Ripped!

by Anna Campbell

Apologies to those hoping to see gorgeous abs after reading that headline!

Snicker! I do so love to tease!

This is a gardening as lesson for life post. Which is kinda ironic as a gardener I am NOT!

I live basically in resort suburbia where people take huge pride in their yards. Sadly, my garden is the untidiest in the street. Hmm, sometimes the whole area!

But eventually even I will notice that things need to be cut back. Usually about the stage where the bougainvillea is breaking through the windows to eat me a bit like a hungry triffid.

It's about three years since I did my last major devastation in the garden. It involves getting my handy handyman in and his even more handy chainsaw, truck and trailer. And we cut and we cut and we cut until there's hardly anything left.

The blasted landscape in the photos is the result of three really heavy mornings' work. And I have the scratches to prove it! Ripping is not for sissies!

I live in a subtropical climate and everything grows like...well, triffids. We've had majorly big rainfall over the last little while - many of you would have seen photos of the floods over the Christmas period in Australia. I'm just north and south of some of the worst of that particular disaster. But it means all those lush tropical plants decided to become even lusher and tropicaler.

A couple of weeks ago, things had hit critical level in my garden so I decided to be ruthless. There were no ruths harmed in the production of this movie. Ruths were banned from the area!

I've still got to do one corner of the garden out front (I've included a photo below as an example of before so you appreciate quite how stark is the after. The whole yard was overgrown like that.) Then out the back - one more morning and it's done! Huzzah!

Three years before I once more need to rip my abs ripping at the alamanda and the buckinghamia (got to be careful how you say that one) and the grevilleas and the philodendrons which really DO look like triffids. Perhaps those triffidodendrons will want revenge after what I've done to them Eeek! I'll have to carry a machete when I get the mail!

Right now I'm in the throes of a first draft - yeah, this is the gardening into writing life bit of the post, let's pause while I philosophize, which is not to be confused with philodendronizing!

I write long and by the time I've finished that story, it will feel just as overgrown and out of control as my garden was a couple of weeks ago.

Now my garden is a lean, mean fighting machine that will grow back with amazing speed (or at least it did three years ago!). I'm looking forward to performing the same job on my manuscript. Chopping old growth and branches that go nowhere and weeds tangling up the beautiful straight growth of the story (yeah, I'm eternally optimistic!).

So do you have any major jobs on the go at the moment? Any major clean-up plans? Do you think gardening can be a metaphor for life? And what is it with those triffids?

Playing Tourist At Home!

by Anna Campbell

April was visitor month chez Campbell - not counting the Easter Bunny!

It was fun to break out into social outings and it was special fun to host an English couple I've been friends with for many years who have never been to my corner of the world before. Which meant we got to play tourist - and I got to play tour guide in places I hadn't visited for ages.

Great fun!

Anyway, I thought you might appreciate some of the photos we took. I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. It's on the east coast, about an hour north of Brisbane the state capital and about 600 miles north of Sydney. It's a resort area and we get lots of retirees because the climate is so benign (except for this year when it's generally done a good impression of a rainy bog). The coastal plain is a little like Florida - tropical vegetation and beautiful beaches and a lot of housing estates reclaimed from swamp.

It's the kind of landscape and lifestyle you don't get in England. So my friends used to love to come home in the evenings and drink gin and tonics watching the day fade over the lake at the bottom of my back garden and listening to the sea pounding in the distance. We also have an amazing selection of birdlife here and that was another thrill for my visitors.

Only about half an hour away, it's a completely different universe. Lush, rugged mountains with areas of remnant rainforest mixed in with beautiful green valleys and breathtaking views east across the coast or west across yet more mountains.

The first two photographs are of the Glasshouse Mountains, named by Captain Cook when he sailed past this coast in 1770. They're so primeval, I find them a bit creepy. But they're certainly spectacular.

The first photo of Mount Coonowrin (Crook Neck - you can read the Aboriginal legend behind these names here) was taken from a really cool cafe on the winding road up to a wonderful lookout where you can see all the mountains spread out before you like a magnificent canvas. The second photo is of Mount Beerwah and was taken on the road away from the lookout.

