Liz Fielding's Blog, page 2

Unexpected Discoveries and Alternative Retailers

Audio discovery

This week, clicking on my iBooks link, to check if one of my books had been safely uploaded, I discovered that Harlequin had released The Billionaire’s Convenient Bride as an audio book.

It was an unexpected and happy surprise. I knew Harlequin had started to produce audio for series books, but hadn’t been informed that one of my books had been among them.

As far as I know, it is only available at the Apple store.

Other retailers City Girls on Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo

All my paperback and ebooks are available at Amazon – either singly or in anthologies. We can’t get away from the fact that they are the biggest seller of fiction worldwide, and the biggest provider of income for most authors.

This year, however, I have been publishing my books on another platform that offers an alternative for those who prefer to buy elsewhere. This is City Girls – a trilogy with City Girl in Training, The Billionaire Takes a Bride and A Surprise Christmas Proposal.

The books are all available singly on Amazon, (I’ve added the links) but the City Girls link will take you to all the other available sources for this anthology.

Books2Read

Like following me on Amazon, sign up to Books2Read and they will send you an email whenever one of my books becomes available on Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo.

You can also buy some titles direct from Harlequin  in the US, Mills & Boon in the UK and Australia/New Zealand.

Library favourite!

West Sussex Library Anniversary East Grinstead Library

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the West Sussex Library Service.

I have only lived in West Sussex for seven years but my little town has a beautiful local library which I made a point of joining as soon as I moved here.

Use it or lose it…

On the “use it or lose it” principle, I have just updated my membership by signing up for both audio and ebook loans to lend them extra support.

It’s free and it gives you access to magazines and periodicals of all kinds as well as books. It’s a great resource.

I still buy a lot of books, but since 1979  there has been a system known as Public Lending Right in the United Kingdom. It’s funded by Government and pays a small amount to authors and illustrators in recompense for downloads of their books, so while I’m supporting my library, I am also supporting authors.

The celebrations Elly Griffiths

This year, as part of the celebrations, they asked members to vote for their top 100 favourite authors. I was thrilled to see one of my own favourite authors, Brighton based Elly Griffiths top the list.

I have her latest book, The Frozen People on my tbr pile!

I was equally thrilled to discover that I was in that top 100! 

Picture me doing the snoopy dance!

Check the link to see the full list of West Sussex’s top 100 favourite authors.

 

 

 

Valentine’s Day Freebie!

Valentine’s Day

This is the week when romantic couples all over the world celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Valens was a popular name at the time so no one is absolutely sure who St Valentine was. One of  the stories is that he defied the Emperor Claudius II (I didn’t know there was more than one!) who had decreed that Roman soldiers could not marry.

He performed the ceremony and cut hearts out of parchment for the soldiers to carry. As is the way with thwarted tyrants,  Valentine was executed for his kindness, possibly on the 14 February .

The freebie

True or not, a group of best-selling authors – including me – wrote an anthology of novellas, ranging from historical to paranormal with a little murder thrown in for good measure.

And since they all have  a touch of romance,  to celebrate the day, we’re giving it away free – worldwide – on Amazon from February 12 – 17 inclusive.  Start and end time will vary depending where you are in the world.

Here’s the link!

 

 

Linked characters

Enter the fabulous Garland Girls I’m often asked about secondary characters in my romances, especially  about my Rita nominated book, The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess. Does dress designer and, in this instance, wedding planner, Princess Violet have her own story?  Do the Garland Girls appear in other books?The Garland Girls

I created the Garland Agency and the slightly terrifying Amanda Garland,  for the book Dating Her Boss.

When Jilly Prescott , having been offered an interview by the Garland Agency, arrives in London clutching her certificates for incredible typing and shorthand speeds Amanda Garland is torn.

Her brother needs help, but he’s suspicious of her efforts to tempt him out of a very dark place by sending him her most attractive temps, who he immediately finds reasons to dismiss.

Jilly, with her uncontrollable mop of hair and a Geordie accent that elocution lessons have not been able to entirely eradicate, will bypass that problem and deal with his immediate need for secretarial help.

Jilly, who is in London to catch up with her childhood sweetheart, only to have her dreams smashed, touches Max’s grieving heart and he sets out to help her be noticed in her friend’s glamorous new world. The truth is that he’s already noticed  her himself.

With that book reaching its happy conclusion I was left with Amanda. What was her story?

A woman needs a man like a fish needs…

Well, you know how that goes.  Self-sufficient, successful, and independently wealthy, Amanda needs no one to make her life complete. Except…with love all around her, and a baby niece or nephew about to arrive, her biological alarm clocks goes off. Being Amanda Garland, she deals with it as efficiently as any other problem.

There isn’t a man in her life so she’s going to use a donor clinic to achieve her dream. That’s until she meets car hire chauffeur Daniel Redford and the plan begins to unravel.

Never waste a good idea

Early in my writing career, about book three or four, I created my own lifestyle magazine called Celebrity, which pops up whenever I need one in a story. It has a rival, Glitz, created by my friend and fabulous writer, Jessica Hart. (They both appeared in If the Shoe Fits.)

Having created the Garland Agency, whenever I need a competent woman to take charge of a difficult situation, this was the place to go.  Philly in The Temp & the Tycoon is a Garland Girl. And and it’s Amanda Garland who in The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess, sends Ruby to the desert fastness of Bram al Ansari when his personal assistant has a skiing accident.

