Nicole Locke: Where's the Choice?

There’s a poem I read years ago. It was about ice cream and a little girl. When presented with a choice between two flavors, the girl replied, ‘Both!’ If anyone knows of this poem, I’m desperate to read it again.

I’m not desperate about grocery store choices. Holy Moly are there a lot of food choices in America. And for a person who doesn’t like to shop, I am deeply flummoxed with the food here.

For example, I went to the store for coffee. There were 50 brands staring back at me. I’d like to say thank you again to that kind lady who approached me slowly, and now that I reflect on it…a little warily, and suggested a brand though I never asked her. Did she see my panic? Did she wonder if the store would close and I’d still be there?

I’d also like to say, I’m not crazy Mr. Laughing-At-Me in the candy aisle. Yes, every woman talks to herself while choosing chocolate bars. When did America get so many choices in chocolate bars?  Did I want chocolate with natural mint, with quinoa and black rice, with bacon? No, I simply wanted plain dark chocolate, but that was in a different section altogether. And let me tell you, you don’t want natural mint in your chocolate. There were leaves in it. Leaves!

Don’t get me wrong. I understand about different flavors. And in that, I want choice, but when the choice means there is bacon in my chocolate bar, I think we’ve gone too far.

Or have we? Should there be limit on choice? Because, obviously, marketing was done with a panel of people. They liked chewing leaves while chocolate melted in their mouths. So maybe choice is okay.

Maybe it’s not the novelty foods I find the most frustrating. Maybe it’s just that all the novelty foods have replaced the staple food.

It’s not the choices of food I’m missing, but the variety. Why does my store have 50 brands of coffee, but I had to find a clerk to show me where the green lentils are? I’ve been to many stores. Either the pulses are on a shelf in the back on the bottom and covered in dust (true!), or they are put in fancy bins.

Why are spices so limited? Where’s the yogurt? And why is staple food in bins with gasping prices?

I’m not a gourmet cook. One of my favourite ‘recipes’ is spaghetti, butter and marmite with parmesan cheese (thank you, Nigella). I’m not picky. I’ll happily eat those eggs and ham.

I simply want to be like that girl with the ice cream. Not with two choices of ice cream, not with only novelty, I want staple food like it used to be, too. But I wonder if I’ll ever get that choice….

I know I’m new back to America and shopping, but what's the strangest food you've come across?

 

Nicole :-)

To find out more about Nicole Locke, visit her website, and follow her on Twitter.

 

Celebrating the Release of The Knight's Broken Promise, the first book in the Lovers and Legends series!

 

 

 

 

 

Virginia Heath: Lost in Translation?

This week I am heading back to the USA. A country I love and have visited many times. And will continue to. Top of my bucket list is to visit every single one of the 50 states. As a Brit, American culture is so interchangeable with ours that in many ways it is a home from home.

Almost.

There are certain things about the Land of the Free that baffle me and only one which truly makes me mad. The tea.

Proper tea- made with tea leaves. The words on the mug are true!

Tea is our national drink. It is the perfect accompaniment to gossip, happiness, sadness and fatigue. It gives us Brits something to cling to if people insist on discussing uncomfortable topics like feelings. We start and end our day with the stuff. If a typical human is 65% water, then your average Brit would be at least 50% tea. There is nothing worse than a bad cuppa. A brit will tolerate poor service stoically, choke down a plate of bad food in a restaurant without complaint- but serve us a weak, lukewarm brew and expect terse words.

American tea is alien. Everything about it is wrong. If you ask for tea in a restaurant you get given a cup of tepid water with a teabag on the side.

ON THE SIDE!

When it should be immersed in that water.

Brewing.

If you dunk said bag of dust, masquerading as tea, into the water, at best you get a beige drink when every Brit knows tea is a beautiful, steaming, golden brown! Hotels are worse. They expect you to make tea in a c-c-coffee machine. Just typing those words makes my blood boil. And seriously, do not get me started on the practice of providing coffee creamer when you ask for milk… it is a Traves-tea. No wonder everyone in the states drinks coffee.

But fear not, I would ever allow something as petty as a simple hot drink to put me off my American adventures. I am prepared. Proper English teabags and my trusty travel kettle are already packed in my suitcase- once I get stateside, the very first thing I am buying is milk! And I still love the USA...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Virginia Heath writes witty, fast-paced Regency romantic comedies with a modern twist for Harlequin Historical and Mills & Boon.

Her latest novel, The Discerning Gentleman's Guide, out now.

You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or in a tea shop somewhere.

Past, Present and Future...

