Fiona Lowe's Blog, page 5

New month, new books, new project!

Hello, February!

School is back and today��I’m back in the creative saddle after a much-needed three month break. I’m excited about starting a new book! This one is a contracted book for��Harlequin��for their medical romance line with working title, Baby Be Mine. Set in Australia, check out my Pinterest board for more some pictures.��https://www.pinterest.com/fionalowe2000/baby-be-mine/

As February is the month of romance, on Thursday the 12th, the bubbly��Alli Sinclair��and I are doing a library talk to celebrate romance fiction. f you live within coo-ee of Geelong, you might like to come along. It’s a free event but you need to book a ticket and they’re going fast! Book here��http://www.grlc.vic.gov.au/���/romance-fiction-box-chocolates����� There WILL be chocolates as well as a chance to buy books ��and a lucky door prize :-)

Also the talented��Jennifer Kloester��is talking about YA fiction at the library on Wednesday Feb 11th. Book at��http://www.grlc.vic.gov.au/���/jennifer–rapunzel-dil���

On February 16th, three of my previously published Harlequin Medical romances are being re-released in digital format :-)��Career Girl in the Country,��The Surgeon’s Special Delievery��and��The Doctor Claims His Bride. This means my ENTIRE��back list��of medical romances are now availabe as eBooks :-)

Montana Actually is[image error]

getting some great reviews and has a 4 * average over at Goodreads. THANK YOU to all my dear readers for tracking down a copy. If you enjoyed it, the next book in the series, Truly Madly Montana (Millie and Will’s story) ��is up for preorder. How much do you love the cover? You can read an excerpt and see all the buy links here. Both books are available in print and in eBook format.

I’m really looking forward to catching up with some of my readers at the ARRA conference in Canberra on March 6-8 th. Will I see you there?

Every Picture Tells a 1000 words.

I’ve spent the last two weeks on our annual summer beach camping holiday. It was a lot cooler than last year but we still managed to surf, swim, read, canoe, sail, cycle, eat and sleep! As much as I love this very chilled holiday with its lack of technology, I am always glad to get home and appreciate my very comfortable bed! ��So here are some photos to show you what we got up to!

Happy Australia Day!

Australia Day, January 26, is the biggest day of celebration in the country and is observed as a public holiday in all states and territories.

On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what’s great about Australia and being Australian. It’s the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation. It’s the day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the future.

Australia Day means different things to different people and this is especially true for the First Australians. For many Indigenous Australians 26 January is an occasion to reflect on past loss and suffering.

There are also those in the wider community who share these mixed emotions about our national day, and they appreciate the efforts of event organisers to acknowledge that Australia Day evokes a variety of emotions.

Australia Day means different things to different people and this is especially true for the First Australians. For many Indigenous Australians 26 January is an occasion to reflect on past loss and suffering.

There are Australia Day awards recognising service in all shapes and forms and it is also a day many migrants decide to adopt Australia as their country and they take up citizenship. They are given a certificate and a small native plant to mark this significant occasion.

My family generally attend a family day by the sea where there are free rides, fire works and community groups spruiking their activities. The smell of onions, sausages, falafels, souvlaki and ice cream fill the air…. a true representation of our multicultural society.

To celebrate, I’m giving away my Warragurra Duo; two books set under the vast Aussie Outback sky. To enter, head over to my Facebook Author Page.

Montana Actually Release Day. YAY! And a Giveaway!

I am thrilled to say that after the big wait, ��today ��is release day for Montana Actually, Book 1 in my new Medicine River series. I’m so excited about this new series and this book!

Montana Actually��has garnered many positive��reviews��including a prestigious starred review from��Publishers Weekly.

This is a single-title novel (ie it’s big, 93,000 words) and it features Bear Paw, Montana; a small town nestled under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Filled with ranchers, cowboys and a cast of townsfolk, Bear Paw is like most small rural towns in the western world, it has trouble attracting doctors. When Dr. Josh Stanton arrives from Chicago to work and to write down his student-loan debt, he’s convinced he’d going to be welcomed with open arms and a ticker tape parade. It doesn’t quite work out that way!

I matched fish-out-of-water, Josh with Katrina McCade, an almost 30 year-old woman��who has spent the last 8 years living out east. Like Josh, her life hasn’t gone according to her plan and now she’s back home in the heart of her family, struggling to be the independent woman she’s been for years. On top of family expectations, sliding back into her ordinal position with her siblings, and concern for her parents, the last thing she needs on her plate is a clueless, city doctor.

With 93,000 words, I have the luxury of being able to write two romances in the one book :-) Beau McCade, Katrina’s elder brother has more reason than most to be the strong, silent cowboy and over the years he’s retreated from the world, preferring to spend more time with the cows and the dogs on the ranch than people. When he meets Shannon, the new diner owner, he finds himself reluctantly needing to get more involved in life off the ranch.

Have I spiked your interest? Where can you grab a copy?

USA: Walmart! Book stores and online at��Amazon,��Barnes and Noble,��iBooks,Kobo,��Google Play��and other online book stores.

Australia and everywhere else:��The Book Depository��(FREE POSTAGE) ask your local bookshop to order it in (Berkley Sensation an imprint of Penguin ISBN 9780425276952) Booktopia��in Australia��or all online book stores��Amazon,��Barnes and Noble,��iBooks,Kobo,��Google Play.

To celebrate the launch of��Montana Actually, I’m giving away a gift pack of Huckleberry products (USA & Canadian residents only, sorry!) Huckleberries grow wild near Glacier National Park where the book is set. So if you’d like a chance to win some huckleberry lotion, pancake mix, syrup, Glacier County honey, Montana coffee and a great souvenir bag, along with a copy of Montana writing mate,��Kari Lynn Dell’s��debut novel,��The Long Ride Home,��then head on over to my��Facebook page��to enter!

And here is the blurb for Montana Actually!

Passion burns under the bold Montana sky, but��falling in love doesn’t come easy…

City doctor Josh Stanton and his sports car don’t suit the country but with his medical school debt about the bury him, Josh has to make the best of a bad situation. Adjusting to his new job and life in the middle of nowhere isn’t easy, but at least the views of the mountains –and one distractingly attractive local–are stunning…

After eight years away, Katrina McCade is back in Bear Paw for a break from her life, bad choices–and men. But when a broad-shouldered stranger bursts into town, she finds herself unexpectedly saddled with the town’s sexy new doctor as a tenant. Katrina doesn’t need a man to make her happy, especially a disgruntled physician. But try telling her body that…

“A keeper. It made me laugh. I loved each character and wish I coud vist Bear Paw.”��Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of Silver Thaw.

Whether your weather is hot or cold, it’s always great for reading!

Fiona x

Happy New Year! Welcome 2015

Happy New Year!

2015 is here in Australia and it came in with a spectacular display of fireworks around the country. I love being in the crowd and listening to the oohs and ahhs.

2015 for me will be a lot of the same routine…family, school stuff, work and experience tells me there will be some magic moments and some not so magic moments across the next 364 days, but it’s starting with a building excitment! ��My first book in my new Medicine River series comes out in six days!

Yes January 6th is release day for��Montana Actually….six more sleeps ��:) ��If you like books with cowboys and sexy doctors then this new series is for you. Set in Montana, at the foot of the magnificent Rocky Mountains, it’s about the land, the people who work the land and the people who care for them. Life, love and family and all the highs and lows that come with that.

Read an excerpt over at my website and see some of the photos that inspired the story at Pinterest.

You still have time to save money by pre-ordering Montana Actually. The price will rise on release day so do youself a New Year’s favour and buy it today. The sales links are

United States & Canada

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Australia & New Zealand

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I’ve got an exciting giveaway planned for the launch of Montana Actually so stay tuned. To keep up to date, you might want to join my newsletter list...I only send out a newsletter when I have a book out. You can also join me on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

Wishing all my readers a 2015 filled with good things and plenty of time for reading!

Fiona xxx

Season’s Greetings! Gift included!

A purple Jacaranda means Christmas in southern Victoria.

As I write this, it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve just got back from delivering Meals on Wheels. I was very humbled by the gifts and greetings I received from people as I did the round and it reinforced my belief in the goodness of human kind.

