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
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Barnes & Noble
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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