Ahhh, finally, the rains came…

I feel like the heat has had a death grip on us for too much of this summer—like it’s left bruised fingerprints around our necks as it strangles us with dire humidity.

Okay, enough with being literary. It’s freaking hot out here, people! I’m thrilled to be looking out the window at some rain, finally. Feel free to remind me of that next time I complain about too much rain, okay?

We’ve got a guest spending the week with us: our youngest started medical school (!) and has an intensive semester’s worth of biochemistry in two weeks so she sent her beloved Rosie back here to visit. We’ve missed Rosie (and Gillian) since they moved out last month, so we’re happy to have her. Though Rosie isn’t necessarily sure about this as now that she’s back, she’s being mauled by  our new puppy Pippa (they're half-sisters!), who has some seriously sharp teeth and knows how to use them (and fails to take social cues from dogs that they do not want to have their ears severed by puppy  teeth!).

Between bouts of bared teeth, they are having plenty of fun, though. I took them out back this morning before the heat broke and had them fetch tennis balls till their tongues lolled from the sides of their mouths like slices of bologna. Now they’re resting peacefully, and maybe I'll have a fleeting moment or two to actually  write a book. Highly unlikely, as Pip’s quite the demanding pup and loves to make sure I don’t get work done. Good thing I adore that girl!

If your demanding 4-legged or 2-legged babies are giving you a break, I hope you can find some time for end-of-summer reading. I’ve been engrossed with Ask Again, Yes. Author Mary Beth Keane (a homegirl UVA MFA grad!) has quite a gift for keen observations about everyday humanity. Unfortunately, this has caused  me to read until the wee hours, which does me no favors with our pup (and Rosie, natch) wake with the sun.

Happy end of summer and let’s keep our fingers crossed for some sweater weather soon!

Great news! I've got another free book for you to try! Falling for Mr. Wrong from the Falling for Mr. Wrong series is now free here:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Google Play


Also Red Hot Romeo is free! A hot Italian, a gorgeous supermodel, and fabulous wines…what’s not to love?!

You can check out the first book in the Royal Romeo series for free here:

Kindle: bit.ly/RedHotRomeo
iBooks: http://bit.ly/RHRom
Nook: http://bit.ly/RHRNook
Kobo: http://bit.ly/KoboRHR
Google Play: http://bit.ly/RHRgoogle

Check out my Falling for Mr. Wrong series! Falling for Mr. Wrong,  Falling for Mr. Maybe, Falling for Mr. No Way in Hell  and Falling for Mr. Sometimes and Falling for Mr. Right are now available for pre-order.

Lastly, don't forget, book one of the It's Reigning Men series, Something in the Heir, is free here!

I hope you'll have a chance to check out my Royal Romeos series, which is a spin-off of my wildly popular It's Reigning Men series--please do check them out!


Skirt Chaser, Boy Toy and Cabana Boy are available! And Bird Dog is available for pre-order!

Happy reading!

    

  

  

          

    

Christina Hollis—Springing Forward Into Summer

This has been a year full of challenges. First, the weather took a turn for the worse. The winter had been long and gloomy, but not especially harsh. Then in March, when we might have expected signs of spring to come thick and fast, England was attacked by what the media called the Beast from the East. Feet of snow fell in a matter of hours and for days the thermometer was stuck well below freezing. You can find out more about that here. I'm glad to say it feels more like spring as I'm writing this—and about time, too!

Find out more at christinahollisbooks.online

My second challenge was to start a new blog. Computers really aren't my thing, so I'm careering along on a learning curve so steep, it's almost vertical. I'd love to know what you think of christinahollisbooks.online. My series You Can Write! has been exploring the ways writers can combat the fallow patches that every author experiences. One interesting method is by attending a refresher course such as the Explorers workshops run by Libertà Books. The tutors, Joanna Maitland and Sophie Weston, are both successful authors who have each written many best-selling novels. Despite their great careers, they know what it's like when the words just won't come. The ideas they share really are drawn from what they call their 'blood-stained experience'.

You Can Write! continues next week, with a piece on the differences in approach between writing for pleasure, and profit.

Who could resist this? Not me, that's for sure!

May is my birthday month, which brought both pleasure and pain. Nobody likes getting older, and I've found my battle to maintain a healthy weight gets harder and harder as the years go by. This year, DD's present to me was a wonderful feast prepared by Waitrose Entertaining. The centrepiece was a big red- berry cheesecake, which made a lovely contrast to my triple chocolate birthday cake. Now you can see why I have such a struggle with my weight! Luckily, my husband also gave me a perfect present. It was a new treadmill, to replace the one I wore out a couple of years ago and never got around to replacing.

