Invitation to a Royal Wedding

 Here it is! My first book from Tule is part of the Royal Wedding Invitation series, a quartet (although each book stands alone) set in the Cotswold village of Combe St Philip and San Michele, a small country with an Adriatic coastline and mountainous interior.

It all started just about a year ago when I was asked if I'd like to be part of a small series set in the Cotswolds with a wedding at it's heart.

The timing was perfect for me. I've known Sophie Weston, Jessica Hart and Anne McAllister for many years and I couldn't think of three authors I'd rather be working with.

It's enormous fun working with other writers. You get to bounce ideas off each other, go a little wild, stretch your imagination in new ways. I also learned - from Jessica Hart - the joy of using a timeline. (So organised - not at all like the way I tend to go off into the mist!) Sophie supplied an entire history for the royal family and found us our imaginery principality and Anne did her inimitable thing and tossed in an American rock star as the best man.

We settled on our village in the Cotswolds - modelling it on Castle Combe, Anne was coming to the UK in the spring and we decided that once we had broken the back of the writing, we would all spend the day there, getting the feel of the place. The books would be delivered by May and published in the summer.

Oh dear.

The best laid plans...

Jessica, who with her Pamela Hartshorne hat on had a mainstream women's fiction novel to write, flew out of the traps and produced her first draft in record time. After that things went downhill fast.

First Anne broke her wrist and, rather later, discovered that she had also broken her finger. Then I broke my arm. That was two of us down to one-handed typing and when all the focus you need to create your world is spent struggling to type (or use dictation software that hates you) there's not much left over to get the words down.

Tule were understanding. The delivery dates were put back six weeks.

Jenny was next to be struck down - this time with a series of horrible of viruses. Other dramas followed, but eventually, the books were all delivered into the hands of the waiting editor.

Fabulous covers were produced and we did have our day out in Castle Combe - the prettiest village in England. We walked the ground on which events took place and had lunch at the Manor House Hotel - which we had recast as Hasebury Hall - under a cloudless blue sky. And we had a fabulous lunch.

That wasn't the end, of course.

We might have hundreds of books between us but there were revisions. It's part of the process, a chance to tighten up the prose, put right the names of minor characters that had been changed and which I'd forgotten. I'd missed the "s" of the end of the Crown Prince's name, my hero's name (Count Fredrik Jensson - that's him up there, btw) got changed in one of the books to Jansson. Some scenes were cut, a few new ones were written, all perfectly normal - especially when four authors were writing scenes that crossed over the series.

Here's the blurb for the series -

A baronet’s daughter is marrying into European royalty and the wedding is set to take place in her pretty Cotswold village, where she grew up. Each hero/heroine is providing a wedding service– catering, PR, security. They aim to make the royal wedding an unforgettable one. Love finds each of them along the way.

And here's a taste from The Bridesmaid's Royal Bodyguard -

“ALLY!”

Ally Parker glanced at the clock and sighed. Jennifer Harmon, the landlady of the Three Bells and her temporary boss, never failed to find a last-minute job that would take her over her basic hours. Extra minutes for which she would not be paid.

Mostly, because she needed a job—even one that involved scrubbing the floors of a busy gastro-pub—she gritted her teeth and got on with it, but not today.

She had to get away promptly for the first test in the once-in-a-lifetime PR gig handed her by her BFF, Hope Kennard. Not that she could tell Jennifer the reason she had to leave on time.

Much as she’d enjoy wiping the superior look off Jennifer’s face by explaining that she was meeting Count Fredrik Jensson, Head of Security for the San Michele royal family, this morning at Hasebury Hall, Hope’s marriage to His Serene Highness Prince Jonas Reval was very much on a need-to-know basis. Family, bridesmaids…

“Ally!” The second summons was sung out so sweetly that she knew Pete must have joined his wife in the bar to set up for the lunchtime rush. That would make things easier, at least for today. Jennifer would dissect any excuse she offered with her scalpel of a tongue but Pete would wave her out of the door. It would give his wife even more reason to give her a hard time when he wasn’t around but right now she’d take it.

She gave the range of stainless steel sinks one last wipe down but kept on her pink rubber gloves when she walked into the bar so that she couldn’t be accused of not working every second she was being paid for.

“Oh, there you are, Ally. I was beginning to think you’d slipped away early.”

Jennifer looked her up and down, clearly enjoying the fact that, having lost her “glamorous” job in London, her working wardrobe now consisted of a wrap-around pinny that had belonged to her grandmother and the scarf she wrapped around her hair to protect it from the scent of cooking and ale that lingered in the air.

“No, still here—” she looked up as the bar clock clicked onto the hour, setting her free “—although I do have to leave promptly today,” she reminded her, pulling off one of the gloves to emphasize the point.

“Of course, my dear. I wouldn’t dream of keeping you a minute over your hours.” Her smile might have convinced anyone who didn’t have the misfortune to work for her. “The only reason I called is because you have a visitor.”

A visitor?

She turned as Jennifer gestured in the direction of a tall figure standing with his back to her in front of the fire.

Who…?

He turned as if she’d spoken the word out loud and any number of words skittered through her brain  mostly of the what-the-hell variety  but her over-riding thought was that Count Fredrik Jensson looked a lot more dangerous in person than he had in the photographs she’d found online.

His thick, light brown hair, cut almost brutally short, looked as if it had been touched by the hard frost riming the hedges as she set out for work at dawn. His eyes were a matching icy grey and he had the hard-boned good looks that turned strong women to jelly.

Jennifer, gossip antennae twitching like the whiskers of a mouse scenting cheese, was simpering in expectation of an introduction.

The man might be dangerously sexy but he was also dangerously stupid. Fortunately, her three years working for a gossip magazine had given her plenty of practice in diversionary tactics.

Before he could speak she flung her arms wide and exclaimed, “Fredrik!” hoping he’d have the sense to follow her lead. “How wonderful! I wasn’t expecting to see you until later.”

The last, at least, was true. Plan A had been to present herself at Hasebury Hall on the dot of ten o’clock, city-smart and thoroughly professional in her “serious” suit and the Manolos she’d bought with a bonus when she’d been flavour of the month at Celebrity magazine.

She hadn’t anticipated the need for a Plan B but no one could accuse her of being slow on her feet.

Jennifer, agog at the arrival of a drop-dead gorgeous male, needed distracting. If she thought they had history, she wouldn’t be wondering what he was doing in Combe St Philip; her imagination would already be filling in the blanks.

Peeling off her other glove and stuffing them both in her apron pocket, Ally placed her hands on the sleeves of his coat and, leaning forward to brush her lips against his cold cheek, murmured, “Just play along.”

For a heartbeat nothing happened, but Count Fredrik Jensson was not slow on his feet, either. While she was distracted by the enticing scent of cold skin, tingly fresh air, leaves mouldering beneath the bare canopy of winter woods, his hands encircled her waist and before she could blink he was crushing her against the soft cashmere of his coat and the hard body it concealed.

“Alice…”

Never had her name sounded so desirable and, held by his penetrating grey stare, she only realized his intention a split second before he lowered his mouth to hers.

Her tiny mew of protest was obliterated by the touch of cold lips that sent a shiver to her toes. Her brain, seeking an appropriate response to the shocking experience of being kissed senseless by a man she’d only moments before set eyes on, floundered as the ice of his mouth combined with the heat of hers in an explosion of pleasure.

Her last coherent thought as she closed her eyes and kissed him back was more…

The books are being released on the 13th, 15th, 18th and 20th October but are up for pre-order now. Go get them!

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Friends and Readers

It’s been one of those rather special weeks.  A week when I have enjoyed the unexpected, sideline

joys of being a writer.

When I first started writing, all I focussed on was the hope of getting published.  I  wanted  a publisher to buy my story, put it into  book form and put it out on the shelves in the bookshops.  I remember I said to the Senior Editor I met on my very first trip to London to meet someone from the Mills and Boon Editorial team, ‘I just want to see my name on a book and I’ll be happy.’

Of course there’s more to it than that.  When you hope to be published you also hope that people will read your  stories. You hope that people – lots of people! – will buy  your book and read it, and enjoy it and buy the next one.  . .  You hope for readers out there in the world.  But I have to admit that I never got to thinking about those readers  - and other writers  - and that they might become friends and  maybe even part of my life.

I also never thought, back in those early days, when The Chalk Line  was first published,  that I’d get to know other writers, or that the internet, email,  Facebook,  Skype etc would make the world seem so much smaller and people so much closer and  communication so much easier.

This was bought home to me in the first couple of weeks of March as it seemed that every day brought another connection, another communication, with a friend  I had made  as a result of being a writer. Someone I would never have met up with, or even communicated with  if it hadn’t been for this unique job I have.  

March has the birthdays of a couple of  friends – Irish author,  Abby Green  has her special day on March 3^rd , and then  Tote Bags ‘N’ Blogs  own Lee  has her birthday a day later – on the 4^th.   Next up was a special visit from a  dear friend  from ‘across the pond’ as  AnneMcAllister was always described in the past when my  cat Sid and she were great friends. This time Anne came to stay for a few days while she’s in England researching  a new book in  a quartet for Tule that she’s 

writing.   Sadly, Sid the Cat is no longer with us but she had two new felines to get to know – Ruby the black and white rescue cat is always friendly and welcoming, but unexpectedly Charlie the Maine Coon, who is usually rather stand-offish – decided to become her best friend. This can be a double-edged privilege as  Charlie is a very large cat  - and when he decides to sit on your knee . . .well, look  at the photo of him and Anne together!

Another  friend this week let me know that she is embarking on a big adventure later in the year. Rachael Thomas, who was once one of my students at the  Writers’ Holiday Fishguard course and is now multi-published in her own right, has signed up to  walk the great wall of China 

forcharity.   Go for it Rachael – I’m so happy to support her in this.

And talking of courses, I have another one coming up in Cirencester in April – and then a get together  for my birthday in May with some one of the students who have become ‘regulars’ on my courses and are affectionately known as Walkers  Stalkers. When I first started writing, I never even dreamed of doing any teaching but now  I meet up with ‘stalkers’ regularly  - and   their company is another joy I never expected to receive as a result of my writing.

Then there are so many people, more widely flung, sometimes known, sometimes never ever met in any way -  the hundreds, thousands of readers who have bought and enjoyed my books  so that I can continue to write more for your enjoyment. I have had a lot of emails since the publication of Indebted to Moreno  and recently one of these was a reader who has been in touch with me since way back when.  15 years or more I think.  I love it when readers get in touch with me – and just lately  people have been asking just when my next book is coming up.  So I’m happy to be able to say that  this new story – current working title is Claimed by The Corsican – will be out in February 2018/ I know, it’s a

long time to wait, but in the meantime I have to get on with and complete the second part of the duet. These two linked books I’ve called The Scandalous O’Sullivan Sisters  - the first one is  Imogen’s story and now I’m at work on her  sister, Ciara’s romance. I need to get it finished so that they can come out close together.

