Category: Harlequin Mills and Boon

1944, Harlequin Mills and Boon, Holland, Second World War, Weight of The Crown

Going Dutch – Romance in Translation…

christinahollis

My father went ashore in Normandy on D-Day and spent the rest of 1944 heading up through Europe. He hated the work but loved the people, especially the Dutch. For the rest of his life he was grateful to the nation who, though it had virtually nothing left after years of occupation, sheltered him and his mates through the horrible cold, wet winter of 1944/45.

A market gardener by profession, Dad fitted right in. He even brought home a pair of clogs to wear around his own nursery! He learned enough Dutch to get engaged to a girl, although sadly that relationship didn’t stand the test of time.

I was reminded of his adventures when I received the Dutch translation of Weight Of The Crown, my contemporary romance for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Hasn’t this version got a beautiful new cover?

The original English version is available as an ebook here. Romance reviewer Nas Dean had this to say about Weight Of The Crown…

http://amzn.to/1InUA8U
Available from http://amzn.to/1InUA8U

WEIGHT OF THE CROWN is a wonderful, sensual, tension-filled romance that I found charming, absorbing and moving. Christina Hollis is a terrific writer who creates likeable characters readers take to their hearts. It’s a beguiling and stirring story that is sure to tug at readers’ heartstrings and leave them with a great big smile on their face at the unusual ending.

She has delivered a yummy-to-die-for hero, a playboy Prince who turns to one woman only for true love, a strong, feisty heroine and rolled them in a story that is filled with emotion and sizzle!

Have there been any wartime romances in your family?

Harlequin Mills and Boon, Ian Skillicorn, Jessica Hart, Julie Stock, RNA Pamela Hartshorne, Scrivener, Tom's Midnight Garden

Timeslip-The Most Creative Writing?

christinahollis
A Little Light Reading…

I wrote here about the amazing day I spent at the RNA Conference a couple of weeks ago. One of the sessions I attended was Pamela Hartshorne’s One Author, Two Genres. As Jessica Hart, Pamela has written over fifty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon. She spoke of her decision to juggle writing romance  with returning to study for her PhD. It was a really absorbing hour, especially when Pamela explained how she used her post-graduate research and intimate knowledge of York to write a single title, Time’s Echo. This led to a contract with Macmillan and a second stand-alone historical novel, The Memory of Midnight.

I’ve now read The Memory of Midnight and I can strongly recommend it as a great read. I’ll be featuring it here shortly, so make sure you don’t miss that by subscribing to my blog (use the box on the right).

The Memory of Midnight is a timeslip story of Tess, whose move into an apartment in an ancient house thins the veil between her present-day existence and the life of Nell, a girl who is married off to a monster in Elizabethan York. I was fascinated by the historical setting, as my daughter has been working with Archaeology Live! for the past few digging seasons.

The stories of the heroines are interwoven, and keeping track of the two threads while writing must have been a work of art. Combined with splitting her professional life between writing short romances and full-length, altogether darker fiction, Pamela needed discipline and planning. There were some light-hearted suggestions in the audience that it might be easier to set up two separate computers, one for each story-type, or to use child labour to help with the admin!

The last time I’d read any sort of timeslip story was when I read Tom’s Midnight Garden to my children, but Pamela’s session enthused me. I always have a few story ideas looking for homes in the back of my notebook, so inspiration wasn’t a problem. My only worry was how to keep tabs on all the different story elements.  If you’ve read my blog about  Scrivener, you’ll guess what happened next!  During Ian Skillicorn’s session Going Solo later that same day, I heard Julie Stock talking about the joys of using the system.  The next step was obvious. I got the software, and started planning.

What’s you favourite timeslip story? Have you ever tried to write one?