Finding books - part two - The Alcolar Family

Back in   . . . err ,  when was it?  2004 -   I was asked to write a short story to be serialised on eHarlequin.  That story was called Wife For Real and it was about  Alex Alcolar  and his heroine Louise.   It was good fun - and an interesting writing exercise  - putting everything into such a very few words (10,000) and splitting it into  eight chapters  each one ending on a cliff hanger to keep readers  coming back for more.

When the story was posted on  the eHarlequin site, readers enjoyed it and  when  they got to the end - and discovered that Alex had a family - two brothers and a sister -  they wanted  to know more about them. As a result, by popular request,  I wrote  3 full length novels
The Twelve Month Mistress  - which was Joaquin's story
The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife  which was
Ramon's story
and  Bound By Blackmail which was the story of the one Alcolar Daughter - Mercedes

Later these  3 stories were all republished in a 3 in 1 By Request   The Alcolar Family (in the UK)   and Kate Walker's Alcolar Family Bundle  in Presents.  The Alcolar Family (UK)  didn't have a copy of Wife For Real in it - but  Kate Walker's Alcolar Family Bundle did .  Or it should have done - it was meant to do  -  but initially there was a problem. The edition of Wife For Real include
d in this bundle was  not my short story but a novel by Jennifer Taylor  - a Harlequin Romance.    So people who wanted Alex's story were disappointed.

I talked to editorial back then and had thought that the situation  was sorted out  - but it seems some of the  mixed up ebook editions have stuck around. I've had some emails from readers who were looking for the  bundle with the Kate Walker story Wife For Real in them.  When they bought the  books and found there was Jennifer's story it was not the one they were looking for.

I've also had emails from people who have bought the UK  Alcolar Family  3 in 1  -   or bought each of the original Alcolar Family titles as separate books or ebooks - they'v e not been able to get their hands on a copy of  Wife For Real either.

I took this up with my editor, and with the people who organise Harlequin ebooks. They checked on the details of this for me,  and we want to apologise to anyone who ended up with the wrong version of Wife For Real  even after all a this time.

But for everyone who's been affected by this situation -  at last I have some news for you.

 I’m really happy to say that  the production team has been working on this problem and they have  revised the content of this book bundle  so that it now contains the right version of Wife For Real. As  I understand it, if you have already bought one version you should be able to log in to the site  where you bought it and download the revised version so that you have  all of The Alcolar Family on your reader.   I hope this works for you.

Otherwise, they have also put the novella up on eHarlequin again as an on-line read so that people

can get to see it there  and find out about Alex Alcolar and his story.

You should find it here.

This on line read could end up being even more important,  because I understand that in the autumn - about September of so  - the Alcolar Family trilogy will be republished in Australia under the title The Notorious Alcolars.   I haven't yet been able to find out if Wife For Real is included in this collection - but if it's not there, I shall now be able to let readers  know about the on-line read version of this novella.

So  if you've been looking for a copy of Alex Alcolar's story Wife For Real   you should now be able to find it. Either update your Alcolar Family Bundle - or go to the   eHarlequin site  and read the story there.

And if you haven't read any of the Alcolar family books, then maybe, as happened  ten + years ago, reading about Alex and Louise will whet your appetite to find out more about  the rest of his family.

Busy.. . busy





 I've been  so busy, I haven't had time to post or even think of something to write for an age -  but some of you might benefit as a result.  You see, I've been sorting things out - collating and filing all my teaching notes    so now they're ail filed  correctly and I should be able to find anything at any time - for any course.  The next one starts in  so it's in good time . . .
And as result of tidying, sorting, filing and organising,  I've also found that I have a small deluge of  foreign editions that haver arrived in the past weeks -  and this is where my international readers get a  chance to share in a giveaway.

I've done quite a lot of giveaways, but most of the time it's English language copies that I send out - so this time is different - I want to share some of the foreign language editions with some  readers to whom these languages aren't foreign. Usually these go to libraries for foreign language sections, but they're getting the large print copies  so I can share these books with you - if you speak/read the language.

So here's the details   - I have 12 books to giveaway and if you would like one then email me  kate at kate-walker.com to let me know which book you'd like and what language it's in.

The giveaway is only on a first come, first served basis - one book only  per person.  Or you can apply for a friend in their language if you prefer. Once they're gone - that's it - till the next time!
 