So while I’m thinking about all these wonderful friends and readers I’ve gained as a result of being a writer – I just wanted to say  a great big thank you to all my friends and readers out there, wherever you are in the world. I value you all and appreciate  your support and  the lovely emails you send me.  After all, that’s why a writer writes-  to be read and the sales of the books means I can keep going, write some more romances – so I couldn’t do it without you!

Thank you to all my friends and my readers (and Student Stalkers!)   Wherever you are,   I’m so glad you’re there.

You can keep up to date with all my news on my web site blog page  or my Facebook page  which is where you can also find details of my courses with    Writers' Holiday  or Relax and Write

Cowboys, Kids and Bull Riding School -- Anne McAllister

Just last week Tule Publishing reprinted a book of mine called The Cowboy and the Kid.  It is the 4th in a series of loosely related books called The Tanner Brothers because the first three were about brothers, and this guy is the best friend of one of them.

Loosely means you don't have to have read the others to make sense of it, but if you do, you'll know more about the people who make up the hero and heroine's world.  Out of my seventy books, it is one that has remained near and dear to my heart.

In thinking about why it has remained one of my favorites, I've decided that it gave me the chance to celebrate bits of my life that I value a great deal -- and it took me out of myself to a place I'd never been, which is always the best part of research.

So . . . what I value:

Cowboys, of course. Goes without saying. I imprinted on one when I was five and the inclination to follow one anywhere still lingers.  Not sure what it is -- maybe the sense of responsibility, the 'try' that means he always makes maximum effort no matter the cost, the  strong/quiet vibe that so many of them do so well. Or, well, maybe it's the Wranglers and the hat . . . but cowboys, especially ones like sinigle-father Taggart Jones, will get me every time.

And kids.  They're very much a part of my world. I've got four -- all grown up now -- and nine grandkids in various stages on the road to maturity (well, one is already there).  And Becky, Taggart's daughter, owes a bit to several of them who are dear to me, in particular to the daughter of friends who was seven when I wrote about Becky and who had every bit of the curiosity and determination and stubbornness that Becky did.  She's all grown up now, too, and I'm thinking she wouldn't make a bad heroine.

And scrapbooks.  I inherited a few scrapbooks from my long-gone relatives, and they inspired the scrapbook at the beginning of The Cowboy and the Kid.  I always loved looking through them and "reading" the story of the person whose life they reflected by reading the news articles and seeing the cards and bits and pieces of memorabilia they saved.  I did one myself in 8th grade to tell the story of Peter Stuyvesant in New Netherlands for a social studies project.  I remembered it when my then editor wanted me to start with something that focused on Taggart (otherwise the book started from Becky's point of view).  It was fun to do.  (There's still an 8th grader somewhere deep inside me).

And small town folks.  Sometimes they can be urban neighborhood folks, of course. But they are the people who live nearby and who feel almost more like family than they do just acquaintances.  They're the ones you can call on when you need a helping hand.  They're sometimes the ones who know you need a helping hand before you know.

And bull-riding.

This is the research part, the part that took me out of my own life and dropped me straight into one I had only seen from a distance.  This wasn't a natural for me, but this kind of research is one of the parts of writing books that I value  more than anything else.

A year or so before this book, I'd done another book -- The Eight-Second Wedding -- and in it there was a bull-rider.  I sort of fell in love with that bull-rider, and in doing research to make him 'real,' I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with a cowboy who taught bull riding "for real."

He was a great resource.  It was a fun experience, so much so that I wished he could be a resource for another book.  He said, "Well, you could write one about a hero who was a bull-riding instructor."

So I did.  And of course, ever the stickler for authenticity, he said, "You should come to bull-riding school."

So I did -- over the Presidents' Day weekend quite a lot of years ago.

Let me be clear: I audited the course. I did not take it for 'credit'  -- I did not ride any bulls. One of the other things I value, besides authenticity, is self-preservation, and I know my limits.

But I did spend three days attending class and watching my fellow students survive -- and thrive -- in the course and in the arena.

I came away with a great appreciation for what it take to put yourself out there, for the commitment and the determination, for all the tiny details that go into making a success of a ride.  Or not.

That weekend was one of the most memorable of all the many bits of life that have turned up in my books. And that bull-riding instruct or was one of the most helpful, insightful cowboys  I've had the pleasure of following around for three days (and it wasn't just the Wrangers and the hat).

Putting it all together afterwards, and finding the heart of the story in all the details from so many places and people, made it one of the most enjoyable books I've written (sometimes I tear my hair. OFTEN, I tear my hair.  But not on that book).  It was even fun to go back through it and touch it up a bit.

The first book in the Tanner Brothers series, Cowboys Don't Cry is available for free for a limited time as an ebook in a variety of formats.

Check it out at your favorite online bookseller if you like cowboys who don't (as another former editor said) "own multi-national corporations on the side.  In other words, there are no billionaires in this series.  Sorry about that!

Book 5, Cowboy Pride, will be released February 13, and can be pre-ordered now.

Life Happens . . . Anne McAllister

We moved in the summer from the Midwest (as in, "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa.") to Montana.  We didn't do it just because there are four grandchildren here.  We left four grandchildren in Iowa -- albeit older ones.  But they were a big part of it.  Also my mother's family is from Montana, and it always felt like home to me when we came back here when I was a child.

