Hugh and Dan's WInner!

I didn't forget. It just took me a while to get Micah and Mitch's paws cleaned off enough to allow them into the living room where the names of the contestants and the treats were all set out so they could choose.

We spent a lot of the last week under water -- or so it seemed. And almost every day was a "96 dog foot day" -- one where I measure the day in terms of how many dog feet I wipe. It used to get to 96 a lot faster when we had four dogs. But these guys go out often enough that I had a lot of paw-wiping to do here, too.

All of which is prelude to saying that they have finally come in and made their choice -- and the winner of the Hugh and Dan contest is Jillian from Ohio!

Congratulations, Jillian!

And many many thanks to all the hard-working contestants who entered and who took the time to look up the answers to the questions. You are all wonderful. And I hope you all have Hugh's and Dan's birthdays on your calendars now, so that when I ask again next year (you don't think I will?) that you won't have to go looking for them.

Jillian's prize, including DVDs of Defiance and X-Men, as well as my new book One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife, some other books and goodies, will be going out to her today. I hope you enjoy them, Jilian.

On the home front, besides mud, there's not much new. I do have the galleys back for Demetrios's book, which also now has a title. Did I tell you that? It's called The Virgin's Proposition. It actually has something to do with the book! Imagine that.

I don't know when it's coming out yet, but they seem to be moving it right along, so I hope it will turn up mid 2010 sometime.

George went back to the drawing board because he had far too much backstory in the first three chapters. So I'm pruning him and hoping that his book moves faster now.

Speaking of Georges, Liz Fielding has a terrific book out in November with a hero named George She sent it to me because she knew I was working on a George, too. It's supposed to be inspiration, but it's so wonderful, my George is despairing of ever living up to the name.

Her book is called Christmas Angel for the Billionaire and it's out in North America by itself as a Harlequin Romance, and in UK as part of a two-fer with Jessica Hart's Under the Boss's Mistletoe (another really lovely book).

Liz's George is a wonderful George (all Liz's heroes are wonderful) -- with a teenage daughter who is giving him fits and a father he's never been able to please.

I fell for her George the first time I saw him. I wanted to be Annie, her heroine. I loved the way Liz brought them together, loved the way Annie found herself (her real self, not her royal self) in George's family. And I loved the way Annie gave him the support he needed to make peace with the people he loved the most but couldn't seem to connect with.

As always, Liz did a terrific job with her people. I always like to spend time in Liz Fielding's world, and George's book was pure delight.

I'm looking forward to Her Desert Dream, the other half of the "trading places" duo where I get to find out what happened to Annie's look-alike Lydia who took her place and, from the look of things, may end up with a sheikh!

Watch out for Liz's book this month. And keep your eyes open for Lydia's book as well.

I loved the first. I can't wait for the second.

The Trouble With Charley

My editor is going to love Charley -- if I don't kill him first.

Why? Because she's always telling me I should write faster, get books out more often, etc etc etc.

But that means, what? Spending more time at the computer. Working my fingers to the nub. Not to mention my brain.

I have resisted. The well of inspiration is not a gusher around here. It's generally more of a slow steady trickle -- with occasional plugs.

That was all pre-Charley.

Charley, I suspect, has ADD or ADHD or one of those acronymns that I can never get right but that means he has the attention span of, say, a chicken.

Rooster, Charley says. Attention span of a rooster.

Yes, well, whatever you want to call it, Charley needs to be kept busy. Left to his own devices, he does not stay on task.

He is easily distractable -- especially by anything with a keyboard wearing pink, red or purple.

While I'm pausing for thought, trying to figure out which Greek saint's feast day we're going to be celebrating in chapter seven and trying to use the internet to find it out, Charley won't wait.

He is busy making notes in his little black book about which girly laptop he wants to ring next.

I didn't even know he had a little black book.

Everyone has a little black book, he told me. Only now they call it an address file. Liz Fielding's sexy "Liz Machine" is in it now, and Kate Walker's new RED Dell Mini may be next.

