A Royal Wedding and a freebie!

I'm moving house and so I'm crazy busy right now, but I had to drop in and let you know that the fabulous Invitation to a Wedding quartet from Sophie Weston, Jessica Hart, myself and Anne McAllister, published by Tule, is now available in paperback. Just look at those luscious covers!

It won't have escaped anyone's notice that we have a real royal wedding this spring and we were all delighted to hear that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have - like Hope and Jonas, our own royal couple - decided to invite the locals into the grounds of Windsor Castle to witness the arrival of the bride and the royal party at St George's Chapel. We are all smiling.

And here's the freebie..

It's Read an eBook week and to celebrate I've made a number of my books free at Smashwords including a rare opportunity to download my Little of Book of Writing Romance.with a click that will cost you nothing.

Here's the link so don't delay - grab them for your reader! 

Where are the books you love?

2017 was a very bad year if you prefer to read your romance in a traditional paperback book. Publishers have been cutting back on paper release of series romance - not because readers don't still love them, not because the they are no longer being written or published, but because shelf space has become such a rare commodity.

With the loss of bookstore chains such as the much-lamented Borders and with supermarkets cutting space for everything but the fastest moving titles, publishers have been forced to reduce paper sales of some of their series to their bookclub subscribers and online sales.

Series that are now digital only include Harlequin Romance but to reassure you, they are still available in paper direct from Harlequin and from Amazon.

But...

While online sales and digital work for the dyed-in-the-wool, hard-core fans who know what they like, have authors they auto-buy and have access to a debit or credit card, the sad fact is that the point-of-sale reader, the woman who, passing the shelf during her weekly shop and makes a spontaneous decision to buy a book, no longer has the same wide choice.

She may have always bought from her favourite series in the past, grabbing one with the right colour cover and buzz word title in the few seconds she has to make her choice because she knows it will deliver the romance hit she loves. If that option is no longer open to her she may choose from what is there - or not buy at all. It's a bit like the supermarket reducing your choice of cookies to a few top-selling brands. Their only interest is, after all, the bottom line and they figure that you'll buy something even if it isn't your first choice. Or, of course, you may go somewhere else. If it's cookies, not a problem. If it's books it may mean the local thrift shop where there will be secondhand copies of the books she loves. At least for a while.

Meanwhile the  paper copies are only available in limited numbers and you can't buy them secondhand. Even when there are fabulous deals - a lot of my books are on special offer at the moment - they are available only to those with an expensive eReader, computer or phone and access to a debit or credit card. For vast numbers of readers the books will simply have disappeared. They won't know why. They'll merely shrug and stop looking for them. Maybe they'll stop reading romance.

I have no answers, just a sore heart.

Christmas Treats

A flying visit between hospital visits - the dh is not well - to wish you all the very happiest Christmas and a peaceful New Year

In the spirit of the season I'm tossing out all these books that are on special holiday bargains offers at the moments.

Wild Fire  and Eloping With Emmy are just 99c in the US  and For His Eyes Only is just $1.99 in the US.

In the UK there are quite a few of my books available for just 99p - Vettori's Damsel in Distress, Her Pregnancy Bombshell, Secret Baby Surprise Parents...

Grab a handful for your own Christmas stocking and spoil yourself after the holidays when you have time for a little toes up.. :)

In the meantime, I wish you and all your loved ones -

Goodbye summer...

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It’s not often that I say I’ll be glad to see the back of summer, but this one has been so stressful that I’m looking forward to a change of seasons, a change of pace and hoping the chill will cut down all the bad vibes that seem to have made this year such a stressful one both personally and internationally.

Special thoughts for everyone affected by floods in Texas and Louisiana.

I’ve had to put the book I’m writing on hold while family concerns come first but I have finally managed to launch one of the books for which I reclaimed the rights from Harlequin a while back. It’s been re-edited, freshened up, given a little bit of an update and a fabulous new cover and at the moment it’s available for a re-launch price of just 99c (99p if you’re in the UK, or 99c anywhere if you use the Smashwords link - download to any device).

Trouble in Paradise was originally published by Harlequin Mills and Boon - for marketing reasons that had nothing to do with the story - under the title All She Wants for Christmas.

It has now been given a facelift and it's original title, so grab it now at the special launch price of 99c (US), 99p (UK).  Actually if you use the Smashwords link (they cater for all ebook platforms) you'll only pay 99c wherever you are!