For the past few years I've been writing contemporary romance for the Harlequin Presents/Extra Mills and Boon Modern Romance lines, but that hasn't always been the case. For many years I wrote factual articles for magazines. Then I branched out into historical fiction. This was in the days before the Internet - and although that makes me sound ancient, it wasn't really so long ago! Instead of using a word processor I wrote all my articles and stories out in longhand. Research meant a forty-mile round trip by car to the county library, with the children. There was no pushchair access in those days, so I had to leave the buggy outside and cart babies and notebooks upstairs. While I worked, they played under the table. They spent so much of their formative years surrounded by books it's no wonder they both grew up with a love of reading. After tagging all the way home again, I incorporated my research into the final draft of my manuscript then typed it up (duplicated with the help of reams of carbon paper) and sent it off to the publisher. After time spent first in the postal system and then under editorial consideration, my editor would ring to discuss any revisions then the original manuscript would be sent back for alteration and resubmission. The whole process took forever, and cost a fortune in paper and postage. Things are so much easier now, with on-line research and virtual documents flying backwards and forwards via email.
Recently, I wrote some pieces on my blog http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com about how things have changed and the revolution of epublishing. I had so many interesting comments and emails, I decided to experiment with the situation myself. The result is the re-issue in ebook form of "Lady Rascal", an historical romance which was originally published only in the UK  and Europe by Harlequin in their Masquerade line. It opens in Paris during the summer riots of 1789. That's a bit early to be called a Regency Romance, but publishers love their categories and 'Revolutionary Romance' doesn't strike quite the right note! Madeleine is a chancer with nothing to lose, who dresses up in "borrowed" clothes. When English gentleman Philip Adamson mistakes her for an aristocrat in danger, Maddy plays along. She hopes to benefit from his good nature, but soon finds his sense of honour has put his future in grave doubt. He needs her streetwise determination as much as she wants his sophisticated charm...

I can remember gazing out of my window at falling snow while I was working on the summer night seduction scene of Lady Rascal. Warm starlit evenings in the arms of my handsome OH seemed an awfully long way away. He was working in New York at the time and the baby was tormented with chickenpox. Writing helped me escape to a time when the countryside was green and lush, with a happy ever after guaranteed. I'm really excited to be bringing Lady Rascal to a worldwide audience, and I hope you get as much pleasure from reading it as I did from writing it. 

Do you have an ereader? Do you think it will ever replace "real" books in your affections? One of the very last signed author copies of the original Lady Rascal paperback is on offer for a comment picked at random.

Christina Hollis is a best-selling writer of romance, who lives her dream life with her family in the middle of an English bluebell wood. You can visit her website at http://www.christinahollis.com, and read her blog at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com


*UPDATE*: Lory's name was first out of the hat in the draw for a signed copy of the original paperback version of "Lady Rascal"!
Congratulations, Lory! If you could mail me at christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk with your snail mail address, I'll get your prize into the post asap.

Thanks to everyone who posted. I really enjoyed our "chat" and your good wishes for the success of Lady Rascal. I hope you can all get to enjoy it, whether by way of ereader, or a good old printed book!
Best wishes
Christina x

My Perfect Man...

I was going to call this blog 'My First Love', but that could cover anything from a puppy to that Big Mistake I made as a teen (I'm sure you've been there too, when the guy you couldn't resist turned out to be a total disaster). That's why I changed the title of this blog to The Perfect Man. In my current release for Harlequin Mills and Boon, The Count's Prize, heroine Josie is still regretting her own Big Mistake. She's landed the ideal job in the perfect location, where she can bury herself in her work, well away from the kind of man who trampled all over her feelings.  Then she meets Dario, her host...

He was standing so close to her, Josie could feel his presence as well as catch the delicious drift of his aftershave. It gave her a tremulous feeling deep within her body.

What's happening to me? I've come here to work, she thought in alarm, glancing up at him.

Dario was gazing out across the view, lost in thought. At that moment, as though feeling her gaze fall on him, he turned his head and their eyes met. Another sensuous ripple thrilled straight through her. 

And, as if knowing what was going through her mind, Dario granted her a slow, sweet, irresistible smile.

