Awards Night 2011 !

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The Romantic Novelists' Association Pure Passion Awards night 2011 was FABULOUS!

Just look at this room

look at the Award Stars

look at the Ladies !

I arrived early and grabbed a photo opportunity by the fireplace in the Reading & Writing Room at One Whitehall Place. None too soon, because the room soon filled up with shortlisted books, authors, guests and champagne.

As with all RNA gatherings, masses of cheerful networking took place before we were called into the Gladstone Library for more champagne, canapés and the Awards announcements.

I didn't win the Love Story of the Year award, but I was thrilled that my lovely friend and Cambridge-Chapter-mate Louise Allen did for her fabulous historical romance The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst. And then another great friend Elizabeth Chadwick won the Historical Novel prize and a third, Jill Mansell, won the Romantic Comedy prize! I don't think it will be any great surprise to learn that more champagne appeared roundabout then...

The full list is:
RNA Love Story of the Year: The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst by Louise Allen
RNA Historical Novel Prize: To Defy A King by Elizabeth Chadwick
RNA Romantic Comedy Prize: Take A Chance On Me by Jill Mansell
RNA Romantic Novel of the Year: The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes
Lifetime Achievement Stars went to Penny Jordan and Josephine Cox

Elizabeth Chadwick, Jojo Moyes, Katie Fforde, Penny Jordan, Josephine Cox, Jill Mansell, Louise Allen

(photos 1, 5 and 6 taken by Marte of MLR Photo)
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World Book Night ... and beyond

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So, World Book Night has been and gone and lots of people bought books for other people and lots of people were given books and some people even competed with each other to see how many books they could collect for free.

Everyone had a great time, and why shouldn’t they? Books are enjoyable. Books make you feel better. Books can make you think, they can educate you, they can take you to faraway places and let you escape for a space.

So why don’t we buy more?

"Oh, because they are expensive."

Wrong. Buying a £4 Mills & Boon book is no more expensive than buying a £4 pair of stockings. Buying an £8 mass market paperback is no more expensive than buying an £8 pair of earrings. Buying a £19 hardback is no more expensive than buying a £19 bottle of nice wine.

So if it isn’t cost, what is it? Could it be because a book is visible evidence forever that you have spent money ENJOYING YOURSELF?

Think about it. Tights get ladders and holes and are thrown away. Earrings are small and easily hidden in the secret earring stash (everyone has a secret earring stash, right?). Wine is even better - it gets flushed through the alimentary system within 24 hrs and the bottle consigned to the recycling bin.

But a book is there forever. Proof that you have spent money on yourself. Proof that you have enjoyed yourself for a whole two, three, four hours. Proof that you have sat down and read instead of ironing or gardening or dusting or any of the other chores that we spend our lives avoiding.

Is that it? Well, there’s an easy solution - borrow a book from the library. You can return the evidence as soon as you’ve read it. Or treat a book as a throwaway: put it in the recycling bin along with your daily paper.

But maybe, just maybe, we should nail our colours to the mast. Stand up straight and tall and announce to the world that

WE LOVE READING!

There really isn’t anything wrong with it, you know.
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It's nearly Awards time!

Shortlisted books for 2011 Love Story of the Year

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Eeek, it's nearly the RNA Pure Passion Awards night and I DO NOT have an approaching cold. I am telling my throat that it does not have that incipient tickle signalling full-on loss-of-voice, my glands are merely over-excited, my nose is not running, and my slight headache has simply been caused by the adverse weather.

However, just to be on the safe side I am carrying the Big Box of Tissues around with me and am mainlining tea with a side-order of paracetamol.

Because Monday sees a big sparkly Romantic Novelists' Association party and the announcement of the Romantic Novel of the Year, the Love Story of the Year, the RNA Historical Prize and the RNA Romantic Comedy prize. Nothing is going to stop me dressing up, going to the Gladstone Library at One Whitehall Place with my pals, celebrating being shortlisted and cheering on all the winners!

[Excuse me while I put the kettle on again, please.]
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Panel at Lakenheath

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I haven't done any promotion for a while, so it was lovely to be invited to take part in "A Touch of Romance" at the library on Lakenheath Air Base in Suffolk last week.

After the nicest and most courteous car-search in history, my fellow panellists and I were made very welcome with tea and chocolate biscuits. I cleverly forgot to take my camera, but the room soon filled up with a mix of readers and writers. Everyone was attentive, laughed in the right places (thank you, you have no idea how encouraging that is) - and the questions were so interesting and flowed so well that we went way over our allocated time.

Even so, we barely scratched the surface when it came to research, developing characters and our own individual methods of writing. I think all of us could have talked for much longer!

Many thanks to Lakenheath Air Base library - and of course to my fellow Romantic Novelist Association members Louise Allen, Jean Fullerton and Roger Sanderson. I think we made a pretty good team!
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RNA Love Story of the Year 2011

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Woohoo! At last I can announce my sheer delight at being on the shortlist for the 2011 Love Story of the Year!

I was thrilled to be shortlisted in 2010 with my Regency romance Fair Deception - I’m stunned and ecstatic to have made the cut again this year with the sequel, Fortunate Wager!

Fortunate Wager is a story very dear to my heart as it is set where I live in Newmarket. I loved stepping back 200 years or so to find out what the town would have looked like and felt like then.

