Book Titles

Remember Penny & Santo’s story? The book I finished a few weeks ago. I now have a title for it. THE ITALIAN’S RUTHLESS BABY BARGAIN. I’m not sure Santo was entirely ruthless, I wouldn’t like to think so, but hooks sell books so I dare not question it. It’s coming out in February 2009 which, as usual, seems a long time to wait. Looking at it another way, THE BILLIONAIRE’S BLACKMAIL BARGAIN which was accepted in October last year and is due out in September also seemed a long way away. But this year is rushing by so quickly that September will be upon me before I know it.

I now have the pleasure of meeting a new hero and heroine and I intend to spend this weekend getting to know them. I’ll maybe introduce them to you next week. They don’t have names yet but they will, I can’t write without a name, even though I sometimes change it part way through the book. Some names simply don’t suit some characters. It’s weird the way that happens. In one of my books I found myself calling my heroine a completely different name to the one I’d given her. I hadn’t even consciously thought about it. She just became that person.

Competition

Time is running out for my latest competition. If you want to be in with a chance of winning a copy of my two in one book TRAPPED and A TASTE OF PARADISE then you’d better get those entries in.

The competition’s running on my website but in case you haven't seen it here is the question again: On what date did I begin my writing career?

For the answer you need to read my bio, so take a quick look and email me your answer.

Good luck!

All sorts

My new grandson is now 2 weeks old and I've spent a lot of time this week at my daughter's as her partner has had to go into work. Oliver is such a joy. I've had the most wonderful time. I could go on about him all day - but I won't. I'll spare you the baby talk.

I'm still waiting to hear from my editor about my new synopsis so I'm not doing any writing at the moment. It feels strange and if it hadn't been for the baby I'd have most definitely been back at my desk doing something writing related. I-Heart Presents have asked me to do a blog later in the year so I could have been preparing that. And my book that has just been accepted (which so far does not have a title) is my 75th so I need to do a Dear Reader letter. And it's that time of year when the tax man will be expecting his accounts (the least enjoyable job).

I have a question. Yesterday I received two copies of Bedded at His Convenience in Afrikaans. I'm always interested in the titles different countries choose and I wonder if anyone can translate this one for me? Wraak in die bed.

Book challenge

I’d just like to add a reminder to everyone out there about eHarlequin.com’s 100,000 book challenge. Following on from last year’s success when the target was 10,000 books, and readers read an amazing 24,440 books, the plan now is to get 100,000 books read and reviewed. The actual challenge is to read 100 books in a year, 50 per cent of which should ideally be Harlequin romance books. But whatever number of books is read and reviews posted on reader’s blogs during 2008, Harlequin will donate the same number of books to the National Centre for Family Literacy. The aim of the NCFL is to promote learning and reading for disadvantaged children and parents so it is a very worth-while cause.

Here’s the link for anyone who is interested mailto:http://community.eharlequin.com/forums/book-challenge/how-add-book-review-100000-book-challenge

New baby

I’m bubbling over with excitement. I have a new baby grandson. I already have a step-granddaughter aged 19, a grandson aged 12, and now my daughter, who I thought would never have any children, has finally given us a grandchild. I wouldn’t be a doting grandmother if I didn’t say he was adorable. He is. He’s so cute that I have to share. Here he is at two days old.

Photographs

This is dawn in Barbados on the first morning of our cruise. Unfortunately we were never up early enough to see another spectacular sunrise!

I’ve just loaded all my photographs on to my computer and looked at them as a slide show. Our daughter bought us a digital photo frame for our anniversary, so what I’m going to do now is copy them on to a memory stick and insert it into the photo frame so that we can sit in our lounge and watch the display whenever we feel like it. I love watching photographs as slide shows because it brings back so many memories. I even have my screen saver set up as a slide show and it goes through every picture on my computer.

The alternative, before such technology, was getting out photograph albums – which is something I rarely did. So in this instance I embrace technology.

Contest

In all the excitement recently I’d forgotten about my contest. So apologies to all of you who were waiting anxiously to see if you’d won.

The question was: In which country is my September 2008 book – THE BILLIONAIRE’S BLACKMAIL BARGAIN – set? And the answer is: Australia.

I’ve persuaded my DH to wear a blindfold and pick out a winner. And the winner is…

Suzanne Bischoff

Suzanne, email me your address and I’ll send your prize – which is a copy of BEDDED AT HIS CONVENIENCE. The story of Keisha and Hunter and a marriage that went sour – and a reunion!

Caribbean

Amongst other things these last two weeks I’ve been away on a Caribbean cruise which I shall remember for a long time to come. The last time we did this was for our 40th Wedding Anniversary so it wasn’t an entirely new experience. What can I say about it? The weather was glorious, the food superb, the ship glamorous, and the islands exotic. I’ll be posting a photo now and then so you can see what I’m talking about but all I need now is sleep, and plenty of it. We flew back from Barbados overnight so were without sleep for twenty four hours; add jet lag on top of that and you can see what I mean.

While I was away I managed to jot down a few ideas for my new book, so I’ll be working on that in the days ahead. At the moment though all I want is my bed.