Thank you!

I should have included a bit about the dedication in Craving the Forbidden in the post I did about the book, but completely forgot until Ros reminded me. After all the lovely, kind comments on the previous post now would seem a good time to mention it!

You should've seen the other guy

Apologies for not having returned to say thank you to everyone who's emailed me in response to the previous post and shared their happiest holiday memories and favourite destinations. Reading them has been a real pleasure, and yesterday I finally got round to picking out the names of five people to receive books. Well done Alison, Sue, Katie, Denise and Holly, and *thank you* for your lovely emails. Florence was the most mentioned holiday destination and also one of the most evocatively described, so going there now feels like a matter of urgency, especially as Autumn has arrived with a vengeance here, hurling leaves against my window and making it necessary to wear thick jumpers and have the lights on all day.

Not that I'm going anywhere if I can help it until I look a bit more respectable. Last week I went down to London with daughter #1 and a friend as she'd been commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year competition and was invited to attend an award ceremony followed by a day of exciting poetry stuff at the Southbank Centre. Of course, maternal pride aside, I was thrilled because it was an excuse to meet up with London girls Natalie Rivers and Heidi Rice for lunch and gossip.

It was a glorious sunny day and we sat in the cafe at Tate Modern and looked out across the river as we had a lovely long, leisurely lunch. After we'd reluctantly said goodbye to Heidi and sent her back to her glamorous Southbank office Natalie and I wandered in the sunshine in the direction of St Pauls, where we had a cup of tea in the crypt and listened to a school choir singing in the cathedral above. So far so fabulous. After that we were heading back in the direction of the Southbank centre to meet the daughter when it all went a bit pear shaped. The traffic, being central London, was dire and I walked in front of a bus that was stationary - but couldn't see the courier cyclist hurtling along on its pavement side.

Oops. The rest is a bit hazy, but let's just say lots of blood and an ambulance were involved. Luckily the cyclist wasn't hurt and was extremely nice, picking me up (from which we can deduce he was extremely strong too) and insisting on giving us his name and phone number. Not that I was in much state to take it, but thank goodness for Natalie who was calm, competent and utterly magnificent in a way I just know I would have failed to manage had the roles been reversed (which in itself would be unlikely as she's far too sensible to throw herself into the path of an oncoming bike in the first place.) She kept me calm, fed me chocolate, waited while I was being stitched up, made lots of contingency plans with Heidi for collection of children, then escorted us all right to the platform at Euston station when it was time for our train home. I'm thinking of taking her everywhere with me in future, just to be on the safe side. She's an absolute goddess.

Here's what I looked like yesterday. Shame Halloween isn't for a few weeks...

Craving the Forbidden - the lowdown

My husband is away on a work trip at the moment, so I was up with the lark (or the fat pigeon who lives, noisily,in the apple tree outside my bedroom window) this morning, determined to get on top of the pre-school routine. All went gratifyingly smoothly; scrambled eggs served up to the two daughters who wanted them, #3's packed lunch made (by herself, admittedly) dinner money found for the others, and I was feeling pretty smug as I drove home from the school run. Then I discovered that the guinea pigs were still shut in and sweltering in their eglu and I'd forgotten to brush my teeth. Oh well, almost there.

Anyway, moving swiftly on. The first I heard about the project that was to result in Craving the Forbidden and its sequel (In Bed with A Stranger, out in November) was when I went out for tea with my editor back in 2009. Over scones, champagne and a pot of Russian Caravan (we both agree that it's a crime to have to choose between champagne and tea so usually manage to squeeze in both) she asked if I'd be willing to be one of three of authors doing double-length stories. Given my tendency to write double the wordcount on every book, I'd agreed before she'd even finished the sentence - or told me that Lynne Graham and Penny Jordan were the other authors involved.

My excitement was tempered slightly by the fact that I was in the midst of my struggle to write The Book That Would Not Die (published eventually under the alternative title Her Last Night Of Innocence) but my subconscious decided to take matters into its own hands, and the morning after I got back from London I woke up with an extremely vivid scene in my head. It was set on a train leaving London and heading North (no prizes for guessing where you got that from, Subconscious) and was compelling enough to make me get out of bed and head straight for my computer to write it down. That was the starting point for the book, and over the following months as I wrestled with Cristiano and Kate, Kit and Sophie's story pieced itself together, bit by bit, in my mind. By the time I actually came to write it I had a notebook full of bits of dialogue and notes on scene ideas. Some of them never made it into the finished book, largely because I couldn't remember what they meant. What kind of scenes did I have in mind when I wrote 'beetroot' and 'doormat'??

The one thing that I hadn't quite got to grips with in my head when I started writing the book was the hero's character. I knew what he looked like...

...and I knew what kind of person he was ('distant' and 'disapproving' were the words written on the post-it notes on my computer screen) but I didn't really know why. At first I had him down as being an architect; precise and controlled, governed by rules and order. That was fine as far as it went, but there were still things that didn't fit and loose ends that wouldn't tie up, no matter how hard I yanked them. And then I realised that he wasn't an architect at all but a soldier and everything fell into place. Well, once I'd completely rewritten the first four chapters, anyway.

