Goodreads Giveaway

If you want to win a copy of All That Mullarkey, you can enter the Goodreads Giveaway here.

Choc Lit are working with Goodreads – just follow the link and click ‘Enter to Win’.

 
All That Mullarkey is about Cleo, who discovers that the writing’s on the wall for her marriage – the bedroom wall – and hurtles off for a bit of an adventure …

The lovely Justin is happy to benefit from her moment of wildness and their encounter sets off a series of events that turns life upside down for both of them.

Tempted? Just enter.

What happened at the RoNAs

Jane Wenham Jones introduces Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley

Well, I had an excellent time!

I didn’t win my category – that honour went to the lovely Katie Fforde – but I had an absolute blast at the party at the RAF Club in London’s Piccadilly. It’s a gorgeous venue and the staff kept the canapes and wine coming all evening.

And almost as Jane Wenham-Jones introduced the guests of honour, Richard & Judy, someone tripped or something and sent me absolutely flying. So I arrived on my bum pretty much at the feet of Richard and Judy to begin the proceedings with a bang. You’d think they’d have given me the RoNA just for that, really, wouldn’t you? But no …

Here’s the full list of winners:

Contemporary Romantic Novel winner – Katie Fforde
Epic Romantic Novel winner – Rowan Coleman
Historical Romantic Novel winner – Charlotte Betts
Romantic Comedy Novel winner – Jenny Colgan
Young Adult Romantic Novel Winner – Victoria Lamb

And the winners above go forward now to the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in May.

RoNA Rose – Sarah Mallory

Sophie Kinsella presented with Outstanding Achievement Award

Congratulations to them all. You can find photos on the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s website here.

My thanks to everybody concerned in the running of the RoNAs. I know a huge amount of hard work went into it and the event was just amazing, honestly. Slick and controlled (apart from the odd person flying through the air) and joyous.

Happy Publication Day Alison Morton!

Today I welcome the lovely Alison Morton to the blog to talk about her debut novel – Inceptio – published today. Congratulations, Alison!

For Sue Moorcroft’s blog 1 March

Thank you for welcoming me to your blog, Sue.

Today, is a very special day – my debut novel, INCEPTIO, is published. Hooray! Three years of slog – researching, writing, and polishing – have led to this exciting moment of holding my book in my hands. But it started when I was eleven years old with a day-dream under a hot Spanish sky.

Not many Year 6 children are obsessed by ancient peoples, history or archeological sites. But I was that sad kid. Fascinated by the mosaics in Ampurias (huge Roman site in Spain), I asked my father, “What would it be like if Roman women were in charge, instead of men? If it was now?” Maybe it was the fierce sun boiling my brain that day, maybe it was just a precocious kid asking a smartarse question. But clever man and senior ‘Roman nut’ that he was, my father replied, “What do you think it would be like?” Off went my brain on a dream…

Real life intervened (school, university, career, military, marriage, motherhood, business ownership), but the idea bubbled away in my mind and INCEPTIO slowly took shape. Three years ago, in a ninety day burst, I’d written the first draft of 95,000 words. Of course, like many first drafts it was raw, but since then it’s been edited, tempered and burnished. And I’ve learned what the craft of writing demands…

Does dreaming still help me write books? I know that if I’m trying to work through a glitch in the plot or develop dialogue between two people, I’ll often wake up in the morning with the answer. Sometimes I’m aware I’ve been dreaming, more often not. And it usually takes until I’ve finished in the shower for the new words to exit my brain in a coherent form.

In popular culture, Romans believed dreams were messages from the gods sent to reveal their wishes and took them very seriously. Emperor Augustus – cynical and politically adept – ruled that anyone who had a dream about the state was, by law, to proclaim it in the marketplace. The Roman writer Artemidorus (c. AD 150) concluded that dreams were unique to the dreamer and that the dreamer’s occupation, social status and health affected the symbols in their dreams.

