Those fortunate to have known Penny, or even just to have met her, describe her as a warm, gracious and lovely woman. She was an active member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association in the UK, and this year the RNA presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award.

Penny’s first Mills & Boon book, Falcon’s Prey, was published in 1981. In total, Penny wrote an astounding 200+ novels and has sold over 85 million books worldwide. In addition to her Harlequin Presents books, she also wrote historical romances under the pen names Caroline Courtney and Annie Groves. As the news of her passing broke over the weekend, we saw many tweets and Facebook posts from readers sharing their memories of her many beloved novels.

Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Penny’s family. She will be greatly missed.

Everyone seems to be talking about politics and protests these days, so the release of The Power and the Glory may seem like good timing on my part. After all, the Marshall series involves a powerful political family, and Brady’s story is set amid his father’s Senate reelection campaign. Aspyn, the heroine, accidentally starts a protest movement. Flip on any news channel and this book seems very timely indeed.

I promise, though, that this is all entirely coincidental.  Really.

When I first started the Marshall series, I thought Brady’s heroine was a journalist who’d be doing some kind of story on the Marshall family. Then I wrote Ethan’s story (The Privileged and the Damned), and got to know Brady better in the process. I quickly figured out that my original idea for Brady’s story just wouldn’t work. Brady was so buttoned up and responsible, he was headed for curmudgeon territory unless I could stage an intervention. A journalist just wasn’t what Brady needed. I like to shake my characters up a bit – and annoy them when I can – and Brady most definitely needed someone to annoy him. I didn’t know who or how or why, but I knew that’s what Brady needed – not only for him, but for me and the readers, too. This journalist heroine wouldn’t be all that much fun or interesting. I felt like I was setting Brady up on a blind date that would fail in the dullest way possible.

Plus, I kept having this vision of buttoned-up Brady handcuffed to a flower child activist. It wouldn’t fit into the story I had planned, but I knew it belonged in the book. Once I realized Brady was handcuffed to his heroine, it all fell into place. Even before I could think about how they’d clash over culture and values and all that other stuff, I knew that Aspyn’s Birkenstocks and jangly jewelry would drive Brady crazy long before then.

Oh, yeah. That was the story I wanted to write.  Imagine me rubbing my hands together in evil glee.

(I owe my editor a big hug for not strangling me when I turned in a book that bore absolutely no resemblance to the book I told her I was going to write…)

I can’t tell you how much fun I had with this book. I like the “opposites attract” hook – after all, I’m living it every day of my life. My Darling Geek really is a geek – Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, advanced mathematics – all things that just make me look at him with a furrowed brow like he’s just a little off. Heaven knows the poor boy looks at me the exact same way. We may not get a lot of things about each other, but we certainly get each other.  Brady and Aspyn get each other, even if they don’t quite understand why. They’re okay with that and so am I, because it made writing their story so much fun.

Are you and your darling opposites? Do people look at the two of you and say, “Really?” Or are you two peas in a pod?

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

I have a book out this month. THE SAVAKIS MERGER is a November Presents Extra release. Yay! I’m so pleased as I’ve had quite a bit of mail from American and Canadian readers about when it would cross the Atlantic.

When I considered what I’d tell you about the book, what came to mind instantly was the snap and sizzle of energy and high emotion that was a hallmark of the story from the moment I conceived it. It opens in the middle of a love scene (what can I say? Callie and Damon are a very passionate couple) but the fireworks don’t end there. Even when they’re at loggerheads, especially when they’re at loggerheads, the energy levels keep rising.

I loved writing the dialogue. The characters took control and charged off, sparking off each other in a way that was a joy to write. Fortunately they charged in a direction that enabled me to corral them towards a happy ending. Personally I tire of books that are never-ending arguments where the characters simply snipe at each other. With Callie and Damon I believe even the arguments reveal facets of their character and circumstances that help them move their relationship forward.

