author is writing a Christmas romance in the middle of the summer. I don't have a new one out this year - right now I'm knee deep in snow in a book that's going to come out in July. :)

Happily, Mills and Boon have been having a re-release fest with my books in the last few months and here are some of my backlist Christmas stories that are now available -

All She Wants for Christmas

In which Maddy, on a break from Christmas, ends up sharing a deserted island with a man she's convinced is conning her Godmother out of her life's savings.

Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto

In which Lucy Bright, on the run from her fake fiance, discovers that Santa isn't always wearing a red coat.

Christmas Angel for the Billionaire and it's "Changing Places" twin Her Desert Dream

in which the nation's beloved Lady Rose changes places with her "lookalike", supermarket checkout girl, Lydia.

  A Surprise Christmas Proposal

in which employment challenged Sophie gets a job as a dog walker and changes the lives of everyone she meets.

What is your favourite ever Christmas romance? Share it with us in the comments below - leave a little taster quote and a link if you have one. I'm not sure what Blogger will make of that, but I'll check the spam and make sure they're not held up there for long.

Backlist Bliss

Mills and Boon are putting out a dozen or so of my backlist books between now and January 1st and I'm having a lovely time watching Amazon to see the fabulous new covers as they're added to the listing.

The latest is for Chosen As the Sheikh's Wife, a novella that was written for the Mills and Boon centenary celebrations and originally published in the 100 Arabian Nights anthology.

I absolutely love writing sheikh books and the dh and I (we spent a lot of time working in the Middle East when we were young) had a ball brainstorming ideas.

Here's a little taster -

It was the phone that woke her.  Dragging her from somewhere so deep that she was certain that it must have been ringing for some time. 

She ignored it and finally it stopped, allowing her to concentrate on her headache, and the fact that her eyes felt as if someone had been shovelling grit in them all night. 

The bright sunshine didn’t help. 

With her hand shading her eyes, she made it to the bathroom.  She was in the shower when the phone began to ring again.  Sarah, she thought.  It would be Sarah, worrying about her.  She’d call her back…

She washed her hair, brushed her teeth.  Decided to forget about getting dressed until she’d had coffee. 

The local newspaper was lying on the mat.  Her gran had liked her to read the local news to her…

She bent to pick it up, groaning as the headache she thought she’d defeated slid forward and collided with the back of her aching eyes. 

Then she groaned again as she saw the front page.  It must have been a slow news day because she seemed to fill the front page, staring like a rabbit caught in the media headlights, with the Trash or Treasure expert beside her displaying the khanjar.  In full colour.

The headline read, ARABIAN “PRINCESS” AT ROADSHOW.

What?

The doorbell rang and without thinking she wrenched it open, certain that it would Sarah.  She’d taken to dropping in every morning in the last few weeks, to see if she needed anything.  She usually came round the back, letting herself in with her “good neighbour” key as she had yesterday when she’d heard her cry for help when the floor had given way.

Clearly the fact that the phone had gone unanswered was causing her concern, but since she’d bolted the back door last night, the key would be useless.

But it wasn’t Sarah, who was tiny – apart from around the middle where she was spreading spectacularly – and fair;  the  figure that filled the tiny porch was her opposite in every conceivable way.

Tall, spare, broad-shouldered, male, there was nothing soft about him.  His features were austere, chiselled to the bone, his beard closely cut against olive-toned skin that was positively Mediterranean against a snowy band-collared shirt, fastened to the neck.  His hair was thick and crisply cut.  But it was his eyes that held her. 

Dark as midnight and just as dangerous.

He looked very … foreign.

He was also stunningly, knee-wobblingly handsome. 

Violet was suitably stunned.  And her knees dutifully wobbled. 

Just her luck that she’d emerged from the shower pink of face, with her hair in it’s usual wet tangle and nothing between her and decency but a film of moisturiser and a faded pink bathrobe that could only be described as … functional.

‘Miss Hamilton?’

Oh, and guess what…  He had a voice like melted chocolate, delicately flavoured with an exotic, barely-there accent. 

