Newsletter, January 2014

Happy New Year!

Do you have any plans? Or is it too early?

I’ve booked to go to the USA in April for RT Booklevers’ Convention. I go every year, and I always meet fascinating people and have a great time. This year it’s being held in Atlanta. I’ve passed through Atlanta a number of times, but never stayed there. I start my visit with a trip to Los Angeles, so I’ll keep you informed, in case you want to meet up or come and see me at a booksigning!

Last year was an odd one, wasn’t it? While some wonderful things did happen, it seemed that the book industry took a one-eighty. Self-publishing established itself as a viable alternative, but lost its wild edge, so it’s not “the only way.” I do both, and I will continue to do so, as long as I can. So far, this is the best job I’ve ever had, but not the best paying one! But I didn’t start it because I wanted to make a fortune. Not that I’d turn it down if I got it, but I’m not holding my breath.

I have two books left on my latest Kensington contract, and there’s one Emperors of London book left to come out. The Emperors will return, but in different guises, in different series. I do try to ensure that a reader can pick up any of the books I’ve written and not be lost, although that can be a tough call sometimes. I will promise you that I will carry on writing about the eighteenth century. I’m deeply in love with that era and the people who lived there. I won’t abandon them. But I do have a new idea I’m working on, something that harks back to the very first books I had published.

As for my contemporary stories - after the success of my Omega Team book for Kindle Worlds, I have a new series to write, if I can find the time. I absolutely love the idea, but I need to find someone who is equally in love with the concept. I’m afraid self-publishing isn’t for me, apart from the occasional venture and for republishing my backlist. I don’t have the time, skills or budget to make it my primary mode of publishing. I’m too in love with writing, and continuing to make my stories the best they can possibly be.

The publishing world is changing, that’s for sure. So is the rest of the world. We’ll have to wait and see how it all goes! However, writing has always been my mode of defence, my shield. All my life. So here’s to another year of the extraordinary. And I’d love you to come with me.

New Release

Not precisely a new release, but I’m thrilled to tell you that Counterfeit Countess will be part of a new anthology, the Love Across Time set. That means you can get it, together with some other awesome books from writers who are totally talented, for a lower price. And the cover is gorgeous, just as a bonus!

It’s up for preorder on the 2^nd January, 2017, so we’re starting the year with a bang.

Tell me you can’t resist these beauties!

Buy Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gPQaSs

iBooks: http://apple.co/2hBys2t

B&N: http://bit.ly/2h6tMAy

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2hMqNkA

Enter the world of yesterday… Ten full-length historical and time travel romances by bestselling authors will take you from Ancient Egypt to the British Regency to the American West and more.

Sexy, stubborn heroes and beautiful, daring heroines follow their hearts to prove love does indeed transcend time. Explore another century and find your timeless happily ever after.

SCANDALOUS ENDEAVORS by AMANDA MARIEL

Lady Amelia’s willing to create a scandal to stay in her beloved England. A Scottish duke ignites her passion, but will she abandon her endeavor for love?

COUNTERFEIT COUNTESS by LYNNE CONNOLLY

John comes back from Waterloo to an inheritance he doesn’t want and a wife he didn’t know he had. The new Earl of Graywood discovers a woman claiming to be his wife, but he’s never met her before!

STEALING A LADY’S HEART by TAMMY ANDRESEN

Graham Fairfield needs a miracle, not the troublesome daughter of a duke, Lady Charlotte. When she is kidnapped, Graham knows it his duty to set his own troubles aside and save her.

FAITH AND THE TEXAS LAWYER by CARRA COPELIN

Faith Daniels is transported from 2016 Galveston, Texas to 1900 Galveston, in time for the most devastating natural disaster on record.

When a strange woman shows up inside Joe Benning’s house telling fantastic stories of disaster and destruction from a hurricane, can he let her go to save her life?

TIMELESS HEART by KARYN GERRARD

Suffering from burnout, elementary school teacher Sandra Cranston is on leave and trying to eliminate stress from her life. That plan is blown when she discovers an abandoned carriage deep in the woods. Inside is a man, Jerrod Ross, who fuels all of her wicked Regency dreams and fantasies. Take him home? Sure, why not?

FALLING by MEREDITH BOND

Long-hidden secrets, ageless magic, forbidden romance—nothing Erin could have ever imagined when she called on a hypnotist to cure her of her fear of falling. When fate gives Erin and David a second chance they need to find their happily ever after before things go very wrong… again.

ROLF’S QUEST by AUBREY WYNNE

A wizard, a curse, a fated love…

When Rolf finally discovers the woman who can end the curse that has plagued his family for centuries, she is already betrothed. Time is running out for the royal wizard of King Henry II. If he cannot find true love without the use of magic, his line will end.

