Missed me?

Where  have I been?  Well, I'm not really sure -  I've been busy working for a start.  At last I've been able to really concentrate on the book and  (my editor will be so pleased about this)  and my recalcitrant hero  Carlos  who  was living up to his nickname of El Diablo - the devil - finally agreed to cooperate a bit more.   So he took  a lot of my attention
Then there was the birthday weekend - was it really a week ago! I had a lovely time with family and friends, visiting York, wandering in the sunshine, treating myself to a couple of dresses. The great thing about having a birthday on a Staurday is that you can make a weekend of it - so I did.  Thak you again to everyone who posted birthday messages on Facebook.


So now I'm back - I hope!   And I have good news.

I was sent a really great review for The Proud Wife yesterday - this is from a site that I didn't know about until now - The  Long and the  Short  Of It reviews.   As  I'd never had a review from this site before, I think it's always really valuable to see a review from a new reader.  It's great to see what they think about a book. And I was thrilled to find that this new reviewer really loved The Proud Wife. She also made some really astute comments on the book.  

She also rated it 4.5 books out of a possible 5.

Hare's part of the review:


Ms. Walker creates two attractive characters with strong personalities and strong wills and then pits them against each other. Marina is English, Pietro is Sicilian. They married shortly after they met when she found herself pregnant and that’s just the beginning of their troubles.

As anyone in a relationship knows, misunderstandings can easily arise. It’s not just what is said but what isn’t said that can cause problems. This author uses this situation to set up the stress and tension between the two. Marina walked out on Pietro and he’s too proud to go after her. They both feel shut out and unloved.

The interplay between during the divorce discussion is amusing and volatile. While these two characters think there is no love left between them, you know there wouldn’t be as much passion and anger between the two if they didn’t care. The author uses the sexual attraction between as a point of contention: Perhaps it was lust rather than love?

I enjoyed watching them trying to work past their problems without actually explaining anything to each other. You know, the old, “If you loved me, you should understand.” It takes communication to develop understanding and this author knows this well, making this an interesting read.
Many thanks to Aloe for this great write-up - and you can see the full review here on The Long and The Short of It

But there is even better news because I woke up this morning to find a message for LASR in my inbox:

We offer a weekend poll at The Long and the Short of It romance reviews—we want to know which book or story sounds like the best read based on our reviews.

The winning author gets a nifty button and the privilege of having their book or story featured at the top of that page the entire next week, as well as getting a custom made video from Goddess Fish Promotions to publicize their review and the win!

Your story "­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­The Proud Wife" was reviewed by us this week and is up for Book of the Week honor this weekend (voting runs from Saturday, May 14th through Sunday May 15th). We thought you might like to know. You can find the information here onSaturday:  http://www.longandshortreviews.com/LASR/index.htm

Thanks and good luck.

Thank YOU LASR!  I'm thrilled just to be nominated for the possible Book Of The Week.   When I checked this morning voting wasn't yet open  - those time zones again! - but I expect it will be possible to vote later. So if  you enjoyed The Proud Wife   it would be wonderful if you did go and vote - and you could explore this great site at the same time.

And now for some good news for you, my lovely blog readers - as you can see I have things to celebrate and when I celebrate I like to share with my readers. Well,l the other good news this week was that I received a delivery of the author copies of the new three in one collection that's published this month - One Night in Madrid.

This great collection has a reprint of my  2008 novel Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife in it together with stories by  Jennie Lucas and Chantelle Shaw.  And I have some copies to give away!
So if you want to share in my (belated) birthday celebrations , please just leave a post in the comments section over the weekend! I'd love to know what you enjoy about visiting my blog (apart from the fact that I sometimes give away books!)  What do you like to read about on an author's blog - what sort of things would you like me to blog about in the future?  I haven't done any writing/craft related posts in a while  - so maybe WTBBIF  - When the B. . . . . Book Is Finished . . . .

Let me know - I'd love to hear from you (and if you tell me you voted for The Proud Wife as Book of The Week so much the better!) - and I will give away  copies of One Night in Madrid to the posters Sid chooses on Monday.

PS The voting for Book of the Week is now open here