Note About my Website

The people who provide my webspace, Virgin Media, are asking us all to upgrade from our old webspaces to a new address. So I did, but only after did they say they weren't doing forwarding, and we could no longer access our old webspace. So I can't put a 301 auto direct message on the page. If any of you know how I can do this, I'd so appreciate your help!
So if you type in the normal address, http://lynneconnolly.com you will be fine. but for the next few weeks, until Google and Bing catch up with the new address, clicking on the site there will get you a nasty 404 and "not found" message.
The old site was:
http://http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lynneconnolly/ 
That's gone. Now the "long" address, the one covered by the domain name, is:
http://www.lynneconnolly1.webspace.virginmedia.com/
and that one works!
Sorry for the inconvenience.

September news

Hello, and welcome to autumn! Over here, it turned cooler at the end of August. Right on cue. The conkers are growing fast and next month we’ll have schoolchildren throwing sticks at the trees to get them down. It’s an old game and potentially dangerous, but maybe we need a little danger in our lives!

It’s also been the wettest summer for a hundred years. Inevitable really, given the hosepipe ban earlier in the year. All the Government has to do to end a drought is declare a hosepipe ban, and the skies open. I’m not complaining, though. I really don’t like it too hot. I love Texas, but I don’t think I’d survive the summers. Even in the lovely houses I had the privilege of staying in back in April.

It’s getting to be that time of year, and I need to start looking at airfares for the RT convention in May. Coming from the UK, it needs a bit more planning, but it’s so worth it. I’ve been appointed moderator for the RT Convention forum, which you’ll find here:

http://forums.rtbookreviews.com/viewforum.php?f=9

I’m also planning a few surprises with the owner of RT, Kathryn Falk. So watch this space!

I’ve also signed to write a Clandestine Classic. The series has hit a lot of places, and is all over the media, so I’m pleased to do it. While I can’t yet tell you which one I’m doing, I can say that it’s an amazing privilege to do it. I want to see how this writer ticks, dissect his work so I can see how he got the fantastic effects he did, and I was careful to choose a writer I’m pretty sure wouldn’t have objected to this.

The release of “Stripped Bare” from Loose-Id went swimmingly, and my rock stars just keep on selling. There are a few characters in that book that could find themselves featuring in books of their own—I’ve already received letters about them. Jim Goddard, the company geek genius, and Mick O’Donnell. I’ve put my mind to Mick’s book, because I can’t resist a bad boy!

The new series, “Nightstar” at Ellora’s Cave, is doing very nicely, thank you. I’ve written the next couple, featuring a half-French, half-Cajun hero, and a gorgeous Brit, and one character who features in this series is so strong I might have to give him a book of his own.

I just keep writing, that’s the thing. At the moment, I’m working on a novella, and after that, I’m plunging into my Clandestine Classic. It might not work. I’ve never done anything like this before, except for a few Georgette Heyer pastiches in my dim and distant past, but I’m looking forward to it.

I also built a conservatory for my doll’s house, but I don’t have any decent pictures yet. Taking pictures of miniatures is a real bear, so tricky, but I’ll see what I can do, then I’ll put them on the website.

So busy, but like a duck, all under the surface. I keep writing for The Good, The Bad and The Unread, so pop over there from time to time for comment and reviews!

Happy August!

August being my birthday month, it’s so nice to be able to celebrate another new release!

Thank you so much for helping me to launch “In The Mood.” I’m having a ball writing this series, and I so want to finish it and see Riku get his happy ending (he’s the hero of the last book).

It seemed to be a month for online arguments. Everywhere I looked there were people quarreling over this and that. I spent it trying not to get involved, writing, and suffering from whooping cough. That was a surprise, because I’d been vaccinated as a child, but apparently that only lasts for the first ten years, when most people are at their most vulnerable. After that, it manifests as a bad cough, but my, was it bad. I had to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics so I was fit enough to go to the RNA Conference.

There’s the moral. Get the vaccinations done. There’s an epidemic at the moment, or so the doctor told me, because people didn’t get their children vaccinated after that health scare of a few years ago (the “doctor” responsible was struck off the medical register).

Anyway, back to books and related fun. The RNA Conference is always highly enjoyable. It’s more of a party, far more intimate than the huge gatherings in the USA, which I also enjoy, and there’s less business done there. Mainly because the bar is there for a reason, and we make the most of it!

I can’t say I learned a lot, other than my colleagues in the Romantic Novelists’ Association are the best, supportive, bright and huge fun. We were at Penrith again, a lovely setting in the Lake District. Even the train journey is a delight, or it is for me, although not everyone had such a pleasant journey!