PASSION’S CHOICE by JANIS SUSAN MAY

Tourist Elissa McLaughlin falls over the edge of the Hathor chapel reconstruction at Deir el Bahri, but when she lands she finds herself in the time of its construction. Taken as a pleasure woman by the general in charge of building, she soon finds herself constrained to a dangerous masquerade in the center of political intrigue that could change the course of Egypt’s history forever. It is no time to fall in love…

THE ART GALLERY by KATIE STEPHENS

When the sole purpose of the company you work for is to send people back in time to fix things, mistakes happen. Kara Brennan’s job is to pursue those mistakes and bring them back to the present before they can do more damage, even if her mark happens to be the dangerous Jack the Ripper. Kara’s lover and fellow teammate sent Jack through the wrong art gallery painting, but now Quinn Markham searches her out for another reason. Another mistake, one that could eliminate his very existence.

WITCH by ELENA KANE

When suspicion is everywhere, how can love be found? Especially, when you're the one they seek.

August news!

First a special offer, and only for you, the readers of my newsletter. If you’d like to review “Counterfeit Countess,” on Goodreads or Amazon, drop me an email. I have a limited number of ARCs up for grabs! (what you say in the review is of course up to you!) Write to me with the subject, “Counterfeit Countess ARC.”

I went to the RNA Conference at Sheffield University this month. So enjoyable to find out what’s happening in the British market. I sometimes get so bound up in the US market, that I forget to check! Publishers came and told us what they were up to, and I was so enthused by the women from Harper Impulse that I did an impromptu pitch to them! I haven’t done a pitch for a long time, and I remembered why—they make me very nervous! After you’ve poured out your heart and soul in a book, to tell someone what it’s about in ten minutes or less and get them as enthusiastic as you are is quite the task and I admire anybody who can do it successfully.

We’re having a heatwave, and the conference was full of people in beautiful clothes and even more stunning shoes (What is it with authors and shoes?) It’s lovely to hear everyone’s good news, and as elsewhere in the industry, the conference was buzzing with self-publishing news. Author Freda Lightfoot announced that she’s making six figures totally from her self-published work, and said that being dropped by her saga publisher was the best thing that ever happened to her.
I’ve gone into self-publishing in a small way, putting up backlist books, but I’ve loved getting their new covers done, and revising books that have done so well for me already. The last (for now) Symbiotics book came out in July. This book is close to my heart, because it relates something that actually happened to me. I was taken ill at home, so suddenly that a swollen knee became critical and they called an ambulance to collect me from the doctor’s surgery to take me to hospital. Within an hour of my doctor’s appointment, I was in an isolation room, stripped of my belongings and hooked up to a panoply of machinery.

As it turned out, I didn’t have septic arthritis, a bacterial infection that can lead to loss of limbs, or even death, but a severe flare-up of an arthritic condition I already had. But my, it was scary! So I wrote that into the first part of the book, and added a healthy dose of “what if…?” What if the patient next door was gorgeous and bored? What if he was rich enough to have a phone delivered to her room, and what if her condition was no accident?

The story blossomed from there, as I set about answering those questions. I’ve put an except below. Do check it out.

I’m working on a new book, the last of the Nightstar series, a book I never planned to write, but a lot of people, plus my editor, asked me if I was going to tell his story. So Chick Fontaine stepped up to the block and got his story. I still don’t know what to make of it. Half way through the book, I discovered something profoundly disturbing about Chick’s childhood, and the story took an unexpected turn. I had to stop and really think. Yes, it explained why he was a shambles personally, but almost manically organised in his career. The story is one of the longest I’ve ever written, and once I review it and edit it, I’ll know what to do. It’s the story of two people with father problems, but their problems are very different, and they need each other to help to come to terms with it.

Next? Several things. A box set of Hosts to Ghosts, for one. Reissues of more backlist books. A trilogy set in the STORM universe for Ellora’s Cave. A historical romance series with gods but very different from anything you’ll have read before.
Still sexy, though!

Here's the description of "Sixth Sense." And here's where you can buy it.

At first, all they can do is look at each other--then they agree to take a journey together, exploring each sense, one by one...
Jim is a computer genius; Poppy works at a bank. Normally they'd never have met, but a pair of unforeseen disasters pushes them together in desperate circumstances. They torture each other with each sense and when they finally come together, nothing can stop the combustive passion that burns them through the night. A gift of a basket of sex toys only adds to their shared adventure.
A shadow from Poppy's past threatens Poppy's life, and if Jim can't break the ingrained habits of a lifetime, he stands to lose her. If Poppy doesn't reassess her life, Jim could leave it before they learn what they really have.
Sight, sound, scent, touch, taste--so what's the sixth? They won't find out until they get there.