The good cheer continued with the early morning crowd at the grocery store where people were sipping coffee, chatting with friends they’d run into and then there were the random strangers discussing which type of pears the recicpe demanded. The best conversation I overhead was, ‘they said buy him golf balls. I had no idea there are like 28 kinds!’

Naked Gingerbread Barn.

Usually, I host about 16 people for Christmas but this year there are only six of us. I tried inviting waifs and strays but they had better offers ;-) So we are having an intimate Christmas. Tonight we’re enjoying a light meal and decorating Boy Wonder’s gingerbread barn. He whipped up the ��template on Google Sketch-up and I was dubious but that roofline held together! Let’s hope it copes with the lollies/candy! Tomorrow I will cook a turkey and mum is bringing the plum pudding. YUMMO!

Thank you for being part of my writing life! I have a little present for you; a short story called Mr. Gorgeous,��which I hope you enjoy.

Whatever you believe or celebrate, I wish you a very happy festive season filled with good things and good cheer.

Fiona x

Fun Times at a Music Festival

Yesterday, I spent the day in the seaside town of Queenscliff at the annual music festival. Last year we did 14 hours on the Saturday. This year we just spent Sunday from 11am-5pm. The weather was perfect!

Hats were everywhere protecting skin from the sun and I was thrilled to see a teens applying sunscreen. YAY. The foodstalls were amazing…calamari, rotis, Vietnamese, Bento boxes, Turkish gozleme, Timboon icecream… ��the list went on!

We chose Sunday because a fave band of ours, The Waifs, were performing.��For those of you who know the background to how I came to write my Rita-award-winning novel, Boomerang Bride, The Waifs’ song Bridal Train was very influential. I was so excited when they performed it and I sang long and loud!

I also had fun watching the crowd! Teens, oldies, young families, surfie dudes, out and proud Lesbians, people with a disability, EVERYONE was there and I was seen scribbling notes on the eclectic mob cos it’s all great book fodder. As a mother of sons, who knew that hot pants and flowers in the hair are popular with teen girls! ��My only complaint was that the loud music precluded me from hearing many conversations ;-)

I love this photo on the right…a dad protecting his toddlers ears and enjoying the day!

I am not the biggest music person in the world…my husband and children are far more into music than I am but I always enjoy a festival. Have you ever been to a music festival? I’d love to hear your story :-)

Facebook

Do you know that I have a Facebook Author page? I do ;-) I post something once a day…sometimes pictures of the garden, of an outing, something I’ve seen that tickles my fancy, as well as some book information. And there are giveaways from time to��time :-)

If you’d like to “Like” me and join me over at Facebook, the link is https://www.facebook.com/FionaLoweRomanceAuthor?ref=hl ��I’d LOVE to see you there!

Meet the Character Blog Hop! Meet Josh Stanton

Hi! I’ve been tagged by the lovely Australian rural romance author, Lisa Ireland to participate in the Meet the character Blog Hop!  You can meet Lisa’s character here  and read all about her novel Breaking The Drought, here! :-)

So on with the character hop!

 Who are we meeting today?

Dr. Josh Stanton from Montana Actually, Book 1 in my new Medicine River series.If you check out my Pinterest board, there’s a photo of him there…can’t post here as I don’t own the photo.

Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Josh is fictional but drawn from people I know :-)

 When and where is the story set?

Funnily enough, Montana Actually is set in Montana! It’s set in north-east Montana, about 50 miles from the beautifully rugged Rocky Mountains and gorgeous Glacier National Park.

What should we know about him?

Josh is American and has a shirtload of student loan debt he is trying to write down. Just like in Australia, if a doctor ‘goes rural’ they get to write down their bonded time and debt faster so he leaves Chicago and heads to Montana. He may as well have gone to Mars!

 

“The thirty cows blocking the road was a good indication to Dr. Josh Stanton that he was no longer in Chicago. That and the inordinate number of bloated roadkill with their legs in the air that he’d passed in the last few hours along Highway 2 as he traversed the north of Montana. Sure, Chicago had its fair share of flattened cats on its busy inner-city streets, but he’d stake his life no one living between North Halsted and North Wells streets had ever had to step over a deer.”