* * *

Hugo Griffin thinks Maddy Osborne is a spoiled little rich girl. She thinks he's a gigolo who is after her vulnerable godmother's fortune.

Stranded alone together on Paradise Island, forced to work together to survive, they have all the time in the world to discover that first impressions can be misleading...

Taste test here.

Here are the links -

Amazon US
Amazon Australia
iBooks
Smashwords
Nook
Kobo

The magic begins...

For every book there is a moment when the magic begins.

I'm working on a duet with the uber-talented Kate Hardy and much fun has been had putting our heads together, discussing ideas, locations, who our two heroines will be.

We've given them histories. They have an 18th century French smuggler, Henri Prideaux, as an  ancestor, which accounts for their French names - Agnés and Fleur Prideaux - and a castle with a leaking roof to live in. Priddy Csstle is in the south west corner of the UK - Dorset, Devon, Cornwall - and that's how the locals (way back in the 18th century) said Prideaux.

We've drawn up timelines, given them back stories, found them heroes, men with an agenda, men who will infuriate them, raise memories that will bring tears to their eyes, make them weak at the knees. Check them out on my Pinterest board.

We've given them dogs to love.  This is Dora, who belongs to Agnés. A grandmother they adore. A ton of responsibilities. And looming disaster.

That's all the stuff in notebooks, printouts pinned to my cork board, ideas swirling around in my head.

Now I have to stop playing with ideas, having fun on Pinterest, asking the questions that start the journey.

The fun is over. It's time to open up my document, type Chapter One and spin gold out of straw.


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Liz's latest book, Her Pregnancy Bombshell is available in paper and digital from

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon Australia
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Mills and Boon UK
Harlequin US

 

Summer at the Villa Rosa

When I’d delivered the finished ms for The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess — wonderful feeling! — my editor and I had a long discussion about what I might do next. She had a few suggestions but then asked if I’d like to write an author generated mini series with two or three other authors.

Oh, yes!

With Kate Hardy, Scarlet Wilson and Jessica Gilmore on board brainstorming ideas was a blast. These sessions started off quite sensibly with “themes”, graduated to outrageous with cyber space glowing red hot as our instincts to create mayhem for our characters took over and finally, once we’ve stopped giggling, stories began to emerge and we had the Marlowe sisters. Four young women whose lives were about to face a crisis.

Summer at the Villa Rosa was born.

But it’s not just about the stories. It’s about the place where they take place. For our mini series we created a beautiful Mediterranean island, not too far in the imagination from Ischia. So, you might well ask, why didn’t we just use Ischia?

Well, a real place confines you and unless you know it well you are going to make mistakes and, because we needed a royal family for the backstory, it had to be “independent”. Also, when you create your own world, you can play with the rules. If you want to get married in Italy, for instance, there are very sensible constraints. There’s a lot of paperwork and quite a bit of time involved. On a small, independent island that hasn’t become a “wedding destination”, things are much simpler. 😊

With our island and our heroines sorted, we created a crumbling pink villa overlooking the sea that had once been the love next of the island’s king. Pinterest is great for this stuff. You can see the images that inspired me here 

I lead off the miniseries with Her Pregnancy Bombshell. Pilot Miranda Marlowe, responds to her grieving boss's plea — "Help me, Andie..." and now she's expecting his baby. Afraid that the news will break him and, for the time being unable to do the job she loves, she goes to the Villa Rosa, needing time to think.

When Cleve follows her, offers to marry her for their baby's sake, there can be only one answer. Or will she have to save Cleve all over again? You can read the first chapter here

The Sheikh and the One-Handed Writer

It's been an interesting start to the New Year.

Those of you follow me on Facebook or Twitter will know that I broke my arm in the middle of January. There was a horrible week in which I had a slab plaster from shoulder to palm. Thankfully it was replaced with this much lighter contraption but it's a bad place to break and the prognosis is 8-10 weeks.

Since then I've been waddling around like a one-winged duck, unable to drive, unable to do the most basic things. Try opening a jar of your favourite spread with one hand, buttering a slice of bread, cutting up your food and you will see what I mean. :)  I'm calling this the one armed diet. Pulling on a pair of pants with just one hand reminds me of something from a Laurel and Hardy movie. Which has been another problem. Not many of my clothes have sleeves wide enough to cover the brace. Thank goodness for the best beloved's T-shirts!

