Celebrating Writing Friends 5 - Michelle Reid

Tuesday April 4th 1995. I am in an elegant London Hotel, dressed in my brand new Lady Novelist peach linen suit, and I am shaking in my elegant beige suede shoes. Harlequin Mills & Boon are holding their very first author day and for the first time ever I am meeting other writers who work for the same company as me. There are so many people. So many women - and one or two men. There are big names here – huge names – huge personalities too. Charlotte Lamb, Penny Jordan, Anne Weale . . . I feel as if I have stumbled into Wonderland where the names on the books I have read for so many years have become real people in front of me.

But I don’t know any of them! My editor greeted me at the door, told me where the Ladies was, where I should go for my first discussion group of the day and she would see me later. I’m on my own. Then I spot one familiar face. Mary Wibberley, someone I met a couple of years before when we both attending a Writing Day in Eccles. We’re in the same group so we head for the right room together. Mary still smokes (I’d given up 4 years before) so we stand at the back of the room where ashtrays are provided. Suddenly a voice says ‘Oh can we smoke in here!’ and the accent on the words are wonderfully, reassuringly Northern. I turn and see a dark haired woman, hair cut in a sleek bob, black jacket, black and gold pleated skirt. The name badge says Michelle Reid. I didn’t know it then but I had just met one of my favourite people in the whole world and the woman who was to become one of my very best friends.



At the time I was so nervous I could barely focus. I just know that the name was familiar, ringing bells like mad. I’d read her books – loved them – there was one . . . but the name escaped me and I just couldn’t remember it. (Later when I’m at home, I check my ‘keeper’ shelves. There it is – Passionate Scandal, published 1994. A book that hit me right between the eyes as I read it and has stayed in my mind ever since) At the end of that Author Day, I have Michelle’s address in my diary and as soon as I get home (and when I realise which book it is she wrote) I send a card saying how much I enjoyed meeting her. It crosses with her letter to me saying how she enjoyed meeting me - and, well, basically, we’ve been talking ever since. We started with letters, moved on to emails and phone calls – long phone calls – long, long phone calls. When I rang her one evening, Michelle’s husband once brought her a bowl of cereal and a bottle of milk – for the breakfast she would need before we’d finished talking.

We find strange coincidences and connections - both of us come from families of 5, our birthdays are just 4 days apart, when we went to London again for an RNA function and stayed in a hotel together, the head waiter at dinner said, ‘Oh you two ladies have to be sisters.’ And our writing minds are scarily alike. So much so that we have to be careful not to talk about plots in too much detail because we might influence each other.

We both believe in writing not so much romance - but as Michelle always says – relationship stories. We both want to write stories with some ‘grit’ in them, stories with heart and we are both in love with the Presents novel hero – and concerned that the way the word ‘Alpha’ is used to describe him narrows that hero down too much – and can too easily be used to mean ‘Alpha as bully’ when we write heroes with heart and integrity.

And that’s why I love Michelle’s books too. They have that gritty conflict that sometimes makes me wonder just how she’s going to resolve this one this time – but she always does. They have sparky, brave heroines who aren’t afraid to fight for what they believe in and to stand up to the forceful, powerful men they’ve fallen in love with. And her heroes are strong, fiercely passionate men, men who sometimes just don’t what’s hit them when it comes to love. They may fight against it and against their heroines – but they’ll also fight to the death for it – and for her when they need to.

Here’s Michelle on that ‘Alpha Male ‘ topic.

The Alpha Man must have an Achilles heel. And our guy’s Achilles heel is
love itself. For me, there is nothing more important in a Presents novel than to
feel his vulnerability to the heroine grow the deeper he falls in love with her.
It might make him tetchy, more arrogant - impossible on occasions, but it also
makes him human, more likely to stumble on his pedestal and therefore more
reachable and easier to love.
Once our
Alpha Man accepts he's found the love of his life he's willing to fight to the
death for her. When he discovers he is loved by return he is not too proud to
say so. In fact he becomes so comfortable with it he's happy to let the whole
world know that he's been well and truly hooked. Finding the love of his life
completes his Alpha-maleness instead of diminishing it in any way.

I have every single book that Michelle has ever written and if I had to pack a favourite it would be almost as hard as choosing a favourite from my own titles. Passion Becomes You, and House of Glass have both won Romantic Times awards. A Passionate Marriage, The Arabian Love Child, The Passion Bargain, The Price of A Bride, The Spanish Husband have all been nominated. I still love Passionate Scandal - have reread The Price of a Bride several times – and if you haven’t read Gold Ring of Betrayal then you haven’t lived as a romance reader. I have a copy of her brand new novel – The Ranieri Bride that she sent me and I daren’t take it out of the envelope – because I know what will happen. I’ll read the first sentence – the first page . . . and before I know it I’ll have been absorbed for hours and read the whole thing. And I have this Sicilian to wrestle into submission. Michelle understands that.

Because the other thing that Michelle is is a great whip-cracker. When I’m fighting with a book and every word is like pulling teeth, then knowing that she’s there, at the other side of the country, waiting for an email with a word count keeps me writing so that I have something to report. An added incentive is knowing that a writer I so much admire is waiting to read the next book of mine – now that’s a great feeling.

And she’ll be expecting a word count from me today so yes – honest, Michelle - I am going to write – now! (But this post is 1,191 words - doesn't that count??)