Christmas time

I'm not quite sure how it got to  9th December already -  that means it's only a couple of weeks to the big day!  I'm not at all   ready and  I still have so much to do that I'm running around like crazy and trying to wrap  and post parcels, write cards, send them in the mail.

Tomorrow my dear brother in law is coming to stay for a couple of days so we are having a

n early 'mini Christmas ' to celebrate with him.

While we're doing that, I'll be posting up a little Christmas readers' giveaway  for the 12 days of Christmas - more details of that to come asap (hopefully tomorrow  before the visitor  arrives!)

So while I was planning and trying to get organised with that, I also checked out Amazon  and was delighted to find that they're running a small sale on some of my books  in the last minute Christmas deals. Not sure how long for, but if you're quick and want to grab a kindle edition of these titles, you can get one  for £0.99

 Titles available are:
Kept For Her Baby
The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge
Bedded by the Greek Billionaire
Constantine's Revenge
Wife for a Day
No Holding Back
Flirting with Danger

Oh, and the complete Alcolar Family trilogy (3  books in one)  is available for £1.99

Finally - if you are interested in learning about writing romance, then   Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance is on sale  with 11% off the paperback   bringing the price down from  £11.99  to £10.62 - maybe you know someone who'd like to find a copy n their Christmas stocking or under the tree?

Bargain Books

Have you any Kate Walker titles missing from your collection on Kindle? I've just discovered that some books of mine are ON  SALE  on Amazon.co.uk - all just 0.99p right now. 

 If you want to grab some backlist titles, now's your chance:

A Proposal to Secure his Vengeance

Bedded by  The  Greek Billionaire

Constantine's Revenge

Return of The Stranger
No Holding Back
Kept for Her Baby
The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge
Wife For a Day
Flirting with Danger
Rafael's Love-Child

It almost makes me wish I wanted to buy copies at a bargain price!

Manga Comic in English

New covers are always great - and it's fascinating to see how the particular art departments in different countries have interpreted the way my hero and heroine look.

 Amongst those, the Manga editions are extra special - totally unique. I recently received two of the Japanese into Manga into English Manga comic editions and the way the hero's hair is shown is often unexpected. 



 After the purple hair for the Twelve Month Mistress, my Sicilian hero  in The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge  does not have a straggly pony tail - and my Greek shipping tycoon newly 'back from the dead' in The Good Greek Wife doesn't sport a bouffant grey/white/black streaked hair do! But they're interesting. 






And it's great to see old books like No Holding Back coming out, revived and revamped in these new formats

Grab a Black Friday bargain !

Because of this chest infection I've been locked indoors - mind you there 's nothing much about the weather - freezing winds, snow, now icy rain - that has made me even want to consider   venturing outside.  Charlie (who is full of tuna and other treats  - thank you to everyone who suggested them, he says!  - has been snoozing in his cosy bed all afternoon and Ruby is lying in front of the  (as yet unlit) fi
re,  waiting for the Babe Magnet to  set a match to the kindling.

So I haven't done very much about Black Friday - or  has it been Black Monday - or just Black Week all week?   Anyway, I haven't felt  like going out and hunting for bargains, though I did find some on- line which meant I didn't  have to brave the cold and rain.   And while I was doing that I found some g

reat Black Friday/Week bargains for you.

 I was looking for the details  and UK cover of my January book - more on that  later. (As you know, Harlequin are having a complete makeover with some  new and  very different cover designs . . .)  But while I was looking for A Proposal To Secure His Vengeance, I  came across  a bundle of my backlist titles that are currently  at a reduced price on Kindle.

So if there are any of these that you don't have already - or you'd like an ebook edition for convenience - here's  your chance to catch up with some past titles at

 a bargain price.

All these books are  on sale at just £0.99 on Amazon - and on  the Mills and  Boon web site

Return of the Stranger
Kept   for Her Baby
The Sicilian's Red-Hot  Revenge
Bedded by the Greek Billionaire
No Holding Back
Rafael's Love-Child
The Unexpected Child
A Sicilian Husband
Wife for a Day
 Constantine's Revenge
The Devil and Miss Jones
Flirting With Danger

Not sure how long  they will be on offer -  but  if the weather stays like it is, you might want something to curl up inside in the warmth and read  this weekend - so grab a bargain.

In the 'news'

In the coffee shop- this morning,  I  opened a newspaper today to find, unexpectedly, that there was a familiar cover staring out at me from the centre of an article.

No Holding Back  was being used to illustrate an article ‘revealing’ that apparently Harlequin Mills& Boon novels now have   a ‘racy newlook’  and that this is apparently influenced by the success of the erotic novels  50 Shades of Grey etc.

Errr . . .

Well this might be sort of relevant if they hadn’t chosen a book of mine that came out in  1995 – and was re-released as a ‘Vintage’  M&B in 2012.   And if they’d been looking for an example of a raunchy cover, I’m sure a little effort could have unearthed  something rather less restrained, even in my own output since then.

The Sicilian’s Red-Hot Revenge for example, or Kept For Her Baby.  Though the first of those is almost ten years old; the second only two years  younger  - published back in 2009.