Whatever he was selling she was buying by the crate…

Except, of course, that he was far too expensively dressed to be a door-to-door salesman.  She knew clothes.  And what he was wearing did not come off a peg in the High Street.

Oh, well.  She was expecting a visit from a representative of the finance company to call any day with the release papers for her to sign so that they could sell the house, recover their money.

This had to be him.

‘Miss Violet Hamilton?’ he repeated, when she didn’t answer.

‘Who?’ she asked, just to hear him say Violet again.  Long and slow.

Vi-o-let.  

Pronouncing every syllable, turning a name she’d loathed only slightly less than the hideously shortened “Vi” into the most desirable name in the entire world.

‘I’m looking for Miss Violet Hamilton.’  And taking the newspaper from her hand, he held the front page up for her to see.  ‘I believe I’ve found her.’

No point pretending to be the lodger, then.  Asking him to come back when she’d gussied herself up;  straightened her hair, applied some make-up, was decked out in one of her more creative outfits.  Oh, well…

‘And here I was kidding myself that the photograph is so awful that you couldn’t possibly tell,’ she said.  ‘Clearly I was fooling myself.’

He looked at the photograph and then at her for rather longer than seemed necessary just to confirm the likeness.  Then, clearly thinking better of commenting one way or the other, he returned the paper and said, ‘I am Fayad al Khalifa, Miss Hamilton.’  And he held out a visiting card -- as if they couldn’t printed off by the dozen in any name you cared to dream up by anyone with a computer. 

Except that this wasn’t a do-it-yourself job, but embossed on heavy ivory-coloured card.

 If he was from the finance company, he certainly wasn’t one of the foot-soldiers.

The front of the card gave no hint, but contained only his name: Fayad al Khalifa.  Unusual enough.  She turned it over.  The back was blank.  No address, no phone number.

Obviously this was a man whose name was enough for those with the wit to recognise it.  Which did not include her.

‘Nice card,’ she said.  ‘But a trifle shy of information.’

‘The Ras al Kawi embassy will vouch for me.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ she said.  Her friends would have recognised sarcasm.  He apparently did not, but merely nodded.  Good grief, he was serious…

Ras al Kawi?  Where was that?

‘I need to talk to you about a khanjar that I believe is in your possession,’ he said.  ‘It is possible that it once belonged to my family.’

‘Oh?’  Then, realising that he come to demand it back, ‘It’s amazing how fast good news spreads.’

‘You have no idea.  Perhaps I should wait in my car while you …’ 

He made the vaguest of gestures, resolutely looking at her face, avoiding her bare legs, the shabby bathrobe that had a tendency to gape at the neck.  It made no difference, every inch of her skin tingled.

‘Dress?’ she offered, lippy to the last.  Except that the word didn’t come out quite as she’d intended, but thick and throaty and more to avoid those eyes, than because she was interested in his choice in transport, Violet looked past him.

A black Rolls Royce was parked at the kerb.  The little green and gold flag on the bonnet stirred in the breeze.

She barely stopped herself from letting slip an expression that would have brought her a rebuke from her grandma.

Her breathless, ‘Who are you?’ wasn’t a whole heap better.

‘If your story is true, Miss Hamilton, then your great-great-grandmother, Princess Fatima al-Sayyid, was once married to my great-great-grandfather.’

At which point she did let slip a word that she used only under the most extreme pressure. 

She would have been embarrassed about that, but a scream from rear of the house – Sarah’s scream -- obliterated the sound.

Chosen As the Sheikh's Wife is available to pre-order at Amazon as an ebook for $1.89 in the US - here's the link and for £1.19 in the UK here

 Nook UK and Kobo also have it listed with the new cover - and I imagine iBooks (where the book is available but showing the old cover), will catch up soon.

A little ghost story for Halloween...

THE ROCKING CHAIR

‘MUM!’ Polly leaned over the banister rail and called down to her mother, busy directing the removal men. ‘Mum, can I have the attic room?’

Her mother, frowning distractedly, glanced up. ‘Attic room? I don’t remember an attic.’

‘Where’s this to go, Mrs Rutland?’ Polly’s mother stared at the table distractedly before waving her hand in the direction of the door on her left.

‘In there for now.’

‘Can I mum?’ Polly persisted.

‘Can you what?’ She started to walk away, not listening. ‘Lizzie, have you found the kettle yet?’

Polly grinned. Her mother hadn’t said no and she dumped her backpack on the floor, staking her claim to the little room before her sister, Lizzie, saw it. And that included the rocking chair.

It was set at an angle in front of a small dormer window and Polly had planned to sit in it and inspect the street from this handy watch point. But someone had beaten her to it.

‘Lizzie, this is my room!’ she protested. ‘I asked mum—’ But the girl in the rocking chair was not her sister. ‘Who are you?’

The girl did not speak, just rocked gently back and forth in the chair, her arm around a battered rag doll. The rockers made no sound against the bare, wooden floor.

‘Who are you?’ Polly demanded again, crossly. ‘This is my room.’

‘It used to be mine.’

The girl’s voice rustled, like tissue paper and Polly, not known to back down over anything, took a step back. ‘Did it?’ Then, ‘Well, we’ve moved in now so you’ll have to leave.’

The girl turned to look at her. ‘I know. I keep telling them that want to go, but I can’t.’

‘Don’t be silly…’ Polly started firmly enough but the girl’s face was so suddenly pleading that she trailed off. ‘You must.’

‘I will. I you’ll help me.’

‘Polly? Polly! Are you all right?’ Polly looked up from the rocking chair into her mother’s concerned face. ‘I’ve been calling and calling. You must have been asleep.’ She looked around and shivered. ‘Are you sure you want this room? It’s very... I don’t know…’ She rubbed her arms briskly. ‘It wasn’t on the house details and the agent never brought us up here. Almost as if he didn’t know. Or didn’t want us to see it.’ She shook her head, half laughed. ‘That’s just stupid. Everyone wants an extra room.’ She glanced around again, and then said, ‘Have you been picking lavender from the garden?’

‘No.’ But as Polly opened her hand she saw that she was clutching a dry, crumbled stalk. It was almost unrecognisable as lavender, but the scent was still strong. ‘I, um, found it up here,’ she said.

’Oh, right. Well, Dad’s been out to fetch some pizza.’

‘Wicked!’ It had been hours since breakfast. ‘Who used to live here?’ Polly asked, following her mother downstairs. ‘Was there a girl about my age?’

‘Just a young couple, I think. Too young to have a daughter of twelve. They had to move quickly which is why we managed to get the house so cheap.

‘Why?’

Her mother turned and looked back. ‘Why what?’

‘Why did they have to move quickly?’

‘Who knows? New job, maybe? Like your dad.’

After her bed and chest of drawers had been carried up to the little room, and a rug had been found for the floor, Polly returned to the rocking chair.

She could see the whole street from her perch in the roof. There were some boys playing with a football. A woman was taking her time about mowing a tiny scrap of lawn while she eyed up her new neighbours.

An old lady was walking along the street carrying some flowers and, as she stopped at their gate, she looked up at the attic window. As she saw caught sight of her sitting there, the flowers dropped from her hand, spilled onto the path as she clutched at the gate, her mouth moving.

Polly watched her mother running down the path to help the lady into the house. Her sister Lizzie picked up the flowers. Then she looked up, too. Polly poked out her tongue.

She didn’t go down. She was watching for the girl who must have snuck into the house while everyone was busy. She must live nearby. She wasn’t left in peace though, instead Lizzie burst into the room. ‘Mum says you’re to come downstairs this minute!’ She couldn’t resist a smirk. ‘You’re in big trouble!’

In the kitchen her mother was pouring the old lady a cup of tea. ‘At last. Didn’t you hear me calling?’ Then, turning to the old lady, ‘You see, Mrs Potter? It was my younger daughter, Polly, you saw in the window.’

‘No. It wasn’t.’ The old lady looked pale and shaken, but her voice was firm. ‘It was Emily. She was much fairer than your daughter. All gold and white she was, poor little girl. Like a little angel until she took so ill. Then she used to sit there, all day, watching what went on. It gave me such a turn when I looked up and saw her.’