This month, as I mentioned earlier, I have a new release. Another new venture. For those of you who wanted me to write Yolanda’s story, the sister of Vin from “Texas Heat,” here it is. Vin doesn’t appear in this story, it’s completely separate and I try hard not to do the sequel thing so the book is truly a standalone. This is a hot one, although it is male/female. There was a point where it might have become a ménage, but the heroine wasn’t interested in sharing! Sometimes it happens like that, your characters take against doing what you’ve had planned for them.

The book is called “Stripped Bare."

An investigation into industrial espionage leads to a sexual awakening!

Nightstar

Presenting a brand new series!

Nightstar

When the hot band Murder City Ravens gets its dream, when it gets a number one album and single and suddenly the world is watching—that’s great, right?

Well, mostly.

But V, Jace, Donovan, Hunter, Zazz and Riku have other dreams, other places to go. The success shocks them. It means luxury hotels instead of motels and vans, acclaim and attention, all they need to carry on being the great band that has caught the fickle eye of the media. It puts a big stop on anything else they’d considered doing, and demands their total commitment to making Murder City Ravens stellar. A year-long world tour rips them away from their lives, and puts them in the brightest spotlight the world can provide.

New opportunities. New hot connections with partners who take them by storm, coming at what seems like the worst possible time. Each member of the band has a choice to make, and it could affect the band as a whole. But they can’t walk away from what they’ve found and they can’t ask their new love to give everything up for them, and the sake of the new album.

Nightstar.

Book One: In The Mood

By: Lynne Connolly

Published By: Ellora’s Cave

ISBN # 9781419939761

Available from all good e-booksellers from 20th July 2012

Read More

About the book

Genre: Contemporary romance

Series: Nightstar

The sound of a saxophone drifting out of a Chicago blues club sends Matt inside, hoping to sign the player for his recording studio. Instead he finds V. Passion drives them from that moment on, and Matt can’t get enough of her sweet body and generous spirit. But as a former drug addict who spectacularly crashed out of the rock band Murder City Ravens, he has a lot to prove.

V thinks she’s happy with her lot until she receives an offer to join one of the most innovative and exciting bands in the world. Joining Murder City Ravens could sever her from Matt forever. How can she join the band when she’s spending her nights with the man who nearly destroyed everything they had?

Matt and V have decisions to make that might give them their life’s dream, but could split them apart. Which is more important, personal fulfillment or love? Is it possible to have both?

An excerpt from the book

A breath of a note shivered through the air as the club door opened. Matt paused, then stayed to listen. It sounded great. Better than great. Whoever was playing that saxophone knew how to wrench the heart out of the music.

Abruptly changing his plans for the evening, he walked toward the door. Chicago had managed to turn a thriving music area into a tourist trap, but for those who knew where to look, a few of the old style clubs remained. Clubs that attracted tourists but were still all about the music. After all, tourists loved music too.

This type of club didn’t have people queuing behind velvet ropes and VIP areas or tourists turning up in droves. The savvy might pick this place out, because it was small and laid back and looked as if it had been there for some time.

The man at the door looked at him, then blinked and stared, dark eyes widening. “Are you Maxx Syccoraxx?”

He grinned. “People ask me that all the time.” He was used to the question by now. It was better than, “Didn’t you used to be Maxx Syccoraxx?” Yes, that was who he used to be; lead singer with an up-and-coming rock band. No more. Drink and drugs had finished all that for him, burned him out. Now, with his body filled out and hair cropped short, he looked like a different man, but sometimes people still recognized him.

He hadn’t done so badly. He was still here, unlike some of the people he’d met in his wild years. And he had to admit, the band had gone on to greater things without him, mainly due to his replacements and the way they gelled with the other members. Though sometimes he had to grit his teeth before he admitted it. Failure never came easy, but he was in the process of mending his reputation and his fortune. That worked for him.

He strolled into the club. Inside, the place looked pretty normal. A bar ran down one side of the room with stools set in front of it, about half of them occupied, and the other side had small tables with bentwood chairs or simple wooden stools arranged around them.

Every time he entered a place like this, chills of recognition and excitement went up his spine. He just felt it, like coming home. This was where he’d started, in the small, smoky, sometimes seedy clubs and bars, in his case in New York. He never lost that excitement, and if he ever did, he’d start worrying.

He’d arrived in time. The saxophonist was playing an extended riff on Summertime, always one of Matt’s favorites. His mother said she’d sung it to him when he was a baby, and it was true he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know that song.

