Conference in Colorado – Kandy Shepherd

 Last month I travelled from Sydney, Australia to Colorado, USA for the Romance Writers of America annual conference. I love the buzz of the conference where romance writers and publishing professionals from around the United States and the world gather. Of course a lot of fun and catching up with friends is involved! (Not to mention yummy meals.)

I started the conference with three days in wonderful Colorado Springs with two friends. What an awesome landscape! I need to go back and explore even more.

Then the conference itself—four days of meetings, talks and inspiration. The RITA awards for best romance novels published in 2017 was exciting and I had several finalist friends to cheer. Meeting with my wonderful editors from Harlequin Mills & Boon was such a pleasure—culminating in the amazing Harlequin author party. Catching up with industry news, attending workshops and chatting with fellow authors was inspiring and enervating.

However for this conference for me the highest of highlights was meeting some of the readers who attended the book signings. It was heart-warming to hear them thank me for the stories I write and tell me how my books not only entertain them but have helped them through illness and dark times. As an author, what more could I want to hear?

Kandy Shepherd’s Best Man and the Runaway Bride is a July 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterestand Instagram

Come visit a tropical paradise! - Kandy Shepherd

One thing I love about the Harlequin Romance series line I write for—apart from the lovely emotion and the happy-ever-after ending!—is the fact that these books often spirit me away to an aspirational and sometimes exotic destination.

As an author, we are often told to write what we know. I find it difficult to actually bring a place to life if I haven’t actually been there. Fortunately, I have travelled a bit and stayed at the destinations where my books are set. 

 My July release Best Man and the Runaway Bride is set on the beautiful small island of Nusa Lembongan in Indonesia, off the east coast of the much larger and better known island of Bali. I was fortunate enough to visit Lembongan last year and actually wrote some of the story while I was on location.

This month I thought I’d share with you some of the events in the novel, that actually happened to me on the the trip.

We stayed on a beautiful resort similar to the fictional Big Blue resort in the book. Our lumbung was right on the sea and it was absolutely heavenly! (With mod cons like our own bathroom and airconditioning.)

The lumbung where we stayed

View from our room - bliss to wake up to

 There’s a pivotal scene in the book where the hero Max and heroine Nikki dine at a restaurant with their feet in the sand and witness one of the awesome sunsets the area is famous for. We did that too!

This is the meal that inspired Nikki and Max's in the book - love that Indonesian food!

 Nikki and Max go snorkelling on the reef surrounding the island, in a small traditional fishing boat known as a jukung. We bravely set out and snorkelled and it was an utterly wonderful experience.

This little boat transported us to a beautiful reef where we snorkelled and saw the most beautiful fish and coral

Just remembering the experience is making me want to go back there as soon as I can—or perhaps to another wonderful destination that will inspire a story! And of course I'm hoping while my readers are flicking through the pages of my book, I'll transport them for a few hours to an exotic, tropical island!

Is there a “dream destination” you’ve always wanted to visit? Do you have a favorite setting for a romance novel?

Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you! If you want to be in the draw to win a signed paperback copy of Best Man and the Runaway Bride, also include your email address.

Kandy Shepherd’s Best Man and the Runaway Bride is a July 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram

Sportsman heroes - Kandy Shepherd

 What are your thoughts about heroes as sportsman? (Or heroines as sportswomen, for that matter.) Sports stars are physically at their peak, often young and handsome, disciplined and, for those at the top, often very wealthy. That should surely tick a few boxes for a romance hero.

Yet for a long time, it seemed sports heroes were not a good thing in romance novels. When I proposed a soccer star hero to my Harlequin Romance editor, I wondered would it fly. To my relief, she loved the idea.

A recent browse of the bookstore shows football, baseball and hockey heroes—the sportsman hero is alive and kicking (sorry!) in romance. There are also wonderful rock star heroes—another no-no in the past—but that’s a different story.

My gorgeous soccer star hero just might have been inspired by David Beckham!

 Mitch Bailey, the hero of my June release From Paradise to…Pregnant! is an international soccer star with all the fame, adulation and incredible pressure to stay on top of his game that entails. There’s no room in his life for a committed romance—he can’t afford to be distracted.

Maybe that’s why sports-star heroes were seen as difficult in days gone by. There’s all that training and travel and beautiful women throwing themselves at their idols. But when Mitch meets up again with his high-school friend Zoe Summers he begins to wonder if he’s missing out. Zoe, however, couldn’t think of anything worse than being in the constant media spotlight that Mitch lives under.

Needless to say Zoe and Mitch have a few problems to sort out before they reach that happy-ever-after ending!

Do you like/dislike a sports playing hero? I’d love to know—please share your thoughts with a comment!

I’m giving away one signed paperback copy (or an e-book if you’d prefer) of From Paradise to…Pregnant! Make a comment to be in the draw. Please include your email address if you want to be included in the draw.

North America cover

From Paradise to…Pregnant! is my June 2015 release for Harlequin Romance and is available now in print and e-book.

UK cover

Kandy Shepherd is an award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the

Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook and Twitter

Photo of David Beckham by Regular Daddy from Wikimedia Commons

From Paradise to…Pregnant! - Kandy Shepherd

People often ask me where I get my ideas for my stories. The answer is from anywhere and everywhere—I’ve even dreamed the start of a book!

But I have a very clear memory of what inspired my June release for Harlequin Romance From Paradise to…Pregnant!

US cover for From Paradise to...Pregnant!

