BRIEF POST...

...to wish you all a wonderful and safe Bonfire Night. I'll be chained to my laptop because having delivered The Bachelor's Baby Proposal (working title) on Monday, I started SANTA'S SECRET ELF on Tuesday, which has to be in eds hand by mid January so that you can read it next December.

Heroine Lucy Bright
Hero -- uh-uh. He hasn't appeared on page yet and I'm still struggling for his name -- need to check brilliant suggestions offered by you all earlier in the year.

Setting -- a fabulous London department store in the run up to, you've guessed it, Christmas. (Second Christmas book in a row. I must be mellowing in my old age -- and you still have time to win a copy of Christmas Angel for the Billionaire, so scroll down to the previous post and check it out.)

LISTENING TO: Nothing. I had to set up my computer after major problems and somehow the leads from the speakers didn't get attached and I am so not going under the desk. But singing Jingle Bells a lot to get me in the mood.

READING: Just finished Heaven Can Wait by Cally Taylor -- cried through the entire last chapter. In middle of Girl From Mars by Julie Cohen, which is making me laugh a lot, but has a deep sadness, too. In awe of her writing. Just broken down and ordered the hard back of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

WATCHING: Garrow's Law, Spooks, Muriel's Wedding.

SINGING A DUET…

Or rather writing one, since even the people who love me beg me not to sing. :)

It was nearly two years ago – another November – when I had a breakfast meeting with my editors at the plush Churchill Hotel in the west end of London to discuss what I’d write in the year ahead.

I had all kind of ideas floating around in my head but the eds had only one. A duet. They wanted a duet for November/December and please, please, please could one of them be a Christmas book.


I resisted. My worst experience with a book was a Christmas title. It had a gorgeous cover, one of my prettiest, but the truth of the matter is that you can’t sell a Christmas title when the hero and heroine are standing under a palm tree wearing nothing but swimsuits – even if the palm tree is strung with tiny Christmas lights. And, let’s face it, when it comes to scheduling, not just for its first outing, but for those important foreign sales, there are only two months of the year when a Christmas title will fit the bill.

But the last time I did a Christmas duet – unintentionally, I wrote consecutive books about friends – it was, apparently, a big hit and RomanceHQ wanted a repeat.

The really big problem about writing a duet is that it’s really hard work. They have to be delivered promptly, close enough together to be scheduled in consecutive months. And Christmas won’t wait. But what can a starving writer, caught in a pincer movement between her editor and the series editor, say? With her crispy bacon and scrambled eggs rapidly cooling in front of her there is only one answer. "If I say “yes”, can I eat?"

At which point we come to the second problem with writing a duet. They have to be linked in some way. One story twisted around the other. You have to think of two books at the same time and they have to overlap in some way. Which leads to other problems. Set up a scene in one book and you have to deliver it in the next. Easier said than done!

But the books were written, the duet was given a name “Trading Places” and the strap line written –

Annie wanted anonymity -
Lydia wanted the spotlight -
They both found love.

So here we are. It’s November and first up is Annie’s story, Christmas Angel for the Billionaire. Having been in the media spotlight all her life, she’s desperate for the chance to just walk down a street, stop at Starbucks for a coffee, check out the latest High St fashions without being pursued by the paparazzi. What she needs is a place holder, someone for the media – and her over-protective grandfather’s bodyguards -- to watch while she disappears for a while. And then she comes face to face with her “look alike”, Lydia Young. The open road beckons and things are going swimmingly until she misses her turning and ends up in the Saxon’s kitchen being played off in a battle of wills by George Saxon and his teenage daughter.

As for Lydia, she’s having a ball until she discovers that she, too, is caught in the middle of a struggle between a divided family. More about that next month. For now I have a 2-in-1 UK edition of CHRISTMAS ANGEL FOR THE BILLIONAIRE, twinned with Jessica Hart’s sparkling, funny and emotional Under the Boss’s Mistletoe to give away.

For a chance to win, tell me who you’d like to trade places with and why. I’ll pick the winner on Friday.

