Favourite covers - For Andrea

I must apologise to one of my readers and students on my writing courses - I have been so so busy that I've only just caught up on this,. 

So -  For Andrea

When I was helping with the Tickled Pink Collection for Breast Cancer Research,   Andrea wrote and offered a generous donation   to the collection if I would let her know which of my covers are some of my personal favorites.

To start this off, she listed these  covers as her personal choices  - and I have to agree with her on them really!

So -   Andrea said -
I loved the ones with the painted covers. Some of my faves are:

'Hers for a Night' (can't beat the James Bond dinner shirt and untied bow tie look),

 'Man of Shadows' (man in a jumper and old jeans ... enough said)



'The Konstantos Marriage Demand' - incredible story and incredible cover - the way the hero is kissing the heroine


 ... and 'Kept for Her Baby' ditto



  So now I need to go and check through my covers . . . only 60+ of them  - and see which ones I'd label as my  'favourites' . 

I have to admit that, long ago title though it was, that  Man of Shadows cover was one I always loved.

Anyone else want to join in?

Catching up again

Well, that was a busy week.   I'm not quite sure where most of it went -  I was deep in revisions so I  was barely away from my desk.  We had family to visit and I have to judge a writing contest for a  Writers'  Circle . . . Blink and the week was gone.

I did actually blog a couple of times on my usual   monthly dates for other sites but then the internet played up and I didn't post to let everyone know.  So if you want to catch up, then there are posts
 here   on the Pink Heart Society Blog (talking about the So You Think You Can Write contest)
and
here at Tote Bags 'N' Blogs  - talking about my favourite season

I'm back today with some interesting news -  I was talking about older books  and that seems to be the thene of the  month really because I've just discovered that Mills & Boon have brought out some of my older titles in brand new ebooks. This is part of a new initiative to republish  older titles in the  Mills and Boon Vintage series.

At the moment they are publishing  Modern Romances  from the 1990s and there are five of my older books appearing in Kindle editions from today.  I noticed these last week, while I was still busy revising,  and they just had blanks for their covers but today I'm really pleased to see that they have proper covers  with the artwork from the past editions in a new format .

The books now available are :
The Unexpected Child
Hers For  A Night
Flirting With Danger
No Holding Back     (which has one of my favourite openings ever)
The Groom's Revenge.


So if you missed any of these in the past and would like to catch up on some older Kate Walkers  here's your chance.

I'm not sure about being called Vintage - but it's the books not me!

And talking about older books -  special thanks go to Marybelle, Maria and Princess Fiona. I'm sorry I was so busy that I've neglected to answer your comments - I really enjoyed reading about your book collections so  - if you'd like to email me  -  see the link  at the bottom  of the page, I'd like to see if I can add a book to your Kate Walker collection. I don;t have any really old ones but I'll let you know which of my backlist books I do have and you can choose one of them.

Countdown to Christmas 6

I'm not sure where the weekend went - shopping, wrapping, visiting - and preparing a lot of packages for the post. Prize winners, your books will be on their way - and your gifts to your friends/sisters/mother in law . .  will hopefully reach them soon too,
.
The winner of a copy  of Mistresses Shackled with Rubies is  Sleepysian,   Sian please send me your postal addres  - use the email at the bottom of the page.

Today's giveaway is again a 3 in 1 collection - but this is an older one..  Blind-Date Brides came out in 2002 but my book in there was published  1996! So this is a chance for any collector to grab a copy of a backlist book that isn't  on sale anywhere  - except in ebook format.

The book is Hers For A Night

For twenty-four hours only . . .
Lucas Mallory - star attraction of a celebrity auction. Tall, dark and handsome and fabulously wealthy, he is every woman's dream date.
Georgia Harding - successful businesswoman. She wants to impress her father at his sixtieth birthday party by taking along the perfect man - so she bids for Lucas.
Warned about his reputation, Georgia tells herself that Lucas isn't her type. But she hasn't bargained on his lethal sex appeal - or his determination to give her value for money . . .

