Favourite Covers 2 - my choices

So  now it's my turn. Andrea asked me to share my choice of favourite covers  and as she promised to make that lovely donation to the Tickled Pink collection for research into help for breast cancer, I want to thank her by doing just that.

There's a slight complication in that she had the UK covers to choose from - while I have the same books as her but often the UK and USA covers are rather different -  but I'll post  images of the covers anyway so you can see them - whichever version I use.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that like Andrea, I liked the cover for Man of Shadows (see above).  This was very like the image I had in my mind of my hero and heroine and although it's a long-ago title, I still like it.


One of my favourite covers - and a favourite book with literally thousands
of readers judging by sales  - is     Constantine's Revenge.  I have a thing about strong male arms  - and  hands - and this get the intensity of the story too.

There's a book called The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge  where, like  Constantine's Revenge, the cover is the same on both the USA and UK editions.   This cover is affectionately known as 'The Back' among fans - I 'm sure you can see why!   There is also, as one reader said - 'all that sexy non-touching' .
  Often when there is a sheikh in the title, and when it works for the art department , then it seems works I get  great cover art -  like  At The Sheikh's Command

In fact a 'Sheikh' title often works really well - like Destined for The Desert King where I  was delighted to see that my 'desert king' had the beard that is so much a part of his  appearance  at first.  There's a reason why he has that beard!

One of the few times when I've liked the UK cover better than the USA one has been  A Question of Honour - it's rare that I like a photo image better than a painted  cover.

But this one works for me:


These are some of my favourite covers, where the artwork comes close to the mood of the story and the hero and heroine I had in my imagination while writing the book.

It doesn't always work out that way though - sometimes I find I'm left wondering 'why?'  when I see a cover.

As an example - how about the one known in my family as 'The Headless Manicure'!

Hmmm!

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)

Thanks and clebrations

My thanks to everyone who has sent me questions for the Conflict Q&A . I'll be addressing those in the workshop - and hopefully on here after the Conference. Any more questions, you still have time to ask.

Oh and special thanks to Janet who sent me a question by email and reminded me of something I'd once said a long time ago on this topic (some of you have memories like elephants!) that is a point I really want to make at RNA - so thanks for that question Janet!

And just to remind you that as it's 29th June, you still have one more day in which to enter the Summer Sizzler contest that I'm running with Michelle Reid. In case you've forgotten this is the contest where you can win a signed copy of both Michelle's and my new releases - Mia's Scandal and A Good Greek Wife?. Details can be found on the Contest page on both our sites. And don't forget that you can enter twice - once with Michelle, and once with me.

The contest closes when June 30th ends - everywhere in the world!

Of course this contest is to celebrate the publication of The Good Greek Wife? The official publication day is supposed to be July 2nd but as I was out and about yesterday and I discovered that it's already on the shelves, I'm celebrating today. I love seeing a new book on the bookshop shelves. And seeing it selling well - which A Good Greek Wife? was already doing, is even better.

Talking of publication, as Harlequin continues to reissue backlist books in ebook form, I've been thrilled to see The Married Mistress get a new lease of life as an ebook over on eHarlequin and Amazon. And now I've just discovered that Their Secret Baby has been reissued in ebook too.

This is one time when I'm realy pleased that it's the USA version of this book that's reissued. The original UK edition was known in this family as The Headless Wedding. And if you want to know why, you can see that cover here

Celebrating 25 years with Anne McAllister Part 2

As you know from my last post, Anne McAllister and I are both celebrating the 25th anniversary of our first publication, me with The Chalk Line in December 1984 and Anne with Starstruck in February 1985.

Today Anne has written a special post talking about her favourite Kate Walker books - so over to Anne:

My first Kate Walker was Kate's first Kate Walker. She was published around the same time I was in UK and in, as I recall, exactly the same month my first book came out, too, in the US. So I was there "in the beginning" as it were.

I loved Kate's intensity right from the start. That hasn't changed over the past 25 years. Every time I pick up a Kate Walker book, I know I'm in for an intense experience. She catches her characters at the height of their emotions -- and often at the depths of their despair. She has an unerring instinct at finding that emotional pulse and makes us believe we are right there, witnessing her characters' highs and lows as they grapple with emotions that, very often, they are having a very hard time coming to terms with.

Do they want love? Don't they? What if their heart is at odds with their mind? What if their gut tells them one thing and their intellect says something else? What if their experience in the past leads them down one path and at the same time they can't stop believing?