More trouble is brewing on the horizon, too, because Kate Hardy is expecting a new laptop whom she intends to call Seb. He has already asked Charley if he wants to go out trolling for chicks!

I hope Kate gives Seb a few rules before she unleashes him on his peer group. I'm thinking Charley may need a curfew and it won't help if Seb can come in any time he wants.

I'm not sure Kate mentioned if Seb was another of those sleek black laptops like Charley. I'm just hoping he's not that Lamborghini yellow one Charley spotted this morning. I don't need him having a case of laptop cover envy.

The only way I've found of handling these energy bursts of Charley's is to make him work. He finished chapter six this morning and is working his way through chapter seven.

I tried to stop there and think a bit about the next scene, but Charley didn't want to quit.

Once he's on a roll, he won't settle down. He just wants to keep writing and writing and writing (which is why my editor will love him).

When I say I need a break or to go to the grocery store or think about where the story goes next, he starts prowling the internet looking for new girlfriends.

I suggested yanking out his wireless card. It's what I used to have to do with Old Wonky when he either spun his hourglass forever or got seriously overheated. But it won't work with Charley. His wireless card is built-in.

I'm thinking he needs some games to play. Got any suggestions? I'm not sure he's a spider solitaire kind of guy. He might need something a bit more, er, action oriented than that.

Something with guns and spies and going undercover, Charley says. And girls with keyboards (goes without saying). Ideas welcome.

In the meantime, I know what I'm going to do with him tonight. I'm going to send him downstairs at 8:00 to watch the premiere of the third season of Burn Notice.

Only problem there is that I won't be upstairs thinking. I'll be downstairs, too, watching it with him.

Grooms Contest -- Last Day

Well, Anne has dropped the ball and can't tell you about Santos (that's him over there on the left) personally because she can't find his book.

This will give you some idea of the state of her office (CHAOS!), and she sends apologies to The Man Himself because she remembers hearing about his story as Kate was writing it (and drooling over him, she says, which I find disgusting, but what can I say?)

Anyway, she will find it, she assures me, and write about it while it is still on the shelves (which it will be until late February). So if you don't win a copy, don't despair. You can go buy one -- and Kate will be pleased.

So will Santos, provided he can be distracted from the right sister who is now his bride!

Today, in case you haven't noticed -- is January 21st. The last day to enter the 3rd annual Here Come The Grooms Contest.

This means that Anne will probably snatch the blog back and send me on my way (not a hardship, though I've enjoyed being here, but I'll have more time to spend with Ally when I'm not writing blogs) -- and we're going to celebrate the news of a prospective little Antonides coming along in a few months (Yiayia will be over the moon -- she likes the notion of great-grandchildren, and the more the better. But mine will be the best looking, she tells me!).

So, details below for entering if you haven't already done so.

There are three questions and to win you have to answer all the questions and email your answers to Anne, to Kate and to Liz. Each of them will pick a winner and that winner will get a copy of each of the these books.

Here are the questions:

1. PJ left New York after he graduated from high school. Where did he go?
2. Who was Santos supposed to be marrying?
3. What scent did Jago recognise?

You'll find the answers in excerpt on Anne's, Kate's and Liz's websites and you've got until January 21 to send in your answers.

Got it? You'll find "contact me" links on Kate's, Liz's and Anne's websites, too. Use those to email them-- all three of them with all three answers, don't forget. Good luck!

I get to come back and announce the winners, so you haven't totally got rid of me. Ally might come, too. Go for it.

To Christo and Natalie

PJ here.

Anne just sent up a flare telling me that Christo and Natalie have left England headed for the copyeditor in Canada. So . . . no more revisions!

Whew.

Anne is pleased. I'm pleased -- because that mean I can get back to my once-and-forever wife, Ally, now. And, of course, Christo and Natalie are vastly relieved.

Break out the champagne!

Really glad to see all the entries for the Here Come the Grooms contest coming in. Remember, if you haven't already entered, you can do so until January 21st. The questions are below. Keep scrolling down.