The Lookout Cafe has wonderful home-made desserts and great coffee and a view to die for across a field of mango trees to this volcanic plug like something from Jurassic Park. Perhaps even cooler, it had KANGAROOS! Yup, if you look carefully in the centre of this photo just above, you'll see some wallabies popping out to check on the visitors from far away!

And while we were there watching the wallabies, this cheeky butcher bird swung by to inspect us at even closer quarters. Butcher birds have the most beautiful song and are afraid of no man! I've had one sitting on my rubbish bin when I've been cutting back the garden a couple of feet away. He quite calmly watched me throw the cuttings into the bin without ruffling a feather!

Another wonderful place we visited was Mary Cairncross Park. This magnificent remnant of the original rainforest was donated to the public by two visionary sisters and named in honor of their mother, who was an early conservationist and suffragette when neither cause was fashionable in Australia.

This is a photo of the lush palm grove on the rainforest walk. It's a wonderful, hauntingly beautiful place to visit, full of breathtakingly tall trees and home to wildlife like small kangaroos called pademelons and many species of birds and reptiles.

For someone from England, this kind of subtropical rainforest is completely exotic and my friends were awed by the wonderful greenery and the sense of timelessness. Not only that, but you get a wonderful view of our old friends the Glasshouse Mountains from the entrance to the park!

So do you ever play tourist in your own home area and what do you show visitors when you do? If I was coming to see you, what would you take me to see to showcase the best of where you live?

Anna Campbell: Meet Midnight's Wild Passion!

by Anna Campbell

It's always an exciting moment when an author is staring down the barrel of a new release. Particularly for an author like me who only writes a book a year. Actually, I'm not sure if that's true about it being any more exciting - I'll have to check with my more prolific colleagues.

The big news in Campbellandia is that in two weeks on Tuesday, 26th April, my sixth Regency historical romance for Avon hits the shelves.

MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION is my take on the classic Regency romance that we all love so much. You know, balls and parties and the marriage market and the Season and debutantes and companions and rakes. Particularly, in this case, companions and rakes as my heroine Antonia Smith is companion to an innocent debutante and my hero Nicholas Challoner, Marquess of Ranelaw, is a dyed in the wool rake. In true Regency style, you'll get waltzes and duels and elopements and house parties and scandal. All those yummy elements that make a Regency such a delicious dish. Oh, and some steamy love scenes as well!

Speaking of both delicious and steamy, aren't the magenta cover and stepback gorgeous? I look at that stepback and think I'll have what she's having! Although I have to say I always get a shock when I see that picture - because Ranelaw is blond, my first blond hero in fact. All my other guys have been tall, dark and handsome, but Ranelaw turned up as a fallen angel and that's how he stayed.

Anyway, here's the blurb for MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION:

London's most notorious seducer, Nicholas Challoner lives solely for revenge…

The dashing, licentious Marquess of Ranelaw can never forgive Godfrey Demarest for ruining his sister - now the time has come to repay the villain in the same coin. But one formidably intriguing impediment stands in the way of Nicholas's vengeance: Miss Antonia Smith, companion to his foe's unsuspecting daughter.

Having herself been deceived and disgraced by a rogue-banished by her privileged family as a result and forced to live a lie-Antonia vows to protect her charge from the same cruel fate. She recognizes Ranelaw for the shameless blackguard he is, and will devote every ounce of her intelligence and resolve to thwarting him.

Yet Antonia has always had a fatal weakness for rakes…

Here's a link to an excerpt: http://www.annacampbell.info/wildpassion.html

You can see the lovely trailer Vanessa Barneveld made for me here:



The reviews so far have been great. Kathe Robin in RT Book Reviews gave MWP a Top Pick and said:

It isn't just the sensuality she weaves into her story that makes Campbell a fan favorite, it's also her strong, three-dimensional characters, sharp dialogue and deft plotting. Campbell intuitively knows how to balance the key elements of the genre and give readers an irresistible, memorable read.

