Going Large

It's been that kind of week. Everything has just been bigger than usual. Like, for example...

1. My smile (and Orlando Winterton's head, probably) when I found out that Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure had won a Cataromance Reviewer's Choice Award.

2. The cover of At the Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding which, along with that of Sarah Morgan's The Prince's Waitress Wife, was blown up to larger-than-life proportions in Borders in Oxford Street at the launch of the International Billionaires series on Tuesday.

(Felicia Field is the girl with the ball. She's the partner of England flanker James Haskell, and the gorgeous face of Mills & Boon's partnership with the RFU.) (Thank goodness.)

3. My sense of gratitude and good fortune to be doing what I'm doing after an evening/late night spent with fellow Presents authors Susan Stephens, Sarah Morgan, Carole Mortimer and Abby Green at the rugby launch party (and afterwards in the hotel bar...) Intelligent, interesting and talented to a woman, these girls know how to laugh and drink champagne in exceptional style. (The hotel barman couldn't stay the distance and went to bed long before we'd finished. )

4. My hangover the next day.

5. My status in the Birthday Cake-Creation division of the Domestic Goddess Stakes , thanks to the impromptu construction of Krispy Kreme doughnuts bought as I hurried back from London on Daughter #3's birthday on Wednesday. In all my years of sobbing and swearing over elaborate crinoline Barbie confections and fairy castles painstakingly engineered from ice cream cones and swiss rolls, none of my efforts have ever been greeted with such delight as this one, or eaten with such speed and relish.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere...

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...

Reality? What's that?

Yesterday the writing went well, which you'd think would be very good news. Right up until the last moment (or actually, maybe around 7 minutes after what punctual people would consider to be the last moment) when I had to leave to collect the girls from school, streams of fabulous words were flowing into my head and my fingers were flying over the keyboard. It was with the greatest reluctance that I dragged myself away from the computer and into the car, where my brain continued to come up with yet more streams of fabulous words.

This, it turned out as I drove straight through a red traffic light, was in fact quite bad news.

Honestly, it’s a dangerous job this romance writing, you know.

When Mills and Boon is better than Shakespeare...

In a bid to extend the cultural outlook of daughters 1 and 2 beyond X-Factor and the screens of their Nintendo DSs I took them to see the RSC production of Romeo and Juliet at Stratford on Saturday. They loved it. Me—not so much.

Bit of a facer, that. I’ve adored this play since I was sixteen and was desperately excited about seeing it again and hearing those lines that I sometimes say inside my head when I'm hanging out washing or can't get to sleep (I’m a particular fan of Juliet’s ‘gallop apace’ speech, and the deliciously gothic one in Act 4 about Tybalt festering in his shroud.) But this time I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was distinctly lacking.

I had plenty of time to think about it (three hours twenty five minutes, to be precise) and came to the conclusion early in the second half that my lack of enthusiasm was directly related to my job. While my girls were engrossed in the story I was thinking, where’s the tension? Where’s the realism? Where in the name of the bard is the pulsing, teenage hormonal sexual chemistry?? (In other words where's Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting??)

The playwright has actors to bring his lines of dialogue to life (ideally.) The novelist has to do it herself, getting across the mood of the speaker by specifically describing physical action, or by using tags. Your heroine will say something while fiddling idly/nervously/savagely with the glass on the table in front of her. Or she’ll say whatever it is softly/hesitantly/bitterly. What she won’t do is annunciate exquisite words of tenderness and love at the top of her voice while making exaggerated, sweeping gestures and looking beyond her man and out into the middle distance.

Call me an outrageous philistine and strip me of my BA(hons) but for romance give me Mills & Boon anyday. Next time I'll take the girls to see Macbeth.

New Website!

Finally! I haven’t been this excited about anything for a long time. (Hmmm... is that quite worrying?) It feels a bit like having a new house, only cheaper and much easier to look after since no-one can come along and litter its pristine spaces with wet towels or empty biscuit wrappers, and even if they did (and this is the best bit...) it wouldn’t be me who had to tidy it up. That is the job of Martin, husband of my lovely friend Liz, fellow veteran of many a rain-(and wine-) soaked camping expedition and erstwhile employer at the marketing agency where I used to write bits of sparkling copy about luxury cars and cruises down the Nile. While I used to have to bow to his tyrannical demands, now I am the client and can ring him late at night to discuss fonts and layout and mock him for his dreadful spelling. It’s all most satisfactory.

Of course, the problem with improving one area of your life is always that it makes all the rest look even more shabby and down-at-heel by comparison, which is why I’ve given the blog a little bit of a makeover, with new pictures and a playlist for the most recent book. Now I'm off to redecorate the kitchen, polish the taps in the bathroom and have a seaweed body wrap and facial peel.

(I wish.)

More Rugby Talk...

...This time at 8.30 in the morning on Radio London. The daughters thought this was a huge laugh as it meant the school run was postponed by 15 minutes and they were allowed to watch morning TV while I talked gumshields and glamour and tried to stack the dishwasher very quietly. Also being interviewed was Felicia Field, uber-gorgeous partner of England flanker James Haskell who also happens to be a Mills & Boon fan. What a girl, and what a fab ambassador for our readers. If you want to hear her inside view of real life with a rugby hero, listen here. (It’s about 2.35 into the programme...)

And (thanks so much to Marilyn for reminding me!) here’s the full line up of the books in the International Billionaire’s series, which starts next month.

The Prince’s Waitress Wife – Sarah Morgan (February)
At the Argentinean Billionaire’s Bidding – India Grey (March)
The French Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress – Abby Green (April)
The Ruthless Billionaire’s Virgin – Susan Stephens (May)
The Italian Count’s Defiant Bride – Catherine George (June)
The Sheikh’s Love-Child – Kate Hewitt (July)
Blackmailed into the Greek Tycoon’s Bed – Carol Marinelli (August)
The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss – Carole Mortimer (September)

They’re all first and foremost stonking passionate and emotional romances by a bunch of totally fabulous writers (and me too) but all of them have a connection with one of the sexiest sports on the planet. Heaven in eight volumes.

It's all kicking off...

I’ve been doing a fair bit of publicity this week for the rugby series, (see here and listen here for the first fruits of it) This is huge fun and a great opportunity to ponder in-depth such questions as ‘What is the appeal of rugby players?’

Hmmm... let me think....