So . . . we are 'home' now -- and instead of writing books about  Montana, which I seemed to do a lot of while I was in Iowa, before I barely got my computer unpacked I got asked to write a book set in England!

I said yes, of course.  That way I can justify going for research, right?

And I started writing -- or getting prepared to write.  I set aside my long-suffering hero of O'Driscoll Heir, promising to come back to him when my new fling had had his Happily Ever After, and I allowed my life to be taken over by some other man named Jack.

O'Driscoll had his revenge.  No sooner had Jack and I embarked on his book than I broke my wrist!

It is now three and a half weeks into the broken wrist. Jack's book is still on page 3.  But I've got some voice recognition software now, and I'm giving it a workout.  We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, the Cubs waited until we left the Midwest to win the World Series, which was quite wonderful (sorry, Cleveland).  So I wallowed in baseball while waiting for the wrist to come around. It's still not quite there yet, so I'm not writing any more on this.  Just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you all and wondering what curve balls life has thrown you lately.

On the plus side, the lovely talented Lee Hyat (she of the Tote Bags and Blogs blog, in fact) has done yet another superlative cover for one of my reprinted cowboys.  You get to see it here first!

The Cowboy and the Kid was one of my favorite books, partly because it grew out of my weekend audit of bull-riding school which was one of the most fun experiences of my writing career.  It also got to be RT's series romance of the year back in the day.   I think it is just as much fun this time around.  Hope you'll check it out when it's released again in late January 2017.

Anne McAllister: The Lost Summer

The author as essayist. Not.

What I did on my summer vacation . . .

What vacation?  We moved!

Yes, I know, people move all the time. We live in a mobile society.  And I'm not averse to that. I like to move around, go places, travel.  But for the last forty-plus years, while I did my share of moving around, going places and traveling, I always came back home to the same house.

And now . .  .not.

I knew for over a year that we were going to up sticks and head out to Montana full-time. But when you know something that long, it never seems quite real. I mean, when do you start packing for a move that's light years away?

Not soon enough. I have learned that much.  And after those forty-plus years in the same house, we had accumulated a lot of stuff.  It just built up, like sedimentary rock, and about as movable.

The living room in May; we moved in July

There were stalagmites in the attic of stuff kids did in elementary school and junior high and high school and college that came home and never somehow went away. There were the boxes that came to me when my grandfather died and when my grandmother on the other side of the family passed away.  Then my mother-in-law died leaving us with three sets of china, two sets of silverware, a bookshelf of diaries (bless her) and 97 years worth of paintings that we needed to deal with (moral of the story: if you marry the son of an artist, be prepared to have a lot of canvases and, even heavier, Masonite, to move).
My mother (and bless her, too) lived a spare and uncluttered life. Her china went to our daughter, she only left one set of silverware and one painting.  We should all be so thoughtful.

The new view -- disracting enough

We aren't. We won't be to our children, and we haven't been to ourselves because we had books. Hundreds of books, thousands of books, millions and billions and trillions of books (to misquote Wanda Gag's Millions of Cats -- of which we had three copies). So we packed books, and then we gave away books to every person and institution we could think of, and then we packed more books.

I wonder what people move who don't move books.

The draw of our new home was the bookshelves.  There were lots of them. There weren't enough. We had to buy two seven foot tall shelves.  There are still some books looking for homes.

The view when it gets even more distracting

But we are moved.  And now it is nearly midway through September, and I barely remember August at all, except for our daughter visiting from Texas to see the new digs (and unpack books while she was here).

My own almost finished book, neglected all summer long, has emerged from hibernation and is slowly and sluggishly moving toward its conclusion (fortunately the action on the page is faster than the author typing it).

And hard as it was, long as it was, fraught as it was -- not to mention, hot as it was (never move from Iowa in July; you will regret it)  -- we are so glad to be here.

I'm hoping that autumn in Montana won't be lost at all.  But it might be unless I finish my book!



Photos:
1) © By dotmatchbox at flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
2) © own photo, 2016
3) © own photo, 2016
4) © own photo, 2016

On the Move -- Anne McAllister

At our house we are up to our eyeballs, literally, in packing boxes.

We are in the throes of moving house from the one where we've lived for over forty years (at least during the school years) to a new home in Montana. We've been in and out of Montana for the past twenty-five, and before that I spent vacations there as a child because my mother was born in Montana and we still have family there.

So, once the grandkids started arriving in Montana -- and The Prof neared the age of retirement -- we decided it was time to make a move. It took nearly a decade, but hey, we don't jump at opporunities the second they appears.

Besides, now the Iowa grandkids are all pretty well-launched and will be visiting regularly, I'm sure. In fact some of them are actually coming with us next week (though they will be returning home eventually -- I think).

Anyway, it's a whole new chapter (book metaphor required, of course), and one that I'm looking forward to.  As I've done my share of writing about Montana -- and am currently in the final stages of my first Sons of Montana book for Tule -- it will be nice to look out my window and get inspiration instead of having to look at my photo albums and digital files for it!

But before I go I want to say how much I have loved living in Iowa.  My stepdad, who was raised here, could hardly wait to leave. I would never leave if it weren't for those grandkids.

As much as I love the mountains and the cowboys and the dry air, I love the history of river towns and the Northwest Territory and environs, and the best corn in the world (just had first of the year tonight for dinner) -- not to mention the best neighbors and friends whom I'm sorely going to miss.