Stories with Romans are usually about famous emperors, epic battles, superstition (back to dreams and their interpretation!), depravity, intrigue, wicked empresses and a lot of sandals, tunics and swords. But imagine the Roman theme projected sixteen hundred years further forward into the 21st century. How different would that world be? Transferred from a dream into reality, this is one of the things INCEPTIO explores…

New York – present day, alternate reality. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice – being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother’s homeland in Europe. Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety, a ready-made family and a new career. But a shocking discovery about her new lover, the fascinating but arrogant special forces officer Conrad Tellus who rescued her in America, isolates her.

Renschman reaches into her new home and nearly kills her. Recovering, she is desperate to find out why he is hunting her so viciously. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it…

INCEPTIO is released today as both paperback and eBook, in the UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inceptio-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624

and in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Inceptio-Roma-Nova-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624

And next? I’m working on PERFIDITAS, the second book in the Roma Nova series where it all turns into a bit of a nightmare.

You can read more about Alison, Romans, alternate history and writing at:

http://www.alison-morton.com, http://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor and follow her on Twitter @alison_morton

Come and meet the gorgeous Nico Noordholt

Come and meet the gorgeous Nico Noordholt.

Getting ready for the RoNAs – what do you think about my shoes?

Just in case you missed it – Dream a Little Dream is up for a RoNA in the Contemporary Romantic Novel category. What does this mean?

Party!

Tomorrow evening there’s an awards party in London’s Piccadilly where Richard & Judy will be presenting the elegant glass stars to the winners of each category. I like parties. I’m sure I’ll like a party where I’m a nominated author more than any other kind.

I’m going down to London this afternoon to stay with a friend from then till Wednesday. So here’s how my ‘do do’ list is going:

- shower. Yup, done that. In fact, I’ve already had two goes at the hair but it’s not your average ‘do as you’re told’ hair so that’s not uncommon. Wonder whether I ought to have got my hair cut. Decide that if the gods had thought that important they would have given me better hair.

- begin putting miscellaneous items on the bed ready to pack.

- think about packing. Realise I don’t possess the ideal case and need to either squash everything in the small one or let it rattle around in the large one. Will probably do the latter and then curse it when I’m lifting it on and off trains and escalators. I always feel really conspicuous when I’m wheeling a case along the streets, too. It’s one of those that you pull behind you and trip everyone up.

- put the computer on and chat on Twitter and Facebook. Answer a couple of emails from lovely friends who have sent me good luck messages. Answer a good luck text from my mum. (Bet she sends another tomorrow!)

- put my iPad on charge.

- ring for a taxi to the station. Eek! [Pause] Yup, done that.

- wrap birthday presents for birthday meals I’m attending on my return Wednesday and Thursday. (One’s a box of bath bombs and one’s a toy fire engine, so I hope I don’t get them mixed up.)

- examine my nails and wish they hadn’t all broken inexplicably last week.

Pretty sandals

Not boring but will they ‘go’?

- feel sorry that I’ve let down the Romantic Novelists’ Association by failing to find purple shoes to match my purple evening purse. I’ll have to wear the boring black ones. Actually, they’re not boring – I love them! But now I’ve looked at them again, I’m not sure they’ll look right with my dress. So should I go for the pretty sandals?

Slightly bondage

Or the slightly bondage ones?

Blingy courts

Or the blingy courts?

Shoe litter

(By this time the bedroom floor’s a little … littered.)

I’ll try and make up for the lack of purple shoes by drinking extra champagne, to show I’m still a good RNA member. Erk. If I’d booked an earlier train I could have shopped in Carnaby Street or somewhere for shoes this afternoon! Thunk.

- try on dress with all shoes (probably hate them all)

- pack

- do make up. Congratulate self on remembering to get eyebrows done. (Sorry, but these things are important.)

- get in taxi

- get on train.

I think that’s everything. (What do you think about the shoes?)

 

 

Happiness is a warm bottom

I was invited to visit the studios of Monocle24 yesterday and whizzed to Marylebone (just off Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes used to hang out [should I say 'used to' or will that upset people?]) to spend half-an-hour on air with the lovely Georgina Godwin, presenter.