I'll be back to tell you about Jago's book, Wedded in a Whirlwind. I can see what he means about Manda having a kick like a mule now. But, given the circumstances, I reckon he deserved it.

The book kept Anne up until 1:30 this morning. She thinks it's dynamite. She gave it to me this morning so I could read and "understand" Nick Jago.

Well, I don't know about that. But it's a good book. I'll be back tomorrow and tell you a bit more.

Anne . . . flattened

Hey. PJ here.

Anne says to tell you she's been flattened by a bus. Or it feels that way.

She was up all night with Christo and Natalie and she's gone to bed with Burn Notice and isn't coming out until either Christo and Natalie come back for more revisions or she's seen all of Burn Notice or I run out of things to say.

She's hoping for the second alternative, praying like mad that Christo and Natalie stay gone (though by 7 a.m. this morning she could be heard muttering, I think it tracks. I think it tracks. I think it tracks. But how would I know?) .

Christo says it tracks and he got to spend a lot of time in the bedroom, so he's happy. Natalie says it tracks and they got a happily ever after so she's happy. And she just poked Christo and he said he's happy about that, too. And from the look of him -- a little tattered around the edges, but definitely grinning -- he's telling the truth.

Anne figures Burn Notice will be a nice distraction. And she's sure I have plenty to say -- especially since I've seen that Nick "prop me up on an altar and give me a bottle of booze" Jago is making crap out of me and Santos on Liz's website.

I would defend my honor -- and the marriage I've had to put out of my head -- but Jago is so far off the mark that I can't even dignify his comments.

As Santos is on the same island at least, I'm going to let him take care of things for both of us!

Just let me say that he's darned lucky to find a woman like Manda who will put up with him. And since he's saying things like "cancel the honeymoon" -- though God knows what he means -- I want Manda to know I've got a kid brother, Lukas, who might be just the man she's looking for. Truly.

If you get fed up with Jago, Manda, give me a shout. I'll muster up Lukas and introduce you.

Aside to Liz: how did you put up with him?

Don't forget, people, if you want copies of Santos's book and mine -- and the one where Jago is an idiot -- answer the questions in the Here Come the Grooms contest piece. Send your answers to Anne and Liz and Kate by January 21.

You'll be glad you did.

Here Come The Grooms . . . Again!

It's back!

The 3rd Annual Here Come The Grooms! Contest starts January 7, 2009 and runs through January 21, 2009.

What does this mean to you?

Depends on if you want three chances to win three new books.

For the last three years Kate Walker, Liz Fielding and I have had Grooms come and take over our blogs -- not to mention our lives -- in January. It all began when we all had books out in February 2007, and they all had the word "Bride" in the title.

We thought our brides would like to host a "Here Come The Brides" contest on our sites. And they did.

But they had so much fun that the grooms decided they'd get into the act, too. So they pretty much hijacked the month. They ran their own contest -- and their successors, the 2008 grooms, came back and did it again last year.

Not to be outdone, PJ Antonides (my guy) from Antonides' Forbidden Wife, Santos Cordero (Kate's guy) from Cordero's Forced Bride, and Nick Jago (Liz's guy) from Bedded in a Whirlwind, have been lurking around waiting for their turn.

It's here.

We'll be introducing you to each of them in the next few days.

And they'll be along to blog. At least I'm sure PJ will.

I suppose Jago and Santos will be, too. In the meantime, PJ says that he has his question ready and you can find it and the answer to it (if you're in a hurry) on the contest page of my website. The other grooms' questions are there, too.

Just click on the tab there and answer the questions (look in the excerpts or on our blogs for the answers) and you will be entered in PJ's drawing which will be after the contest ends January 21. Do the same thing on Liz's and Kate's websites and you have THREE chances to win.

PJ says that if you have already bought his book (which he hopes you have), and you win, he will either send you a backlist title of your choice (providing he can find it in my attic) or a copy of my upcoming Savas' Defiant Mistress when the first author copies finally arrive.