Polly recognised Emily at once as her visitor in the rocking chair. Okay, “white and gold” was a bit over the top, but she’d had fair hair and really pale skin.

‘Does she still live around here?’ she asked.

‘Sssh!’ her mum said, trying to shut her up. ‘Mrs Potter has brought us some flowers to welcome us to the house.’

But the old lady smiled at her, said, ‘No, dear. She was lost. During the war. Her mum and dad and Emily were in the air raid shelter in the garden when it took a direct hit.

‘Were they all killed?’ she asked.

‘Polly!’ She gave her the “look”. ‘See if you can find the biscuit tin.’

But Mrs Potter, recognising a kindred spirit, leaned forward. ‘Emily’s mum and dad were found in the shelter,’ she half whispered, ‘but there wasn’t a trace of poor Emily.’

Polly felt a shiver run through her. ‘Didn’t anyone look for her?’

‘They looked. When they couldn’t find her they thought she might have wandered off. Lost her memory, maybe.’ She paused. ‘She never turned up, though and I don’t believe she ever left. She’s still here somewhere, you mark my words.’

Polly’s eyes widened. ‘You mean out there? In the garden?’

‘Biscuit, Mrs Potter?’ her mum said sharply. ‘Polly, take your dad out his tea before it gets cold. Now.’

Outside, her father was surveying a cleared patch of ground.

‘Is this where the garage is going to be?’ Polly asked as she gave her dad a mug of tea.

‘That’s right. I had some men clear the site as soon as we exchanged contracts on the house. The concrete will be coming tomorrow for the floor slab.’

She looked around. The garden was a mess. Neglected. ‘What was here before?’

Her dad laughed. ‘What wasn’t!  Piles of rubbish, overgrown bushes, even part of the old air raid shelter from the war. It must have been… Polly?’

The empty rocking chair was moving gently by the window. ‘Hello, Emily,’ she whispered.

‘I’m here. I want to help. Tell me what to do.’

‘Show them,’ the papery voice commanded. ‘Show them where I am.’

‘But I don’t know –‘

‘Sit here and you’ll see.’

As Polly took a hesitant step forward the rocking chair moved invitingly and she lowered herself into it. Closed her eyes.

It was her mother’s urgent voice that woke her, calling her downstairs and then she heard the air raid siren. She shouldn’t be up in the attic and she shouted, ‘Coming!’ before they came looking for her. She stopped to pick up her doll from her bedroom, catch her breath, then again outside. Above her the night sky was bright with stars.

‘Emily!’ Her mother was standing in the shelter doorway. ‘What are you doing?’

The sweet scent of the lavender lining the path was strong and she stopped to break of a piece to take with her into the stuffy shelter.

Polly was digging with her hands. Her fingers were clawing, tearing at the earth as her father grabbed her, lifting her away.

‘Stop it!’ He shook her. ‘Polly!  What are you doing? What is it?’

‘It’s Emily!’ She struggled to free herself. ‘Emily’s buried here. She showed me. Please, daddy! You’ve got to help me find her!’

Mrs Rutland took her daughter from her husband’s arms, and said, ‘I think you’d better cancel the concrete, Peter. And fetch your spade.’

Chocolate Box Spooktacular!

Chocolate Box Blog

A Jewell Cove Christmas novella from Donna Alward

Here's Donna to tell you about it!

On October 7, I have a digital-only release coming out from St. Martin’s Press. I’m really excited, because this book is part of my Jewell Cove series and Oh My Gosh writing about Jewell Cove during the holidays was SO MUCH FUN!

When my editor asked if I’d be interested in writing it as an addition to our planned books, I had to come up with a couple to write about! I automatically thought of Charlene (Charlie) Yang, the town’s other doctor, and her new husband, Dave. How did they meet? What obstacles did they face getting to their happy ever after?


 

It’s Christmas in Jewell Cove…

And local doctor Charlie Yang finds her quiet, steady life disrupted by both an abandoned baby in the nativity manger, and a real-life mystery man. Sure, she’s always wanted a family of her own, but she didn’t imagine it coming from a baby that wasn’t hers and a man who was more interested in living day by day than making long-term plans.