As it’s nearly St Valentine’s Day we talked about romance and romantic fiction, whether men read it, who buys it for them, whether it’ll get them chatted up on the Tube if they’re reading a book with a pink cover, what we can all learn from Fifty Shades of Grey (!) Why is romantic fiction such a huge seller? Is that likely to change?

Also, what a splendiferous organisation the Romantic Novelists’ Association is and what a fantastic set of shortlists there are for the RoNAs (Romantic Novel Awards) this year. Which is an unsubtle little gloat that I’m on one of them with Dream a Little Dream … Sorry.  Ought to be modest and self-effacing and I do try but fail spectacularly …

I also got to choose four romantic music tracks to play during the programme, which felt deliciously Desert Island Discs-ish. So I chose:

Stardust, by Nat King Cole, in memory of my dad. When we lived in Malta he gained a promotion and bought a record player. Each member of the family was allowed one record to go with it and he picked an Nat King Cole album, with Stardust amongst his favourites.

Substitute, by Frank Turner. His lyrics are just so amazing. Often his songs are political or contemporary-life observations but this song is about how music is his substitute for love and it’s so wistful that it clutches my heart.

Letter to Hermione, David Bowie, because I never fell out of love with his early stuff and this is such a romantic song. All about lost love. Ahhh.

Dream a Little Dream, by the Mamas and the Papas, not just in shameless self-promotion but because it’s a fabulous song and it celebrates a memorable Romaniacs kitchen party at the RNA conference last year – the results of which could be seen on YouTube but the clip seems to have disappeared, now.

It was a great afternoon. And one of the most remarkable things about the Monocle 24 offices? Their loo seat is heated. Seriously! All loo seats ought to be made this way, especially when you come in from a wet winter afternoon. I really want one of my own now. I’m putting it on my Christmas list .

I didn’t try the douche thingy, though. No. Tried it before. Didn’t like it.

Is Publication Day fun?

I often send authors ‘Happy Publication day!’ messages on Facebook, Twitter or via forums. Until last week I’d done it without thinking, because a publication day is a day for celebration for me so I assumed it was for them.

I like publication day more than I like a birthday! On publication day for Dream a Little Dream I even went out for lunch with my gym bunny friends and we toasted the success of the book. I received champagne from Choc Lit, my publisher, and, just for good measure, went out to eat in the evening with family, too. (And I didn’t get a year added to my age – hence enjoying it more than a birthday.)

It was a surprise, then, when a successful author friend said that she felt anxious about publication day, about how the book would do and whether she’d repay her publisher’s faith in her. So I asked one or two others how they feel.

Elizabeth Chadwick:

For me it’s just an ordinary day. The books have usually been on sale for a couple of weeks before anyway, and the Americans will already have a blog tour going. I’m not the sort of person who does big days anyway. My ‘whoop de do’ moment on a new novel is when I’ve handed it in and received glowing feedback from my agent and editor. (Best case scenario!) It’s the best feeling in the world at that moment, especially when they tell you the bits they like best!

Anita Burgh:
Thinking about it the word mortification Is paramount. My first book launch was in the House of Lords. Publicity were beside themselves with happiness since it was the first time a book launch had been permitted there. The car which had been arranged to pick us up didn’t turn up and we were very late. My publishers weren’t allowed in until the Lord sponsoring us turned up and he was late too. I did not witness the scene between the porters and said publisher but I was told handbags swung. Said, Lord, trimming his beard with an electric strimmer sort of thing got carried away and cut a path through his hair; there was nothing for it to strim the lot making him look like an ex-con from the Scrubs! One photographer turned up and one journalist who didn’t speak to me but the canapes and champagne were lovely.

The next day the fact that the launch was of a commercial novel in such a hallowed place was duly reported and disapproved of, my book was not mentioned by name.

Jan Jones:

My next serial starts in Woman’s Weekly on Wednesday and I shall run around Waitrose beaming joyfully and thrusting it underneath people’s noses!

So, mixed associations! I’m just glad I’m one of those who enjoy it and I’ll continue to ensure that I do by doing very little work on that day and arranging lunches and dinners.