Make memories while we can.

At the weekend I lost a close friend to cancer. Next week is her funeral and I have busied myself with train tickets and plans to meet people and rearranging dental appointments because ticking stuff off on a list is so much easier than thinking about what it means, about facing the black hole in my life. And then at odd times I remember moments from our past, like movie flashbacks, and for those seconds it's like she's still here. So I can't make sense of it but I can remember. Here are some of the highlights:
1. The time we drank a bottle apiece of cheap prosecco at a work pub quiz and decided, at 11 on a work night, to go to the local nightclub (Eros, I kid you not) and drag her unsuspecting and sober sister and my unsuspecting and sober husband with us.
2. The time I made her get two kittens because the rejected one looked lonely and I was pregnant and VERY hormonal and cried.
3. The time I phoned her on the way to the airport to beg her to record a new TV series for me and thus got her addicted to Alias and more importantly to Agent Vaughan.
4. The time I moved into a new flat and she cleaned the filthy kitchen and bathroom because I was pregnant and they made me gag.
5. Curling up with her and my then 5yo on a sofabed on a snowy night when she was exhausted from chemo to watch Hannah Montana the Movie and Twilight.
6. A year later taking the same daughter on a fairground ride that looked innocuous and ended up flying at top speed round and round, helpless with laughter whilst clinging on to said child for dear life.
7. Crying over Buffy. A lot.
8. Cutting my hair and she knew INSTANTLY that it was a Buffy bob (season 6).
9. Heading to hers for a long weekend and somehow finding ourselves getting up at 5am to stand on  Whitehall and watch Kate Middleton marry Prince William. I'm still not sure how she persuaded us...
10. Being proper London tourists the next day with a boat ride down the Thames and a tour of the Tower,
11. Jugs of cocktails after work.
12. Dinner in the Eiffel Tower.
13. When she sat next to Joss Whedon at a play and asked him if Buffy and Angel were ever going to get together...
14. Her 26th birthday when she sobbed on me all the way back from a club because she was so old.
15. Writing Sherlock the Black Kitten and Jasper the hairdressing horse when we probably should have been working...

She was one of my closest friends almost from the day we met. I'm not a demonstrative person and it took that first diagnosis for me to tell her I loved her. Then it became normal, a sign off to a text or a phone call. It's not something I say to many people, daughter and dog excepted, but it probably shouldn't take the prospect of losing someone to force the words out. We should make the most of our friends while we can. And make sure we're not too caught up in life to stop making memories because they're the things we cling to when the rest is gone. Thank you for fifteen years of a brilliant friendship, Jo. I love you.

Introducing Jessica Gilmore

Isn't it odd how,as soon as you come under pressure to think of something NOW, your mind goes blank?

This time last year, almost to the day, we drove to Cheshire on the pretence that we were Having A Day Out At A Stately Home; in reality we were providing the perfect childhood memory (and saddling ourselves with hopefully many years of even more responsibility) and taking the daughter to look at a puppy. We thought we would look, have a measured conversation and if all went well return a week later to collect him.
Fools.
We drove away that day with a small, whimpering bundle of black fluff who has since grown into a leggy bundle of grey fluff. We had no bed, food, bowls, leads, toys. We had nothing. Not even a name. And try as we might to come up with one, every spark of ingenuity or creativity was gone. We could pick up the bed etc on the way home. A name wasn't quite so easily resolved.
In the end I suggested Rufus after the red setter in the Dark is Rising series. I always wanted a red setter. You can hear me yelling it in tones of utter despair as he hurls himself enthusiastically at peaceful picnickers. And at night, when he is asleep his head on my knee, he becomes Rufus Bear. The daughter and I like to sing it to the tune of Rupert Bear, I'm not sure how he feels about it.