That's if you're into delayed gratification, he says. As he has had to wait ten years for his wife to turn back up in his life, PJ understands all about delayed gratification.

He'll be back later this week to blog.

Send in your entries now!

Housekeeping

I know I should have done all the housekeeping stuff before the holidays. But when you're going to be spending it with several little and not-so-little-anymore boys -- and their dog -- there really isn't much point.

It was lovely. We had a very good time. Now I am cleaning up.

And while I'm doing that, I am cleaning up loose ends on my desk as well. Some of them have to do with winners of books which will be sent out, weather permitting, tomorrow. Avi and Gina, your books will be on their way first thing. And Mallory, who won 3 Antonides books at the eharlequin open house, yours will be out the door, too.

My apologies for not getting them sent earlier, but the ice, snow and lines at the post office didn't cooperate. The lines are gone now. And, barring major ice, I'll be at the p.o. tomorrow.

Speaking of winning books, it's almost time for the 3rd annual Here Come The Grooms contest which I've been doing with Kate Walker and Liz Fielding. We're getting ready to do it again. So check back for details.

PJ has already agreed to come and blog, which is a very good thing, as I'll be deep in Demetrios's story by then.

Stay tuned.

What's On Your Book Shelf?

Liz Fielding posted a list of "the top 100 books" put out by the British National Endowment for the Arts.

She got it from Kate Hardy. Kate got it from Michelle Styles. Michelle got it from Amanda Ashby. Amanda presumably, got it from someone else. Or maybe she actually reads the literature put out by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Anyway, the National Endowment people say the average reader has read 6.

I've read slightly over half.

I don't remember a lot about most of the ones I've read. Quite a few were read as part of lit courses I took, not because I was enthralled with them. But some I genuinely loved and went back to read on my own again. And again.

Others -- let's be honest here -- I hated.

And I had a heated discussion with The Prof about Madame Bovary (as always), since he loves it and I hated it. Ditto Gone With The Wind (well, he didn't love it, but he thought it was worth reading).

He said, "It's an American Madame Bovary."

And I said, "Exactly."

And he said, "They're anti-heroines, Madame Bovary and Scarlett O'Hara. You're not supposed to like them."

And I said, "Why would I waste time reading books about people I don't like?"

So, I'm a philistine. Get over it. He has. Sort of.

Anyway, here's my list. The ones I've read are in bold. Read it over and let me know which ones you've read and what you think of the list.

By the way, the comments (go to the link and scan to the bottom) over on Liz's blog are well worth reading -- as well as Liz's own comments on the ones she's read. So check them out.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (first time I read it I was too young and bored. Then I reread it and loved it.)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (yes, indeed, some of us haven't)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (and yes, there are actually romance writers -- well, one anyway -- who haven't read Jane Eyre)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (does it count that I've read five of them and have the rest? I'll get to them someday)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (amazing book)
6 The Bible (probably not all of it, but most)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (yes, you can be a romance writer and not have read this)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (we read a lot of Hardy in school)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (loved it!)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (does half count?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (bought it for my dad)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (ah, teenage angst)
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (still not a big fan)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (hated the movie, won't read the book)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (like Hardy, we read Dickens till our eyes fell out)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (from a long line of dust bowl Okies, it cut a little close to home)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (loved it)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (loved it)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (over and over to my kids and never got tired of it)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (all the Anne books! Yes!)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (loved it!)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (memorable, moving)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I told you we read a lot of Hardy)
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (hated it)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Caught by a sheikh

It is rare that I am caught by a sheikh and can't put him down. Sheikhs are not my fantasy. Never have been. Never will be.

Except Liz Fielding's Fayed.

Fayad al Khalifa is the hero of Chosen As The Sheikh's Wife, which is Liz's contribution to 100 Arabian Nights, an anthology (with Kim Lawrence and Meredith Webber) that is out in UK now.

It may never see the light of day in the US or anywhere else except maybe Australia and New Zealand (though it might). But don't despair. I know how you can get it.

But first, let me tell you why you should.