Bram has just received a warning from his brother that he’s about to be trapped into an arranged marriage. He doesn’t need a PA, he needs a convenient wife…

Back to Princess Violet

At this point, Princess Violet (which is where this post started) believing this to be a love match is determined to give Ruby and Bram a wedding that, while private, will be unforgettable.,

And yes, she does have her own story. Descended from a runaway princess who took with her the legendary ruby encrusted dagger, the Blood of Tariq, I wrote Violet’s story, Chosen As the Sheikh’s Wife as a special commission for the 100th anniversary of Mills and Boon which is published in 100 Arabian Nights.

It’s a novella, but packed with action. A life-changing discovery, a life-threatening situation, a marriage of convenience, a kidnapping and an attempted coup. And two lovely people falling in love.

Happy New Year!

Wishing all my readers, colleagues and friends, wherever you are in the world, my very best wishes for a peaceful and happy New Year.

 

Merry Christmas!

It’s been a very special year with another book in my Maybridge Murder Mystery series – which means it is now officially a series.

Look out for Murder in the Vineyard next year!

Meanwhile, from Abby, Jake, Lucy, Tom, Sophie and everyone in Maybridge want to wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.

Writing The Marriage Miracle

Where it all began

I have recently reclaimed the publishing rights to several of my books and in November I took a little time to create a new Kindle edition of THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE and, for the first time, put it on Kindle Unlimited.

When it was first published, I wrote a piece about how tough it was to write.  All the books are hard work, but this one was different.  I was terrified of it and I did everything I could to put off the moment when I had to write “Chapter One”…

So why did I do it?

Liz Fielding – 1

Let me introduce you to Matty Lang.

From the first moment she wheeled herself across the page as a minor character in A Wife on Paper, Matty was giving me trouble.

She flirted with the hero, she duffed up the bad guys, she demanded attention.

The only way I could get her to behave and stay in the background, was to promise her a story of her own. There was just one problem with that.

The Problem

Matty Lang was in a wheelchair.

I don’t write fairy stories (well, not the kind with magic wands, anyway) and any happy ending had to encompass that.

Worse, it was going to be seriously Hard Work. It would involve research (which is not my favourite thing) and an intensity of emotional input that I knew would drain me dry.

Matty, however, was not the kind of character to let some whining author stand in her way and finally, over lunch with my editor, I tentatively broached the idea. I’ll be honest, here; I was hoping that my ed would veto it, say, “This is not for us…” That she would rescue me so that I could go back to Matty with a clear conscience, say, “I’d do it in a heartbeat, honestly. It’s her fault…”

No such luck. My editor said, “Go for it, Liz.”

Great.

Prevarication

I prevaricated (writers are good at that) and wrote A Family of His Own. Emotional, true, but there wasn’t a wheel-chair in sight. It won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize, was named Best Harlequin Romance of the year by Romantic Times and was shortlisted for a RITA by Romance Writers of America.

Matty applauded politely, then said, ‘Okay, I’ve been patient, now it’s my turn.’

I wrote Her Wish-List Bridegroom; single fathers, single mothers, cheating boyfriends, a cat called Archie. Lots of emotion in this one. For Juliet.

Matty hated Juliet. ‘The woman’s a wimp,’ she said. ‘She didn’t have a father and her boyfriend stole her job. Big deal. It’s My Turn!’

I wrote A Nanny for Keeps. Emotion, humour, a six-year-old diva, chickens…

Matty threw a pot of purple nail polish at the back of my head and said, ‘Enough with the livestock. IT’S MY TURN!’

She was right. It was her turn.

The Magic

Having a great character raring to go, however, is not enough, but that’s when the magic started. With the fairies. Day-glo bright, the Forest Fairies spread their wings, flew down onto the page and set about ruining Sebastian Wolseley’s day, year, life…

I wrote a whole chapter about Sebastian and the fairies (still prevaricating.) Then, because I wasn’t writing a book about the fairies, but about Matty and Sebastian, I stopped fooling around and started again at the belated blessing of the marriage of the hero and heroine of A Wife on Paper.

The guests have moved into the marquee to start the dancing, only Matty and Sebastian remain outside in the garden, detached, apart from the crowd, alone.

Matty, because, it’s not in her nature to be a spectator and Sebastian – well, weddings come next to bottom on his list of favourite occasions. And he’s already been to a funeral that day.

Their story did have a fairy-tale ending for me. Matty wasn’t just nominated for a Rita. She brought one home! Here it is.

The Glass Maker and a Thanksgiving gift…

A Literary Lunch

Here I am, all gussied up for a literary lunch given by my wonderful local indie bookshop, for Tracy Chevalier and her latest book, The Glass Maker. So much interesting stuff about the history of glass bead making in Murano and how she came to write the story.

And I came home with a beautiful signed, first edition with gorgeous sprayed edges to sit safely on my bookshelf while I read it on Kindle. Can’t wait!

Thanksgiving Freebie!

And since some of you will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, I have set this book up for #free on Amazon for five days – 27 November thru to 1 December.

This is a book that will make you laugh and make you cry so fill your boots and tell all your friends.

Here’s the link – The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

 

 

Murder in Bloom

Feature book: Murder in Bloom

Podcast

Just a quick heads-up that I’m on the Criminally Inspired podcast on Spotify.

Here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/545jBeg1phDpQl6NwYWpXi