And now another time, another place, another version. A magical version. He let the notes wreathe around him, luring him into listening to more, but he wouldn’t look at the stage until he’d heard more. If the player was male, he still wanted sex with him, just from the seductive music, although his usual preference ran to something softer and rounder. The kind with gentle voices, plump breasts and sweet, shivering bodies.

Shit, he was one sex-starved bastard. He’d been too busy to think about sex recently but that changed abruptly when he’d heard the first notes of the song.

He bought a beer at the bar, then found a seat at one of the small tables at the back. The man who served him glared at him, his gnarled, brown hands showing nicks and scars from old brawls, but he didn’t comment. Matt would bet this guy had made him for sure. Seen a lot of life, that guy.

He’d deliberately kept his attention away from the little stage at the front of the room. He wanted his first aural perceptions unaffected by anything he saw. Now, sitting alone at a small table, he looked up. And lost his breath.

The sax player was tall and slim, with soft bits in all the right places, and she wore a short, sassy dress in an antique gold color, a foil for the blonde hair that flowed down her back and curled around her body. Strands of it clung to her instrument as if they wanted to bind the two together, player and sax.

The notes shuddered through him, through her, as they did through the dozen or so patrons here tonight. An inner voice told Matt to snatch her away, lock her up somewhere he could enjoy her and nobody else could get to her. This was his music, she was playing for him alone.

Another excerpt and buy link

© Lynne Connolly, March 2012

All Rights Reserved

Newsflash - FREE BOOK!

My new release, Black Leather, White Lace is free on Kindle on 22nd and 23rd June, 2012!
http://amzn.com/B0089YWAYI

Get your copy now!

Vernon and Nathaniel Heatherington are brothers on opposites sides in the English Civil War. When they duel, each slaughters the other, and they are forced to haunt their old home, Rustead Abbey, until they have expiated their sin.

Vernon Heatherington falls in love with the Regency Countess of Rustead, Cassandra. He is her only comfort in her unhappy marriage, but Vernon has only one day of corporeal form a year. Can they cram a lifetime's loving into a handful of days?

Two centuries later, Nathaniel Heatherington falls madly in love with Sylvie, the current Countess. When a TV crew descends on the Abbey, Sylvie's philandering husband is murdered. Nathaniel is granted corporeal form to find the murderer, but faced with the reality of Sylvie, he founds her impossible to resist. And Sylvie loves him back.

Sensuality from ghosts? You'd better believe it!

You can read an excerpt here:
 http://lynneconnolly.com/BlackLeatherWhiteLace.html

Goodbye, Richard and Rose

This month I get to say good-bye to two of the most enduring characters I’ve ever created. They were the subject of the first book I wrote for publication, and they remain two of my favourites. I doubt I’ll ever get to the end of understanding Richard and Rose.

They started as totally different characters. I used to read a lot of classical mystery stories—Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Albert Campion, Hercule Poirot, and I wondered about two of the characters, especially after I saw them brought to life on screen. What would Nick and Nora Charles make of the eighteenth century?

When I started researching, I knew I was on to something. The mid-eighteenth century was a time of change, in legal and social terms. Before then, British society wouldn’t dream of having a nationwide police force. Sounded too much like a military state to the average subject of his majesty. But nationwide crimes like smuggling were devastating the country’s economy and its peace. A force was needed to combat these huge gangs of criminals, so the novelist and magistrate Henry Fielding, and later his brother John, instigated the Bow Street Runners.

The aristocracy kept itself to itself. Many crimes were quietly and efficiently dealt with in kind, ie the perpetrator would be sent away, or kept under close confinement. Not often, but dig and there are a few cases of interest. Occasionally a scandal would open the ways of the aristocracy to the public. The murder of his valet by Lord Ferrars, the scandal of Elizabeth Chudleigh’s alleged bigamy and the occasional “kiss and tell” (modern parlance, but the practice is far older than that) by a spurned lover or servant would expose the doings of the wealthy and powerful to the rest of the public. Greatly increased literacy helped spread the news.

So the setting was right. I created two people. A quiet, unassuming country girl, and a man from the lower aristocracy, a baron, one with just enough credentials to get himself invited to the right parties. Someone of unassuming appearance who could slip in and out of country murder scenes and solve the mystery, like Hercule Poirot, producing the solution like a rabbit out of a hat.

One day I’ll write those books.