Fayed is fantastic hero. He is strong, powerful and, of course, drop-dead gorgeous. More than that he's responsible, dutiful and determined to drag his nation into the 21st century without destroying the best of the past. He is also wounded. Deeply. Life has not been kind to him -- but he surviving.

Still the last thing he needs is an ancient knife -- a khanjar known as The Blood of Tariq -- to show up and complicate his life. Even less does he need Violet Hamilton who just happens to have it in her possession.

Violet doesn't want it in her life any more than he wants to deal with it in his -- for entirely different reasons. Oh, sure, it could maybe save her from being tossed out on the street when her home is repossessed. But there's a downside to the Blood of Tariq -- and it doesn't take Violet long to figure that out.

It would be hard to imagine two more different people -- the all-powerful Arab prince and the English working girl. And on the surface, that's true. But on the level where their hearts and souls meet, Fayed and Violet share a destiny.

If you want a little taste to whet your appetite, Liz has provided an excerpt on her website.

It hooked me. I went right out and ordered it. Fayed and Violet arrived in my mailbox right before lunch yesterday. I was planning on spending the afternoon with Christo and Natalie.

Fat chance.

Fayed swept me away. He didn't even have a camel. He just swooped in and transported me, first to London and then to his kingdom. It was a magical afternoon. My only complaint is that it wasn't long enough.

Liz's books are never long enough when they're 190 pages or so. This one, as a novella, was less than that. I wanted more.

I still want more. Liz is celebrating the publication of her 50th book this year. But I would like a hundred at least -- so I hope she's got her nose to the grindstone and her fingers on the keyboard.

Fayed and Violet were delightful and their story will live in my mind and my heart forever.

Lucky UK readers can just nip down to the local bookshop or wherever it is they buy books and get their own copies off the shelves. Or they can order it from M&B, I guess. The rest of us have to go to Book Depository and order online.

This is not such a hardship as you might think because dear dear Book Depository will ship 100 Arabian Nights post paid. So all you have to pay for is the book. It will come air mail. You should have it in a week or so.

It's definitely worth it -- even though it made my daily quota for Christo and Natalie fall behind. I'd do it again in a minute.

In fact I will do it again the next time Liz has a book out!

Great Books Give-Away II -- Liz Fielding

I hate giving this book away.

I loved it. But I want someone else to love it, too.

It's A Wife On Paper by the incomparable, stupendous, absolutely spectacular (can you tell I like her books?) Liz Fielding.

Liz writes terrific books. She's done 50 of them. And this is, in my estimation, one of the best.

Certainly it's one of my favorites.

What I like best about it is all the repressed emotion. Guy Dymoke has had feelings for Francesca for a long, long time. But she belonged to his brother. And Guy -- being a hero you understand -- wasn't the sort of man who poached. He bottled everything up, buttoned it down, got on with life, and survived without her.

But he didn't forget her.

And when Francesca is widowed and circumstances throw them together again, well, you can guess what happens. But it's best to let Liz tell you.
A Wife On Paper is the first of this week's give-away books. But the pile already has a head-start because Tempting by Susan Mallery (from last week) is still here as Chris, who won it, has read it already and said she would leave it for someone else to enjoy.

She's getting my own In McGillivray's Bed instead. Thanks for asking for Hugh and Sydney's story, Chris. I hope you enjoy it.

* * * *

Seb's past the halfway point. It's all downhill from here, I told him. He thinks I need to make sure I know what I'm doing so we don't back slide. He might be right. But I'm not telling him so.

After all, who's the author here?

The Bride's Baby

I've mentioned Tom, Liz Fielding's groom in The Bride's Baby whenever I've mentioned our Here Come the Grooms! contest. Tom has even done a bit of blogging on Liz's site.

But mentioning Tom and reading his blog isn't the same as having read his book.

Last night I finished reading his book.

Of course I was expecting another warm, wonderful Liz Fielding read. Does she do any other kind? Well, yes, she does funny and moving and soul-touching and sometimes ironic, but you know what I mean. They are always worth waiting for -- and worth reading whenever one comes along.