Every Kate Walker is an emotional roller coaster. Every Kate Walker is exhausting and exhilarating and always always always worth the trip.

Which Kate Walker books are my favorites? Er, well, how do I choose? And because I'm so bad with titles, how can I possibly remember their names? I remember the heroes.

There's "the English guy" -- I liked him a lot. And "the Welsh guy" -- I think he was Rhys. Yeah, definitely a good one. There was Constantine -- was he the tennis pro? If so, I loved him. No, I guess he wasn't. Quick check with book shelf. Tennis pro was Connor. Yep, loved him too. And the guy who found uses for the dining room table that had nothing to do with meals. And most recently, Nikos. Nikos is a quintessential Kate Walker hero -- a man of deep pain, great emotion, grand passion and, always, a man of honor, sometimes even in spite of what he tells himself he wants.

Kate Walker brings a powerful voice and deep honest emotion to every book she writes. The past 25 years have only made her better. I'm looking forward to the next 25. Congratulations, Kate, on your 25th, on all your wonderful books. Thank you for them, and even more for the friendship that you have brought into my life.

note from Kate -

Rhys was in Their Secret Baby (2004)
Constantine was in Constantine's Revenge (2000)

Connor the tennis pro was in Saturday's Bride(1999)
The guy who used the dining table for things that had nothing to do with meals was Amir in Desert Affair (2002/3)

And of course Nikos is Nikos Konstantos in The Konstantos Marriage Demand which is out right now.

And the English guy?? Well, there were several of them and Anne has always had a fondness for my English heroes - but thinking about the first book of mine she was likely to have read then this was quite possibly Nick Hazard from Game of Hazard who was the 'English guy' who first appeared in America - in 1986 - The Chalk Line didn't make it over there for another 6 years!

Anne McAllister's The Virgin's Proposition will be published in Mills & Boon Modern on May 21st 2010. The USA publication date of this book is yet to be confirmed. No cover is yet available for this title, but there is also the We Write Romance selection of Presents titles in which both Anne and I appear - me with The Twelve Month Mistress and Anne with Lessons from A Latin Lover.

Don't forget that Anne is giving away a book a day to celebrate her 25th - and you can catch up with all the details of that and what else is happening on her web site or her blog

All About Alphas 11 - Liz Fielding

Hello from Dublin! Abby Green and I drove back from Connemara yesterday and at last I have  internet access again.  The connection at the Delphi Lodge went down halfway through the week (I think a sheep ate through the cable!)  and  I've been totally out of contact since then.

But now, catching up, I'm delighted to see that the posts I preloaded have all appeared in the order in which I planned the. There are still some more to come, but I want to pause at this stage and send my thanks to all the wonderful authors who have posted so far. I've been re-reading their posts myself with a great deal of interest. The range of scope and ideas that these posts have covered has been fascinating. And I think they show how narrow and restricted the over-used term 'alpha male' has become. This character has a lot more depth and variety than many have given him credit for. 

What's that they say about horses for courses?

And to continue in this theme, I have two authors coming up who write for the line in which I think very few people would consider that they would find an alpha male at all - and that's the Romance line.

Alpha heroes in traditional romance? Never! The Romance hero must be Beta through and through,  you'd think?

Well, think again.  Today's poster - the wonderful, award winning, brilliant writer Liz Fielding has created some  fabulous Romance Alphas -  think of  Max in The Valentine Bride or Jago in Wedded in A Whirlwind - or Josh in her latest book.

But I'll let Liz tell you about him.

The Liz Fielding Alpha hero is strong, resourceful, the man who others will turn
to in times of crisis. Arrogance may hide mental and physical scars but while he
may seem distant, apart from other men, he will, like Nick Jago, in Wedded in a
Whirlwind, risk his own life without hesitation to save another. Like Josh
Kingsley in Secret Baby, Surprise Parents, he will sacrifice his own happiness
for those he loves. He will demand honour and courage to match his own from the
woman he chooses to share his life, but he will be tender, loyal to death. For
me a man comes closest to being the perfect Alpha when he mirrors the attributes
of the leader of the wolf pack. He is the hunter, lover, father, protector.

Liz's latest fabulous hero appears in Secret Baby Surprise Parents which is published in

Grace McAllister thought being a surrogate for her sister would be a truly selfless act. But secretly Grace longed for the baby inside her to be her own, conceived in passion with the only man she had ever loved. But that could never be.
Josh Kingsley couldn't bear to watch the baby grow big in Grace's belly, unable to share in the magic. He wished she and the child were his to take care of. But when tragedy struck, Josh rushed to be there for Grace and baby Posie. Could they be his life, his family?

And talking of Liz - now that I'm catching up on my internet reading and have time to visit her blog - last week she wrote a wonderful articulate, passionate and important post on the vexed question of book piracy. If you don't know about this scourge of authors' lives and when it's wrong - out and out theft plain and simple then you should read Liz's post here. It explains everything with brilliant clarity and force. 

Thanks Liz!

Tomorrow I'll be back home and I'll be posting  another  a great contribution to this Alpha discussion from an author who never thought that she wrote alphas  heroes - until I asked her to tell me about hers!

London Book Fair and the real launch

You're an impatient lot!

I said that I had some good news, but I had a party to orgainse and revisions to do on Santos's story. I've been busy. But you can't wait - I've been getting emails wanting to know what's happening, when I'm going to post the news . . . and what happened in London. . . .?

Well, one bit of news I still can't tell you. I'm waiting for the official announcement on that, but there's one bit of exciting news I can let you have this week.So watch this space.

And what happened in London - I can definitely do that . . .

I've never been to London Book Fair before but I knew it was big. It's held in Earls Court so that gave me some idea of what it would be like. But just driving up to the front of the venue, while impressive, doesn't give the full idea of what it was like inside.

Behind those doors it's a bit like a Tardis, opening out bigger and bigger. And what I didn't know at first was that there's Earls Court 1 and Earls Court 2 so there was even more of it! It's huge. Even the official guide to who's exhibiting and what they do was inches thick. I was glad that the Magnet and I had been sent tickets by the publisher of 12PGTWR2 - some people had to pay £35 to get in!

We didn't have a lot of time to wander round as we'd travelled down from Lincolnshire that day so we didn't get to the BookFair until the afternoon. But there was one exhibitor that I was determined to see, and that of course was the Harlequin Mills and Boon stand.

It was a particular thrill to see it this time because of course the displays were celebrating the wonderful 100th birthday that Mills and Boon are having and the centenary year logo was very much on display - as were hundreds of books from all the different lines. And there were a lot of visitors - this photo was taken at the end of the day, when everyone was on their way home so that you can see the stand more clearly.

At the HMB stand I was lucky enough to meet the lovely Anne Coquet, the Editorial Director of éditionsHarlequin - Harlequin France - who was over for the Book Festival.

We were able to have a chat and Anne tells me that there are four of my books coming out in France in 2008.

I already knew about the French edition of Their Secret Baby (Une rencontre troublante) as a copy came through the post only last month, but I didn't know that The Italian's Forced Bride (Un mariage en Toscane ) will be out in May - and there will be two more - I've no idea yet which titles those will be.

Harlequin France is also celebrating this year - they are 30 years old in 2008.

Congratulations Harlequin!

After talking to Anne, and to our own Editorial Director Karin Stoecker, I realised that I had better make my way to the launch party or I would be late. Studymates is only a small publisher and they are based in Wales, so this meant that we had to work out how to get into Earls Court 2 and then find the Welsh publishers stands. We managed it, with some help from one of the official guides, just in time to have a glass of wine and toast the new edition which was on display for the first time.

And I finally got my hands on the revised and expanded second edition. It looks just great - the reduction in size, from a trade paperback to a normal paperback edition means that it is more compat that the first edition, but it's also a lot thicker. It's a solid book, very nicely produced and with clear print inside. Excellent.

I was able to meet both the printer and the typesetter who had worked on the book and thank them for their work in getting it out on time after it had been delayed in editorial so that I hadn't been sure it was going to be out on the publication date of April 8th. The typesetter, Sandhar

had come all the way from India so I was happy to sign a copy of the book for him to take back and show his team there. You can see him in this picture with me, Graham Lawler the Director of Studymates and his wife and HMB's Editorial Director Karin Stoecker who was kind enough to come to the launch - as did M&B editors Suzanne Clarke and Jenny Hutton.

I met a lot of people - names and faces blurred at times but I know I talked with other Welsh publishers, with wholesalers, booksellers, distributors. There were familiar faces too - Hazel Cushion from Accent Press who I've met at Caerleon and even Johanna who was on my Writing Romance course in Fishguard in 2006 turned up. Congratulations on the MA Johanna!

I was given all sorts of snippets of news about the 2nd edition - let's see - Graham told me that they'd sold the Indian rights to the book just that morning. This will probably be as a result of M&B's expansion into India where The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife was one of the launch books and Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife was also on sale last month. I understand too that M&B will be actively looking for an Indian writer so that may connect well with my book.

What else? Amazon.com will be listing it - they will also hopefully be stocking it directly in America which will mean it's easier for USA writers to get hold of it and you'll get it quicker - so if you wrote to Amazon to ask about it, then thank you! Also Barnes & Noble will be stocking it on their site and - hopefully - in their shop. But they want to take a look at the new edition first - so keep asking for it in B&N shops! The more word of mouth interest there is, the more likely it will be that it will be on general sale in America and so hopefully more writers will be able to find it more easily.

The launch was only supposed to be from 5pm till 5.45 but it was after 6.30 before I was able to get away, feet aching, mind spinning and jaw aching from smiling! It had been a great afternoon - and there was one more little thrill in store for me. It was

as we walked past the now empty Mills & Boon stand that I suddenly realised that there, right at the front of the shelf displaying the special 100th Birthday Collection was my very first sight of the cover of my own The Duke's Secret Wife which is on sale in August. So naturally I had to take a photo of that - it's the middle book here, the one with the blue top to the retro-style cover.

And that was my first day in London - more details - and some exciting news coming soon.

In the meantime, the cyber launch party is still going on for a little while. Until I hear from the authors who have donated prizes for the posting over the weekend, you can still post a comment there and be in with a chance to win - so don't miss out - visit Saturday's blog and be in with a chance of winning!

PS - Talking of good news - I can't actually announce it until they have done, but some of my lovely guests from the Laucnh Party have great news of their own to anounce - so keep a look out on Liz Fielding, Natasha Oakley, Trish Wylie and Holly Jacobs' blogs and be ready to give them special congratulations.

I'll just hug the secret to myself until they let you know - and say CONGRATULATIONS ladies!

Book News

Well, this is a writer's blog, so it's time I mentioned some book news - mine and my friends'

Reading - I finally managed to find the missing copy of Anne McAllister's fabulous The Boss's Wife For a Week. Wouldn't you know it reappeared on the day that the replacement copies of the book arrived in the mail from Anne. So those spare copies will be going in my Christmas Stocking Stuffed with Books Contest, starting soon. So watch out for that.

And the winners will be in for a real treat with Anne's book - you'll love it. I know I do. This book is a classic Anne McAllister keeper - no wonder it's selling so well on the eHarlequin ebooks charts.

Those ebooks are great ways to catch up with titles you might have missed as well. I discovered this week that along with the publication of my latest title The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife in Presents in America, Harlequin are also bringing out an ebook 'bundle' - the Secret Babies Bundle - which has an ebook edition of my 2004 title, Their Secret Baby in it. So if you missed this book first time around, it's newly available again in this format. (UK readers who want a print copy can still get hold of the 3 in 1 By Request Bound By a Baby.)

And talking of By Request collections, I also learned ths week that coming in January is another By Request Collection which has an even older title of mine in it - the 2001 His Miracle Baby. This is one that I often get letters asking about so hopefully the readers who have been looking for it will now be able to grab a copy. When I get to see the cover I'll post it up here for you.

On Friday I had an email from the review coordinator at CataRomance telling me that there was a review of The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife posted on the site. As I've just had a stinking review on Amazon I was a little apprehensive when I went to look. But I needn't have worried. Luckily, this reviewer loved the book and gave it 4.5 stars out of 5. I was thrilled to read this:

When readers pick up a Kate Walker novel, they know that they are going to be reading a passionate romance that will take them on an emotional rollercoaster ride and The Greek Tycoon’s Unwilling Wife is certainly no exception! Kate Walker is a master storyteller and in her latest Modern Romance, she will tug at her readers’ heartstrings and bring a tear to their eye with this emotional tale of second chances and new beginnings that will keep them up all night eager to find out what happens next.

You can read the rest of the review here. I shall be doing an interview with CataRomance soon too - so I'll let you know when that's up.

And talking about The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife reminds me - next week - next Monday I think (November 5th) I have a post up on the IheartPresents blog where I'll be writing about the appeal of the amnesia theme in romance novels (The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife being one!) I'm asking readers to come along and tell us the titles of their favourite amnesia- themed stories, so why not come along and join in the discussion?

Which reminds me - right now on IheartPresents there is a contest for all would-be Presents authors with a prize of - believe it or not - an editor for a year! So if you want to write romance and you're aiming at Presents/Modern, why not check that out too.

Finally, back to friends' books. I had an email from Australia this morning - from Trish Morey who, together with many other fabulous Australian authors has contributed to a new book that was the brainchild of the fabulous Marion Lennox. She's sending me over my special copy that was signed by all the authors at the launch. You can see a report of the launch and a photo of all the contributing auhors on Nicola Marsh's blog

Sizzle, Seduce and Simmer is a collection of romantic recipes and short stories by your favourite down under authors!!! by many of the best Australian names in writing romance. If you're in Australia or New Zealand you can find it on the shelves there or you can buy it online here. It will make a great stocking filler. And I've heard rumours that some of the recipes are definitely seductive!

A Kate Bit - more on covers

Interesting post this morning - parcels from HMB Richmond and from Harlequin New York - neither of which were expected.

The NY package contained translations - one of my books obviously, but one I couldn't recognise because it was translated into a language that I couldn't recognise either. This was the cover ->

Err . . . ??

I tried to think of a book in which the hero and the heroine exchanged white doves - or where the heroine had incredible gold painted fingernails for that matter but I couldn't come up with one - so I took a look inside. It turns out that it's The Antonakos Marriage in Lithuanian. Which just goes to show that you can never guess what cover image a new country is going to come up with. The original Antonakos Marriage (Presents) as you'll remember cover was like this

<-

And this definitely is a new country for me - I've never had a book in Lithuanian before! But I think I may have had some visitors on this blog from Lithuania - my Neo counter shows 10 visits. So welcome to anyone from Lithuania!

The other parcel had large print copies of The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge (and that cover looks really good on the bigger book!) and another, unexpected, 3 in 1 By Request Bestseller collection called Mistress Material, which is coming out in October.

This anthology has a reprint of The Married Mistress in it which is something that I'm pretty happy about. If you remember the other By Request volume I'm in - Bound By A Baby - that's out in the shops now - that has Their Secret Baby reprinted in it. And as The Married Mistress and Their Secret Baby are slightly linked by the characters who appear in them (Rhys, the hero of TSB is the boss of Sara who is the heroine of TMM and he appears at the end of that book) then this means that anyone who didn't get to read both books the first time around now has a chance to read them both together this time.

A Kate Bit - quick catch up

It's raining again. And we really really don't need any more rain. And the forecast for tomorrow is thunderstorms and more rain - 'torrential' rain this time.

Is there anyone out there who can do an anti-rain dance?

Or someone who knows a way to send all this to some country that really needs it - that would be wonderful. Again, to all those who have asked - right now, we're fine - but spare a thought for the people of places like Tewkesbury (see pic) who are totally cut off. At least now they have their electricity restored but - here's the awful irony of this situation - they have all that water everywhere - and no fresh water in the taps to drink!

The water from the rivers further North is now heading south as the floods drain away slightly - so the next risk is the Thames apparently. And these are now officially the worst floods on record - worse than 1947 which was previously 'the worst'.

Yeuch! So to cheer ourselves up - let's have some good news.

In a change to my normal pattern of posting Guest Blogs up here, today I'm the guest blogger over on Donna Alward's blog while Donna relaxes - hopefully in the sun - and does some catching up on her reading while on holiday with her family.

And guess what I'm blogging about - the Great Big Blog Party of course! You've all made this such a wonderful success that I keep hearing from people who say 'Your Great Big Blog Party ' is going brilliantly - everyone's talking about it. And the numbers on my stat counter are going through the roof - so thank you again to everyone who has been a Guest or visited or entered a giveaway contest.

And there's more still to come . . . . The guests keep on sending me posts and offering prizes - they just keep coming - Just like the rain . . no - we're not going to think about the rain any more! But I just hope I can get to Wales at the end of the week. I'm heading for Caerleon Writers' Holiday - and you know how much the BM and I love our week there. So we're praying no roads are closed or places flooded en route.

And finally in some Book News -

If anyone didn't manage to get their hands on a copy of Their Secret Baby when it was published back in 2004 when it was first published then it's being reprinted in a 3 in 1 By Request bestellers anthology by Mills & Boon in August in the UK.

And the cover is really rather nice - unlike the first UK edition which was affectionately known in this household as The Headless Wedding.

Which do you prefer? I like the colours and the photo on the reprint much better - and there's no rain in the picture.

There's no rain on The Headless Wedding either - but that's about all you can say in its favour!

A Kate Bit

Well, the Great Big Blog Party is attracting a lot of attention - from all round the world. In the last week, my flag count showing all the different countries of the visitors to my blog has jumped up to 106. I've had my very first visitors from Brunei and from Togo - and somewhere else - I suspect it was Uganda.

You're all very welcome. I hope you're enjoying the party and that you'll keep calling back. I have plenty more Guest Bloggers to post up and more are arriving all the time. It's fun for me too - and I'm welcoming back old friends - from the Bat Cave and from eharlequin and having a wonderful time. And yesterday I received my official 'you are 50' letter from Harlequin so I have an extra little celebration to look forward to in September. One I can share with a special friend (Waves to Kate Hardy).

And I have more good news. I was going to share this with you yesterday but the mother and father of all thunderstorms broke almost directly overhead and I had to switch off the computer. I spent the evening sitting watching the wonderfully dramatic storm and talking to the BM instead - which was well worth doing.

So - news - well, in the mail yesterday were copies of an unexpected extra publication this year - I have a reprinted book out in a 3 in 1 By Request collection in August. The collection is called Bound By A Baby. The book of mine that is included in this collection is Their Secret Baby which, coincidentally, was the book given away as part of the Offspring's prize only yesterday.

And in other news - remember The Alcolar Family trilogy? I know some of you do because in the fascinating discussion about the first Kate Walker book you ever read, started by lovely Julie Bonello (who has just sent me the name of her winner . . .) several of you mentioned The Twelve Month Mistress or The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife as the book that got you hooked.

Well, if you remember The Alcolar Family, then you'll know that the very first part of that mini-series appeared as an on-line read on the internet both on eHarlequin and on the Mills & Boon website. I've lost count of the number of people who have written to me asking if it was available in print as they wanted a copy. And I've always had to disappoint them.

Until now.

Because now I know that Wife For Real is appearing in print in the 2007 Mills and Boon Annual which will be out in the UK in time for Christmas. I have no idea yet what the cover of the whole annual will look like . But I do have a picture of the 'cover' to my story so I'm posting it here for you to see. And it you're a real Kate Walker fan who wants to have actual print copies of everything I've written - here's your chance to get a copy of Wife For Real in your hands. I'll let you know when it's actually available.

If you're an ebook fan, then Wife For Real is also available in a Harlequin ebook Mini - in a rather less attractive cover - over on the eharlequin site

And talking of ebooks - I have to thank each and every one of you who bought an ebook copy of The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge since it was released at the beginning of the month - putting my 50th title on the Top Ten list as a result - and keeping it there ever since. Thank you!

Great Big Blog Party 14 - The Offspring

In the UK, today is Father’s Day – so in honour of that, my Guest Blogger is someone who calls the BM Dad – the one and only Offspring.

I’ve known him – pretty obviously – since birth – and I’m very very proud of everything he’s achieved. Watching him mix easily with everyone last weekend, talking to everyone from editors to authors, young and old, was a great part of the happiness of a very special event. He’s a very talented writer himself. And I’ve already mentioned the wonderful gift of the Kate Walker Romance Rose that he and his lovely partner gave me.



I do have photos of him at the dinner, but unlike the authors he’s not a public figure and so here’s one I took a little earlier.

And here is The Ofspring’s Blog Post

Do not underestimate the achievement of Kate Walker.

She may now be an internationally renowned author and ambassador for romance throughout the globe, as well as an inspiration to those looking to break into publishing themselves, but we must not forget that those initial tentative steps towards bestsellerdom (is that a word, dad?) were taken while dealing with a yelling, crying, puking and pooping monster in the shape of me.

For I am Kate Walker’s son, and I am immensely proud of the fact. I can still recall a friend of mine at school referring to her as a ‘Celebrity Mum’ and feeling very happy about that. Because she is. Not many mums can be Googled, or have their own website, or need to constantly update furniture in their houses to accommodate translated versions of their novels from countries I’ve never heard of.

The thing is, she is both a Celebrity and a Mum. KW can do both things astonishingly well. How she has managed to write 50 (count ‘em) books that touch their readers so profoundly while putting up with me and my nonsense is incredible. And, like I said, not to be underestimated.


I have stopped yelling, crying, puking and pooping now (at least in public) but some things never change. I will always love and need my mum and forever admire what she has achieved.


GIVEAWAY:
In tune with the theme of Father’s Day, today’s prize is a signed copy of two of my ‘Baby’ books – His Miracle Baby and Their Secret Baby.
QUESTION:
What is the best Father’s or Mother’s Day gift you’ve received - or given if you don’t yet have any children.



Answers in the Comments section please and in a day or so Stumpy the Ragdoll cat who lives with the Offspring will pick a winner

Happy Father's Day to all Dads

(And yes, this post did reduce me to tears)