I always knew I would have a new name if I ever got published, there's a romance author who already publishes under my real name (to be fair we share the name, along with many, may others) for a start, but I didn't know that choosing a pseudonym was much harder than naming characters. Or the dog for that matter. Luckily I was still on holiday with @nellbelleandme so we decamped, with two of the kids, to a pub where we drank coffee and brainstormed ideas. Tempting as it was to go for a whole new identity I decided to keep it simple and not change my first name.
It took a while but we ended up with a shortlist of ten and I sent them to my editor (! Sorry, but they are still exciting new words for me to type). The list may* have been heavily influenced by my favourite books and TV Shows with just a slight hint of Buffy and Anne of Green Gables.

Ten became two became one. I love coffee, I talk far too fast, I have a dog with heavy eyebrows and a winsome expression, I once lived in a small, quaint Connecticut town... In April 2014, the first Mills and Boon Cherish/Harlequin Romance by Jessica Gilmore will be published.

*Okay, it definitely was. Blythe, Summers, Willows, Gilbert anyone?

What I would say if I were in Vegas tonight...

Tonight the RT Convention in Las Vegas comes to a glittering climax with the presentation of the Reviewer’s Choice Awards. If I had been able to make it to Vegas then I would have collected what may be the first award I have won since the Ashford School Book Quiz back in 1989, as it is I’ll be drinking prosecco here in York (while the Convention attendees have lunch thanks to the time difference) and raising a toast to romance readers everywhere.

If I could make a speech though what would I say? There’s always the list of names to thank (and the panic that someone really important might be missed out). But if I was there tonight this might have been what I said:

I was an awkward child. Introverted, emotional, hot tempered with really big hair, thick glasses and teeth to rival Bugs Bunny. For several years I was raised by my mother and at times my school made us feel like the only single parent family in town. Money was tight and things weren’t easy. But I had books. In books I didn’t have to be me, I could be Anne Shirley or Joey Bettany or Pauline Fossil. I could travel to 1950s America with Sally J Freedman, the Ice Age with Ayla, outer space with Monica Hughes and the prairie with Laura Ingalls. Books taught me that the best people came from hard beginnings, that sex should be consensual and mutually pleasurable (thank you Jean M Auel and Jilly Cooper) and that there’s not much that friendship, cake and courage can’t fix.

We didn’t have much money and books were a Christmas and Birthday treat. Luckily my town had a big library and every week I could take six new books – or three new and three favourites – home. And the week after I could take them back and get more books. I’m not sure how I would have made it through my childhood without that constant and free access to books. Now libraries throughout the UK are under threat, closing, handed over to community control and starved of funds. There are many despicable decisions made in the name of austerity but taking access to books away from a populace is one of the worst. The flawed assumption that in the age of the internet books and libraries are obsolete. Libraries aren’t just gateways to knowledge and new worlds, they are community hubs, refuges and sanctuaries.  So thank you Grantham, Ashford, New Romney, Glasgow, Scarborough, Stoke Newington and Glastonbury Connecticut libraries. You have all been my home at one point or another and this award is for you.

(Of course I would also have thanked my husband and daughter, my first writing partner, Merilyn, first crit group Jane, Maggie and Julia, hugely supportive York writers Donna and Pam, my NWS readers Fi and Heidi, Flo, Charlotte, Kathryn and Pippa from M&B, the HQ romance writers esp my NY partner in crime Christy and all romance readers).

This is reposted from www.jessicagilmore.co.uk 

Keeping Updated!

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I love blogging, I really do, but the sad reality is that work, dance mum duties and the small matter of three or four books a year make it almost impossible to keep up with this site. If you do want more up to date news about my books then I can usually be found procrastinating on Facebook or Twitter and my new website is updated more often than here. Please do pop over and say hi!

The obligatory post-RWA round up

Coastguard Beach, Cape Cod

Me. Signing. Eek!

