Book at Beachtime...

It hasn't stopped raining for weeks in the UK, but I'm that somewhere in the world readers are able to stretch out on the beach under a shady umbrella, or in their gardens, with a book.

There are a load of brilliant Harlequin Romances out there this month, to pick up at your local supplier - the perfect weight not to make your wrist ache while reading - or download onto your kindle. There are titles by Cara Colter, Shirley Jump, Jennie Adams, Rebecca Winters and of course, my own The Last Woman He'd Ever Date was published on the 3rd July.

I've hardly had time to talk about this book, since I moved into my new house on the crucial day! However, we've unpacked enough for me to draw up a packing case, open my laptop and drop by to tell you that this is one of my Maybridge books. The story kicks off when "good girl" (well, almost good girl) Claire Thackeray, late and in a hurry, runs into "bad boy" (with an agenda) Hal North - literally - and they end up entangled in a ditch.

As cute meets go, it's painful and muddy and brings back a heap of memories to Claire (who had a crush), and Hal, (who did not).

It's about then, that Hal's agenda gets thrown out of the window - although he fights manfully - and Claire begins to question what she's doing with her life.

It's light-hearted, funny, with just enough emotion tossed into the mix to make the perfect light summer read. I hope you'll enjoy it.k

Claire Thackeray: Hardworking single mom and gossip columnist. Hoping for the inside scoop on sexy billionaire Hal North,
aka her teen crush!

Most wary of: Gorgeous men who set her heart racing. (Been there, got the T-shirt—and the baby!)
Hal North: Bad boy made good. Back in his hometown as new owner of the Cranbrook Park estate. Determined to put his troubled past behind him.
Most wary of: Journalists—especially pretty ones, like new neighbor and tenant Claire Thackeray.

The Newest Harlequin Romance/Riva Author

I was going to be talking about my latest Harlequin Romance — The Last Woman He’d Ever Date — today, but instead I’m making way for the newest Harlequin Romance/Riva author in the Harlequin Mills and Boon line-up.

Charlotte Phillips entered the Mills and Boon New Voices competition last autumn and when she made it through the first round, I was the lucky author who was tasked with the job of mentoring her through her second chapter.

It wasn’t my job to write her second chapter for her, but to work with her to show her where her own writing could be strengthened, offer a little advice on what could usefully be left out, give her pointers on what made a scene work and writing technique. Charlotte, let me tell you, was a joy to work with. Full of enthusiasm, excitement, passion, eager to learn, ready to listen, but with that deep down faith in what she’d written, in her story.

When she made it through to the final four I was absolutely overjoyed and although she didn’t win the competition I never doubted that she would make it through to publication.

Since reaching the final four of the competition, she has been working on a new story with the same wonderful editor who works with my own editor and does for me, what I did for Charlotte. Flo keeps me afloat, telling me what she loves about my story while homing in on the slightest weakness because, even after sixty plus books, an editor — standing back from the intense involvement that writing entails — brings a fresh eye to the work.

It’s part of the process.

I have known really good writers who have had wonderfully encouraging letters from publishers but instead of buckling down to the revisions suggested, were affronted, outraged by the suggestion that they change a word. Their mss are returned, untouched, to the drawer and never become that magic thing, a book. It’s their decision, their right, but while a mss is the sole effort of its author, a book is a collaborative effort. The ability to accept that your book isn’t perfect, that it is capable of stepping up another gear, is one of the essential elements that make a published author.

Meanwhile, if you want to share the advice that I gave to Charlotte, you can download Liz Fielding’s Little Book of Writing Romance from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony