Rich Rewards

I don't need to tell you, dear blog readers, how long I've been stalking an active appreciator of James D'Arcy. So, let's just say that the plentiful PR coverage his new film is attracting is doing an excellent job of staving off the January blues. Here's the trailer. 

It's been a while since I mentioned it...

...but James D'Arcy's looking mighty fine these days isn't he?

*happy sigh* Hero inspiration in every finely-shaped feature. Since the book I'm currently working on is set in a different time-period (and also features a pilot hero) I think it wouldn't be disloyal to Orlando to use him again...

Who are you finding inspiring at the moment? Do share!

Cause for Celebration

The balloons are out and the bunting is up in the kitchen, and not just because last night saw the start of a new series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl with James D’Arcy in the role of sexy editor of Belle De Jour’s sexy book. No, yesterday The Birthday Season kicked off here with Daughter #3’s 9th, and from now until early March it’s wall-to-wall cake, wrapping paper and hard negotiations about how many friends should be allowed for a sleepover.

Sounds like the perfect time to take refuge in my own book, which might just get a whole lot sexier thanks to a weekly dose of inspiration in the form of lovely James. Here's a taster of what's in store for Thursday nights , with Billie/Belle summing up at the end how I feel too... (although in my line of work the opportunity of being taken on a desk by James D'Arcy so far hasn't presented itself. In reality, anyway. Shame.)

Monday morning, 6 am

Wake up and lie in the dark, listening to the gurgle of the central heating, fighting post-weekend ennui and thinking about all the things I have to do today. Top of the list is update this blog, so I run the last week back in my mind and try to think of something exciting/interesting/profound that I could possibly say about it.

Panic. There is nothing. Heart racing I slide beneath the duvet as I come to terms with the fact that I am a mad recluse who sits hunched at the computer all day hugging hot water bottles and wearing His down-filled body warmer (green and over-large, therefore making me look remarkably like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle – or, more accurately, a thirty-something one) and only tearing myself away for raids on the biscuit tin and the school run, where I often fail to make conversation with anyone – partly because of the ninja turtle lookalike thing, but also because I am still listening to the people in my head. (You see? Virtually certifiable.)

Am at the point of wondering if anyone will notice if I fabricate a glamorous weekend in Provence or meeting Robert Pattinson at a dinner party, and then I remember that it’s now only a week until the launch of the brand new shiny PHS Book Club, where Powerful Italian Penniless Housekeeper is the first book up for discussion. The relief! Something to blog about. (I love Donna Alward even more than I love the marshmallow cupcakes daughter #2 and I made from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook yesterday, and that is a considerable amount of love.) A book club for category romance is such a fantastic idea that I can’t believe no-one’s done it before so I utterly can’t wait for this one and warn you that unless for example James D'Arcy arrives at my house and proposes on the doorstep (marriage or anything else) or I get spotted by a modelling scout who's just realised the Thirty-something Mutant Ninja Turtle look is the Next Big Thing and whisks me off for a life of international stardom, I'll probably mention it a few more times between now and the 26th January.

Get up feeling much lighter of heart and more positive of outlook. Happy Monday everyone.

Crazy Mad Fangirl on the Loose

Those nice ladies/therapists at the Pink Heart Society have very kindly/rashly given me a Male on Monday slot. Guess who I’m blogging/obsessing about?

Here’s a clue...

Letting Go

I’m finding it hard to let go of this book.

There weren’t really any revisions, but my editor agreed that the ending was crying out for an epilogue, so I had a lovely excuse to submerge myself right back into it and wallow with delicious self-indulgence in my favourite part of writing (ie. the end). The playlist I’ve had while I’ve been working on this one has been absolutely cracking, so it’s been on at full volume while I’ve been sitting at my computer with a box of tissues, sending Tristan and Lily off into the sunset to get on with their life together.

I fell for Tristan in a big way, and I’m quite sure if I found myself standing a couple of feet away from Henry Cavill again now and he smiled his beautiful smile at me I would be utterly incapable of the restraint I showed in the same situation back in June. Not since lovely Orlando Winterton have I lost my heart so thoroughly to a hero...

(Talking of whom, I had a lovely Orlando moment this week when, collapsing in front of the TV with a glass of credit-crunch cava to celebrate the end of the book (again), I came face to face with delicious James D’Arcy— in military uniform. It was a drama series called The Commander, I think, but obviously I’m a little sketchy on the plot details since I was far too busy gazing lustfully at the striped epaulettes on those broad shoulders. Hell-o Orlando!)

Anyway, as another hero gets his girl it’s time to unpin the pictures from above my computer and change my screensaver to a new man, and for this I need your help...

Back tomorrow for a little opinion poll!

Competition time!

After this morning's TV excitement, I'm back and ready to launch Day One of the competition to celebrate the release of Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure. I know you're supposed to save the best 'til last, but forget that. I'm cutting to the chase straight away, because my favourite aspect of the book is-- you guessed it-- the hero.

My adoration of Orlando Winterton has been pretty well documented here already, but the time has come at last to introduce him properly. To do that I need to go back to the beginning, and to where the whole idea for the book came from.

A few years ago I was struck down by a nasty virus called CMV which, amongst other delights, can cause long term visual problems. As a result I now have an annual field of vision check, and it was during one of these, and while I waited anxiously for the results, that the seeds of the book were sown. Thankfully, my test results were clear, but as a commited hypochondriac by then I'd already visited the scenario that they wouldn't be... that the news would be bad... and that's exactly the situation in which Orlando finds himself as the book opens. He's just been diagnosed with a degenerative sight condition called Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy. To a fighter pilot in the RAF this news spells instant professional death. To a man who is used to excelling effortlessly, to being a leader, a hero, the personal outlook is hardly more positive and Orlando's charmed, privileged life begins to unravel.

When I was writing the book I had a post-it note stuck to my computer monitor that had the words COURAGE and HEROISM written on it. (At least it started off being stuck to my monitor, but it kept falling off. One day while I was driving to pick the children up from school I found it stuck to my elbow.) These were the themes of the book, and completely contrasting ways in which Orlando and Rachel percieved these concepts provided the starting point for the conflict between them and the journeys they each had to make in order to get their happy ending.

Orlando was so lovely to write, and I fell quite ridiculously in love with him. That combination of phenomenal strength and private vulnerability is well established and hugely powerful, and provides endless romantic/heroic potential. It was a role to which lovely James D'Arcy-- on whom I've had a whopping great fangirly crush for ages-- was perfectly suited, and I joyfully embraced the opportunity to pin pictures of him all over my office and post photos here at the slightest excuse. As I'm sure you all remember...







I was very lucky in that a friend of one of my brothers is a pilot in the RAF, and he was fantastically generous with his time, providing loads of information in answer to my questions (even replying to my emails from the beachside bar when he was on holiday!) and often inadvertently informing the plot with the things that he told me. The book is dedicated to him.



Tomorrow I'll be back to talk about the woman who arrived suddenly and unexpectedly in Orlando's life, shattering his self-imposed exile and forcing him to confront things that really, he'd rather have left unconfronted. Like the fact that one glorious encounter doesn't necessarily get someone out of your system. And courage isn't simply a matter of defending your country...

Question 1: What was Orlando Winterton's profession at the start of the book?

Look!

The cover for my next book is up on Amazon.

This is my August release (out in hardback in June) and is Orlando and Rachel’s story—you know, the one I was so deeply obsessed about last summer, and for which the delicious James D’Arcy provided the hero material.

(Let’s just remind ourselves shall we....

.... Ah yes.... lovely.)

It's my favourite book so far, though I think it should have the subtitle ‘Pleasure has got nothing to do with it...’ as it’s also pretty dark at times. I have to confess, James/Orlando is just a little more lean and beautiful than his cover counterpart (and the colour of Rachel’s hair is all wrong... picky, picky, picky) but I think it does a pretty good job of catching the mood, and Rachel's dress is so much sexier than poor Anna's dinner lady overall on my last book!

(The hulking dark shape in the background is a piano, by the way, and not the open bonnet of the hero's Ford Cortina. )

India the Unready.

While flicking through a magazine in the dentist's waiting room yesterday I discovered that, according to their ‘Countdown to Christmas’ feature today is the day I should be preparing my homemade stuffing to put in the freezer for the big day.

(**falls off chair laughing**)

Reached something of a low point last night when my husband rather annoyingly announced that the last posting dates are looming, and I realised that not only are all the presents that need posting still unwrapped and languishing in drawers and cupboards, but a good many of them are also still unbought and languishing in Marks and Spencers. Oh dear. However, still in positive frame of mind I went to unearth the pitiful few that I do have, only to discover that I’d left the wrapping paper I bought yesterday (in a brave attempt to get on top of things) in the shop.

I think I now know why hedgehogs hibernate.

But just when a downwards spiral into misery and recrimination seemed inevitable, salvation came in the form of an email from the lovely Amanda Ashby, in which (amongst other things) she posed the interesting question 'if David Boreanaz and James D'Acry were in a naked mud wrestling competition who would win?' Definitely something to ponder as I sit through Carol Service Number Two later on. Early research suggests that David has the weight advantage, but that James has height and gorgeous hands on his side... (And of course the gorgeous hands matter. To me, anyway.)

Label babe

I’m generally not a label kind of a girl, really. I don’t really know D&G from B&Q to be perfectly honest, but, in a blogger sense at least, I am now going to attempt to embrace the label.

The turning point came on a recent glance at my site referrals, when I discovered that someone had arrived here via a search for James D’Arcy’s hands. I reckon if that’s what you’re looking for, you deserve to have your labours richly rewarded, and the fruits of them easily displayed for instant enjoyment. Thus, I bring you more James D’Arcy, and his hands—this time clearly labelled.

Share the love.

Goodbye Orlando!

Heard just before we left on Friday (for the wettest camping trip ever) that my wonderful editor loved him too, meaning my time with Orlando is officially over.

Am trying to be glad about this. It's excellent news. So why do I feel so lost? Think I'll just post one last photo of him to cheer myself up....

(Thank you, James d'Arcy for making suffering look so sexy, and doing the tormented hero so inspiringly. Your work here is done.)

Thank you too to all the people who have so far entered my website competition-- and sorry if I haven't yet had a chance to reply to you. I promise I will soon! There's still a couple of weeks left to enter, so if you haven't done so already please get over to the website and say hello. There's no need to send a long message, just a 'hi' will do! (Having said that, it's great to get your emails and I love reading them! Thank you!!) I've got signed copies of The Italian's Defiant Mistress and other assorted goodies to give away, and one name that I pull out of a hat (note to self: find suitable hat) will be given to a character in my forthcoming book.

Talking of which, I've searched long and hard, and have eventually found the man to take on the role of hero...

Back with pictures tomorrow.

Friday already

How did that happen?

Think I can safely say this is the week when the rest of the world finally slid out of focus for me and the book took over. This is a great feeling. I am spending my days in a shadowy mansion with the utterly gorgeous James D'Arcy (whose real name of course is Orlando Winterton... Or do I have that the wrong way round...?) and I no longer notice the dust and squalor of my own house. Excellent!

Am on the gallop to the finish now, and can hardly bear to leave the computer. The children are thoroughly enjoying this and have gone semi-feral, setting up camp made of chairs and blankets in the sitting room and retreating inside with a stash of biscuits to watch uninterrupted television through a gap in the doorway.

Thank you for all your kindness about Husband and the car fiasco. He's completely fine, thank goodness, but the car is wrecked. So we're now carless. Stuck. Marooned at home with no possibility of going anywhere until an alternative can be sorted...

(raises hands in silent prayer of thanks and scuttles back to book....)