Shayna at Joyfully Reviewed said:

Readers beware: do not start reading MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION late at night. You'll stay up, as I did, telling yourself you'll only read one more chapter before putting it down for the night. Next thing you know, you've finished this marvelous book and discover that it's nearly dawn. And, as you feel yourself dragging through the next day, running on little to no sleep, you'll say it was worth it. Because an evening spent with Antonia and Nicholas definitely is. Anna Campbell is a master at drawing a reader in from the very first page and keeping them captivated the whole book through.

Janga at The Romance Dish gave MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION five stars and said:

It has all the emotional intensity and sizzling love scenes that one expects in an Anna Campbell novel. It’s another AC keeper! If you are a reader who sticks to light-hearted romance, this book is not for you. But for those who love a passionate, poignant romance that shows the redemptive power of love, I highly recommend MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION.

You can preorder MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and at the Book Depository (postage free worldwide).

And check out this beautiful Australian cover. I've got simultaneous releases in North America and Australia and New Zealand for MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION. I can't wait to see the book on a shelf near me! I love the different takes each country has on my stories. And you'll notice that the hero on the front of this edition has got blond hair. Huzzah!

So tell me what you'd do to satisfy your own MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION. I promise it will go no further! Complete discretion guaranteed!

My New Website! - Anna Campbell

by Anna Campbell

Hooray, hurrah and huzzah, it's time to unveil my brand-new website!

Check it out at: http://www.annacampbell.info/

I started working on this with my brilliant designer Paula Roe months ago. I hope you like the finished product of all our hard slog.

Coming up with the basic design took us forever. I wanted to convey a number of themes to visitors. I wanted the elegance of the Regency period which is when all my books are set. I wanted to tie in with the British settings. I also wanted a design that spoke volumes about the atmosphere of the books - sensual, dark, passionate, romantic, dramatic.

You can see why Paula and I spent weeks shooting designs back and forth, can't you? I adore what she came up with and I think it covers everything I asked for.

We both had input in the final look. During my last trip to the U.K., I'd become enamoured of Sir Henry Raeburn's beautiful Regency portraits. I think these gorgeous pictures of men and women from the first quarter of the 19th century perfectly convey the glamorous, dangerous Regency world.

As far as the British element went, I showed Paula some photos I'd taken in my travels and we both decided these shots would be perfect to complement the portraits. I love that pictures I took myself are now part of this website which reflects my work.

Here are two of my favorite shots to make an appearance in the new design. The white building covered in camellias is an old pin factory rebuilt as part of the garden architecture in beautiful Bodnant Gardens in Wales.

The second photo is of a mullioned window in the impossibly romantic Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. You might know this house as it was used as Thornfield in the recent BBC JANE EYRE adaptation with Toby Stephens as Mr. Rochester. It's one of my favorite houses in England and definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the vicinity.

I'd said to Paula I wanted a really rich color scheme and she came up trumps with the red and the black and the gold. I adore that curling satin ribbon that links everything together. Pure design genius! And again, every Regency!

We've kept popular pages from the original website so every month, I'll still be doing My Favorite Things and Latest News and regular contests. But I've also added a press page and a one-stop spot for videos and book trailers.

And extra excitement for February, I've put up the Books Page for my May release MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION.

Here's the blurb:

London’s most notorious seducer, Nicholas Challoner lives solely for revenge. The dashing, licentious Marquess of Ranelaw can never forgive Godfrey Demarest for ruining his sister—now the time has come to repay the villain in the same coin. But one formidably intriguing impediment stands in the way of Nicholas’s vengeance: Miss Antonia Smith, companion to his foe’s unsuspecting daughter.

Having herself been deceived and disgraced by a rogue—banished by her privileged family as a result and forced to live a lie—Antonia vows to protect her charge from the same cruel fate. She recognizes Ranelaw for the shameless blackguard he is, and will devote every ounce of her intelligence and resolve to thwarting him.

Yet Antonia has always had a fatal weakness for rakes…

You can read an excerpt here.

To launch my website, I'm running an extra special contest for February and March. And the question is majorly easy too.

So this was my big project for this year (aside from writing my latest book!). Have you completed or are you planning any big projects of your own lately?