Ex-SEAL Dave Ricker hadn’t planned on making Jewell Cove his forever home, but the talented and tender-hearted Charlie has him reconsidering his position on settling down. Can a beautiful woman, adorable baby and a small-town full of holiday spirit change his mind for good?

Amazon / Barnes and Noble / iTunes / Kobo

Cheese Scone Recipe

This is the recipe for the cheese scones on my Facebook page.

I've looked up the US cup equivalents but it's tricky since nothing is equivalent.

Apparently 2 cups of flour are about 10oz so if you increase the other ingredients slightly it should work. Apart from not getting the dough too wet this is not a recipe that requires precision!

Anyway, here goes -

225 gms (8 oz) of self raising flour

pinch salt

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1 level teaspoon of mustard powder

optional sprinkle of cayenne chili pepper (this is very much to taste but don't overdo it the first time - I used about a pinch)

50 grams (2 oz) of butter or hard margarine chopped into small pieces

150 ml (5 fl ozs) or a quarter of an Imperial pint(which is 20 fl ozs and not 16 like the US one)

100 gms (4 ozs) grated cheese (strong English cheddar is best but something with a bit of a bite)

Sift dry ingredients together, rub in fat until breadcrumby, mix in grated cheese, add milk. The amount of liquid depends on the flour, the humidity, annoying stuff that takes no account of recipes. You may need a touch more but be careful.

Bring together using a folk, knead very lightly (as little as possible) to make a ball, roll or flatten out to about an inch thick. Cut into rounds (or any shape that takes your fancy) and place on baking tray.

Bake in hot oven 220 C (425 F - gas mark 7) for about ten minutes. They will be coloured on the bottom and sound a bit hollow if tapped. Eat fresh. (They freeze well but they're so quick to make it's only a good idea to save yourself from eating them all at once.)

Variations

You can leave out the mustard/chili/cheese and make plain ones to have with jam and cream or butter. Lots of recipes have sugar but I make these the way my mother did. No sugar. They don't need it.

You can add 100 grams of sultanas to make fruity ones. (I think they're called raisins in the US; sultanas are the white grapes, raisins are the dark ones)

Pretty shoes, gorgeous socks...

I'm going to have a little ranty rant...

It's about what happens to you if you're not a standard fit. Nothing major. Just having feet that, over the years, have spread a little and are now wider than standard.

I used to buy shoes from a company famous for providing well made, comfortable shoes for the wide fitting. Pretty shoes. I'm fairly light wearing with shoes (that just means I don't walk anywhere) and they last me a long time. But not forever. But now, when I go to this same manufacturer, I find that all the prettiest styles, all the prettiest colours, are restricted to those with "standard" fitting.

There's this one for instance. It comes in a colour range including black, purple, navy, a very lovely dark green, grey and this very desirable dark red.

I lust after the red. I yearn for it but wait; if you want the "wide" fitting you can only have purple or black. And the black isn't this lush suede, but shiny leather.

Why?  This company built its name on wide fittings. And is there really a bigger demand for this shoe in purple than red? Honestly?

I've written to them and they wrote back suggesting that I look at their other shoes. The decreasingly small selection that they now offer in wider fittings. Which isn't helpful. At all.

And it's not just me. When I go hunting for luscious comfy socks for the dh - who has big feet - I can only get them in the dull colours. Beige, grey, black. If you want the fun red and yellow ones that he loves, tough luck unless you've a standard 8-11
 

A bride, a baby and the wrong man...?

This is cover on iBooks marking the place where, for the first time, an ebook version of  The Bride, the Baby and the Best Man is available for pre-order.

The rights were reverted to me earlier this year and I've "refreshed" it a little, it's been to a copy editor whose spotted the things that need a new eye to spot and I'm working with a designer on the new cover.

Meanwhile you can pre-order your copy - for an early bird price of 99c - at iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

Here's the blurb -

What do you when, three weeks from your wedding, a blackmailing aunt leaves you holding the baby?