What I got was Richard Kerre. Richard is neither lower aristocracy nor unassuming. He arrived, fully formed, in the courtyard at Hareton Abbey, the run-down house that is the setting for “Yorkshire,” the first book in the series. I’d spent a few chapters setting up Rose, and she was going well. She showed more spirit than I’d thought, but she still came from the gentry class, and from a solid, comfortable family background. I felt I knew her. Writing in the first person was a surprise, too. When I tried writing in the third person, it just didn’t work. Once I met Richard, I knew. If you want to know what happened to those first chapters, they’re what I view as “establishing shots,” written more to get a character clear in my mind. They’re probably lurking somewhere on an old floppy disc, but they don’t belong anywhere else.

Richard has to be seen closely, by a natural observer like Rose, because when we first meet him, he is all flash and dash, and pushes people away. Deliberately. He’s rogered his way through female society because of what they did to him, but now he’s ready for change. His roaring twenties done, he’s looking for a more solid connection in life, beginning to regret some of the more vicious acts he committed. Too bad they’re about to come back and bite him.

I was wary of making him and out-and-out dandy, but since my early crush on David Bowie, I’ve had a fascination with androgyny, men and women for that matter not afraid to reach out and touch their feminine side. In the mid eighteenth century, men didn’t hide the flamboyant part of their nature behind dark clothes and restrained behaviour. They cried, they danced, they dressed outrageously, and they fought to the death, wore swords every day and never backed down from a challenge. I love that period, and Richard is a man of that period. So despite my misgivings, Richard became a dandy. He could never be anything else.

I had to stop writing and re-think the beloved series I’d spent so much time preparing to write. Richard would not be ignored, and I couldn’t do it. The instant “coup de foudre” falling in love was his idea, too. I knew what I wanted to achieve in the coach house scene in “Yorkshire,” but at one point Richard makes a declaration I considered foolish. But he insisted. He knew what he wanted. I went back, found many examples of that happening at that stage in history. For instance, the Duke of Devonshire saw his future wife, Mary, across a crowded ballroom and knew she was the only woman for him. He had to wait for her for many years, but eventually he got her.

Richard wanted Rose with the same intensity and certainty.

Just when I thought I was on some kind of track, something else happened to stop me. Gervase. I got to a point I thought was a bit weak, and I’d discovered a plot knot, something I needed to solve before a reader said, “but why didn’t they just…?”

I needed an answer, so I did some “what if…” scenarios. One worked so much better than all the others and at that point, I had to stop and go back and rewrite all over again. At the time, it was daring to bring in a major sympathetic character with this trait. Now, it’s almost compulsory. It explained so much, rippling over the backstory to make more sense. Why would society behave so viciously to Gervase as to cast him out until he was so rich anything he did short of murder didn’t matter? Lots more delicious research, and I was ready to go for it.

It worked. What I didn’t realise was that Gervase would get his own fan club, that people would love him so much they wanted his story.

So, I was ready. I wrote “Yorkshire,” “Devonshire,” and started on “Venice” before the writing frenzy gave me enough time to send the manuscript out to a publisher. I must have been mad.

Publication

Nobody in the UK was interested in a story so different. They want more of the same with a twist, and I wasn’t writing the kind of book they wanted. But I had enough “this is good but we don’t know where to place it” letters to tell me I was on the right track, somehow. Somewhere was the clue. An agent, in a rejection letter, said I had something that might appeal to the American market. We’d just got dial-up at home, and we restricted it rigidly (it was very expensive at first, but my husband needed it for his job). I found a couple of writing groups and a list of publishers. The big New York publishers didn’t want it, same story, too different, first person didn’t sell well, Regency rather than Georgian, so I tried the brand new epublishing market. I found NFI West. I was lucky, because just before I signed the contract, a friend warned me they were about to disintegrate, so I went to NBI instead. Frying pan, meet fire.

My first editor rewrote the book. She didn’t just heavily edit it, she rewrote most of it and suggested I did it in third person. Distressed, wondering if this was what publication was like, I wrote to the senior editor, who agreed with me, sacked the original editor, and did the work herself. Something she said then stayed with me. “We bought your book, not hers.” A lovely reassurance.

Unfortunately, after a few years, NBI died when the owner ran away, never to be found to this day, despite one of the authors, ace PI Linnea Sinclair, bringing her skills to bear on the case. We formally claimed back our rights, and luckily, the senior staff at NBI had the authority to do that, before closing the company. Richard and Rose went on to Mundania, who then had a few setbacks, including the serious illness of one of the partners, which meant the book’s schedule disappeared.