Working has been a struggle. I'm writing one of a quartet of books for Tule at the moment with three fabulous authors Anne McAllister, Sophie Weston and Jessica Hart. Getting the words down has been a battle. The choice has been using voice recognition software, or typing one-handed, neither of which is much fun - it's been really hard to ge a flow going. On the other hand, the four of us are having a day out in the Cotswolds next week to familiarize ourselves up close and personal with the setting for our Invitation to a Royal Wedding series.

However on the positive front The Sheikh's Convenient Princess, published by Harlequin Romance has been storming away during February, garnering a very pleasing number of five-star reviews on Amazon and at Goodreads. Even readers who wouldn't normally choose a sheikh have loved Ruby and Bram's story.

You can read an excerpt at my website, or here are the links to The Sheikh's Convenient Princess 

Harlequin

Ibooks  Barnes & Noble

Kobo
 Amazon US
Amazon UK

Hopefully I'll be back in one piece next month when I'll tell you all about the exciting Summer at the Villa Rosa.

Happy reading.

New Year, New Me, New Book!

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A slightly belated happy new year to everyone here at Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs.

I’m not sure what it is about the start of a new year, the flipping of the calendar over from December to January that creates such a buzz; possibilities seem to open up. It’s like opening up a new notebook, picking up a brand new pen, the feeling that you can write a whole new chapter.

Like so many people I’m starting a weight loss plan – I’m not calling it a diet, because diets are something you start and maybe succeed with for a while, but in the end the weight just piles back on. 

I know I’ve been there, done that.

The weight loss has to be about food because between the dodgy hip and a shoulder that took a battering in a fall in December, serious exercise is not on the agenda at least for a while. And with contracts for three books I’m going to be spending a lot of time at my desk.

On the recommendation of a fellow sufferer I’m reading a book by Gillian Riley called Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating. I’m only a little way in but I’ve already recognized some things I do that I need to change.

Snacking in the evening, never passing the biscuit tin, eating too much of the cheese I love because it’s there when I open the fridge.  I’m not giving stuff up – well, except sweets and chocolate because, well really, they are just empty calories and I need to watch out for the danger of Type II Diabetes which is reaching epidemic proportions.

Oh, and the dh will give me £100 if I lose a stone (that’s English English for 14lb) by the end of March. It’s not the money; it’s the fact that he was moved to make the offer. The fact that he’s concerned that I’ve put on a lot of weight over the last year.

I was about to write that I know I’ll never be as slim as the day I had my first book published (and stopped running to work and instead just walked to my desk) but that’s setting myself up for failure. I’m going to lose those 14lbs and by then, if I concentrate, I’ll have broken some of those bad habits. I may, by then, feel up to the local Tai Chi class. And there’s absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t lose another 14lbs and when I have, I know that my hips and knees will thank me. I come from long lived genes and I do not want to spend the years running into my nineties in pain.

A new year and, hopefully, a new me.

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Liz Fielding’s 65^th book for Harlequin Romance, The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess, is published in February. You can pre order now at

Harlequin

Ibooks 
Barnes & Noble

Kobo 
 Amazon US
Amazon UK

Christmas is coming...I'm not ready...

I’m late for Christmas. 

My decorations are still in their hidey-hole in the roof, my lights are sitting in their boxes, the Christmas hanging basket that I’ve adopted instead of a wreath is still in the shed.

The Christmas short story I’d planned to write is still just a bundle of notes.

What is up at Fielding Towers I hear you shout?

Nothing bad, it’s just that we’ve had builders working in the house for weeks. Weeks of dust. Weeks of noise. Weeks in which everything has been out of place and upside down.

But finally the room is done, bricklayers have done their stuff. Electricians have worked their black arts. The plumber (a romantic who read one my books and fell in love with reading again) has moved and installed radiators. The painters have given me beautiful walls that are just waiting for pictures and I have battled the dust ninjas and fought them to an honourable draw – you can never win.

My grandchildren are coming this weekend (they don’t know it but they’re going to Disney Paris for Christmas!) and so now I have to get cracking and sorting out the decorations and putting up my tree.

There are gifts to be wrapped. Cards to be written, treats to be baked. Oh, and the small matter of a broken tooth to be fixed – the dangers of eating toast.

There is also a book to be written, but not this week. This week is spoken for.

I hope your holiday preparations are in better shape than mine.

Have a wonderful Christmas (with a ton of books under the tree) and may 2017 be a happy and peaceful year for everyone.