 My initial inspiration for heroine, feisty Zoe Summers and international soccer star Mitch Bailey’s story was a couple I noticed in a hotel where I was staying. (Beware—writers are always people-watching and taking notes!)

The man was drop-dead handsome, and confident and charming with it. Maybe he was someone famous that I didn’t recognise—who knows? His wife was very plain and reserved though elegantly dressed. He obviously adored her and couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She positively glowed with the aura of a well-loved woman. Just looking at them together made this romance writer smile!

It made me want to write a story about two people who seem to be total opposites with the odds stacked against them—and Zoe and Mitch came to life.

UK cover for From Paradise to...Pregnant!

 Then I thought about how interesting it might be if they had met before—say at school—but were never likely to meet again as their lives had gone in such very different directions. And then what if they were thrown together by a natural disaster—trapped in an earthquake, for instance? To make it more interesting, what if there had been unfinished business from the past between them?

So I put Zoe and Mitch on the tropical island of Bali, unbeknown to each other staying in the same resort. Then an earth tremor hits…  Maybe they seek comfort in each other’s arms—and maybe that adds a whole lot of complications they weren’t expecting that take them from one side of the world to the other!

I thoroughly enjoyed getting these seeming misfits together. 

Have you ever had a disaster happen on your vacation? Or something surprising?

I’m giving away two signed, paperback copies of From Paradise to…Pregnant! Make a comment to be in the draw. Please include your email address if you want to be included in the draw.

 From Paradise to…Pregnant! will be released on June 02, 2015 and is available for pre-order now.

Kandy Shepherd is an award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the

Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook and Twitter

Paradise calling

 I’m sharing the cover for my June release from Harlequin Romance, From Paradise to…Pregnant!

 I just love this North American cover, thank you, Harlequin art department. It depicts an important scene in the book, and the hero and heroine are very like how I imagined them to be.

 I also love the emotion visible between Zoe and Mitch. “They’re really into each other,” my daughter said when she first saw it. Of course they are—there’s a pregnancy involved here!

The first part of the story is set in the beautiful tropical island of Bali in Indonesia. Bali is a very popular destination for visitors from around the world and is a particular favorite with Australians.

 I spent a week in the gorgeous resort area of Seminyak last year with my husband as we celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

In fact I wrote the final words of From Paradise to…Pregnant! while lying around next to the lovely lap pool in our private villa. (Yes, I know I was meant to be on vacation, but writers never really stop!) There’s nothing quite like researching a location—especially when it’s somewhere as fabulous as Bali!

This book is a reunion, friends-to-lovers story and I loved writing it.

Here’s the blurb:

One night with consequences… 

A week in Bali was accountant Zoe Summers's dream vacation. But when the tropical island paradise is hit by an earthquake, she's trapped—alongside Mitch Bailey, sports star and blast from her past! High on the thrill of survival, they seek comfort in each other's arms… 

It was only supposed to be one night, but Zoe soon discovers an unexpected souvenir—she's pregnant! Now Zoe and Mitch will have to ask themselves…can one night lead to parenthood and a lifetime of love?

From Paradise to…Pregnant! is a June 2015 release from Harlequin Romance and is available for pre-order now.

Kandy Shepherd is an award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

 www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook and Twitter

Blissed out in Bali - Kandy Shepherd

I’ve just got back from a week of utter bliss in tropical Bali, Indonesia in honour of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Just us, with no other family or friends for seven entire days.

This is the life! Waiting for lunch to be served at the resort restaurant

We reckoned that a quarter of a century of happy marriage deserved to be celebrated with a special vacation. And we couldn’t remember when we’d last gone away on a trip like this!

Our vacation was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary

People asked were we having a second honeymoon in the place where we had our first honeymoon. Actually, no. Our first honeymoon was three nights in a humble beach cottage that was kindly loaned to us by a friend of a friend. It was memorable for many reasons, not least of which we took our cat with us!

Tropical fruit juices were the order of the day

To tell the truth, the choice of the Bali destination was more mine than hubby’s. He’s rather more active than I am and didn’t know how he’d deal with just relaxing, reading (and in my case writing!), spa treatments, swimming, and eating wonderful food we didn’t have to cook (or clear up afterward). One thing was for sure—he refused to go shopping!

Indonesian sate with peanut sauce and red rice--the rice was something new to me and scrumptious!

Just a day into the break and he was thanking me wholeheartedly for booking the small, villa resort in Seminyak (on the west coast of the island of Bali) and giving us both a chance to wind down, relax and just talk to each other without everyday demands getting in the way.

The sunsets on the beach at Seminyak were spectacular

It was one of those vacations that I couldn’t fault—I loved every minute of it. The weather was perfect, the resort divine (The Elysian) and the Balinese people as charming and hospitable as we remembered from our first visit to Bali fourteen years ago.

A writer's work is never done--how inspiring to write under the shade of a frangipani tree!

Will Bali feature as a location in a future book? As it is such a romantic destination, I can certainly say “yes” to that!

What about you? Do you have a favorite vacation destination? Do you like a vacation packed with activities or one where you laze around? Did you have a memorable honeymoon—or second honeymoon? Please make a comment, I’d love to hear about it, and you can go in the draw for a free copy of my Harlequin Romance The Summer They Never Forgot to give away—either a mass market paperback or via an Amazon gift voucher for an e-book.

Please include your email address in your comment if you want to be included in the draw (and let me know if you prefer print or e-book.)

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.  The Summer They Never Forgot is Kandy’s first release from Harlequin Romance in the US, the UK and Australia. Watch out for her Harlequin Romance The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner to be published in July 14.

 Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com