What I have on offer are these books:

JAPAN:

               The 12 Month Mistress

               Shattered Mirror

FRANCE:
              Bound By Blackmail
             Their Secret Baby |(in a 3 in 1 with books by Anne McAllister and Linda Conrad
             The Italian's Forced Bride  (With another novel by Michelle Condor.

BRAZIL:
                The Konstantos Marriage Demand (+  book by Michelle Reid)
                 A Question of Honor (+ book by Kimberly Lang)

ITALY:
              Bedded By The Greek Billionaire  ( 4 in 1)
              With books by Chantelle Shaw, Kate Hewitt, Michelle Reid)
              The Devil and Miss Jones

CZECH:
               The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife  ( + novel by Metsy Hingle)

SWEDEN:
                  Rafael's Love Child (+ Caitlin Crews)
                  Her Secret Bridegroom  (+ Lynne Graham)

Sold out!

Congratulations to the 3 finalists in the So You think You Can Write contest.  If you haven’t read their entries – check them out on the SYTYCW page.    And look out for more news on other entries that have attracted attention and who may well be contacted by  the editors very soon.

Good luck to everyone  involved – and keep writing! Even if you’re not in this  list – or the longer list of finalists, the only way to reach your dream of being published is to keep writing, keep learning,  keep trying.

Oh – and talking of learning. I have just organised some updates on my web site, one of which was to put the updated details of  my Advanced Contemporary Romance WritingCourse in Fishguard on the Events page but   last night I heard that the final place on in February 2013 has been booked – so this course is now officially sold out.  Sorry to anyone who had hoped to get a place for 2013. But don’t forget – you can still send an email to show your interest and Gerry Hobbs will put your name on the waiting list in case anyone who has booked  drops out between now and February – this will be on a first come, first served basis so get you name in now if you  want to secure any place that comes free.

Finally, if you've missed it until now  -  my free online read, Wife For Real is running on the Mills & Boon web site. This is the story of Alexander Alcolar – the first of the Alcolar Family whose story appeared in the  called surprisingly enough – The Alcolar Family (and yes- Fiona  - they were originally 3 separate titles).   Wife For Real is now at Chapter 6 where the story is about to come to its emotional climax.  

I’ve been reading through this again for the first time in ages and I remember how much I had to pare it down to fit it into the short, serial format of the on-line reads. There was no room for extras, much description or anything but the immediate story. It was a fascinating exercise – getting the emotional impact of the story into just 10,000 words.  Reading it, I’ve been thinking how it could also be used  as a long, detailed plan of a novel, sketching out the emotional journey of the hero and heroine and  then it would be possible to go back and shade in all the details later.

I’m not very much of a planner,  but that way might work for some who need more structure. (Hmm – note to self – look at this from the point of view of  teaching on that Contemporary Romance Writing course. . . .

Countdown to Christmas 4

Today's  prize giveaway is another 3 in 1 book collection - but this one has three books that are all written by me.

The prize today is the complete Alcolar Family Collection.

The Alcolar Family is the story of  a family of proud Spanish aristocrats - Passion is their birthright!

The three titles are:

The Twelve-Month Mistress

JOAQUIN'S STORY
Made to be his mistress...

Joaquin Alcolar has a rule—never to keep a mistress for more than twelve months. Cassie knows that her time is nearly up, and to save her pride—and her heart—she decides to jump before she’s pushed.
However, when an accident leaves Joaquin with amnesia, he cannot recall Cassie ending their relationship. And, on doctor’s orders, Cassie can’t tell him the truth.

So is she back where she started—in Joaquin’s bed—until her recovers his memory . . . and the clock starts ticking once more . . ?

The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife

RAMON'S STORY
The convenient solution is to marry her!
Ramon Dario desperately wants the Medrano company. But the deal has a shocking condition - marriage to the notorious Estrella Medrano. Ramon won't be forced into anything, least of all into wedding a scarlet woman!

But Estrella is not what he imagined. Ramon can't get her gorgeous body out of his mind. He even starts to believe she may not deserve her reputation.
A marriage of convenience - and desire - might be a good deal after all...

Bound By Blackmail

MERCEDES'S STORY
He'll make her his mistress for revenge...

Jake Taverner has never wanted a woman as much as he wants Mercedes Alcolar. So when she rejects him in the most painful way, Jake's hurt pride demands the most pleasurable revenge...
...his mistress for a month!
Jake traps Mercedes into a fake engagement as he embarks on his skillful seduction. She'll share his bed for one passionate month. But though he can bind her by blackmail...can he keep her?