By then I’d sold a book to a new company, Samhain, “Last Chance, My Love.” I hadn’t realised that my editor there was such a Richard and Rose fan, until she asked me how the series was doing. Of course, inter company etiquette meant she couldn’t do anything else, but as it happened, I was in the process of regaining my rights from Mundania, and when I got them back, I offered them to Samhain, where Richard and Rose currently have their home. Angie was my editor until she left the company to helm Carina. She was such a help, and one of the greatest editors a girl could wish for, helping me polish and hone the books until they shone. She never imposed her own views, never told me where she thought the story should go, and let me take my couple where they needed to go. She’s a great factor in the success of the stories. As is Samhain’s support. They’ve put “Yorkshire” up for free a couple of times to interest new readers in the series, and they’ve always believed in what I did, even when I had a near-breakdown last year wrapping up all the remaining loose ends in “Lisbon.”

The series ended where I always planned. Along with that vision of Richard, resplendent and confident in that courtyard in Yorkshire, I saw him in a specific situation, broken and lost, needing one person to help him fight back. Rose, of course. I knew where that situation was. I timed the series so it would end there, and even I didn’t know its ultimate conclusion, if the couple would live or die, if they’d leave problems behind them, if they’d—I had to write it to find out.

There is potential for more stories, and already I have an idea where I’d want them to start. Not all their enemies are dead, not all are revealed. In 1757, the country is on the brink of war, Parliament in turmoil and the old King’s health failing. The heir to the throne is a boy, dominated by a new political faction, led by his mother’s lover, Lord Bute. If Richard comes into his title then, and his mother is still eaten up with the way he’s wrested control from her and given nothing back—she could get vicious.

Or perhaps I should leave them be.

Anyway, please enjoy “Lisbon” with all my best wishes. I’ve put the first chapter below for you.

Next

Who knows? I don’t. At least, I have an idea.

Welcome the Emperors of London, a family whose mothers decided to call them after powerful emperors of the past. Some have won the Emperor lottery, like the subject of the first book, Alex. Some are relatively fine, like Julius, his cousin, but some are saddled with the more outlandish names, like poor Nicephorus.

I’ve written the first book in the story, Alex’s, but I haven't really started to query these, so I have no idea where they’ll end up. Alex’s story started as a character from Richard and Rose. He was originally Freddie, Richard’s closest friend, but it became obvious something else was happening, so I rewrote it as a stand alone. It took interesting turns, starting in a modest country house, transitioning through a London brothel to the highest of society. I wanted to bring all the excitement of the Georgian age to the page, its follies and even its more unbelievable aspects, but everything in the story could have happened. Indeed, it might have happened, since I often take real life incidents and use them as the basis for fiction.

So I need to buckle down to the practicalities of writing. Now finally I have to say goodbye to two of my favourite characters, perhaps it’s time to say hello to a whole new group.

Thank you. Just thanks, for being there, for buying the books, for writing me such lovely letters over the years. I’m not going anywhere.

They can escape winter’s cold, but their nemesis has a long, icy reach.

Richard and Rose, Book 8

On a ship bound for Portugal with her children and the man she loves, Rose should be blissfully happy. Except Richard treats her like she’s made of porcelain. She’s recovered from the childbed fever that nearly killed her, yet he won’t share her bed and it’s driving her mad.

To win him back body and soul, she resolves to use every wicked, seductive trick he’s taught her. Until a possible attempted murder on board puts them both on alert for the trouble that seems to dog their every move.

Richard is almost relieved to have something to investigate. He loves Rose too much to risk losing her—which is exactly what could happen if he gets her pregnant again. When it becomes clear a series of accidents is no such thing, they realize an old enemy has caught up with them.

It’s imperative for Richard and Rose to work together to defeat this foe, but their new distance could prove their undoing. Especially when Mother Nature conspires to make them endure one last, desperate test of their love… 

---

Product Warnings

The earth is moving for Richard and Rose, but this time it’s not entirely their fault. 

Buy Lisbon here.

Win a copy of Rubies of Fire!

Want to win a download of "Rubies of Fire," the latest Department 57 story? Hop on over to Guilty Pleasures blog, where there's a giveaway.

News for April, 2012

I’m sitting in Kathryn Falk’s kitchen writing this, and I go home tomorrow. Kathryn’s been a wonderful hostess, as was Desiree Holt before her, and I don’t want to go home. Except for the tree roaches, that is. They are huge, simply enormous, and I don’t like them. Love the geckos, don’t mind the other bugs, but not tree roaches. I’ve discovered where I draw the line.