The Love Story of the Year is administered by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. The full shortlist for 2011 is:

Abby Green - "Bride in a Gilded Cage" (HM&B)
Jan Jones - "Fortunate Wager" (Hale)
Caroline Anderson - "Mother of the Bride" (HM&B)
Valerie Holmes - "Moving On" (Thorpe Large Print)
Mary Nichols - "The Captain's Mysterious Lady" (HM&B Historical)
Louise Allen - "The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst" (HM&B Historical)

To be in such company is an honour in itself, but the overall winner will be announced at the Pure Passion Awards Champagne Reception on Monday 7th March. The event takes place in the Gladstone Library at One Whitehall Place... and I for one can’t wait!
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Capturing the moment

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All writers are observers. We carry notepads, murmur into recorders, rattle fingers over netbooks. Which is all very well if you are scribbling overheard scraps of conversation, or if you are gifted enough to be able to produce spot-on descriptions with zero notice. (I'm not, by the way. We are talking blood, sweat and concentrated staring into space here.) But what if you want to capture the essence of a moment? Something that you can refer back to months or even years later. Something that takes you back to Yes, then, that was it, that was how I felt at that exact moment in time.

As I'm sure I've said before, I use poetry. It doesn't have to rhyme. It doesn't have to be grammatically correct. But done right it will have its own internal rhythm and it will have the right keywords, in the right order, to capture the moment.

Last night, waiting in the car park to give my son a lift home from the late bus, I saw something I'd never seen before. It was beautiful, scary, left my heart pounding in my mouth and was over in seconds.

So once it was settled in my head, over my last mug of tea, I wrote it into a poem. A tiny, reusable, time capsule.

This is an example. There was no time to film it.

Otherworld Running
by Jan Jones

After dark is a lawless world
of energy and dares
of scary, arc lit follow-my-leader
of grace
streamlined running
lithe darting
dodging
one-handed hurdling
trellis climbing
roof sliding . . .

Then, gone
all of them

as suddenly as they were there

melted away

The last bus rolls in
With yellow windows and solitary passengers

As I start the car my heart subsides in painful jerks to my chest
the echoes of slapping feet held suspended in my mind

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Things to lift the mood

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Yes, I know, they aren't remotely in season, but when it's a grey January day and you are walking head down against the drizzle past a market stall selling a pot full of your favourite colours, what else can you do but buy them?

Enjoy!

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1st Kydd Inheritance review!

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What a lovely way to be greeted on a grey Sunday morning! A Google alert to this review by the very fine Bookbag people.

Sue describes it as
"a splendid Regency romp with a heroine you will love for her acerbic tongue, kind heart and her no-messing attitude, be it bulls, uncles or Captains who are in the firing line"

and adds that
" I read it in one sitting so keen was I to find out how it all worked out, and just when I thought it was all going to work out very satisfactorily there was another twist in the tale and I was back on the edge of the seat."

I'm always grateful when people take the trouble to review a book. This particular one, coming unexpectedly on a grey day, has started a train of thought in my head which I'll muse over and return to tomorrow.

If anyone would like to order The Kydd Inheritance - either for themselves or through the library - Hale Books have a very attractive short-term offer on their website right now!
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New Year, new book

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It's nowhere near the end of the month, and look what arrived today! My copies of The Kydd Inheritance, that's what!

Aren't they lovely and shiny? I keep wandering past and stroking them.

This is the prequel to Fair Deception, and tells the story of Kit Kydd's sister Nell.

It is officially published on 31st January. If you order it from Robert Hale Ltd before then, you can buy it at an astonishing £13.29 (with free UK shipping) instead of £18.99 - the offer won't last long though, so be quick.
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Happy New Year!

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Thank you all for visiting during 2010. My 2011 wish for everyone is simply warmth, somewhere to rest your head, a slipper each and your very own Christmas toy.
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Penny Plain Pt4

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In all the busyness of Christmas, I have quite forgotten to blog about the final episode of my four-part Penny Plain serial.

If you haven't got the 18th&25th December double issue of People's Friend yet, you might want to look for it in the next couple of days before it vanishes off the racks.


I really enjoyed rising to the challenge of writing a serial. Next one in progress already!
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Happy Christmas!

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Having spent October and November in Christmas-denial (I get so cross when shops start decorating early!), the festive season has now suddenly snuck up on me. Unfortunately, a stinking cold has also decided to visit, meaning that I have never been less prepared!

However, the tree is now up

the cards are up

the lights are up

and even my mini-tree is on the kitchen windowsill.





Just the presents to go then. And the cleaning. And the shopping. And the cooking...

Hope you all have a fabulous Christmas!
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Penny Plain Double Issue

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Well, that was a surprise! Bought this week's People's Friend magazine and discovered that it was a double issue.

So, Part Two of the Penny Plain Mysteries is near the beginning on page 12

and Part Three is near the end on page 70


and Part Four won't be out until the 15th December!
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Gone visiting again!

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I've gone visiting again. Fortunately this did not involve putting on coat, boots, gloves, scarf and woolly hat because today I have been Norm-ed from the comfort of my own PC.

In other words, Norm Geras asks me some questions...
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Penny Grubb - The Doll Makers

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It takes a very talented person to hold a book launch in London on the snowiest day of the year and coinciding with a tube strike.

Fortunately, my Hale stable-mate Penny Grubb is also a talented writer, so there were plenty of people who turned up at the stunning Author's House (ALCS HQ) to celebrate the launch of her second crime novel The Doll Makers - including a colour-coordinated contingent from Robert Hale Books.

Ruby, Paola, Penny Grubb,  Nikki, Jan (me!)

Cracking book, Penny!
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