And today's question . . . well, you'll have top follow me over to my guestblog post over on We Write Romance where I'll be talking about  my personal Countdown To Christmas  - and asking the question for you to answer over there!

Advent Calendar Giveaway

Let it snow . . .Well, I can't really do much else, but let it snow - the damn stuff is piling up around me. And has been for days.

It started with an inch or two. And since then there has been more added to that inch, day by day. I've tried to get out at least once a day just to get into the air and see daylight. But this morning I have drifts piled up against my door so that it's almost impossible to open it. Ihad to try though - Flora needed to go out.

She went into the garden and just about disappeared into the snow. It's higher than her legs. We had to go and fetch her because she couldn't get back! If Charlie went out into it, he'd be buried completely. I measured the snow by the door - over 14 inches of the stuff.

I think we need something to brighten the day

So it's December 1st. Today the countdown to Christmas begins. On December 1st, children open one door a day on their Advent Calendars to mark the days between now and December 25th.

And as I've been celebrating 25 years, I think 25 days of Christmas is a great way to round off the year.

So, every day between now and Christmas Eve, I'm giving away a book on this blog. Some old, some new(er). Some single titles, some 'By Request' or Collections. And all you have to do is to come and visit, and say hello in the comments, answering my question.

And every day I'll pick a winner - and then I'll send the book to you (when I can get out to the Post Office that is!)

So - today let's start with a golden oldie. Today's giveaway book is Bound By Blackmail (2005)

Bound by Blackmail is the final part of The Alcolar Family trilogy and it's the story of Mercedes, the only Alcolar daughter.

He'll make her his mistress for revenge...

Jake Taverner has never wanted a woman as much as he wants Mercedes Alcolar. So when she rejects him in the most painful way, Jake's hurt pride demands the most pleasurable revenge...
...his mistress for a month!

Jake traps Mercedes into a fake engagement as he embarks on his skillful seduction. She'll share his bed for one passionate month. But though he can bind her by blackmail...can he keep her?

So to be in with a chance of winning this book, all you need to do is to post in the comments - tell me, do you have an advent calendar in your house? For yourself, or the kids - or, like some crazy people - for the cats! (Can't find the photo right now - but I will!)

EBooks

I've just discovered that Harlequin are bringing out a couple of my backlist books as new ebook. Which is rather nice. And unexpected. I wouldn't have known anything about them if I hadn't needed to check something on Amazon.com and found the details there arranged by publication date.

The books in question are:

The Married Mistress (2006)

Gorgeous Greek tycoon Damon Nicolaides is always in the news...so when the paparazzi get a tip-off about his new mistress, they come banging on her door!
Actually, Sarah and Damon were married a year ago! Sarah left him, thinking their marriage was a lie. Now Damon's come back to claim the wife he truly loves. But first he must protect her from the press by pretending that Sarah is merely his mistress...and to do that, he tells her, they'll have to make their love affair real!

and Bound By Blackmail (2005)

Jake Taverner has never wanted a woman as he wants Mercedes Alcolar. So when she rejects him, Jake's hurt pride demands revenge!
Jake traps Mercedes into a fake engagement as he embarks on a skillful seduction. She'll share his bed for one passionate month, bound to him by blackmail....

Not quite sure why they've chosen these two to republish now. But it's good to see both of them back again - though if you have The Alcolar Family Trilogy bundle, then you'll already have Bound By Blackmail.

Hopefully this means that for those of you who buy your books now in ebook format, this will be a great way to collect backlist titles.

Good News Part One

I wrote a lot of blogs this week - I have a new book out and I've been asked to help a special friend celebrate a special book (haven't written that one yet!) . I had my PHS Column to write and and I was asked to guest on a couple of blogs - I Heart Presents, and I'll be Blogging With Lucy Monroe just as soon as June dawns . . . and just about all of these seem to have something of a common theme - and that involved Spaniards.

For a start, the book I have out this month has a Spanish hero. With a title like Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife, that's sort of obvious. And I have good news to share on that book as and when . . Not being deliberately mean - the good news starts on June 1st and I'm waiting for the powers that be to announce if officially. But as I'm dropping hints over on I Heart Presents, I'll do the same here and mention the words Daily Lit .

Anyway, back to those Spaniards . . . there are lots of them around at the moment.

There's Raul in Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife. (And if you remember the answer from the Here Come the Grooms contest I ran with Anne McAllister and Liz Fielding, his real name is Don Raul Esteban Marquez Marcin - not Raul Esteban as the blurb on the back of the book has it.