There are many things that I dreamed about when I was an aspiring author. Many of them are still pie in the sky; I don't live by the beach, I don't write full time, I still don't know what I'm doing, I still procrastinate and I have yet to buy a chaise longue on which to while away my days eating grapes and dictating golden words. But last week one dream did come true when I attended the 2015 RWA Conference in New York.

View from our room

I didn't intend to go. Flights were astronomically expensive, it was the school holidays. I didn't have the time and 101 other excuses, reasons and problems. And then I got an email from my fellow M&B author Christy McKellen; she'd booked and did I want to share a room?
Of course I did! But I couldn't. Could I?

Not the first or the last

The wonderful Starlight Suite at the
 Hotel Astoria

Fast forward several months and it was clear that not only could I but I very definitely was. In fact I extended it to include three wonderful, relaxing days in Cape Cod with old and much loved friends before plunging into the glamorous, crazy world of Conference. In one day I attended talks by Julia Quinn, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jennifer Crusie. I drank numerous cocktails, ate pizza on street corners, cheesecake in Juniors and ordered my eggs over easy in a diner over on eighth. I did my first book signing desperately trying to get the right balance between welcoming smile and needy eyes 'please want a book. Please, please...' I cheered on friends at the RITAs and met in person people I'd only ever chatted to online.

Yep. It tasted as good as it looked.

And I dressed up in black and white and, like Cinderella, I did go to the ball. Not just any old ball, the Harlequin ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Free dessert bar, free ice cream bar, free drinks bar, a crowded dance floor in the most wonderfully glamorous surroundings filled with people who loved to write romance. It was completely, utterly wonderful.

Next year it's in San Diego. There's no way I'll be able to make it.
Probably...

Central Park

Wearing my heart upon my sleeve

You may be aware that the UK held a General Election yesterday - or as the US media called it a 'US Ally election'. You may also be aware that the result was a bit of a shock and left a of people feeling battered, bruised and disenfranchised - myself, my family and the vast majority of my real life and social media friends amongst them. Which I guess proves that we really do surround ourselves with like minded people!

One of the interesting things about politics is how many people feel it is a dirty word, that it shouldn't be talked about, that it's private. It wasn't always so; Anne Shirley famously said the a beau had to agree with a girl's father on politics and her mother on religion!

Obviously it's important that people feel free to vote the way they choose according to their own convictions but how can we grow, develop and learn without standing up for our choices and being open to debate and alternate points of view? After all, the choices we make at the Ballot Box have ramifications far beyond our own lives. And if debate is stifled whether through social mores or something more sinister then abuses of power become easier and easier as history shows over and over; my own great uncle spent his too short life in a concentration camp in Poland after distributing anti Nazi literature.

I have often seen other writers refuse to discuss politics in order not to alienate readers in an increasingly polarised political world - on both sides of the Atlantic, the Pacific and throughout Europe. I understand that; after all, as the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants I would be disappointed to find out one of my favourite authors belonged to a certain anti-immigrant party. And yet...

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And yet our beliefs help shape us, help shape the worlds we write. My own politics would be seen by some as dangerously communist, by others as depressingly middle of the road.I believe in equality, in free education right through to advanced degree level, in free healthcare, free social care. I believe a child brought up in care should have equal life chances to the child of a Prime Minister. I believe education is more than facts and figures. I believe in social housing for all who need - or want - it. I believe that transport, energy, mail, water should all be run by the state and profits ploughed back in to make them better. I believe in overseas aid, equal marriage and I am a feminist. I believe climate change is real and we need to stop it. I also think we should have tennis courts in every green space and roving coaches so it is no longer the sport of the rich. That will be found in no manifesto, sadly but I still believe it.  I am proud of my beliefs.

My books are fantasies, romances. My heroines are not all me, thank goodness; tea drinking, time poor, introverted bookworms don't make interesting copy. They stand apart from my beliefs, my day job, my family. But I don't want to hide my beliefs in order to sell more books. My Twitter account will remain an eclectic mix of politics, writing and boring on about the dog/scandi drama/cake/what I am reading and my Tatty Devine collection. And just as my political friends and followers sometimes find something of interest in my writing chat so might readers or authors find something interesting in political chat. Or we could have a debate. Because that's democracy...