I've spent two-thirds of my life here. It's where I reared my kids, started my career, raised my dogs -- and my one opinionated cat -- it's the place that I will always call home.  It gave me great joy, and I know when I come back, which I will certainly do at least once a year so those grandsons can continue to go to sports camp until they're too old, it will capture my heart all over again.

Thank you, Iowa. I love you.

Montana, here we come!

Photos:
1) mine
2) copyright 2011, J Kennedy, used with permission
3) mine

Old Friends : : Anne McAllister

I've written a lot of heroes in my life. 70 of them now, if my count is close to right.  And one way or another, I've loved them all.  

Some of them -- like my children -- have made loving them a little more trying at times (usually around the black moment, sometimes way before that!), but really, I wouldn't be writing about them if I didn't find a core of something wonderful in each of them (also rather like my children who thank their lucky stars I don't write about them).

But I must admit that I've always had a particular soft spot for my cowboy heroes (including the less than immediately lovable ones).  I imprinted on my first cowboy when I was five and he came to stay with us on his way to fight a war -- and he brought his saddle.  And no, it wasn't the civil war. I might be old, but I'm not quite that old!

But there was something in his quiet competence that appealed to me.  Maybe, too, it was the tall, dark and handsome attributes.  Whatever it was, I was sunk.  I fell for cowboys regularly after that.

I didn't write my first cowboy, though, for a lot of years.  When I did it was like coming home.  I tapped into a reservoir of memories that until then I hadn't delved into very deeply.  I liked what I was finding, and a few books later I went back for more, until eventually I had a whole series of cowboy heroes and the women who loved them.

Three of them have recently come back into my life.  They are three brothers -- Robert, Luke and Noah Tanner -- who are, as one editor said to me, "died-with-their-boots-on" cowboys, by which he explained that he meant "they didn't own multi-national corporations on the side." 

Well, no, they didn't.  They were a little grittier than that, a little more real, perhaps. They'd had some hard knocks and in the course of their stories, they kept getting them.  They were heroes, though, and they got the job done. And the girl, besides. Never fear.  

I loved them all.   Tanner (that was Robert) was tough and silent and not at all sure he was worth loving.  Luke was probably my most wounded hero, a man carrying way more guilt and remorse than is good for anyone. And Noah . . . well, Noah had lived a pretty charmed life -- especially recently when he became the NFR Bronc Riding Champion.  But then life, as it does, gave him a twister to ride.

They had ridden off into the sunset. I hadn't seen them -- except on my bookshelves -- for a number of years. And then they came back, wanting to do it all over again, in bright beautiful new covers for Tule Publishing.

It was so much fun (and a little bit of angst) to go down the road with them again.  Tanner was a stubborn and laconic as ever.  I wanted to slap Luke upside the head (but Jillian did it for me, almost literally). And Noah -- he's on the horizon, coming this way later this month.

I can show you Tanner's gorgeous cover (and Tanner's gorgeous self) in Cowboys Don't Cry. I can also show you Luke's in Cowboys Don't Quit.  I was hoping I'd have Noah's today to show you the upcoming Cowboys Don't Stay, but he's not quite ready for Prime Time, unless Lee (the amazing, brilliant, talented Lee Hyat who has done wonders for them and is, I hope, going to forgive me for getting this blog in a few hours late!) finishes him up and tells me he can go public.  

If Noah shows up today, she can stick him right in here. If he doesn't you can visit him on Facebook at my Author Anne McAllister page soon.  He should be making an appearance there in the next couple of days.   

Lee has done herself and me and Tanner, Luke and Noah proud with her wonderful covers.  And I've done my best to get them updated -- though Noah is still the only one of them who has a cell phone!

Spring has Sprung! :: Anne McAllister

It's that time of year again!

I've spent lots of years in a cold climate  blessed, most years, with plenty of snow.  So when it gets to be March, I start looking around for signs of spring.

This year the signs began appearing well before March.  I teach class one day a week, and the first week in February one of the women in my class came in late and rather breathless and announced, "I've just seen a flock of robins!"

We practically all stampeded to the door to see what she'd seen. And yes, there they were.

There were crocuses well above the snow a couple of weeks ago, and the daffodils are pushing their way up by the back door.

When we went for a walk with the dogs yesterday, I could see that the scilla was beginning to come up, too. In a few weeks -- or less -- it will be blanketing the lawns hereabouts.

Blue lawns always make me smile.  I didn't grow up in this climate, so I've had to learn all about it. The first time I saw a

blue lawn, I thought I was seeing things as I drove past in a car.   I couldn't imagine what was making it blue.  Now I always make it a point to walk the dogs past all the blue lawns in our neighborhood just to enjoy the spectacle. It doesn't take much to make me happy, I guess.

Or maybe it's the feeling that we are coming out of hibernation, that we don't have to bundle up to our eyeballs to go out and get the mail anymore.

It even makes me happy -- most of the time -- to wipe the dogs feet every time they come back in after an excursion around the back yard.

In spring I measure the weather in 'dog-foot days.'  The more times they go in an out, multiplied by how many feet I have to dry (or sometimes wash and dry) is an indication of just how muddy it is out there.  Today was a "48 dog foot day," which is pretty

muddy -- particularly since I ended up washing one dog's feet every time she came in.

Still, I'm not complaining. It's spring. The book is coming along.  I'm going to see three reprints this spring when my Tanner Brothers trilogy comes back with brand-new covers. And I'm going to get to post them on my newly updated website (still in progress, but check around Easter and it might well be there!).  That will feel like spring all over again!