And of course there's Santos - Santos Cordero in the book I've just finished. The one that's now titled Cordero's Forced Bride.

And then there's the Spaniard who appears in the Centenary Celebration Collection - in The Duke's Secret Wife. His name is Don Luis Alejandro de Silva

And then, if that wasn't enough - well . . remember this?

Back in February, I came home from the 100th Birthday party, really excited and happy because I'd learned that Mills & Boon were reprinting the three books in the Alcolar Family trilogy in one By Request volume in August. That was such a thrill.

But now I've had even more good news about the Alcolars - and that is that the whole trilogy - all four books of it - will be released as an ebook Bundle on June 1st.

Hey - hang on, I can hear you thinking. Four books? How can a trilogy have four books?

Well, yes - OK - four books is a quartet. But if you remember, the very first story about any of the Alcolars was Wife For Real. That was the one where Alex Alcolar appeared - and everyone discovered at the end of the story that Alex had two brothers and a sister. As a result, people wanted to know what happened to Joaquin, Ramon and Mercedes. And so, by popular demand, The Alcolar Family was written.

A lot or readers found it difficult to get hold of a copy of Wife For Real. The on-line read on eHarlequin was taken down and it was difficult to track it down. I think it may still be available in the On Line Read Library on the Mills & Boon Site - I'm telling you this because the By Request reprint of the trilogy doesn't have this title in it.

But the ebook Bundle does!

I'm so pleased about this because it means that for the first time all the Alcolar stories are together in one complete set. And that means that so many people who have written to me because they haven't been able to collect the set, or they've missed out on Alex's story, can now download the lot in one quick and easy bundle. And that 'bundle' is going to be part of my backlist over on eHarlequin so it will be available for a l-o-n-g time.

Here's what the ebook summary has to say about The Alcolar Trilogy Bundle

Four fiery Latin lovers, with money and sex appeal galore...four sexy, spirited women who want marriage, but on their own terms. Put them together and you have a recipe for stormy conflict, tempestuous misunderstandings...and searing desire. Top selling Harlequin Presents author Kate Walker’s Alcolar Family series will stir your emotions and stoke your imagination with its breathtaking passion and heartstopping romance. Bundle includes Twelve-Month Mistress, The Spaniard’s Inconvenient Wife and Bound by Blackmail. And as a very special free bonus, also included in this bundle is Wife for Real, the original online read that inspired Kate Walker to create the Alcolar family trilogy, available now for the first time ever.

You can find the Alcolar Family ebundle here on eHarlequin.

So that's part one - I'm hoping I can let you know part two . . .well, it starts of June 1st too so I should be able to tell you that

Good news

After my visit to London and the M&B Centenary party, I said that I'd had some good news but I wasn't yet able to announce if definitely.

Well, yesterday, I got the confirmation that it's going ahead so now I can tell you all about it - and I'm so thrilled about this!

The covers scattered about this post should give you the clues to what I'm talking about - and that is that all three books in The Alcolar Family trilogy are going to be reprinted as a collection in the By Request series. The collection will be in the shops in August this year.

For those of you who don't know about The Alcolar Family or missed it the first time around, the Alcolars are two brothers, (well - half brothers - they have the same father - Juan Alcolar - but different mothers) and a sister, from a complicated aristocratic Spanish family and each book tells the story of one of them and their personal journey to their happy ever after.

The Alcolar Family first started out as an internet short story called Wife For Real which was about yet another brother (I warned you that this family was complicated!) Alex, who was the illegitimate son of Juan Alcolar. At the end of that story I introduced the rest of Alex's family - his father and his two half-brothers, Joaquin and Ramon, and his half-sister Mercedes who, at that point had just walk on parts. But the story was very popular, and in the comments on eHarlequin lots of readers asked about the other members of the family. Was I going to write a story for Joaquin, Ramon and Mercedes, they wanted to know.


I already had ideas for the rest of the family. I knew about Juan's past history - of his four children, only two were by the same woman, his wife, the other two were the result of affairs - and so each of them was affected in their own way by the past and their own place in the family. I discussed the idea with my editor, she was as excited by it as I was - and so The Alcolar Family trilogy was born.

Joaquin is the eldest and only legitimate son and his story is told in The Twelve Month Mistress. Believing himself to be very much his father's son, he has stuck strictly to his 'no commitment' rule for years, but now he's met the woman he just can't walk away from.