The RT Booklovers’ Convention was a complete blast. I loved every minute of it. The staff worked so hard to make it a success, the hotel was perfectly great, and I got some business done as well as having a lot of fun! When I get back to the UK, I’ll try to do a special report, for those of you who couldn’t come. Next year, Kansas City! There are going to be some exciting developments, and I’ve been privy to some of the things happening next year, which sound more than exciting. As soon as the Convention is over, they start working on next year’s. awesome, and I’m glad I don’t have to organize it!

So, a few highlights, a lightning tour of my month in the US:

I arrived with Gail Northman, and we had a great week touring and shopping in Chicago. We stayed at a hotel on the Magnificent Mile, shops as far as the eye could see, and really fun. Very few things beat going to a good place with a girlfriend who shares your tastes and interests. We went to the Art Institute, and did lots of shopping, went to the Navy Pier, and then did some more. All ably helped by lovely Laura, not forgetting her brother Rob, who showed us parts of Chicago people don’t usually get to see. Oh yes, and I got some orbs on the ghost tour!

After that, RT itself. I shared with Desiree Holt, and I arrived early, to do some teaching on the precon. I met my current editors, potential future editors, had a really successful Fan Fictionary panel and a panel on using pseudonyms, partied the night away and signed lots of books, not to mention t-shirts, totes and one stomach. A nice, toned, male stomach.

I travelled to Texas and stayed with Desiree Holt. After a couple of necessary pyjama days, we toured the area, and I got to go to the Alamo! Then I came to Kathryn’s, and I’ve had a wonderful time here, too. I went to the gun range and fired lots of handguns, went shopping and met some truly wonderful people, who I will miss when I go home tomorrow. We also went to concerts, from a local American folk artist, to the Houston Symphony Orchestra.

So on to news. I sold two books this month! What a thrill! One to Ellora’s Cave, “Last Enchantment,” a STORM book about a Sorcerer who has lost everything and a vampire who desperately wants her to learn to live again, and “Stripped Bare,” a contemporary erotic romance about a Texan lady in London, to Loose-Id. Thanks to both publishers for their continued support and help in getting these books together. And I had more cover art for Nightstar. The covers for the new (as yet unreleased) series are blazing hot, and beautifully designed.

And a new release (details below).

For those of you who don’t have a copy of “Yorkshire,” it’s on sale this month for the princely price of – nothing. Get it from your preferred outlet of choice. It’s to prepare for the release of the last (for now) Richard and Rose book, “Lisbon,” which comes out next month.

I’ll end with a small apology. It turns out that I can’t update my website from the US, so I'll do it as soon as I get home. Or as soon as I’ve slept off the jetlag, so I can be sure I’m doing it right! Rendezvous at Midnight and Rubies of Fire will get their rightful places on the front page and their own pages will be updated.

Excerpt:

This month sees the release of “Diamonds of Ice,” the companion piece to “Rubies of Fire,” which was released last month. Both books have been heavily rewritten, to take account of their new position in the Department 57 series, and to add even more hotness for your reading pleasure. They don’t have to be read together, they do read perfectly effectively a standalones, it’s just that the fate of one character from “Rubies” is followed through in “Diamonds.”

I am thrilled to see this book out on the virtual shelves again. It’s one of the hardest ones I ever wrote, because of its theme, but I felt very happy with the result.

Because of his blood phobia, vampire Fabrice is happy to die once he’s avenged two murders. Until he meets Gemma. Gemma wants Fabrice for longer than a night. Forever sounds good, but if he starves to death, forever might end next week.

Diamonds of Ice is out on the 29^th May, 2012

News for March, 2012

If I could do anything else and enjoy it half so much, I would. That is, I’d do that, and then give away the stories I’d inevitably write for free. But I can’t. I shouldn’t be allowed out on my own, to tell you the truth, so it’s safer for me and for everyone else if I stay at home and work that way.

It’s been brought home to me again, how strange this world is, and how unpredictable. Or maybe I’m just thick. I’m in more demand than ever in some places, and I can’t get my foot in the door in places I used to call home. Ah well, I don’t make the rules, and as far as I’m able, I’ll follow them.

I’ve just sent a post through to The Good, The Bad and The Unread on that topic, and I hope some of you will read it, and more importantly, give your opinion. I don’t know exactly when it will go up, but it usually isn't very long. It’s a big blog with a lot of contributors, and one I’m excited to belong to.

To other matters. I got a release date for “Rendezvous at Midnight” and it’s just before RT! I’ll tell you more about it next month, just before I leave for the States. Chicago, how exciting!

Did I tell you about Nightstar? That’s my new series from Ellora’s Cave. It’s another rock band series, yay! It’s a six book series, one story for each member of the band, and it’s about change. The band, Murder City Ravens, is about to break big. They’ve had two albums out, but a change in personnel has made that invisible something click, and now the band is headed for the big time. It’s not all roses. Some of the members have other interests, and have to choose between that and continuing with the band. Which do they love best? And when they meet their soulmates, do they put that person first? (hint – I write romance!) Do they want to put up with that level of fame?

The band is a kind of infernal cross between Radiohead, Massive Attack, the Chemical Brothers and Oasis – a willingness to experiment, edgy music with a basis in solid rock.

Just to show you what I mean, or to confuse you further!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEKlH7Bl47M  - radiohead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gqU8blVehc – oasis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64AtjYr6is – massive attack

But of course, the beauty of writing about music is that you can imagine the kind of music you like best! If you want them to play the Rach 2 (one of the characters reveres that concerto) then go ahead, there’s nobody to stop you, least of all me!

The first book is written and sent in, and the second written and awaiting revisions.

And a new release for March! “Rubies of Fire” is a Dept 57 book that was out years ago, and is now reissued. But this is one of the series that I’ve rewritten heavily for its rerelease. It belonged in a specific place in the Dept 57 series, and now, with the reissues, that doesn’t work any more, so I’ve rewritten it to fit better into the new order. It’s sexier, too. I don’t think there’s a sentence that hasn’t been rewritten!

It was a joy and a shock to revisit the book. A shock to realise how much my writing style has changed, for the better, I hope, although it was pretty okay then, and a joy to realise that it still holds up well.

It’s about vampire Andreas Constant, sent by Dept 57 undercover to discover a Department mole in the DIB, the Department of Internal Business, and Roz, a vampire sent by her family to follow clues as to who killed two of her relatives two years before. Although it’s complete in itself, it also provides a lead-in to Sorcerer Fabrice Germain's book in “Diamonds of Ice.”  “Rubies of Fire” is out on March 20^th.

And don’t forget that “Maiden Lane,” the seventh Richard and Rose book, is now out in print!

I’ll be in Chicago and Texas next month, part of it for the RT Booklovers’ Convention. If you’re around, please call!

News February 2012

News

A new year, a new start? Maybe. I don’t know because everything is up in the air right now. There’s not much news I can actually tell you, because it’s all in query or under negotiation, but I should be able to give you some real news soon.

Anyway, I always feel like a bit of a fraud doing these newsletters. What, people want to know about me? What can I say?

2011 wasn’t the best of years for me, but it wasn’t a complete washout. One book took much more time that I’d ever imagined it would, and that was the last Richard and Rose book, Lisbon. But edits are done and it’s almost there. I so miss doing the historicals, and I have written another one, but that is going out on query soon, once I’ve given it just one more polish! Instead of being Freddy’s book, it’s the start of a new series. I can’t really say much, except that characters sprang out at me while I was writing it, and their stories are mulling away, waiting to be told.

That’s why I enjoy writing series. I find a new character, but I need to get to know them. Featuring them in other stories and books means I can explore aspects of their characters, and I do find that giving them space and time means they have time to come out as three dimensional as I can make them.

I hope to have a new release for you soon, a one-off story for Decadent, set in my paranormal world, but with a completely new set of characters and ideas. Department 57 and STORM are left behind for this one, a story about the children of vampires, who aren’t vampires themselves, but can see and communicate with ghosts.

That doesn’t mean that I necessarily believe in ghosts. I’ve seen them, just as I’ve seen a UFO, but in real life I remain open minded. However, the ghosts of my stories are different, and I can do what I like with them! The ghost in this one was based on a program I saw once about ghost hunting in the old Queen Mary liner. While this story takes place on a different liner, it’s based heavily on the Queen Mary, now a floating hotel and reputed to be very haunted. It’s called “Rendezvous at Midnight” and it will be out soon at Decadent Publishing.

I do have release dates for two Department 57 stories. These are reprints, but very heavily rewritten. The plot and the characters remain, so you can reacquaint yourself with Andreas and Fabrice, but Rubies of Fire and Diamonds of Ice are the last two Department 57 reprints, coming out in March and May respectively. After that, it’s all brand new, and I’m already planning the next one!

And I designed a new header. It has my ugly mug on it, but it’s not a bad photo, taken at an RNA chapter meeting. I don’t even remember it being taken, but I do love the result, so thank you, Sheila! Any opinions gratefully received!

I did once have a professional photo session done, but he insisted that I took off my glasses, and I wear them all the time, and they were just so awful I couldn’t bear to use them anywhere. All the photos I use for author pictures are ones taken by friends or family, with me in more relaxed moments, and all but one is in natural light. I’m not very photogenic, so I keep the ones that turn out looking okay.