Faith Bridges should be wedding dress shopping with her bridesmaids, finalising the menu for the reception, house hunting. Instead she's up close and personal with Harry March - the last man on earth she’d trust with her heart - a fractious baby and a four year old diva.

She and Julian may not have had the most conventional of courtships but he’s wise, responsible and utterly dependable.  He’s the exact opposite of Harry, who thinks that all he has to do to get her to stay and take care of his baby nephew and 4-year old niece is to tease her, charm her and, when that doesn’t work, make love to her.

Faith isn't about to fall for that; she knows that love is like meringue  — all sugar and air, and about as substantial. And she has made a promise that she isn’t about to break. So why is it so hard to walk away.

Classic Office Romance

It's publication day for the ebook version of a classic office romance I wrote a while back. I loved this book -  in which a very down to earth, very ordinary girl, captures the heart of the very broken Max Fleming.

Max made a brief appearance in Amanda's story - his sister - The Baby Plan,  when she fell in love with Dan a year later.

And because some characters just live on, when I wrote The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride, Dan and his daughter Sadie were on hand to prime the romance pump!

I just love it when that happens!

Playing on Google...

There's a new place to buy my backlist books, the ones I've given a bit of spit and polish since they were first published. It's Google Play

You'll find all my latest books there, too, but this boxset is on special offer until the end of August - four fun classic romances in one neat package for £1.10 if you're in the UK and whatever that equates to in the US; well under  $2. And it's available all over the world on this platform.

Meanwhile, I'm putting together another of my backlist books - The Bride, the Baby & the Best Man. Here's what it looked like back in the day when Harlequin Mills and Boon first published it.

I've revised it a little, updated it just enough and we're working on a gorgeous new cover. Hopefully it will be ready to go in September.  When the kids have gone back to school.

If you want to keep up to date with the launch - and a chance to win a copy of TBTB&TBM - you can sign up for my monthly newsletter here or "Like" me on Facebook here

Have a good weekend and happoy reading.

August is Read a Romance month...

I can never understand why anyone would sneer at romantic fiction. I love a crime novel, or a good thriller, or even something a bit highbrow and literary, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing half so uplifting as losing yourself in a great romance.

I discovered the joy of this when I was in my very early twenties and, stuck in bed with a horrible stomach bug, one of room mates gave me a copy of The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer. It did far more for me than whatever potion the doc had dished out.= and made me a lifelong fan of Miss Heyer.

Obviously that wasn't the first "romance" I'd read. I'd fallen in love with Mr Knightly and Darcy, although I wasn't entirely convinced by Rochester or Heathcliffe. And fellow readers will always share a great read. The same friend who bought me my first Susanna Kearsley - she now an auto buy and I was so thrilled that The Firebird was recognised last week with a Rita - just last week recommended  The Wedding Cake Tree by Melanie Hudson. So emotional.

Another favourite author, a writer I've watched from her first fabulous romance for Mills & Boon Modern Tempted to her latest bestselling maindtream, Dear Thing, is Julie Cohen. All her books are romances, but they cover a huge range from the fabulous fun of Girl From Mars, to the kind of bookshelf keeper that stays with you long after you've closed the last page.

If you had to entice a skeptic to read a romance, which author, which book would you give her?

Leave a comment and I'll put you in the draw for a copy of my latest romance, For His Eyes Only - in paper or ebook. :)

August is Read-a-Romance month. 

Every day three great romance authors will write an essay on what romance fiction means to them, recommend writers they love and give away copies of their books. We're talking writers like Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Susanna Kearsley, Jane Ann Krentz, Kristan Higgins, Susan Mallery and Nicola Cornick.  How great is that?

Here's a link where you can see the entire list of participating authors.

Backlist Books Fest!

Harlequin are continuing their re-release of my backlist with three new books in July and August.

In the UK they've started using pretty new covers to give the books a fresh new look and I'm absolutely delighted with what they've done with The Three Year Itch and All She Wants for Christmas  Don't be fooled by the title, which marketing changed from Trouble in Paradise when a December slot opened up. This book is set on a Caribbean island made for two and has nothing to with Christmas. At all.

In the US, Harlequin have taken the opposite tack and are using the original covers and Dating Her Boss happily is one of my favourite covers. A real classic.

