Guest Blogging with Rachel

Lovely Superromance author Rachel Brimble invited me  to share a guest blog spot over on her blog. So that's where I am today - talking about writing,  writing, reading,  characters - and cats!

See you there!

A special guest.

I'm still struggling to keep up with things  and help my friend's family.  Add in a course for Writers' Holiday that I need to finalise,  revisions on the latest book that have to be done  and it's all a bit hectic.

So I may not be able to blog and chat   much for the next week  or so.,

But  don't worry - this blog will not be completely empty as I've asked a very special friend and a very talented writer to come along and talk to you,  She will be here on  Wednesday  with part one of her interview and the second part will follow in a couple days after that.

I hope you'll enjoy learning more about my special guest (you've met her before . . .)  and she has some great news about her most recent book - and the one coming soon.

So watch this space. . . .

June Weddings

It's June - the month for  beautiful weddings. Well, it would be if there wasn't a huge thunderstorm crashing and flashing outside and a torrential downpour flooding the garden,

But June is the month when people's thoughts turn to weddings  - at least they do over on Romantic Friday Writers where the theme for this month - and their writing challenge is all about weddings -  writing a story, romantic or dark, which fits the wedding theme.  -

Denise, who organises things  over on that site,  has also asked me to join in. She asked me to write a post about the  books I've written that have led to weddings via very different routes.  And I was happy to do so. In fact it was fascinating to look back and see some of the ways I've played around with the whoel wedding theme. After all, everyone knows  a romance novel ends with a happy ever after - but that wedding can come before or after the story opens. It can be a wonderfully happy or a desperate, blackmailed event. It can be a marriage of convenience - or a  marriage of revenge.  Just shows you once again that even with some thing as obvious as a wedding in a romance, it all depends how you write it.

What about you? Do you love to see  the actual wedding in a book - or do you prefer the  fuss and fanfare to happen  'off stage' ?
  
Recently over on I Heart Presents, there was a survey to find 'What is your Favourite  Marriage  Trope?'    The winners were forced marriage or marriage of convenience. Do you agree?

Tomorrow my blog will be back on the  Pink Heart Society  site again. Yes, I know I've written my Date With Kate post for June - this one is the second part of The Lady and The Tramp - featuring this handsome hunk 

More here and there . . .

 

I am SO busy this week -  I can't believe where the days have gone.  So it's a good thing that I can offer you 'Here's one I made earlier . . .'

Well, there's more than  one I made earlier!

So - first of all there is an interview I was asked to do over on Manga Maniac Café. This was actually posted yesterday  - my apologies for being late,  but I was out most of the day.  You can find the interview here.

And then today there is a feature on me - and of course A Throne for the Taking - at Romance Book Haven. You can find that here.

And both posts have a giveaway of a signed copy of A Throne for The Taking to give to commenters.

See you there!

Blogging around

Today I'm guesting over at Lucy Monroe's blog.
It's not officially part of the Big Blog Tour as I was asked  personally by Lucy to join her.

She did an interview - and of course I'm talking about The Return of The Stranger which is out in Presents Extra in October

And  as The Return of The Stranger is part of The Powerful and the Pure mini-series, over on I heart Presents  there's a poll to see which classic romance you'd like to see reworked as a Presents romance. Interestingly, one of the titles listed is  North and South by Mrs Gaskell  which was the book  I was originally asked to do.

I loved the challenge of writing a romance inspired by Wuthering Heights - but I did miss all that heavy duty research of the UK TV mini series with the inspiration of one Richard Armitage.

Oh well, I'm sure I can rope him in as  a potential new hero . . .

Publication day!

Today is 2nd September - so that's officially the publication date of The Return of the Stranger! Though I have to admit that I saw brand new copies on the shelves in York  when the Babe Magnet and I went there yesterday. Today I'm going into town and hope to see the books on display there  - it's a thrill that never lessens.

I had a wonderful time at the workshop in Ashby on Wednesdy - my thanks to everyone who turned up and stayed so long after the official closing  to talk and ask questions. We had originally put a number of 20  on this but  another five people tyrned up at the door and luckily we could fit them in so there was a great audience.  And special thanks to the library staff - specially Emma who made everything so easy and provided such a warm welcome.  I once used to work as a librarian in Ashby library - though not in this particular building - so it was a sort of going home experience for me.

As Charlie mentioned around his birthday - I'm marking the publication of The Return of The Stranger with a big blog tour that starts of on September 11th and ends in December - you can follow me round all sorts of different blogs, get to know the bloggers - and me  - more - and hope to win books from my backlist.  Last time I heard there were 21 blog spots - but the number keeps growing all the time  - so -
Launch date September 11th - and for more details check out this page that the lovely Nas Dean has set up for me.  You'll find all the up to date news there.

Oh yes - and although today is officially publication day in the UK  being September it does mean that The Return of The Stranger is now  available  a month early over on eHarlequin.com  either in print form  or as an ebook.

And for anyone who couldn't get to the  Ashby workshop - I have another  one planned in Haworth for the 17th September - details on my Events page.

Oh - and I just checked over on the Mills& Boon web site - The Return of The Stranger is still up there at #1 - that's all of August!  Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me achieve this by buying a copy.

Blogging about . . .

It's the first Sunday of the month which means that I'm blogging somewhere else today - over on Tote Bags 'N' Blogs.

As I write this I'm not totally sure what I'm blogging about but I'm sure I'll think of something.

Care to join me?

PS As I just wrote the blog I can tell you it's about new beginnings! ;o)