Now if you'll excuse me I am going to go and watch consecutive episodes of Say Yes to the Dress and gear up for five more years of opposition.

Read All About It!

Things have been crazy recently - in a good way! New books, awards and exciting plans have got 2015 off to a fantastic start. Here are a few of the highlights:
* It looks as if I'll have four books released this year. The Heiress's Secret Baby is out now,
Expecting

Part one of the Summer Weddings Trilogy
- look out for Book 2 from Scarlet Wilson and
Book 3 from Sophie Pembroke

The Earl's Baby is released in April and A Will, A Wish and A Proposal comes out in August. I'm writing a Christmas themed book right now so if everything works out we should see that this year too. It's a friends to lovers book set in the beautiful Austrian Alps. Pinterest board up and running with loads of lovely snow scenes (and lots of pictures of Eddie Redmayne).
*Expecting the Earl's Baby is currently on Netgallery so if you like the look of it do request a copy - I'd love to see your reviews!

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*I am heading to New York *cue Taylor Swift song*. Yep, I am heading over in July for my very first RWA Conference - and to say I'm excited is a massive understatement. I'll be rooming with my fab friend Christy McKellen, will get a chance to catch up with my Summer Weddings writing buddy Scarlet Wilson and finally meet my long term crit partner Julia Broadbooks. If you're planning on attending make sure you head over and say hello. I'm the shy Brit reading in the corner (until I've had a glass of wine that is...).

*And I am VERY pleased to announce that the lovely reviewers at CataRomance awarded The Return of Mrs Jones a Reviewers' Choice Award. It's my debut book and very dear to me so to see it honoured in this way, by people who know and love category romance, is just incredible. Thank you so much.

Books, glorious, glorious books.

There's a radio show in the UK called Desert Island Discs. Celebrities or Persons of Note are interviewed about their lives and along the way choose eight (I think) pieces of music and part of the fun is working out if they chose a very rare Beethoven symphony because they love it or if secretly they wanted Genesis but were too embarrassed to admit to it. They also choose one luxury item (never ending wine, tea or ice cream? It's the eternal conundrum) and one - ONE - book in addition to the Bible and Collected Works of Shakespeare.

Now I like music well enough but to me that's the wrong way around. I'd find it hard enough to whittle my choices down to eight even with some sneaky 'Collected works of...' but one? Austen or LM Montgomery? Heyer or Mantel? Christie or Murakami? How could I choose? Let me have a solar powered kindle instead.

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It amazes me when anyone says they don't enjoy reading; to me it is as important if not more so than breathing. The bags under my eyes are testament that I consider it more far important than sleeping. In my house it's not considered rude to read at the table and, no matter how frugal we are being, money spent on books is never wasted.

But it amazes me far, far more when authors say they don't have time to read. How can you be a writer if you're not a reader? If you're not in love with story and words and character? How can you grow as a writer if you don't see how others plot, note they how hook you in, get lost in their worlds?

Lat year I monitored my reading for the first time with the Goodreads reader challenge. I'm a very fast reader and a little obsessive *cough* so I thought I would probably average a book every two and a half days and challenged myself to 150 books. My final total, excluding crit work, was 220 - in part thanks to a Christmas week Anne of Green Gables fest when I ignored everyone and everything for four days until I wiped the last tear away, closed Rilla of Ingleside and reluctantly returned to twenty first century UK.

That's a lot of books, true. But the number isn't important. it's the doing that counts. Or as Stephen King puts it far more succinctly than  I ever could “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

New Cover excitement...

And then, as the release date creeps nearer, it becomes new and exciting again. First I get a link to the North American cover, later I see the UK cover. They are always really different and, as an ex marketing geek, I really love to see the way the books are packaged for different markets.

There's such a glorious feeling to getting a new cover - like unwrapping a present. The book was finished several moths ago, it's been edited, I've done the copy edits and then it's gone. Out of my hands. It's no longer my responsibility, it belongs to the proofreaders, to the cover designers, to marketing.

All I can do is start the next one.

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Then I get a delivery of a box of actual books - cue much squealing. And more nail bitingly the Romantic Times review comes in. I'm waiting right now for the review of The Heiress's Secret Baby. I think it's the most emotional book I've written yet and I am very nervous about it...

I may not have the physical book and it hasn't been reviewed yet *panics* but I do have the covers and the blurb. The Heiress's Secret Baby comes out in February and it's my first sequel, a follow on from my October release His Reluctant Cinderella. Set in London, Provence and Paris I absolutely adored writing about my younger French hero and his boss, Polly Rafferty and spending more time with the entire Rafferty family. I hope you do too!
'Heiress Polly Rafferty is pregnant and her new vice-CEO Gabe Beaufils is the only one around to help. But, as she sees an unexpectedly protective side to the avowed bachelor, Polly can’t help wishing he’ll stand by her for more than nine months!'

Deadline dramas

When I started this blog it was a way of letting off steam. There was quite a lot of whinging, a little moaning and more than a bit bewailing. Occasionally I'll read an old entry and immediately I'm back there, back failing to final in yet another competition, back filled with excitement for the competition after that - only to plummet again when once again I got nowhere.

And then there are the highs,  the coveted NWS second reading when I realised that maybe, just maybe, the whole idea wasn't a total waste of time after all.

Now blogging feels like a procrastination. If I'm putting words down they should be words on my work in progress. Writing time is both a luxury and a necessity, I can't afford to waste a moment *whistles and ignores Twitter habit*. But I miss this blog, my diary of the last four years. And I wonder, if I was a full time writer, living my fantasy life in a cottage by the sea, rising late (I am no lark) to walk the dogs, then baking bread (wholesome fantasy life alert) before sitting down to a productive day of writing, would I really have no time pressures?

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The truth is I have a real love hate relationship with deadlines. Obviously they cause me stress, panic, they make me yell at my family and collapse in a not-at-all dramatic fashion. Sometimes I actually wail, a little like a banshee.  Deadlines are responsible for at least a third of my wine intake and well over half of my biscuit intake yet contribute nothing to exercise or the eating of vegetables.

And yet... they sharpen me, crystallise everything I am trying to achieve. I have contracts to deliver four books this year, and I wrote the vast bulk of each and every one of the finished three near the delivery date - I can trick myself with a fake delivery date, that works as well. The first few weeks I have such good intentions - I sit there, during my allotted writing time, page open and fingers ready to go. And my word count is pitiful.

But, during that time, I am learning. Learning who my characters are, what makes them tick, how they'll react so when I'm up against the a looming deadline it's all there in my head, ready to be transferred onto the page.

It's not the most efficient process but it's my process - for now anyway. I just wish there was more time for baking and blogging. Maybe when I get that cottage by the sea. One day.

Happy Calliversary to Me...

One year ago today the sun was shining, the sky was blue and I was on holiday in a beautiful part of the country with my family and friends preparing to go to one of my favourite beaches. And my husband was on the Tatty Devine website buying up sale jewellery for my birthday.  Life was pretty good. But I was still yearning for something else and I wasn't sure that it was ever going to happen for me. I felt that I was a crossroads at best but worried that I had come to a complete halt - I had no new work to submit to the New Writer's Scheme, wasn't even working on anything new.