Interestingly, catching up on these books, I've realised how much the Romance line has changed since I started writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon.

The heroes in these books are much more like Presents/Modern heroes - alpha, arrogant, tortured men.

For me, the men changed when I began writing scenes from their point of view. My first dual vp book was Eloping With Emmy (which is, incidentally available at the moemnt as an ebook for 99c) in which the hero took the lead vp role and we saw him falling in love - and knowing that it was all going to end in tears

Read-a-Romance Month

August is Read-a-Romance month. 

Every day three great romance authors will write an essay on what romance fiction means to them, recommend writers they love and give away copies of their books. We're talking writers like Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Susanna Kearsley, Jane Ann Krentz, Kristan Higgins, Susan Mallery and Nicola Cornick.  How great is that?

Here's a link where you can see the entire list of participating authors.

Bookmark the page and put your feet up in August with some fabulous writers.

Stephanie London talking about writing her first book

I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Stephanie London to my blog this week as she launches her debut book, Only the Brave Try Ballet. Check out that cover!

Over to you, Stephanie! 

Things I Learnt Writing My First Book

Writing a book for the first time is a fantastic life experience. I learnt a lot about myself in the time it took to write, revise (and revise and revise and revise) ONLY THE BRAVE TRY BALLET.  Here are 5 things I learned in the course of writing my first book:

1.Coffee is (and always will be) my best writing companion

2.Feedback is worth its weight in gold and it’s worth putting up with the discomfort and fear of sharing your work for the first time

3.Secondary characters are like pepper – use lightly to add colour and flavour, too much will detract from the main course

4.50,000 words is actually not as long and daunting as it sounds if you write a little every day. 250 words is the equivalent of one book page, if you wrote that every day you would have a category-length novel written in about 6 months

5.Writing a book is a team effort, you need a support network to keep you going when it all feels to crazy/hard/scary

If you’re writing a book for the first time my biggest message to you is: KEEP GOING! It can be hard, frustrating, insomnia-inducing, but it’s so worth it when you type ‘the end’. It’s honestly one of the best feelings in the world.

Official Blurb for Only The Brave Try Ballet:

Step up, Grant Farley…not your typical ballet student!

Football pro Grant Farley is nursing an injury and needs to get back into shape—fast. Ballet wouldn’t be his first or even his last choice, but he’s desperate. Enter tantalizingly prim teacher Jasmine Bell—one disapproving arch of her eyebrow and Grant knows he’ll enjoy getting her tutu in a flutter!

But it’s not only Grant’s flexibility that Jasmine’s pushing to the limit! He knows she feels the heat between them, so why won’t she give in to it? Time to convince Jasmine that if she’s brave enough to dance en pointe she can certainly handle a fling with him!

Excerpt

‘About last night—’ he started.

‘If you say How was it for you? I’m going to brain you with this mug.’ She waved a coffee mug at him as if to illustrate her point.

‘What?’ A sly smile spread over his lips as he leant against the breakfast bar. ‘You got a problem with giving positive reinforcement?’

She poked her tongue out at him.

‘No matter—I’ll take the fact that you screamed the house down to mean I did a good job.’

‘Do you want this coffee or not?’ Her cheeks flamed, but she couldn’t prevent a smile twitching at her lips. He was cocky, but then again, when you were that good…

She held his cup under the coffee machine and filled it with steaming dark liquid. The scent filled the room. Usually it was the most comforting scent in the world—reminiscent of early-morning ballet rehearsals and catch-ups with Elise—but today it did nothing to quell her morning-after jitters. Weren’t people supposed to feel anxious before sex, not after?

‘I’ve heard of love ’em and leave ’em, but never love ’em and cease all conversation,’ he teased.

‘We don’t need to cease all conversations.’

‘Just ones pertaining to sex?’

‘Yes.’ She filled her own mug and brought it close to her face. Inhaling deep, she willed the curling tendrils of steam to work their magic, but her shoulders remained bunched, her hands in a death-grip around the mug’s handle.

‘So…how about that local sports team?’ He drummed his fingers against the countertop.

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