But Tom -- what can I say about Tom?

He's a great hero. He's the quintessential 'wounded' hero. He has wounds so deep and so lasting that you wonder if he's ever going to make it past them.

Of course, at first he simply thinks he won't have to bother, that he can 'go around' them and get what he wants without having to confront his past head-on.

Bad idea, Tom. You should know better.

And, of course, being a Liz Fielding hero, he learns. Mostly he learns from Sylvie, who is an absolutely wonderful heroine. A woman with wounds of her own, she hasn't had the perfect life Tom imagines she's had. But she hasn't let it stop her, either. Mostly.

In The Bride's Baby Tom and Sylvie have awareness and passion to begin with. But before it's over, they have something more. They have helped each other grow, have given each other the strength to confront their respective pasts and move on -- together.

I loved this book. I didn't want it to end. Thank you, Liz -- and Tom and Sylvie -- for giving me so much pleasure as I read The Bride's Baby.

The Bride's Baby will be coming out as an April book in both the US and UK.

Now, what I want to know is: when's the next Liz Fielding book hitting the shelves?

Here Comes A Groom -- Tom

I promised to introduce you to the other two grooms who are part of the Here Come The Grooms II contest.

So let me begin with Tom MacFarlane, hero of Liz Fielding's The Bride's Baby.

In fact, because Liz knows Tom so much better than I do, I'll let her introduce him to you.

According to Liz, Tom is a man who has everything except the very necessary well-bred wife to put the gloss on his meteoric rise from the lowest sphere of society.

A man who knows that love hurts and is having none of it, only for love to throw a spanner into the carefully oiled works and overturn his well-laid plans.

No doubt he'll take over and tell you the tale himself, but here's a bride's eye view of him to be going on with.

Sylvie turned to find her way blocked by six and a half feet of broad-shouldered male and experienced a bewildering sense of deja vu.

A feeling that this had happened before.

And then she looked up and realised it was not an illusion. This had happened before -- except on that occasion the male concerned had been wearing navy pin-stripe instead of grey cashmere.

"Some billionaire," Laura had said, but she hadn't mentioned a name. And Sylvie hadn't bothered to ask, pretending she didn't care.

She cared now, because it wasn't just "some billionaire" who'd bought her family home and was planning to turn it into a conference centre.

It was Tom McFarlane, the man with whom, just for a few moments, she'd totally lost it. Whose baby she was now carrying.

Whoa. Sounds like there's going to be just a bit of conflict there!

And as just this past Thursday a copy of The Bride's Baby, straight from Liz herself, landed in my mailbox, I am just about to settle in and open the book and find out what happens between Sylvie and Tom.

As every book Liz writes is a warm and wonderful treat, I am looking forward to it!

Breakfast at Giovanni's

The lovely talented Kate Hardy, who writes faster than I can read, also writes wonderful books.

She writes Medicals for Mills & Boon, and she also writes M&B Modern Extras, or as they are now called, Modern Heat. And some of the latter are coming out in America as part of the Presents line.

One of them, Breakfast at Giovanni's, on Monday won the Romance Novelists' Association prize for category romance!

Kate's book has been retitled -- something about an Italian Boss, I think. Personally I love the title Breakfast at Giovanni's. But I think marketing feels it doesn't 'fit' with 'The Presents Promise."

Personally I wish they'd 'promise' more variety in their titles. Many of the books do. They aren't as cookie-cutter as critics -- or marketing -- would like you to think. But you'd never know it from the sameness of the titles.

Anyway, I'm thrilled for Kate who, as you can see here, looks a bit stunned and 'who me?' when they called her name.

And yes, that's the lovely Liz Fielding, whose wonderful Secret Life of Lady Gabriella was also short-listed for the prize, sitting far to the right. (So you can see how stiff the competition was).

Congrats to all who were short-listed -- and special congrats to Kate for walking away with the Betty Neels' Bowl which will be hers for the year.