What are your favorite signs of spring?  (My apologies to all readers from Down Under for this very geographically oriented post. Feel free to tell me what you love about autumn.  I'm pretty fond of it, too!).


Photo credits: 
1) Dakota Lynch: own work. An American robin searching for food in a Missouri field.          CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license.
2) crocus By Thomas Wolf (Der Wolf im Wald) (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
3) Ixtlilto (Own work) [Public domain], Creative Commons via Wikimedia 
Commons
4) BSchenck: own work 
5 BSchenck: own work

Read any good books lately? ~ Anne McAllister

 A few years ago I got an ebook reader that has pretty much changed my life. A part of my life at any rate.

Now that I don't have to worry about where I'm going to put a book on an actual physical shelf in my already over-run (by books) house, I buy more books.  I take a chance on authors I haven't read.  I don't always read them right away.  But there usually comes a time when I prowl through my earlier purchases to see what "sounds good" and start reading.  Sometimes I go back and re-read my 'virtual' keepers -- just as if I were pulling them off a real shelf.

I have quite a few I haven't read yet, but in case anyone's resolution is to read some good books this year, here's a half dozen I've enjoyed:

Elizabeth the First Wife, by Liane Dolan, charmed me.  Elizabeth, a college professor in Pasadena, made me laugh at the same time I nodded my head at the foibles of her family, her dreamy self-absorbed ex-husband, the potential new man in her life, and her summer at the Shakespeare festival in Oregon where it all came together in a perfect storm of enjoyment (for me. Not so much for Elizabeth).  I liked Dolan's Helen of Pasadena, too. I hope she writes more. Soon.

A Bad Boy for Christmas, by Kelly Hunter. I have pretty much never met a Kelly Hunter book I didn't like, so I was really looking forward to Cutter Jackson's story. It didn't disappoint.  Kelly has a way with words, with characters, with family dynamics that always keeps me reading.  And Cutter, who was trying to hold things together for everyone in his family without a lot of help from anyone, in the face of a new, unexpected potential threat to his family's well-being, while at the same time falling for the woman accompanying that threat - who was, let's face it, the last woman he wanted to fall for, completely drew me in.  She also set me up for Nash's book which she had better hurry up and write.

The Short Drop, by Matthew Fitzsimmons.  This was not an immediate grab for me. I like thrillers, but I knew nothing about this book save a few good reviews.  I could have got it for free, but I didn't. I bought it. I would buy it again in a minute. Gibson Vaughn was a man with a past that seemed out to get him. He'd weathered bad times, and confronting more, he was a reluctant hero at best.  The book grabbed me from the beginning and pulled me right into his world as after ten years, he tried again to find a childhood friend gone missing. Things were never quite what they seemed, and the deeper he -- and I -- got into the mystery, the messier things got.  There's a new Gibson Vaughn book in the works. I can hardly wait.

Necessary Restorations, by Kate Canterbary.  This is the third book in her series about the Walshes, set in Boston about a family of siblings in business together. I started with it rather than book #1 and I'm glad I did.  I enjoyed all of the books, but Sam was a hero unlike any other I've met in romantic fiction.  Sam had Issues, with a capital I, so many I wondered how she would ever manage to make me fall for him.  He was his own worst enemy on top of all the other things that plagued him.  I simultaneously wanted to slap him upside the head (a pretty much common reaction in his family, too) and cheer for him as he  overcame his demons -- or at least found a way to live with them that didn't destroy him.  Reading Sam's story took me into all the other Walsh books which I have enjoyed. But none as much as Sam's.

Peak by Roland Smith.  I raised a mountaineering son so Peak was a natural for me.  Peak (that's his name) was the fourteen year old offspring of a self-obsessed climber currently leading an expedition up Everest and a woman who had once climbed, too.  When Peak ran afoul of the law for a little climbing foray in New York City, he went to stay with the father he barely knew, a father who saw him more as a publicity opportunity than as a son.  It's up to Peak to navigate not just  the slopes of Everest, but the very human foibles which he faces as he learns what it means to become a responsible adult.  Smith followed Peak with The Edge, another story about Peak's mountaineering adventures, just as good as the first.

The Spring Bride by Anne Gracie.  I had the pleasure of reading, oh, a dozen or so beginnings of this book when Anne was writing it.  I heard about it.  But then she went off with it and wrote the whole thing, and I never got to read the rest until it came out as a book.  I wondered -- I always wonder -- how she's going to do the things she says she's going to do in a book.  I think, "I couldn't do that," and it's true. I couldn't. But Anne does. Every time.  Jane and Zach are wonderful together.  They don't have it easy -- the getting together part.  They both have plenty to overcome before the happily ever after.  But that's the joy of well-written, witty romance novels, isn't it? Watching the dance in progress, not the end.  I always eagerly await an Anne Gracie novel, even if I've had a chance to read a bit here or there in the process. It's always better. It's always more satisfying. It's always moving and enlightening and, at the same time, great fun. Jane and Zach were all of that and more.  This coming year I'm counting on Daisy to be a terrific Summer Bride!

So, what do you recommend for our reading pleasure?  Share some of your favorites of the past year in the comments or tell us about the ones you've got planned for reading this coming year.  

Old Dogs, New Tricks? ~ Anne McAllister

I've been writing romance novels for thirty years. Well, actually, my first one was published thirty years ago, so I've been writing them a bit longer than that.

It wasn't exactly the dark ages still . . . but can you say the word: "typewriter?"  Yes, me, too.  Also "white-out" and "cut-and-paste" (the real scissors and tape event, not the virtual less messy stuff we do now) and "change the ribbon."  Also, "carbon paper." Yikes.

I was on my sixth book when I got a computer.  And I had actually finished the first/second/third/umpteenth draft of the book when I got it.  I stared at it and wondered how I would compose on it.  I didn't.

I taught myself how to use it by typing the entire manuscript into the computer (black screen with orange printing. Who remembers that?  It felt like every day was Halloween).  Later  -- when that book was gone -- I would learn to compose.

But first I printed out a draft of book # six, then took it to the post office and mailed it.

Unlike now, it didn't come winging back after lunch with a revision letter attached.  I actually had a couple of weeks to breathe and to even start a new book.

But I digress. What I'm getting at is that the way we work on books has changed -- at least those of us who have been around years and years and years.

I still use my Word Perfect software in a newer incarnation because I can't live without "reveal codes."  But I convert it to .rtf for those who can't deal with Word Perfect.  And I do my edits and revisions online in Word, which I have learned to work with in self-defense.

So, I'm good at learning some things, better at others, not good at all at a particularly daunting few.  But usually I can work something out -- or work around it.

The time has come, however, to make -- or try to make -- another leap.

I've had enough people tell me that Scrivener is a great way to work on a manuscript to be eager to give it a try.  I'm particularly interested in it because I'm in the throes of working out the logistics of a four book series which needs some inter-locking moments rather than being totally sequential.

Scrivener looks as if it can help me accomplish that. IF (and it's a pretty big if) I can come to terms with it. I've done an online course in it, I've read a book or two about it. And I have some books I want to e-pub that I thought I might dump into Scrivener like I did my sixth book with the computer to sort of figure things out while I don't have to be creative at the same time.

So . . . I need advice. If you are familiar with Scrivener, what's your opinion?  What is the best approach to take to learning how to use it? What tips and tricks to dealing with it can you suggest?

Do you love it? Do you hate it?  Do you have a better idea?  It looks pretty do-able, so far, but then I start "doing" and I get stuck and I want to tear my hair.  Then again, sometimes  when I actually begin writing in the program, I forget all the bells and whistles and screens I don't know what to do with, and I actually write and it's effortless -- just me and the story.

Those moments make me think I'll get there some day.

So, here I am -- old dog looking to master a new trick, or at least, for me, a new software program.  I'd welcome all the help I can get!

And since this is the last time I'll be here this month, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Happy Kwanza, or the goodness of the season.  Thanks for sharing your comments and views throughout this past year.  Hope to see you here next year as well!

photos: 
dog -- mine
typewriter: By Oliver Kurmis (Self-photographed) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
Scrivener -- logo from my purchased copy of their downloadable version.

The Littlest Hero : : Anne McAllister

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. We're used to dealing with the tall, dark, handsome ones with rock-hard abs, a killer grin or a fierce, brooding stare. And a little hint of stubble on the jaw doesn't hurt.  I spend plenty of days with men like that -- and I love them all.

But many evenings and some holidays and vacations I spend with another hero. His name is Mac.  He is, to misquote Julie Cohen, Not Even Our Dog  (Julie has Not Even Our Cat in her life).  We have Mac in ours.

He came to our friend Nancy's home as a 3 year old after he was rescued by a diligent neighbor from a less than wonderful situation. He was, to put it mildly, a mess.  When we met him he had been shaved to within an inch of his life. He looked awful, but apparently he had looked much worse -- matted and filthy -- before the neighbor stepped in.  She, however, had several dogs of her own, and needed a good home for Mac.

Nancy's home fit the bill.  Nancy is the perfect mother for Mac.  He has always had a mind of his own -- and plans to go with it -- and she has simply learned to deal.

Mac believes in being well-fed.  Nancy thinks he should be fit.  Most of the time they manage both. But when Mac feels short-changed, he is, er, enterprising.  When she came home from church one Sunday, she rang me to say, "He's eaten a whole tray of chocolate-covered macaroons!"  I had trouble believing that.  Not without leaving a crumb. Mac is not that fastidious. Besides, a whole tray of macaroons, particularly chocolate-covered ones, ought to make anyone sick, especially a 25 lb. dog.

I said, "When he stayed with us, and I gave him a rawhide, he didn't eat it. He took it upstairs and buried it in one of the beds." (savaging a sheet in the process).  "Maybe he did that with the macaroons. Check the beds."

Well, only put one in a bed, underneath her daughter's pillow.  H had, very diligently, distributed the rest of them all over her house. She found a macaroon behind the sofa, another behind the chair. There was one tucked under the piano, one down in the basement next to the washing machine.  He was appalled to watch her find them -- and pretty quickly he tried damage control by running ahead of her to rescue them before she could pick them up.

I have found myself wishing ever since that she had security cameras in her house that would have captured his original treks here and there, hiding them all for future consumption! I think it would have made YouTube's top ten!

He has done plenty of other amazing and occasionally heroic (but mostly funny) things in his life.  But his most amazing accomplishment is that he's still with us.

When she got him, the vet told her he had an enlarged heart.  For several years it didn't seem to have any effect on him. But a year ago last August he got a terrible cough.  For such a small dog, his cough sounded like a mastiff imitating a fog horn.  Daunting -- and scary -- to say the least.