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I had no idea what I was going to do next.
Then a couple of hours later, as I was driving along the A1, my mobile rang and everything changed.
After three years of serious trying (and another three of semi serious trying), several submissions, multiple competitions, some tears, a little wallowing and thousands of words I was finally going to be able to say I was an author.
I had a contract. A contract with Mills & Boon.
Fast forward one year and many more words, a few more tears, a little wallowing, lots of prosecco and

FOUR (and 3/4) books and here I am, on holiday again, in another utterly breathtaking part of the country (Tobermory in Mull aka as Balamory to those of you with children of a similar age to mine. We are still reeling from the discovery that Archie's castle isn't actually on Mull and Spencer's house has been painted beige). My third book, His Reluctant Cinderella, comes out in October and Romantic Times called it 'Adorable from start to finish.' Life is pretty good.
Here are some of the things I have learned along the way:

Yes, yes I have a wall of Tatty Devine loveliness. And?

• Mills & Boon editors and Mills & Boon readers are some of the loveliest, most generous people in the world. 
• As are other Mills & Boon writers.
• Writing to deadline is a whole new process.
• Waiting for revisions is just as nerve wracking as waiting for a submission.
• I still don't feel as if I have made it.
• You never stop learning. Or yearning for the next step up.
• The moment you hold your first book in your hand is overwhelming.
• I can stand up and talk in public. If I really have to.
• If I don't write every day I feel guilty.
• My schedule is insane; four books, one year, one child and a day job.
• If you must read reviews don't take them to heart; enjoy the good and shrug off the bad. Because there will be both but if you're lucky the former outnumber
  the latter.
• My Tatty Devine obsession shows no sign of dwindling.
• I don't want to do anything else...

New title, new cover - and new WIP

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It seems incredible that I am gearing up for the release of my third book - and even more incredible that I am writing book 5!

UK cover

North American cover

I just got the artwork through for Book 3, aka and properly known as His Reluctant Cinderella. I love both of them - and as always really like the contrast between the UK and North American covers. At heart I'll always be a marketing and bookselling geek and find the different images for different markets fascinating.

I also have the epub so if any reviewers want to take a look then please get in touch with me - here, Twitter, Facebook or through my website and I'll email it through to you. Here's the blurb:

 "It's like a fairy tale…" 
Castor Rafferty, London's notorious vice-CEO of glamorous Rafferty's Stores, might have a reputation to uphold, but he's determined to protect his independence. He needs a convenient girlfriend, but his reluctant Cinderella—gorgeous single mom Clara Castleton—doesn't seem to be falling for his charms! 


Clara isn't looking for Prince Charming—only for a life where she's in control. But there's something about Raff that makes her want to open her heart…and to believe in a happy ending after all!

This is released in October and its sequel, The Heiress's Secret Baby, is in Author Amendment stage and will be out early next year. Meanwhile, I am absolutely loving writing the first part of a trilogy for next summer, it's my first collaboration with other authors and huge amounts of fun to plot.

Love, learning and laughter; RNA Conference 14

Picture the scene: it's July 2012. An eager, nervous New Writer Scheme member arrives at an agriculture college in Penrith filled with trepidation and hope. This is it! A whole weekend of writing chat, one to ones and a chance to finally meet some of the people she's been chatting to online for the last two years.

I can see me now; bright-eyed, notepad and pen in hand, ready to absorb as much from the workshops, panels and talks as I could possibly cram in. I came away exhausted, inspired, full of cake - and I knew I still had so much to learn...

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Two years later I arrived at a different agricultural college for this year's RNA Conference. I might have finally achieved my dream but I still have as much to learn as I did back in Penrith. I'm not alone - each talk and workshop was filled with writers at all stages of their careers whether brand new NWS members or multi published household names. 

There were some truly brilliant talks this year from the scientific - Nikki Logan on the Chemistry of Reading; the terrifying but essential - Claire Mackintosh on self promotion; the thought provoking - Pamela Hartshorne/Jessica Hart on the perils of two identies; and the inspirational - Janet Glover on the importance of place. I hope some people also enjoyed my own ten minute stint in the Mills & Boon workshop; I like to sum it up as 'Me, me and more about me'. The panel on the future of associations was interesting with a rousing exhortation for us to be proud of who we are and what we write. Hell, yeah!