Copyright, Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd. 2012

There's big trouble ahead for Josie and Dario, but her initial feelings are based on what happened when I met my OH on a blind date. It had been arranged for me by my mother - and be honest, who wants to fall in love with someone who has your mum's approval? She hadn't liked my boyfriend of the moment, so when he rang up and she answered, she told him I was going out with someone else. In those days I was still doing what my parents told me, so I had no option but to go out that evening with the next door neighbours, and their unexpectedly back-on-the-market brother. I started the evening determined not to enjoy myself but one look at him and - wow, I was lost. He wasn't (and isn't!) just charming, he was clever and drop-dead gorgeous, too. Funnily enough, when my first Modern Romance (The Italian Billionaire's Virgin) was published by Mills and Boon, the hero pictured on the cover bore a striking resemblance to the blind date who became my husband. We'll be celebrating our thirtieth wedding anniversary in a few months time. Those years have been so happy, they've gone by in a flash. I'm so glad I went out on that blind date, when running away felt like the best option.

Is there a romantic story attached to your perfect man? There's a signed copy of The Count's Prize for a comment picked at random.

Christina Hollis writes Modern Romance for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, when she isn't  working in the garden, busy with her bees or daydreaming about resuming her abandoned Classical Studies. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.com, http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com on Facebook and on Twitter, where she tweets as @christinabooks.

Looking Back While Looking Forward...

My daughter will soon be home for the holidays. It only seems five minutes ago that we were bringing her home from hospital as a tiny baby.  Now she's about to start her final year at university.  She's studying Archaeology, which means the summer is her busiest time. This year, she'll be spending some of her  time working at a Roman site in the south of England, where last season she found all sorts of beautiful and poignant things, from beads to babies. Archaeology is a bit of a cinderella discipline. They also serve who only stand and sift spoil heaps, so I thought it was about time the "trowel jockeys" got their very own heroine! Josie is a dedicated academic who gets the chance of a lifetime in The Count's Prize, my July release for Harlequin Mills and Boon which you can find at http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/books/Modern/The-Counts-Prize.htm. Josie wants to develop a course based on the beautiful di Sirena estate, but its notorious owner Count Dario is a volatile character. He can't resist the challenge of a woman so wrapped up in her work that she spends her days in shapeless working clothes, turning pink in the sun and getting covered in dust. Unlike the other women in his life,  Josie is no pushover. She knows what she wants, so when her best friend finally tempts her into attending a glamorous party thrown by Dario she transforms herself into a woman who has an unexpected effect on him. She revives feelings that have remained buried deep within him after a tragedy hardened his heart. 

With one hand, Dario lifted a glass of champagne from a nearby tray then stuck the other hand into his trouser pocket and sauntered casually to the edge of her group.

'Josie...'

He spoke, and she smiled.

Dario took that as his cue to advance and stand beside her. Instead of lifting her fingers to his lips as he had done the first time they'd met, his hand went straight to her waist as he kissed her lightly on the cheek. She didn't flinch from either gesture, he noticed with a delicious kick of pleasure.

'How are you enjoying the party?'

'I didn't think you'd recognise me,' she said apprehensively.

'I would know you anywhere,' he said, and it was true. She was so lovely, he couldn't bear to leave her alone for a moment. No one knew more than he did how every single second in the company of a beautiful woman should be cherished. One wrong word, one thoughtless gesture and happiness could be snatched away for ever. Nothing could have persuaded him to risk going through the pain he'd endured in losing Arietta - but he wasn't prepared to see Josie fall prey to one of his guests. The idea of a treasure like her in the clutches of another man was unthinkable...  

 ...she was looking at the woman he had abandoned when he'd blazed a trail around the room to her.

'Oh, that's just Tamara,' Dario said casually, stepping back.

On the other side of the room, the blonde raised one hand and blew him a kiss.

'Hmm. It doesn't look as though she's saying"Oh, that's just Dario," to those other people,' Josie said stiffly.

Dario felt a surge of purely male satisfaction. She was jealous - tonight she was as good as his.

Copyright Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, 2012.

That's what Dario thinks - but Josie has very definite ideas about the way she wants to be treated and loyalty is top of her list. Commitment equals pain for Dario - so when Josie walks away he has to face the past he's sworn to forget, or face losing her forever...

The Count's Prize was an absorbing book to write. I could let myself go on the warm, exotic locations I love so much. We're experiencing some dreadful weather here in England at the moment, so distraction is a good thing. I hope it's blowing itself out ahead of some good weather in time for my darling daughter's stint on that Roman excavation!  

Where's your favourite destination when you want to get away from it all? It can be real or fictional, and there's a signed copy of The Count's Prize for a comment picked at random.

Christina Hollis writes Modern Romance for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, when she isn't  working in the garden, with her bees or daydreaming about resuming her abandoned Classical Studies. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.com, http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com on Facebook and on Twitter, where she tweets as @christinabooks.