In the meantime, here's the first chapter...

And there is another excerpt on my website

(I'm also running this competition on the Harlequin Romance Authors blog at eHarlequin here if you want to have two goes -- with two different "Trading Places" stories!)

And to keep you busy, while I'm holding my heroine's hands as she says "I do" (she doesn't!), click here for a jigsaw of the cover of Christmas Angel for the Billionaire.

Just alittle bit of fun to keep you all out of mischief. :)

FOREIGN EDITIONS

It's always a thrill to get a foreign edition in the post, but I'm always especially thrilled to see a Dutch translation of my books.

Family ties take me to the Netherlands fairly regularly and I do feel a special affinity with the country, so it was a particular delight to spot this one on the Harlequin Netherlands website, a 3-in-1 containing reprints of The Bachelor's Bab, His Personal Agenda and The Bridesmaid's Rewards (the one with all the chocolate).



The French have been busy publishing "Liz Fielding" this summer, too. They've published 100 Arabian Nights (with Meredith Webber and Kim Lawrence), this gorgeous volume, containing The Ordinary Princess.

There are a couple of other stories available in France this month, including The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride, in the Horizon series.







And in Italy they've just issued Secret Baby, Surprise Parents, and this lovely Christmas anthology is also available for the holidays.

Right now, I'm working hard on a book due this month, but I'll be back soon to introduce Annie and Lydia, the two heroines of my TRADING PLACES duet and -- obviously -- there'll be a competition, so watch out for that. :)

Inthe meantime, here's what Romantic Times has to say about Annie's book, available now online and retail next month, CHRISTMAS ANGEL FOR THE BILLIONAIRE:

A delicate blending of fantasy and reality, this story has everything, including a difficult but irresistible hero and a clever, gutsy heroine who's in every way his match. 4.5 stars

And today a reviewer at All About Romance said about my books --

There is a quality to her writing that pleases me – she lets dialogue stand for itself without cluttering it with speech tags and the sentences roll off each other in the best tradition of understated British prose; her stories are tasteful fairy tales with moderately stiff upper lips.

And of Christmas Angel --

A fairy tale with slick writing and gentle humour.

MILLS AND BOON AT CHELTENHAM

Remember the Butlers in the Buff?



Well here's a little more one of them (ahem!) on duty at the Cheltenham Festival this week, when Mills & Boon brought a little excitement to this somewhat sedate literary festival. I so wish I'd been there!

To see him, and the panel, in action, click here

And more about the "reader's choice" hero, Mr Rochester, here

BECOMING A HARLEQUIN AMBASSADOR...


If you love the Harlequin Romance novels this is a HOT opportunity to get some free books. You can sign up to be a Harlequin Ambassador!

If you qualify as a Harlequin Ambassador, you’ll be sent all the tools you need to spark great conversation about Harlequin books including:

* Free books
* Short Stories
* Chapter excerpts from upcoming books
* and much more!

In addition, you will be able to review and comment on the covers, new book ideas and exchange opinions with women just like you! Check it out here

Last weekend the dh and I took advantage of the lovely autumn weather to go for Sunday lunch and then visit the Red Kite feeding centre not too far from our home.

The Red Kite is a stunningly beautiful bird, but there were, until twenty years ago, as few as thirty breeding pairs in its stronghold in Carmarthenshire.



The Llanddeusant Red Kite Feeding Station was opened in the summer of 2002 by a local partnership with support from the Brecon Beacons National Park, the Welsh Red Kite Trust and various other notable wildlife organisations and individuals. The centre is designed to fit naturally into the landscape and to provide bird lovers the ideal opportunity to witness Red Kites, Buzzards and other birds feeding.



The birds were already wheeling round when we arrived an hour before feeding time. First half a dozen or so, then more and more began to arrive.

As the food arrived, not too much, these are wild birds, they swooped and one of the other watchers counted over sixty birds, wheeling and diving.

The views over the Black Mountains were stunning, too. I can't wait to go back.