Two contests

Today's book from the Christmas Stocking Stuffed with Books is Appointment at the Altar by Jessica Hart.

As you'll remember from earlier in the year, Jessica celebrated her 50th title - Last Minute Proposal - in October this year. Her donation to the stocking is an earlier book that was published in 2007 but it's a classic Jessica Hart.

Here's a summary:

Three steps to the altar!

Monday - buy stylish suit

Bubbly Lucy West has always thought she can handle everything. That's before she meets charismatic tycoon Guy Dangerfield, who challenges her to find a 'real job' for a change.

Tuesday - Find proper job

So, determined to prove she has what it takes, Lucy secures a top job - working for Guy!

Wednesday - Fall in love with boss.

Lucy thrives in her knew world . . .and it's all down to her gorgeous boss. Lucy has a spring in her step and just maybe a ring on her finger!

And here's a bit more about Jessica herself:

Jessica was born in Scotland, where her mother continues to live. Jessica's earliest dreams were about sitting on a sand dune in the Sahara, working in the Outback, hacking her way through a jungle or bouncing along a dusty track in a battered old Land Rover rather than writing a book. Her itchy feet took her from Afghanistan to Australia, from Algeria to Belize, and Cameroon to Indonesia, with various stops en route, and she loved it all. Because she was always thinking about where she wanted to go next, she never quite managed a proper career. Instead she had a haphazard series of jobs around the world. Her last 'proper' job was on the foreign newsdesk of a national newspaper. Before that, she was on expedition in West Africa, cooked on an outback cattle station, taught English as a foreign language, was production assistant for a theatre company and research assistant for a publisher of restaurant guides and filled in the gaps between by working as a secretary, waitress, chambermaid and dishwasher. Regular readers will probably recognize how often she has drawn on her wide but lowly working experience for inspiration when it comes to setting and plot!

Now Jessica leads a rather more staid existence, dividing her time between city life in York and a country cottage in Wiltshire where her partner, John, lives. This involves a lot of driving up and down the motorway, which takes up a lot of time. After nine years of research, Jessica finally completed a Ph.D. on York's later medieval and early modern streets in 2004, but still never seems to have enough time to get everything done.

When she's not writing romance, she is usually busy doing something connected with food (cooking, meeting friends for a drink, eating, gossiping over coffee etc) or walking her Westie, Mungo, but she also loves history and gardening and reading and travelling, and there are still times, too, when she yearns for wider horizons. Jessica has written over 45 books for Harlequin Romance, and won the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award for the best traditional romance in 2005. In 2006, she was awarded the Romance Prize for the best category romance by the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association, and was short-listed for the same award in 2007.

You can find out more about Jessica by visiting her web site.

And now, as promised, here's news of another Christmas Contest - the Twelve Days of Christmas contest.

As before, I'm running this contest with lovely Lee Hyat of Author Sound Relations. So to enter this one you need to go to the My Tote Bag site where you will find details of the contest and how to enter here. Please send you entries direct to Lee and not to me!

And of course, as the name implies, there are 12 special prizes up for grabs. Good luck!

All details on how to enter the Christmas Stocking Contest together with the questions to answer can be found on the Contests page on my web site.