Big Blog Tour Day 7

It might be the first of October, but the sun is shining  gloriously - as it has been for the past couple of days.   Charlie and Flora are lying  in the garden, sunbathing, and the dark days of winter that we've been threatened with  seem to be  miles away from here  for now. 

And in keeping with the brighter  weather and seasons, I'm heading 'downunder' on my blog tour today.

Today's blog visit is hosted by the lovely Kylie Griffin- author of futuristic and fantasy romance  with a touch of the paranormal.   And as we work in different time zones, when I'm awake over here she'll be asleep - and vice versa. But we'll work something out!

Thank you for the hosting Kylie - and there's a giveaway of one of my backlist book at this stop on my blog tour too.

I love the fact that being on an Australian blog today gives me a chance to post the 'Sexy' cover of The Return of The Stranger. While it's not that hunk,  it is a good cover - and the Australian Sexy Romance version  shows more of the great artwork that the Presents Extra cover does.

Still catching up & Centenary Novellas

Thank you to everyone who sent me get well wishes public and private - I am starting to feel a lot better now, but I'm still struggling to catch up. So I'll get to the Q&A when I can breathe.

In the comments section on Saturday, in response to my post about the reprint of The Duke's Secret Wife, 2paw (Hi Cindy!) said:

Do you think we will get the special Novellas here?? I hope so.

These novellas are a special collection published by Mills & Boon specially to celebrate the Centenary this year. In the UK, you can buy them separately, one by one, in the shops with a couple of new titles out each month, or you can buy the complete collection on the M&B site at a special offer price - which I think works out at saving of about £10! You can find out more information on the books here.

I don't know about publication anywhere else in the world - except that, by accident, I discovered that some of them will be on sale Australia - so Cindy, I can answer your question!

In May the eight books in the Sexy Romance Line will each have a 'bonus classic story' included with the main title. These 'classic stories' are some of the special novellas published in the collection in the UK. I discovered that my own story will be included with the Lynne Graham title, The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride.

Each of these special bonus books will have a gold version of the M&B Centenary logo on the front cover so that they will be easy to spot.

So if you're looking for The Duke's Secret Wife, in the UK you look for a book with a cover like this - out in August.

And if you're looking for a copy of the same title in Australia, then you want to be in the bookshops in May and you're looking for this very different cover.

Same title of mine, very different marketing.

But to be in there with Lynne Graham can't be bad.

Books downunder

I sometimes feel that when I'm posting about my books, that Australian readers get a bit of a raw deal. If I'm not careful I talk about when boks are out in the UK and when they appear in the Presents edition in America - and I tend not to say very much about the fact that they always come out in Australia in the month after their release in UK.

So in this post I'm remedying that a bit and I'm giving a special mention to all my wonderful Australian fans who are so supportive and buy and read my work - and many of them write and tell me how much they enjoy it too. Perhaps I should say G'day to all of you - and thank you! Special wave to Cindy, to Dawn, if you're reading - and to all the wonderful Aussie writers, Trish Morey, Annie West, Ally Blake, Nicola Marsh, Yvonne Lindsay, Anne Gracie, Marion Lennox . . . and I'm sure I've forgotten someone. And a hello to anyone I met when I visited the RWAus and RWNZ conferences - those memories are truly special to me.

I was thinking about my Aussie readers particularly because I've just seen the Australian M&B Sexy cover for my latest book Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife - and I was thrilled by it. The cover of the UK edition is nice enough and the upcoming Presents one is , of course, the same image in the circle on the front cover. But the Australian cover has a bigger expanse of the artwork and that was what made me really happy.

Because it shows how much the artist has taken the trouble to reproduce the scene from the book in the cover artwork. The hero and heroine were pretty well portrayed already, but now I can see that the room they are in is as I described it, that Alannah is wearing the right colour dress, if not exactly as I'd pictured it. And, most important of all, there is a huge bunch of roses on the chair. Those roses are important. They are a vital part of that scene and they can;t be seen on either of the other two covers. So I'm really happy to see them in all their glory on the Australian cover.

Another reason why I wanted to mention the Australian readers is that when I was browsing on the Mills & Boon Australia web site - which is where I spotted the cover of Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife, I also discovered something that I knew nothing about until now. And that is this reprint - The Price of Passion - in The Greek Collection. It's a reprint of my 2000 book, Constantine's Revenge (that book just keeps coming back and back) and it's in this reprint together with Lucy Monroe's The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum.

So if you missed out on Constantine the first time round - or you want to replace a lost copy. Now's your chance. The Greek Collection is available on the M&B Australia site this month.