 Other highlights included drinking prosecco on the lawn the first sunlit evening whilst chatting to the lovely Mills & Boon authors, catching up with my very first crit partner, Jane O'Reilly, and plotting a linked series with Sophie Pembroke and Scarlet Wilson. I'm really excited about this story and can't wait to get started.

Sadly Rowan Coleman had to cancel her workshop and Julie Cohen took a year off. They are known for their intelligent and exciting teaching and I can't wait for November when I will be taking full advantage of their weekend retreat to absorb as much as I can. I believe there are a couple of spaces still available so if you can I do urge you to book on. Every year the conference teaches me how much I don't know and this will be an amazing opportunity to learn from the very best...

Luca needs your help...

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would allow lovely Luca Di Tore, hero of Summer with the Millionaire, to take part in a Bachelorette style blog competing against seven other Harlequin heroes to win the heart of the lovelorn heroine.
Luca is quite dignified and rather reserved - plus far too busy for such frivolity (and I'm not sure what Minty would say about it all either) so I am sure he is most uncomfortable with this but I entered him anyway.
And he needs your votes. Simply click and comment...
To help you let me remind you that he looks like this:

 Lives here and makes this...

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He is actually pretty perfect. Don't let Brian beat him...

Deadline Day

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I've always worked better with a deadline. Without one I tend to find other, more important, things to do.
Like filing. Or baking. Or reordering my bookshelves.
It's not that I don't try. I sit down, type some words. Delete them. Type some more. Read them. Panic that they're flat, lifeless. Delete them. Type some more. Read them. Panic that they're flat, lifeless. Leave them cause I need something concrete to show for my time.
A deadline takes away that luxury. I have to get those words down. Flat and lifeless? So what? They can be rewritten later. Filing? Let it pile up. Baking? Buy it. Bookshelves? Well, a girl has to have some standards.
This last deadline was tight even by my standards. I had three months. That was the smallest amount of time I'd had to turn in a book so far.
So of course I frittered away a month. My bookshelves looked lovely.
And then I wrote five chapters. In a month. Half the book done. Great.
Only they were flat. Lifeless.
So I started again. From scratch. With a month to go.
50,000 words. One month. 12,500 words a week. That was 1700 a day. Written and edited. Easy!
A weekend away with the daughter, some busy days at the day job. The actual day job. RSI (officially tennis elbow. Who would have thought watching tennis could be so dangerous?). All ate into my schedule. The daily word count went up and up.
Until it was 6 days, 16,000 words and a line edit to go.And Wimbledon was on.
Somehow. With late nights, constant words, editing during my lunch time at the day job. No Wimbledon.
Somehow I got it done.
I have no perspective. No idea if it's good, bad or just plain ugly.
It's with my editor. There will of courser be edits. They may well be substantial. But I made my deadline and that feels pretty damn good.
And in time for the second week of Wimbledon... (ignores new tighter deadline.)

Meet Minty

Oops! Just over a week ago I was tagged by the lovely Janice Preston in a 'Meet your Main Character' bloghop - promised faithfully I would do it that Friday and promptly forgot all about it. I blame my current WIP which I decided to totally rewrite a month before it was due - cue many late nights and total hermiting.

I first met Janice at the 2012 RNA Conference where we shared a kitchen - and I was completely delighted when she sold her historical romance to Mills & Boon; as a failed regency romance novelist I know just how hard it is to do and can't wait to read her first book. Her debut, Mary and the Marquis, comes out in August, perfect timing for my holiday reading list.

This month Summer with the Millionaire was released and to my utter joy (and spawning a dangerous new obsession; rankings-checking) it made it all the way to the dizzying heights of number one on the Amazon.com Harlequin Romance list and all the way to 59 in the Series chart - so it I thought I'd celebrate by telling you a little about Minty, my beloved heroine.