I’ve finished booking for RT Booklovers’ Convention. It’s in Chicago this year, and although I’ve been to Chicago before, I loved the place and I’m looking forward no end to going back there. I’ve taken a few days beforehand to stay in a hotel in the center of the city to reacquaint myself with it, and this time I won’t be alone. The last time, the volcano held a lot of people up. This time it might be the traditional Easter strikes at the airports, but I’ll just keep everything crossed that I get there okay. And thank goodness for the long battery on the Kindle!

January, 2012

News

First thing’s first.

Happy new year! I hope this year brings everything to you that you want and a few surprises that aren’t unwelcome!

If you want to pick up “Sunfire” for free, you have a few more days before it goes back to its original price. I love offers like this, and usually it’s me doing the picking up, but here are a couple of links so you can download a free copy of the first Pure Wildfire book (it’s a self contained story, no cliffhangers!) then quick sharp, go here:

All Romance Ebooks - http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html

Barnes and Noble – http://is.gd/DKTJKi

I’m not including the Kindle link, because it never seemed to go up on Amazon for free, but if you have a Kindle, you can download the Mobipocket version and it will go on the Kindle fine, if you sideload it or use Calibre, or you can download a different format (try to avoid pdf, because it doesn’t convert well) and use Calibre to convert and upload it.

People usually take stock at this time of year, and while I try to avoid it because after all, it’s just a date, there are a few things I have to do, like keep track of the many and diverse places where I have my books. And I do have two resolutions. To lose a little weight, which is a regular, especially before RT, and something I rarely achieve, and to have another go at the big publishers. I’d love to see my name on a historical from one of the big houses! I know they aren’t the powerhouses they used to be, and in 2011 I became a Harlequin author, through Carina, but I’m starting a new series and I’d love to get a new contract to go with it!

On that new series – with the Richard and Rose series coming to an end in 2012 (Lisbon has a release date in June), I’m thinking of starting a new series. It’s still set in my favourite historical decade, the 1750’s, but it’s about an entirely new set of people. They will have similarities to Richard and Rose, because people living in a certain era do have that similarity going, but with very different concerns.

And on that note, many, many thanks to the beta readers who I appealed for last month. Your help has been absolutely invaluable.

I do have yet another historical series in mind, one I’ve planned for a very long time and not had the time to write, because Richard and Rose, Secrets and the Triple Countess took up so much time, but I do plan to write it this year. It’s based a decade earlier than most of my books, and has Jacobites in it, but it’s a very different view. Where I live, Lancashire, was historically a Jacobite stronghold, so I’d be able to use some of my local history research in this series.

For other genres – yes, there’s lots going on there, as well. I have an upcoming book with a new to me publisher, Decadent, and the second Trust book is with my editor at Carina, so keep everything crossed! I’ve put a new STORM book through to my editor at Ellora’s Cave, and a new series idea, together with the first novella in a new rock band series, although this time the stories are non-paranormal. I tend to start with the dilemmas I want to tackle, and work out which genre it’s best suited to. So, although romantic suspense was a new genre to me last year, when I wrote Learning to Trust, I tried to enhance the trust issues by putting them in a romantic suspense context. If that makes sense. I also have the last two rewrites in the Department 57 series in preparation for Loose-Id, so after that, it’s all new books! The first book, Rubies of Fire, which is a heavy rewrite, to account for its new position in the series, is out in March.

Last year wasn’t stellar for me in terms of earnings, but if you’re a writer, you learn to ride with that. I’m extremely fortunate that I don’t have to rely on my writing earnings to eat, but I take the view that it’s a branch of the entertainment industry which is volatile at best. I did mean to do a bit more on the self publishing front, but I didn’t find the time.

You might like to read the column I wrote for The Good, The Bad and The Unread about my year of reading dangerously – trying to find a new historical romance author to love.

http://is.gd/5yrWaZ

I found one! But that’s me as a reader, a voracious one, not a writer.

Oh, and I’ve been nominated for four awards! Two CAPAs from The Romance Studio, and two Love Romance awards. Here are the details in case you want to vote for me or any of the other great authors there:

http://theromancestudio.com/capa.php

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveRomancesCafe/message/280796

I don’t often do the “vote for me” thing, because I figure you’ve done your bit by buying the books! But if you find yourself over there, and you’re at a loose end, feel free!

And the Richard and Rose series was named as Series of the Year from MizLoveLovesbooks, too. I’m so happy!

http://www.mizlovelovesbooks.com/2011/12/best-of-2011.html