The other  ‘recent’ covers cited  - on books by Sandra Marton and Kelly Hunter  are a good five years old  with Not For Sale and  Flirting with Intent both dating from  2011. The only actual up to date cover – from this month – is a Blaze title  by Nancy Warren  -  in which – shock horror – the heroine‘s shirt has slipped to reveal her modest  white bra.    So, according to the Daily Mail this is new and raunchy and influenced by 50 Shades . . . Oh, for heaven’s sake

It doesn’t take two minutes’ research to turn up an article  that claims, in the same stunned tones, that Mills and Boon have become  ‘Millsand Boom Boom’! – This time, apparently ‘influenced’ by the popularity of Black Lace erotic novels.  The two articles could quite easily be transposed – all that’s needed is that the names of the editors quoted and the  books that are ‘influencing’ the writers  can be swapped about and Shades of Grey becomes  Black  Lace  - and there you go!  

Not a hope in hell of considering that Harlequin  M&B authors have been influencing other popular fiction authors as we hold on to a large amount of the  novel selling market  with books that have had a wide variety of tones, voices, levels of sensuality and stories  - and continue to do so.  In today’s article,  amongst the hugely dated covers of books from the 30s, 40s, 50s (show me any novel with a cover that hasn‘t dated when it’s over 50 years old!) there is the comment by Joanne Grant, Mills & Boon executive editor:

Mills & Boon has adapted to reflect society and popular culture. You can really chart the changes because we have a history lasting over 100 years. In the past, the sex itself wasn't so obvious on the page. It was implied, and there was lots of sensuality so you could imagine what had happened behind closed doors, but it wasn't explored on the page. Now there are no worries about that – we can be very open.

But as any reader of Mills & Boon knows this isn’t something we’ve just discovered – or have been pushed into by the ‘influence’ of 50 Shades.  It’s part of the natural growth and changes in our books – and so many many others to reflect to society in which we’re writing and in which our readers are reading.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find that the ‘news’ about the books we’re publishing might at least be contemporary and not a good five years old or more.  I’m not holding my breath.

TV star!

I was on TV yesterday.

Well, not me  actually - not in person. But my name and one of my books was prominently displayed.
There is a programme called The Intern  on Channel 4 in the UK where three young hopefuls are given the chance to work in their chosen jobs as interns for a week, and hopefully one of them  will end up with a job  as a winner.    Last night's episode was  described like this: Three more young hopefuls are given a week's trial in the job of their dreams at publisher Mills & Boon.

So the programme was set in the Mills & Boon offices in Richmond, with lots of scenes showing the editorial department, lots of insights into the way the editors and marketing work,

The walls of the Richmond offices are decorated with  big, blow up copies of book covers from all the lines and all the decades that Mills and Boon have been publishing.  And there amongst them, was a poster size copy of the cover  I have on  here -  No Holding Back  - which was published in  1995. 

The 'half a heart'  style covers didn't last very long. No one in the bookshops bothered to display them as they were designed - with two books next to each other to make a  whole 'heart' when appearing on the shelves! But I have to admit I did like the covers when they were in a range of colours so that the books didn't look quite so regimented and  'all the same'.


You can see the programme  replayed here  if you are in the right area. I hope it works for you.

Oh - and No Holding Back has been republished in  both the Harlequin Treasury and the  Mills & Boon Vintage ebook collections.  (It's currently only £1.80  or $2.74 right now)

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.

Here we go again . . . . yawn

So yesterday I was celebrating the fact that No Holding Back was being reissued in the Harlequin Treasury ...   Celebrating because this is a book  that is 16+ years old and has come round again for readers to get a chance to read it.

And today  I discover that in an article  in the Telegraph  the cover of this book - this  sixteen year old book is being used to illustrate an article about the reasons why Mills & Boon books are 'bad' for women because they  cause marital breakdown .   Can I say same old same old?

And in the case of the Violet Winspear book also used to illustrate this  accurate and up to date article - not! -  the poor lady died in 1989 - and the book illustrated came out in 1961!

Can I just say  those couple of little words  over again -  accurate and up to date?

And as for the fat that we romance writers never ever include the use of a condom in our love scenes . . .yawn!  Probably not in 1961 but as I just wrote  a love scene where the heroine  had the condoms with her in her handbag . ..  get some accurate information  journalists!

Still, it was nice to see my  elderly book get a showing

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?

Foreign Editions

I had a bundle of foreign editions today. It's always an interesting discovery to find out just which book has been translated into which language recently. This delivery had a real surprise in it.

There was a There was an Italian translation of NoBack. couple of German translations - A Sicilian Husband and Kept For Her Baby. There was an Italian translation of No Holding Back, but the most intriguing - and the oldest book to be reprinted was the Korean edition of Game of Hazard.

Game of Hazard is a book I'm really fond of. It was the first ever of my books to go into paperback and the first ever to go to America. So it's rather special to me. I also remember the then Editorial Director of Mills & Boon the late Jacqui Bianchi - who was also an author in her own right under the name of Teresa Denys - told me that when she read it she felt that I had really discovered my real author's voice.

But the first edition of this book - in the UK - was published way back in 1986! So it was amazing to see it coming back in a new edition 24 years later.

The other interesting thing about this was the cover. Above is the original M&B cover of Game of Hazard. And here is the Korean edition. Unusual isn't it? I'm not at all sure what all that bits and peices of clocks or watches have to do with what is actually an amnesia story - but it's still great to see one of my oldest titles being revived in this way.

Incidentally, for some reason I was sent 6 extra copies of No Holding Back - Irresistible Attrazione - so I have these going spare. So if anyone reading this is in Italy and would like a copy - the original translation only came out in a multi pack - just email me your address (see the link at the bottom of this page ) and you can have a copy as a gift.