From under the dust sheets

I've managed to unearth my computer from under the dustsheets for just long enough to post this - another half an hour and the men are back finish the windows in my office, seal the french foor and the windows in the living room and then I'll get my house back - no bangs, no drills, no dust - no kittens going crazy because they are locked in one room - and the Santos and I can get back to work.

But in the meantime I have visitors - my Mother in law is here to celebrate her birthday. And our niece, the Magnet's sister's daughter has come with her, so I just have time to mention a couple of things before I leave the computer to the dust sheets again.

One is that we never quite decided on a collective description for massed group of romance novelists gathered together. Yes, there was the word 'a cleavage' bandied about - but that was just the group I was with at the time. But, no matter what you call them - here is the official photo (courtesy of Philippa Gedge Photography) of almost all the M&B authors who were at the 100th Birthday party in London last month.

Also, if you are in the UK and you live anywhere near Oxford - the next stage of the 100th birthday celebrations are coming up in April:

To commemorate its centenary, Mills and Boon is sponsoring an event at the Oxford Literary Festival. UK-based writers Joanne Harris (Chocolat, Blackberry Wine), Katie Fforde (Wild Designs, Paradise Fields), Nicola Cornick (HMB historical writer) and Matt Dunn (The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook, From Here to Paternity), will be discussing How Heroes and Heroines have altered over the past 100 Years.

Their chair is Daisy Goodwin, who presented and produced last year’s BBC 4 documentary Reader I Married Him that covered this very topic (although she went back further than 100 years).

The event takes place on Thursday, 3rd April at 6.30pm in the Marquee at Christ Church college and costs £7.50 (including a glass of wine afterwards). So if you already live in the UK or plan to come here during the month of April, come to Oxford and spend a great hour or two with fellow romantic devotees. Bookings are via this link.

Finally, just to remind you that the contest over on My Tote Bag to win one of the last remaining copies of Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance closes today so if you want a chance to win you need to get your entry in today. If you're not lucky, I did spot that Amazon.com has a few copies left, but Amazon.UK is sold out.

But rest assured that the publisher and I are working very hard to remedy that fact and I'll have more news coming up very soon - I hope! In the meantime don't forget the Writers' Q&A here on my blog. This will be coming up in April but obviously I have to have some questions to answer if I'm going to run it.

So if you have any writing questions you'd like me to answer then email them to me. Please put Writing Q&A in the subject line. And then I'll answer them on my blog - or maybe on Tote Bags n Blogs in one of the 12 Points

Oh no - that isn't the final thing - the final thing is to say a great big thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of my current release - Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife. It was back at #1 on the Amazon list of bestselling Mills & Boon romances this morning. So thank you all!

Right, time to put the dustsheets back and go back to my hostessing duties. At least having visitors here has distracted Flora from the fact that she's confined to one room.