Now I have no excuse. If I want to eat cake, I have to put in the miles on the treadmill beforehand.

It's been a long time since I last poured myself into a bikini. That's not going to happen again any time soon, but I might manage to make it into a one-piece swimming costume before the summer is over!

Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women. Harlequin published six of her historical novels under the pen name Polly Forrester, then her first Mills and Boon Modern Romance, The Italian Billionaire’s Virgin, was published in 2007. Since then, she has written eighteen contemporary novels, sold nearly three million books, and her work has been translated into twenty different languages. When she isn’t writing, Christina is cooking, walking her dog, or working on her garden.

You can catch up with her at https://christinahollisbooks.online, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Her current release, Heart Of A Hostage, is published by The Wild Rose Press and available at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage  worldwide.

Unexpected!–Anne McAllister

What’s the saying about life happening while you’re making other plans?  I think that goes double in Montana!

My husband and I just spent 10 days back in Montana.  We get there a lot because there are grandkids there, and we own a house there, and while a good part of our life is still in the midwest, we seem to spend more and more of it in Montana.

I love it. But it does, sometimes, make me stop and blink.

Last Thursday, October 3rd, it snowed. This is not wholly unexpected, just slightly unseasonal.  That is, it would have been if it had been a little snow.  We got a little. My son, working in Laramie and trying to get home, got over a foot on his journey.  A friend, driving from Kansas, ran into over two feet of it in western South Dakota.

And now?

It’s all gone. 

Of course, tree limbs have gone with it, Cattle have died.  Accidents have happened. My cousin, inexperienced in life with snow, slipped on the ice beneath the leaves and wrenched his ankle and knee.

Plans that we made never happened.  Some bad things did.  But some good things did as well. One grandson and his grandpa built a snowman they never expected to build.  My cousin and I, with time on our hands because of his fall, got to spend hours discussing the copies of our grandfather’s diaries that he’d brought to me. 

Kids went sledding.  We had a fire in the fireplace.  Our son got home safely, albeit two days late.  If we’d remembered to pop popcorn, it would have been a snowstorm for the scrapbooks.

It served to remind me that life is at least half unexpected. We might try to figure out all the possible outcomes, but there are some possibilities that never even occur to us to consider. 

I’m starting a new book – a new venture entirely because it’s going to be an ebook.  Not long ago I wouldn’t have even thought about that possibility. It’s a little scary.  And exciting. And, like the unexpected snowstorm, it brings with it a lot of unknowns.  It also brings with it a few knowns – I’m going to be working with talented, creative people. I’m going to learn new tricks.  And I’m going to set it in Montana – and the hero is going to be a cowboy.

Oh, I’ve missed my cowboys!  I doubted that I’d ever got a chance to write them again. And now, here I am.  And here he is! 

Ah, the joys of the unexpected!

Christina Hollis - Writing In Winter

It's often said that other countries have a climate, England just has weather. That's been very true in 2012. The year started with the country stricken by drought. Then it started to rain, and didn't stop for weeks at a time. Now we're heading towards the coldest months of the year, we're all hoping it doesn't turn to snow. We've been snowed in for days on end during both the last two winters. That's always a hazard when you live off the beaten track,  but it had been twenty years since such severe weather happened here. The good thing about spending long period inside is means there's plenty of time for writing. I always keep a notebook handy to jot down ideas and the short, dark days of winter are the perfect excuse to review them and plan the next year's projects. A diary would be ideal for this: unfortunately, each January 1st I start one with high hopes, only to become dispirited by the number of blank spaces I have to turn past each time I remember to pick it up. I've solved this problem by getting a  large book of blank pages and calling it a journal, rather than a diary. There's plenty of space for pictures and recipes as well as notes, and there aren't pre-printed dates to induce guilt. I like to include lots of different sources of inspiration, and it's lovely to be able to look back on things when it's too dark and cold to venture outside.

Despite all the rain this year we did manage a few walks in the surrounding countryside. OH took the top photograph on one of our rambles through the Gloucestershire countryside. He had to snap the scene between torrential downpours, then tweak the image to make the sky look lighter than it actually was, to give more contrast. He was aiming for the Old Master look, and I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?

What's your favourite source of inspiration at this time of year? There's a warming recipe from my winter journal for a comment picked at random!

Christina Hollis has written both Historical fiction and Modern Romance/Presents for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, as well non-fiction for national magazines and prize-winning short stories. Her current release, Lady Rascal is available for download from  Amazon, iTunes  and many other retailers, while her next book,  Winter of the Wolf, will be published in early 2013. She loves to hear from readers - you can contact her through her website or her blog.