Next, in The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife, is Ramon, the son who grew up believing that another man was in fact his father. But now that he knows he's an Alcolar he's determined to establish his place in the family. As part of this plan, he determines on a carefully planned marriage of convenience - only to find that he's got more than he's bargained for in his choice of a wife.

And finally there's Mercedes, the only daughter. In Bound By Blackmail she is swept off her feet by sexy Jake Taverner, a man she meets on a trip to London. But Mercedes doesn't know that Jake is also a member of a family that has strong reasons to hate the Alcolars and all that they stand for. When he traps her into a fake engagment she has no idea if his skillful seduction is genunine or part of the long-standing feud between his family and hers.

The original books came out in 2004/2005 and they were a great success in both the UK and USA. The first two books -Joaquin's story, and Ramon's have both appeared in the list of Favourite Kate Walker titles when I ran the poll both in 2004 and last year - when Bound By Blackmail also appeared on it. There has also been a lot of rivalry between readers who claim Joaquin as their favourite Alcolar and those who say that Ramon is the one for them. And of course, because of a certain - er 'knicker scene' - India Grey will always claim that Bound By Blackmail contains her favourite Kate Walker 'golden moment' as she explained in her post in the Great Big Blog Party last year.

One of the reasons I'm so thrilled about this collection reprint is that I keep getting emails from readers who have read one or other of The Alcolar Family titles and are now looking for the rest of them and haven't been able find them. At least in August they will have a chance to get the complete trilogy all in one volume. The only disappointment is that the internet short story won;t be in it - but that is still available as an on-line read on the Mills and Boon site or as a Harlequin Mini ebook at eharlequin.com . It was also published in print form in the 2008 Mills and Boon Annual and there are still some copies of that available on Amazon.co.uk

August is also the month when my novella The Duke's Secret Wife (originally published in Society Weddings) is reprinted as part of the Mills & Boon 100th Birthday Collection. (you can buy the whole collection here if you can't wait to collect them through the year. This offer will save you over £12 on the complete set)

So August will be reprint month for me. I don't have the covers for The Alcolar Family or The Duke's Secret Wife to show you yet, but just as soon as I get them you know I'll share them with you.

Great Big Blog Party 21 - India Grey

Following the policy of putting up blog posts in the order in which they arrived, I find that today's Guest Blogger is the lovely India Grey.

Now India is one of those people who if she wasn't so truly nice you would have to hate her for being so beautiful, slender and elegant, intelligent - and now she's proving herself to be talented as well with her very first ever Modern Romance/Presents title - The Italian's Defiant Mistress - out in July.(Readers in America will be able to get their hands on it when it comes out in Presents in October) And even worse this is one of those rare books that has been accepted on her first submission. (But she credits the 12 Point Guide as being a great help to her so I'll manage not to be totally eaten up with jealousy) India is great fun to be with too - and add into the mixture a husband who could be a M&B Hero himself and a cat called Ruby who is lovesick for Sid (Sid says to send his best purrs to Ruby, India) and you will begin to see how I might have problems with this lady. ;-)

But when India on our first meeting tells me how much she loved what is affectiuonately known as 'the knicker scene' in my book Bound By Blackmail - and she has chosen to write about it for her guest blog - well, then what can I do but admire her great taste? I have India's own first book on my mountainous TBR pile and if it wasn't for a Great Big Blog Party and a pestiferous Greek hero who wants his story told I would be indulging in reading it right now

(That scene in Bound by Blackmail seems to have struck a chord with a few writers - 'Lord Alfred' who won Julie Cohen's prize wrote about it too - do take a look at that here)

Here's how India describes herself:

India Grey’s first Mills&Boon Modern romance (The Italian’s Defiant Mistress) is released a month after Kate’s fiftieth one. A year ago she was unpublished and unhopeful, and might well still be today had it not been for The Twelve Point Guide To Writing Romance!

And India wants to write about her :

GOLDEN MOMENT

Fifty glorious heroes, fifty lucky heroines, fifty passionate happy-ever-afters.... and countless hours of drama, pleasure and heartache! In honour of Kate Walker’s Golden title, I set myself the task of distilling all of the above down into one Golden Moment, which would encapsulate everything that makes Kate’s books so special, and the fiftieth one such a cause for celebration.

It wasn’t easy. But it was a great excuse to collect together all my Kate Walker books (most of them tattered and oddly creased from having been carried around in handbags and read in the bath) and indulge in a glorious, indulgent reading session! Three weeks, countless very sleep-deprived nights and a box of tissues later, I’ve narrowed down my shortlist and come up with my best and all-time favourite Kate Walker Golden Moment, and because Kate herself is the most generous person in the world, I’m sharing it with you along with the reasons why I like it so much. However, I am not nearly so selfless and giving as Kate and am only sharing it in the hope that other people will post theirs too and I can get to go back and read them all over again!

Mine comes from Bound by Blackmail, when Jake comes face to face with Mercedes at her half-brother’s wedding. He had met her for the first time a few months previously, and attraction had instantly flared between them. However, she ran out on him—literally—as they were about to make love. Now, surrounded by her protective family and her slightly slimy fiancé, she wants to pretend she doesn’t know him.


Her chin came up even more defiantly, tilting her perfect little nose higher in the air. And the cold, dark eyes met his head on, rejection the only emotion he could see in them.
‘Do I know you?’
‘You know you do.’
‘I know nothing of the sort.’
She even managed a smile, though it was so false and brittle that he almost expected it to shatter and fall as splinters onto the ground at his feet.
‘I think you must be mistaken—Mr...’
Jake didn’t even honour the pointed hint that he should give her his name with as much as an acknowledgement. This ‘I don’t remember you’ act didn’t convince him for one moment.
‘No mistake, I assure you. You know that and I know that-- but if you need any further convincing...’
He had been thinking of just this moment when he had packed his case, and again this morning as he had dressed for the wedding. in the left hand pocket of his suit jacket, the sliver of silk not even bulky enough to spoil the line of the superb tailoring was the evidence of the truth—the knickers she had left behind in her headlong flight that night in London.
he pulled them out, crushed in his hand, opened his fingers just enough so that she could see exactly what he held—but had no chance of reaching for them, trying to snatch them away from him
The effect was everything he had hoped for.

It’s BRILLIANT! I love the way the build up is so slow and languorous and unhurried. Mercedes is behaving appallingly—really, all things being equal I should just want someone to come and slap her legs. But the thing is, her character is drawn so perfectly and I know that haughtiness and naughtiness stems from embarrassment and insecurity. I can totally identify with her—who hasn’t been in a situation at some time or another when someone they really don’t want to see appears at the worst possible moment? (Usually this happens to me in supermarkets when one of the children is having a tantrum and someone important from school or a posh friend of my mother’s hoves into view. The instinct for total denial is natural and irresistible.) Beneath Mercedes sophisticated exterior is a sheltered, naïve little girl, so in her case it’s more than denial. It’s childlike wishful thinking. If she says she doesn’t know him maybe it’ll make that incident that she’s so disturbed by and ashamed of just go away.


At the same time we’re also deliciously, painfully aware of Jake’s tightly-controlled anger. It’s menacing, but never threatening, and the fact that it’s motivated by hurt makes it powerfully sexy. I feel outraged on his behalf, which is why when he pulls off his audacious knicker stunt I should be shocked—I am shocked, but I’m also loving him so much I could scream.

Oh yes. He’s a total twenty first century hero. He’s honourable, emotionally articulate, sexy and breath-takingly human. Kate Walker is one of the undisputed queens of the alpha hero: quite simply (and I hope the BM will forgive me for saying this) she knows her men, and over the course of 50 books has shown every variation of the alpha male. Jake is alpha with a twist— he has all the power, control and integrity that defines the species, but his heart is on his sleeve, not buried beneath a wall of ice. When pushed to the limit he doesn’t resort to bullying or humiliation... just that one silent, eloquent, gesture which speaks so much more about their intimacy and her duplicity than any words ever could.

Everything is here—sexual tension, anger, hurt, rejection, all set against the sumptuous backdrop of a Spanish society wedding. Add in some to-die-for writing (smile... splinters... totally fab) and two of the best characters ever and it’s just pure Kate Walker gold. I adore and admire the way she can express the universe in a few well chosen words and create a character in a single, defining moment. A golden, gasp-out-loud, Kate Walker moment.

GIVEAWAY QUESTION:
I’d really love to know what's your favourite Kate Walker Golden Moment, book or character

GIVEAWAY PRIZE:

I have a copy of my first book* (compared to fifty how sad is that!) to give away, along with some golden goodies to someone who will be chosen randomly (very randomly, believe me) from all those who post a comment by Ruby the airhead cat.

(* I really feel I should be giving away my beloved copy of Bound by Blackmail too.... but I just can’t bring myself to part with it!! Sorry!!)