So, without further ado here's Minty:

What is the name of the main character? Is she real or fictitious? 
Formally she is Lady Araminta Davenport - but although the press love to use her title she usually goes by Minty and she is completely fictitious. I can't even remember what or who inspired her - I think it was an image I had of a girl weaving her way along a cobbled street at midnight, shoes in hand. That scene was (reluctantly) cut in one of my many, many rewrites but it absolutely set the tone for Minty's entire character and background.

Where is the story set?
In an idyllic Italian summer, mainly in the fictitious area of Oschia, a blend of Tuscany and Umbria. During the book Minty and Luca, the hero, visit some of my favourite places in the world; Florence and the Sorrento coast. It was lovely to write such gorgeous settings.

What should we know about her?
Minty is the archetypal poor little rich girl, beautiful, titled and with a Trust Fund her life seems charmed. But underneath she is desperately searching for acceptance, to prove that she is worthy of being loved. Her mother left when she was little and her father is absorbed in his new, much younger family leaving his fragile oldest daughter to navigate her way through life alone.

What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
After Minty's third engagement is publicly called off her father finally decided he needs to help her sort out her life - and does so by cutting off her Trust Fund. Emotionally battered and. for the first time in her life, broke, Minty returns to Italy, to the house where she spent many of her childhood summers. Her beloved aunt died several years ago, leaving Minty shares in her husband's company. Minty gambles everything on getting a job - and a home - from her childhood adversary, Luca Di Tore. But Luca isn't at all happy to see the former wild child...

What is the character's goal?
Minty is desperate to prove that she is more than a scandalous headline and a Trust Fund - but is terrified that she might discover that that is all she is. After three disastrous engagements she is determined that she has to make this journey alone, but it's hard when she's sharing a home with the one man who ever really got under her skin.

That's Minty! Summer with the Millionaire is available from all the usual places! I am going to tag two other M&B authors who make their debuts this year: Christy McKellan and Nina Milne. Over to you, ladies. x

A much needed break...

 We just spent the last week in an incredibly beautiful part of the world. Kippford is a small village on the Solway Firth surrounded by coastal paths and woodland and equipped with all the essentials (two pubs). We were lucky enough to stay in Bell's View which is a fantastic house with spectacular views.

The view from the terrace

Look at all these beauties

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The house belongs to the family of Pamela Hartshorne who wrote the amazing Time's Echo and Memory of Midnight (if you haven't read them do so instantly!). Pam also write Mills & Boon as Jessica Hart   and the
bookshelves are full of her books. If romance isn't your thing (in which case why are you on this blog?) then there are another four or five
shelves of classic holiday reading from Sayers and Christie to Le Carre and Mary Stewart. A huge fireplace, stacks of games and puzzles and plenty of sofas ensured we were ready for the rain and cold we confidently expected - we weren't quite so prepared for the blazing sunshine we actually got!

back on the level after some
 strenuous climbs

Five days of walks, wildlife and relaxation was exactly what we needed; with all my daughter's activities, my day job and deadlines and the husband's commute it sometimes feels that we are only just hanging on. A 12 mile walk through breathtaking cliff tops (and breath taking away climbs), the sighting of red deer, red squirrels and red kites (spot the theme), shell hunting on the beach and sitting in front of the pub watching the boats bobbing on the estuary as we supped a pint of the local pale ale was exactly what we needed. One grey day we went second hand book shopping, picking up several Judy Blumes for the daughter, another blazing afternoon we just took a picnic blanket into the garden and enjoyed the novelty of sun beating down on us. And I finally worked out why book 4 isn't working and began a rewrite...

So it's back home and back to the old routine but refreshed, revitalised and with achy legs. We can't wait to return to Kippford - and as Bell's View is available to rent I highly recommend you do too. Books, walks, and good beer. It's a winning combination!