The otgher authors with books in this collection are Helen Brooks and Sophie Weston


And today's question is -   What was the best present you were given last year?

I think you can guess what my answer would be - he's  red and white and furry and he's helping me pick out the winners of these giveaways.

And here's what he loooked like when I first saw him! Is it any wonder that he stole my heart!

Harlequin Treasury

I didn't go to the RWA conference in New York last week, but I've been catching up on the news from the event from friends and fellow writers who were there.  One of the big topics they've been talking about is  the new project - the Harlequin Teasury.

This is  the huge undertaking of taking the backlist of many authors - right back to the 1980s  - and bringing them out as new ebooks so that readers can catch up with the first books and backlists titles of their favourite authors.   They will have the original covers with a logo designation which shows which  decade they appeared in. 3000 (!)  of the backlist has been converted so  far.

I didn't know if any of my books were appearing in this  first run of  formatting, and I couldn't track down anything  on Amazon.com so far. But then  Liz Fielding pointed me in the direction of Amazon Germany  and that's where I did find some books - dating back to No Holding Back which came out in 1995.  (Though the picture on Amazon at the moment is a book by Alison Kelly, not mine.)

The other books I found in this format  so far are:
The Groom's Revenge   1997
Flirting With Danger  1997
Hers For A Night   1996
No Holding Back 1995
The Unexpected Child 1997

I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to going through the new ebooks and finding some of my old favourites from  10, 20 years back and downloading copies of them! 

Which past titles would you most like to find again now  in ebook form?

A Kate Bit Cats and Covers

Sid is busy working on the choice of winner for Lee's question about your favourite covers . We had a minor crisis when I realised that we had run out of cat crunchies!A quick dash to the supermarket has remedied that and so Sid can now get to work.

In the meantime, I've been looking at the covers listed as your favourites and many of them are my favourites too.

Lots of you chose the cover of the courrent 50th title - The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge - which doesn't surprise me at all. I've loved that cover from the start and it represents the book really well.

Those Sicilians are obviously very popular as several 'Sicilian' covers were chosen. One was specifically mention in the M&B Modern Romance version and that was A Sicilian Husband.

Another favourite of mine that several of you chose is Constantine's Revenge. I loved this one so much that it's the cover that is reproduced on my business cards - and used to be on my bookmarks - Sicilian's Red Hot Revenge is on them now.

As I expected, the wonderfuly rich and exotic cover of At the Sheikh's Command was very popular - both on the Presents and the M&B Modern version. I've posted the UK edition here as it shows more of the artwork on the cover. the artwork

Another cover where the UK version was chosen is Hers For A Night - where the comment was that it was - and still is - fairly rare just to have the hero alone on the front of the book.

The USA cover of The Antonkaos Marriage was another one that was popular and another cover that I totally agree with one of the comments about was the recent #1 bestseller

The Italian's Forced Bride.

Nature Nut Nancy loved the heart shaped surround given to the picture for the special February and Valentine's Day publication. But for me the way this cover is described by Olivia is exactly what I feel when I see this cover and why I personally like it so much:

Without a doubt, my favorite cover is The Italian's Forced Bride. There is no picturesque landscape as background. There are no fabulous diamonds adorning the heroine and nor is she in a flamboyant gown. But what strikes me is the intensity of the emotions of the characters as can be deduced from their body language . The hero pulling the heroine closer to him with subtle pressure. The heroine resting her hand on the hero's lower back. And the utterly sublime and anticipative expressions on them both. This cover always draws me back to re-read this story.

This is just a selection of the covers chosen - others were the Spaniard's Inconvenient Bride, Bound by Blackmail and The Groom's Revenge. If you'd like to see those covers - and more - they are all listed on the Backlist pages of my web site. You'll find a link to that here.

And I'll leave you with another preview of my brand new next cover

- this is the book that's out in November -

so here is the USA Presents cover of The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife