Category: books

My contemporary romance Royal Passion was launched today, Tuesday, 24^th October. The wait is over!

To buy the ebook of Royal Passion, click here.

Meanwhile…

…here’s a taster from Leo and Sara’s romance in Royal Passion, to whet your appetite…

“Addiction, depression, suicide – I have seen it all,” said Leo.

“And I suppose you’ve got the ideal prescription?”

He strolled around to stand beside her. “Of course I have. Close your eyes.”

“In a public place?” Sara gasped, but he was deadly serious.

“Do it. Close your eyes and open your mouth.”

His commanding voice made her obey instantly. When she realised what she had done, her eyes flew open again–at the exact moment the cool kiss of silver touched her bottom lip. Leo had piled a spoon with champagne granita and was about to put it into her mouth.

“Open wide.”

“I’m not a child.”

A bead of sorbet fell from the overloaded spoon. It landed on the smooth pale skin at the base of her throat, trembled, and ran down into the shadowy cleft between her breasts.

“I can see that,” Leo purred.

“But people are staring at us!”

“Let them. Open your mouth, or – ”

“Or – ” Or what, she was going to say, but Leo took his chance. As she replied, he put the spoon into her mouth. She couldn’t talk with her mouth full of sorbet, so she clenched her teeth on the silver spoon.

“I thought you said you weren’t a child?” he teased, tugging at it.

She released her grip. “I only did that because I’ve got a chill in my teeth.”

“Excuses.” He scooped up another helping of the dessert in front of her. “I am including a sample of each different flavour. If you don’t enjoy it, then I am afraid there is no hope for you.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“Maybe. First, I would need to make a full examination…”

She scowled.

“…of the facts,” he added smoothly, slicing into another scoop of sorbet.

To order your copy of Royal Passion from your favourite platform, click here.

You can find out more about me here, and see some of my books here.

I’ve got some exciting book news to share today.

Royal Passion Is Available On Pre-Order Now!

My first bit of exciting news is that my journey from page to publication is now nearly complete. Royal Passion, the first book in my Royal Romances series is now available for pre-order everywhere online! Click on this link to find out how to order your copy.

More Exciting News

My second bit of exciting news is that my first Pocket Novel goes on sale on Thursday, 31st August. That’s less than a week away! The working title of my book was The Wishing Tree. That may have been changed to fit in with the company’s other published titles. Pocket Novels are sold in larger Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison stores, WH Smith High Street, Martin McColls, and independent newsagents.

You can read here about how I’ve kept my New Year’s Resolution to self-publish a book. Next time, I’ll start going through the individual steps to publication in more detail. I’ve already updated the My Books section of this site, here.

Thanks All Round

Along my road to self-publishing I’ve had lots of support from the writing community. The Alliance of Independent, the Marcher chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors, and my cover designer Joanna Maitland have all been really helpful. I couldn’t have done it without them.

I hope you will enjoy reading Royal Passion as much as I enjoyed writing it. Don’t forget—you can order your copy now, from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, or Barnes and Noble.

At last I can say those magic words—I’m an independent author! Royal Passion will be published on 24th October. You’ll be able to order it as soon as all the links are in place and live, which will be within a few days of the date of this blog.

My Books

I’ve already added Royal Passion to the My Books page on here, but at the moment it’s for information only. As soon as I can I’ll be adding clickable links so you can find the ebook on Amazon, although that won’t be the only place Royal Passion will be on sale.

And When Royal Passion Goes Live Online…

I’ll let you know when Royal Passion goes live on all the platforms, ready for pre-orders. By the way, isn’t it funny to talk about “pre-orders”? That’s what we used to call “orders”!

Meanwhile…

I’ll be sending out my August newsletter this week. Among other things, this month’s email includes a look behind the scenes of the recent Society of Authors Zoom chat, and a seasonal recipe (I’m still trying to decide which is more photogenic, damsons or blackberries). There will also be the chance to win an advance copy of Royal Passion. To find out how to enter my competition, sign up here to receive my newsletter, which will have full details.

What do you think of my new look blog? It’s a summery theme to celebrate my latest Work in Progress. I’m going into the self-publishing business!

I love being outdoors as much as I love writing. This means that whenever the weather is good and I’m working on a writing project, I’m always desperate to get out in the garden.

For the last few months, I haven’t had that problem. The weather has been so foul—cold, wet, and cloudy—that I’ve been happy to stay snug and warm indoors.

It’s exactly the kind of weather that led to me releasing my short romantic story My Dream Guy. That was an early experiment in finding a new channel for my work. Then I was commissioned to write Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol. The research I did for that non-fiction book led me into a whole new career as a mature student.

Clutching my newly minted MA (with distinction!), I emerged ready to plunge back into writing romance. Then I regained the rights to some of my backlist. Self-publishing my work seemed to be the obvious next step—although it’s an enormous one for me.

I’m always saying that technology is not my friend. It’s true. I only use my desktop computer as a glorified typewriter. That means I’ve got a very steep learning curve to climb if I want to self-publish. For example, it took me ages yesterday to set up a newsletter, which I’ll use to give subscribers inside information on my journey to self-publication. Creating the sign up form was another puzzle.

If you sign up to my new newsletter, you’ll get monthly updates on how my attempt to publish my own work is going, along with cover reveals, giveaways, etc. You and I will than also have the satisfaction of knowing that my hours of bafflement over templates and form creators haven’t been in vain.

You can sign up using the form on the right—go on, put a smile on my face!