And who could blame them for a grievance or two? After being railroaded young into an arranged marriage and suffering years of a constrained, celibate life tied to a controlling husband, Callie is free at last. Who could blame her for being miffed when she finds the sexy guy who’s just swept her off her feet has arrived in her home not for her, but to take her shy, unwilling young cousin in a business deal marriage like the one Callie’s just escaped?

As for Damon, after a lifetime pursuing his goal of righting past wrongs, he’s on the verge of success, only to be distracted by a woman who slices straight through his plans. Discovering she’s there as part of her uncle’s stratagem to save the family fortune means she’s played Damon for a gullible fool and he’s all too ready to play her at her own game.

Put two strong-minded, independent characters at odds and of course there will be sparks. But for me Callie and Damon’s story is about far more than the sizzle of passion and the electrically-charged atmosphere. It’s about two people who both hide scars from the past and who work stoically to move on with their lives. It’s about people who’ve made mistakes and are determined to learn from those. Most of all it’s about a couple who have to open their eyes to the possibility of love. They need to move past the snap and sizzle of tension and learn the give and take of a relationship based on respect, common interests and genuine caring. For me, that’s where the aww moment came in – when I saw that their relationship had grown to something richer than high octane passion. That’s when I believed they shared a love that lasts a lifetime.

How about you? What ingredients do you think go into making a love that will last forever?

If you want to read more about THE SAVAKIS MERGER, or any of my other books, pop by my website where there are excerpts, news updates and even a contest.

Happy reading,

Annie

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

Thanks to Amy for inviting me to do my first ever I Heart Presents blog! Celebrating my debut book and NA release for An Inconvenient Obsession with all the talented Presents authors is truly a dream come true!

I’ve always been an avid romance reader, but it wasn’t until the birth of my third child that I decided to try my hand at writing. I’d read enough romance novels to bolster my confidence, and figured that with a bit of persistence and a decent computer, I could whip out a book in no time. I mean, how hard it could be?

Um … Let’s go with VERY.

Countless false starts, seven manuscripts, and a teetering pile of rejections later, I finally had a book that was more than a tome of meandering, go-nowhere prose. I pitched my story during the 2010 Romance Writers of America ® conference, and received a request for the full manuscript. After emailing it off, I settled in for the interminable wait that tends to accompany any new submission. So you can imagine my shock when a reply arrived a mere fifteen minutes later! My soon-to-be agent read the manuscript that night and offered representation the next morning! I can’t remember the details of what happened following that call, but I’m pretty sure it involved some screeching and a clumsy pirouette or two. My husband reports that I talked nothing but nonsensical, delirious jibberish for hours.

As I’m sure is the case for many writers, I also worked at a day job while awaiting that elusive offer of publication. I told myself it was a good distraction; I wasn’t hovering by the phone every day, biting my nails and waiting. In hindsight, I probably should have checked my messages more frequently because I was over four hours late returning my agent’s call. I was on my way from work to have lunch when I noticed I’d missed her.

After listening to her message, it felt like one of those out-of-body experiences that normal people aren’t supposed to have. The thoughts that ricocheted through my brain ran the gamut of “We’ve made a mistake and nobody wants your horrible story” to “We have ten publishers all wanting to go to auction on your brilliant masterpiece!” I know. There’s optimism, there’s pessimism, and then there’s the craziness that plagues us writers.

By the time I met up with my writer friend for lunch, I was jittery, excited, and shaking from the news that the editors at Presents had made an offer. We writers are used to making dreams come true on paper, not in real life! We ordered celebratory margaritas and then I texted my critique partner, Jennie Lucas, with the amazing news. She was in London at the time, at the AMBA Conference with Lynn Raye Harris. Sharing the squeals of three favorite writing friends as we celebrated my sale was the highlight of my year. Can you imagine anything better?

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

I love office romances.  I adore them to absolute bits.

I enjoy reading them and I especially love writing them.  So much so, in fact, that my lovely editor sent me an email after my first few books saying something along the lines of, ‘How about you try to have your hero and heroine meet somewhere other than at work.’

I tried.  I really did.  Yet somehow I keep coming back.  I mean, what a great way to keep the hero and the heroine together on the page, am I right?  If they work together they see each other every day.  They have to deal with office politics of dating someone at work.  There’s the whole “what if we break up and still have to work together” fear.  And being in such close proximity day in day they can’t get away from one another meaning all that fabulous attraction is set on a constant simmer.  It’s just such a delicious hot bed of romantic potential.

But you know what I like best about office romances?  They’re real.  So real for me without them I wouldn’t be here!

My parents met at work.  Mum had heard about the cute new guy working at the bank and made sure to turn up to sign her time sheet the same time he did.  She conveniently forgot to bring a pen, he leant her his and that was that!

Not only that, my husband and I met — drum roll please… — at work!  He was the proven TV producer with dozens of episodes of a top-rating comedy game show beneath his belt, while I was the impressionable young wannabe with stars in her eyes.  The stars cleared quick smart when I realised he’d caught me caught me sneaking a bite of a chocolate bar I had hidden beneath the boardroom table when we were meant to be doing some serious brainstorming.  He knew the real me and liked me anyway.  How could I resist?

My latest Harlequin Presents Extra, THE ROGUE WEDDING GUEST, is, you guessed it, a workplace romance.  Bradley is a well-known producer of reality adventure TV shows.  Hannah is his assistant, and she’s been in love with him since the moment they met.  Needing to escape the claustrophobic working environment before she explodes, Hannah escapes to a beautiful snow bound chalet in the Tasmanian wilderness, only to have Bradley follow for “research purposes”.  What can she do but throw up her hands and let him.   She can play, he can work, and who knows, maybe the two of them can find a way to do both!

Now, just in case you were wondering, my husband’s parents met when his mum was a jazz singer in a bar and his dad was in the crowd.  He was smitten from the moment she sang her first note.  Forty years later he still thinks she’s the best singer on the planet.

Mmm.  I’ve just had an idea for a new book…   My editor will be stoked.  Not an office building in sight .

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Mills & Boon’s series of Royal Romance writing workshops taking place throughout April. The first couple were led by Harlequin Presents author Heidi Rice–and there are 3 more coming from with more Presents authors sharing their expertise!

Here is the schedule. Click on the links for details about locations and times, as well as how to reserve your place in each workshop:

Tuesday, April 26,6:00pm – 7:30pm: Shoreditch Library (London) Royal Romance Workshop – led by Heidi Rice

Wednesday, April 27,  7:00pm – 8:30pm: Chester Library (Cheshire) Royal Romance Workshop – led by India Grey

Thursday, April 28, 10:00am – 11:30am: West Earlham Library (Norfolk) Royal Romance Workshop – led by Kate Hardy

UPDATED TO ADD: I missed another workshop, taking place on the 18th with author Sharon Kendrick! It is at Yumchaa Tea Shop, Camden Town, London from 6:30-8pm. Please click here for details and how to reserve your place.

For more up-to-date news about the workshops, you can also follow @MillsandBoonUK on Twitter and see the full list of workshops on their Facebook Page.

Happy writing!

~Amy

I have a huge lecture on the positive benefits reaped by those clever people who read romance regularly.  It touches on self-empowerment, equality, self-realization, respect for yourself and others… Yes, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, so I’ll refrain from the details.

But I have yet another reason to add to my list of reasons to read romance that never occurred me until now.  It can (or it least it did for me) increase your vocabulary.

See, someone mentioned recently that I might be requiring readers to check the dictionary occasionally.  At first, it panicked me — Oh, no! I don’t want people to think I use too many esoteric words! (Like esoteric.) Then I went searching through the book looking for words that might cause people to pause.

Okay, so I found a couple.  One, in particular, Schadenfreude, jumped out, but 1) I love that word, and 2) there’s just not a good equivalent in the English language.  Schadenfreude is that feeling of satisfaction you get at witnessing someone else’s misery because they kinda brought it on themselves and totally deserve it.  It’s a cool word.

I’m a total Word Nerd. There. I admit it.  I love those “Word of the Day” calendars. And I always do the “Word Power” quizzes in Readers’ Digest. I have, on occasion, just grabbed the dictionary and randomly picked a page to see what was on it. (Hey, I don’t make fun of your hobbies…)

But that got me thinking… reading romance really expanded my vocabulary – especially in my teenage years.  It taught me all kinds of fun new words like wry, sardonic, lithe, writhe, insufferable, enigmatic, impudence, ministrations, lecher, connoisseur… (not to mention pelisse and reticule. I read a lot of historical romances.)

You’re nodding your head.  I know you are.  It’s hard to find a romance novel – especially one with an Alpha Hero – that doesn’t contain at least half of those words.

And I continue to learn new words.  Australian authors sent me running for the dictionary the first time a heroine started fossicking in her handbag.  I mean, I was able to get the gist from the context, but it still sounded a little dirty to my Southern ears.  Thanks to romance novels, I know how to insult people in multiple dialects appropriate to their century.  And the slang?  That’s opened up whole new word-worlds to me.

Romance novels are a Word Nerd’s playground.

So what’s your favorite word you learned in a romance novel?  Or am I just odd and alone in this?

Kimberly

www.BooksByKimberly.com

You can find out why I *had* to use schadenfreude in GIRLS’ GUIDE TO FLIRTING WITH DANGER, out now.

 

Blog Widget

 

Browse

Share

Buy

* * *

A very special hello from Margaret Way in Australia. This is my very first blog for I Heart Presents and I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to tell you a little bit about the way I work.

We are featuring two of my books, Olivia and the Billionaire Cattle King for Harlequin Presents®, and In the Australian Billionaire’s Arms for Harlequin® Romance. I approach all my work -– for whichever series -in the same way, with the same dedication. I like a story over and above a concentrated focus on the hero and heroine and I also like secondary characters to have a real presence.

It’s no revelation writing is a solitary pursuit, but it’s immensely satisfying and humbling too when all my feedback confirms I’ve been able to give pleasure and comfort to so many of my readers. Perhaps if you’ve never read a Margaret Way Olivia and the Billionaire Cattle King could prompt you to dive in. You’ll have a great many books to choose from.

My aim from the very beginning of my career has been to open a window on my own country. The Australian Outback is featured most often as my setting because that’s the way my fans like it. Where would we writers be without our fans? I really enjoyed putting my upper class highly privileged, albeit repressed, Olivia into an environment that couldn’t have been further from what she was used to. I love the British stiff upper lip and the British readiness to take on a challenge.

Life is a journey of discovery. The right man can make it the journey of a lifetime.

I think my heroes, Clint McAlpine in Olivia and the Billionaire Cattle King, and Holt, the hero of In the Australian Billionaire’s Arms share many characteristics. We all love a STRONG sexy hero, but there must be other winning attributes. A woman needs to be able to admire and  respect her man. She wants to see him as a fully integrated human being to whom she’s important. She wants them to share values. She wants them to be best friends as well as passionate lovers.

Heroes by definition are a woman’s bedrock.  The strongest woman–and there are plenty of us out there–need a shoulder to lean on from time to time, a man she can always turn to when the going gets rough. The man she seeks-even hungers for–must have additional qualities besides a potent sexy charisma. He must have humour, warmth, compassion and understanding. He has to show all the signs of being a potential good father as well as a partner. Throw into the mix a healthy dose of kindness. A man may be tough but he also has to have a good heart, totally opposed to violence against women in any form.

Olivia has suffered the most benign oppression from her father but a form of oppression nevertheless. My heroine, Sonya, In the Australian Billionaire’s Arms has suffered very real oppression from members of her own extended family. Both heroines have need of a strong supportive hand in the shape of an eligible man who is ready to help them with the job of tackling difficult issues. A hero gives his woman, his heroine, a clearer view of her true identity; of how she is capable of achieving her dream.

A man and a woman in loving harmony can reach a point in life where they’re ready to face whatever comes their way as long as they’re together. The world is a much brighter and safer place that way. Love is the basis of every good thing in the world. Love is the great transformer, the great connector. If we have love in our lives we have everything we need to make meaning of our existence.

Do you agree? I know you do.

All best wishes,

Margaret Way.

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

Most of my life seems to flow gently along without too much sudden change, but occasionally I am caught in the crossroads and something big happens in just a few minutes or even seconds. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is difficult, but either way it has a big effect on my life!

One such moment I’ll always remember is when I caught sight of my future husband after not having seen him for many years. He was my brother’s best friend when we were children, but then he went away to college and after that to California, and so we didn’t see each other for nearly seven years. Then, at a Christmas Eve church service when I was 21 and finally all grown up, I caught sight of him chatting to someone and tapped him on the shoulder to say hello. He turned around, and we both looked each other in a sort of surprised delight. Looking back, it was a defining moment for both of us as we saw each other in a whole new (and romantic!) way, although we didn’t actually start dating for two more years–much to my disappointment at the time!

Some defining moments of life, sadly, are unhappy ones. Moments of loss or grief or pain that alter us perhaps forever. The hero of my current Presents, The Undoing of De Luca, had such a moment in childhood when he came face to face with his father for the first time at fourteen years old. The meeting lasted maybe a minute, but it had a huge impact on Larenz and kept him guarding his heart well into adulthood–until Ellery Dunant proves to be his undoing!

Another defining moment occurs between Ellery and Larenz towards the end of the book–a happy one, but one I don’t want to give away! You’ll have to read The Undoing of De Luca to find out…

Can you look back on your life and recall any defining moments, happy or sad? Do you ever wonder what your life might be like if that moment had gone differently or not happened at all? I leave you with the result of the defining moment between my husband and me fifteen years later, and I hope you enjoy The Undoing of De Luca!

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy

It was a thrilling moment. Last September, when Lynn Raye Harris and I were in London to attend the AMBA (Association of Mills and Boon Authors) luncheon and champagne toast to authors, we spent our last day in England touring nearby Windsor.

And there, on the shelf of the local bookstore of this picturesque town, I actually saw my book for sale! It was the first time I ever saw that outside the U.S., and I’ll never forget my delight.

Now, this same book has just been released in North America with a new title – The Bride Thief. In the story, a bride is kidnapped from her wedding by a Greek tycoon, Xerxes Novros, who was introduced in my last book Sensible Housekeeper, Scandalously Pregnant. (He is beyond ruthless – in fact, my original working title for The Bride Thief was The Villain’s Virgin!) He drags Rose around the world, to his private Greek island, to the Maldives, and finally to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

And guess what? That’s where I’m going on Monday. In one of my all-time-best Christmas presents ever, my own husband is whisking me to Cabo San Lucas, just like Rose, for a four-day getaway at a luxury beachfront resort. We haven’t had a romantic getaway in… hmmm….maybe the Nixon administration? So when I opened his gift Christmas morning and saw the itinerary, I wept with joy. For real.

My kids, panicking: “What’s wrong, Mommy? Why are you crying?”

Me: “Nothing’s wrong” (sniff) “I’m just so” (sob) “haaappppy.”

So I’m getting ready to pack and trying not to worry about the holiday pounds that have left me something less than bikini-ready. I’m telling myself that after a few margaritas, I won’t care how I look. And anyway, my husband likes me how I am. (A true Presents hero!)

But I’d love to know – does anyone have any tips for how a girl can feel confident in a bikini with an extra five (*cough* ten) pounds?

Jennie

Blog Widget

Browse

Share

Buy