It was his heart, the vet said.  He was well into congestive heart failure.  He was only seven.  It was a wrenching thought to consider she might lose him so young.  He coughed on.  And he went on long walks.  He rummaged in the recycled paper looking for wrappers that might be tasty. He coughed. He carried sticks around.  He sat on the back of the sofa and monitored traffic. He coughed.  He walked even longer walks.  He chased his favorite blue ball. And still he coughed.

He survived her trip to Jamestown (he stayed with us), and her trip to Costa Rica (he stayed with us) and visits to her grandkids (he went -- and happily came back to cough some more and go for walks). He began to suffer from edema.  His normally fit body began to sag under the weight of the fluid he was retaining. But still he walked. And rummaged. And ate. The chasing of Blue Ball receded somewhat.  That was difficult.

He soldiered on.  A month ago, he had three pounds of fluid drained. He ran up the steps. He walked.  He considered Blue Ball, but didn't get too much of a thrill out of chasing it.  He dreamed of macaroons.  And the edema continued to plague him.

Yesterday he went back to the vet. This time she drained 8 pounds of fluid -- that's 1/4 of his body weight! -- a gallon.  And he ran up the steps when he came to visit last night.  He continues to have great joy in life.

We know he's not going to have many more weeks, months, years left.  We're astonished he has had as much as he has (so is the vet).  But we are all grateful for his presence.  He is a hero, dealing with the not very nice hand that he's been dealt, and doing so with aplomb and a joie de vivre that I personally hope that I can emulate.

I've celebrated dogs and cats in many blog pieces in various places over the years -- often in remembrance of a life well lived and deeply loved.  In this case it seems fitting to celebrate Mac whose life is still a Work In Progress.

He just may have a hero named after him before long.  That hero will have a lot to live up to.

Anne's latest, The Return of Antonides, Lukas's story, was out last month from Harlequin Presents and Harlequin Mills & Boon Modern.

Waiting for a Hero -- Anne McAllister

A few years back Tallie Savas and Elias Antonides took up residence in my head when her father outfoxed his father, and, as a result, named Tallie president of Antonides Marine. Elias, who had rescued the company -- and the family -- from dire financial straits by dint of unrelenting work, was not pleased.

He didn't like Tallie.  He didn't like her father. He didn't much like his own father, to be honest. He was Feeling Hard Done By, to be sure.  Tallie who Only Wanted To Be Taken Seriously as a business person (her father, despite naming her president, wasn't exactly doing that), felt she had a lot to prove -- to her father, to Elias, to the world.

The sparks that flew between them in The Antonides Marriage Deal only complicated matters.

So did their siblings. They both had plenty of siblings. And cousins. Enough so that I've been writing a bout these Savas and Antonides families for what seems like half my writing life (though it's probably really only been a third!).  If one family didn't have a sibling ready to get hitched, there was always a cousin ready to take the plunge (or be pushed).

Even Peter Antonides, the middle son, about whom I had no intention at all of ever writing a book, because he was already married, for goodness' sake (because he had reinvented himself in Hawaii, called himself PJ, and rescued a damsel in distress by making her his wife), found that she wanted a divorce and he had to win her

back.

But I always thought I'd write about Lukas, the youngest son, because he just seemed like a hero-in-waiting.  (Sometimes they actually line up and pester me, saying, "My turn. Write about me!"

Not Lukas. He was too busy having a grand time elsewhere in the world. He went walkabout, more or less, about the end of his second year at NYU. He went off to deal with a family issue in Greece on his father's behalf (or so he said) that May, and when the school year rolled in September, Lukas was nowhere to be found.

He almost never came back. Only for weddings where he was obliged to put in an appearance.  And never -- he was clear about this -- as the groom.

At first I didn't think anything about it.  When I got his twin sister Martha married off to Theo Savas in The Santorini Bride, he showed up for the wedding, pointed Theo in the direction of Montana when required, and went straight back to wherever he had been before the wedding.  I didn't see him again for a couple of years.

He reappeared for PJ's wedding.  He didn't make an appearance, as I recall, for any of the Savas cousins' weddings. They weren't his cousins, he told me. Only related by marriage. Didn't count. Did I think he had nothing better to do than attend weddings?

Then in Breaking the  Greek's Rules (which appeared in Mistletoe Surprises in the US) he inadvertently re-introduced his cousin Alexandros Antonides to Daisy Cummings when Alex needed a matchmaker.  Lukas didn't need one.  Everyone thought he'd do his duty and get married someday because all Antonides men did Once They Found The Right Woman.

What Lukas never bothered to tell anyone (even me) was that he'd met The Right Woman years ago -- when he was no more than a kid. Trouble was, he hadn't known it then.  Hadn't wanted to know it. And by the time he finally did, it was too late. She'd fallen in love with his best friend.

Lukas wasn't ever getting married.  No book, he told me.  Go away.

And then things changed.  He came back to New York.  Grown up.  Mature. Responsible.  Ready to get on with his life -- which promptly brought him face-to-face with Holly Halloran -- the woman he'd loved and lost. The woman who had every right to hate him and pretty much did.

Lukas never expected to be a hero. But by the time we got to The Return of Antonides, he'd paid almost all his dues.  I figure he deserves a happy ending.  He has the whole book to convince Holly.

On the left is the US Presents cover.  The non-large-print version has an added Christmas novella in it (not mine).

My favorite is the UK version (no novella) because I love the cover.  This is Lukas as I always saw him.  I'm delighted the UK art dept did, too!  Let me know what you think!