The course of the story changed dramatically after that, and took me down research routes that were fascinating, eye-opening and humbling, which is why I'm so thrilled to be involved in the Help for Heroes fundraising anthology. Kit Fitzroy is an EOD operative (that's Explosive Ordnance Disposal to the previously uninitiated, like myself) It's an extraordinary job, done by utterly extraordinary people - but there's more of that in the second book, so I'll talk about that next month.

Craving The Forbidden is almost entirely set in a hulking great castle on the Northumberland coast, based on an amalgam of Bamburgh and Alnwick and consequently imaginatively named Alnburgh. Usually I seem to set books in locations I can only dream of visiting but we'd had a great holiday in Northumberland the year before so this time all the research was conveniently done well in advance. Most uncharacteristically organised of me.

On the surface I suppose the conflict is staggeringly simple - always the best kind to work with, I find - and as old as the hills. The story is about the attraction of opposites - the spark between two people who come from different worlds and embody different values. Kit Fitzroy comes from a family whose name goes back to the Norman conquest and whose home has stood strong for four hundred years. Sophie Greenham has grown up on a painted London bus and has never stayed anywhere for more than a few months at a time. She's a bit-part actress and reinvents herself with every job that comes along, whereas Kit's identity seems set in the stone that forms Alnburgh's foundations. The idea of permanence makes Sophie shudder, but it's what keeps Kit going. All of that formed the background to the interaction between their characters and made it easy to write.

What was more difficult was managing the pace and splitting the story into two parts with a genuine, convincing absolute Happy Ever After promise at the end of the first one, and there were times at the beginning when I really did think I might have been far too hasty in saying yes to the project before thinking it through! But as I got further into the story, and into Kit and Sophie's heads, I forgot all about that and just let the story unfold until it reached its natural conclusion. Like Kit and Sophie, all I cared about was that moment and the future (ie book 2!) was a long way from my mind.

So, after that quick introduction to the book and its characters, I have some copies to give away. If you'd like to be in with a chance of getting one, email me via the website and tell me the name of your favourite holiday place. I'll pick five favourite holiday places out next week (and probably end up with a few more places on my Must Visit list...)

Now, I'd better go and clear up the mess from breakfast and apologise properly to the guinea pigs. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Back to Books

Ages ago I mentioned that I'd got a box of author copies of my latest release Craving the Forbidden and promised to blog about it, which - true to form - I've so far failed to do. But as the book is now available on Amazon (and the Mills & Boon website - check out the clever link thing I managed to put over there on the sidebar <-- ) and is about to hit the shelves of bookshops here in the UK it's about time I got my act together, so come back tomorrow for some background information on Kit and Sophie's story, and a chance to win a copy.

In other book news, I also got some copies of an anthology in which I'm honoured to be included, along with fabulous authors Jessica Hart and Amy Andrews. The book that I have in it is Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure (featuring Orlando Winterton, my all-time favourite hero.) It's called Loving our Heroes, is coming out at the end of October and £1 from every sale goes to Help for Heroes. I feel particularly proud to be involved in supporting this charity for reasons I'll explain tomorrow when I talk about Kit and Sophie's story. In the meantime, here's the cover - isn't it fabulous?

Downton Debrief (WARNING: may contain massive spoilers)

My, things are moving fast in downtown Downton aren't they? April 1917 already (the war definitely will be over by Christmas at this rate...) Thomas is back in Yorkshire and back at work, though the wound in his hand still looks alarmingly fresh. Matthew is still in one piece (no surprises there, having seen his battle-dodging last week) and heading back off to the trenches, where the sniping will be far less fierce than in the Dining Room at Downton. Edith finally gets a snogging scene, while Bates is missing in action, Maggie Smith's Jennifer Saunders impression gets better and better and Carson finds it all a bit much.

I really like the way the seemingly irredeemable O'Brien is oh-so-gradually revealing her human side, and I loved the set-up for future heartache in the storyline between Daisy and William. (Relationship Dilemma 1917-style: you don't want to finish with your boyfriend just before he heads off to the trenches incase he dies. But what if he just gets horribly injured...?)

So what did everyone else think of Episode two ?

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!

This Sunday...

Lay in supplies of red wine, firewood and Kit Kats. Put the kids to bed early and take the phone off the hook. Downton's Back!

I'm desperately excited about the new series, but also a teeny bit apprehensive too. It's set in the same period as the book I'm writing now, and have had in my head for the last 6 years or so - what if it turns out to be freakily similar to the central story in my book? (and annoyingly better?) So much has been written about this time period already and there's no limit to the number of stories still to be told and unique ways to tell them, so I suppose it's unlikely that I'm going to see my particular take on it spookily played out before a TV audience of millions. But let's just say if any of the men have enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps I'll be watching from behind the sofa...

Better stock up on extra wine and Kit Kats, just incase.