 What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Josh and his long time partner, Ashley, had made decisions to support each other’s’ careers, or at least that is what Josh thought when he moved to Chicago for Ashley. Three years later, Ashley refused to move to Bear Paw despite her firm being happy for her to telecommute for three years. Add that to his family’s disappointment he didn’t do surgery like the last five Stanton’s and the fact Bear Paw isn’t throwing him a ticker tape parade, life feels a lot like lemons when the book opens.

 When can we expect the book to be published or when was it published?

Montana Actually will be released in print and eBook in January 2015 and it just received a prestigious starred review from Publishers Weekly :-) :-)

Montana Actually

“In the first Medicine River contemporary, the charismatic little town of Bear Paw, Mont., hosts delightful characters whose interactions feel deep and real. Chicago doctor Josh Stanton decides to knock off some of his huge student loan debt by working in rural Montana. His fiancée declines to relocate to the boonies with him; heartbroken, he swears off lasting relationships. Nurse Katrina McCade returns to her hometown of Bear Paw to lick her wounds after an unhappy affair. Katrina and Josh are poleaxed by mutual lust, and they decide to become lovers with no strings attached—but as they begin confiding details of their lives, feelings change. The plot twists around medical emergencies, a second romance line involving Katrina’s brother, the troubles of a local youth, relationships between parents and children, and former lovers learning to be friends. All these elements contribute to the comfortable feeling of smalltown life. The witty conversations, family drama, and accurate (but never maudlin) descriptions of loss and grief will have the reader laughing out loud, wiping away tears, and eagerly awaiting future books. (Jan.)”

Read an excerpt of Montana Actually here!

Montana Actually releases on January 6th 2015 and you can preorder now and save money! Book Depository, Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play and at all stores where books are sold!

Now I’d like to tag and introduce you to the lovely Jennifer St George who will be doing the Character Blog Hop Thursday November 20th :-) Jennifer’s  a romance author whose sexy stories feature courageous, career-minded heroines, strong heroes in glamorous international settings. She has five books – Tempted by the Billionaire Tycoon (2014), The Billionaire’s Pursuit of Love (2014), The Love Deception (2013),Seducing the Secret Heiress (2013) and The Convenient Bride (2012) – published with Penguin’s digital-first imprint, Destiny Romance.

The Convenient Bride and Seducing the Secret Heiress have now been released together in print.  The Convenient Bride won the 2012 NZ Clendon Award. The Love Deception is nominated for 2013 ARRA Awards in the Favourite Short Category Romance section.

She spent the first 20 years of her career in corporate marketing and management consulting roles.  Some career highlights include launching Guinness beer in Russia; reaching 40 million people through a publicity campaign that  ‘gave away’ a pub in Ireland and launching the Ford Ka brand in Australia. Jennifer now lives in Byron Bay where she writes and undertakes the occasional marketing consulting role. She recently managed the Communications for the Byron Bay Writers Festival.

Runaway With Ben!

Aussie Readers, as you know, the Wedding Fever trilogy is currently being print published in Australia. In September, the series kicked off with Saved By The Bride, introducing you to Whitetail and its cast of quirky characters. In October, we had all the fun of cows and dogs and sunflowers, not to mention a sexy farmer, in Picture Perfect Wedding. Now, in November, the final book in the trilogy, Runaway Groom is on shelf. YAY!

You can grab a copy at Target, Big W and Kmart! but only until December. Booktopia also has it.

In Runaway Groom,  we meet Aussie Ben, who is on the motorcycle ride of his life taking his vintage Harley Davidson from Argentina to Alaska!

For a guy who’s allergic to weddings, getting stranded in Whitetail, the town that lives and breathes weddings, is his worst nightmare.

So what’s Runaway Groom about? The blurb says…

Amy Sagar’s life is in ruins. Fired from her fast-track job and dumped by her double-crossing boyfriend, she retreats to Whitetail, Wisconsin, to lick her wounds and regroup. Meeting an impossible, sexy Australian isn’t part of her strategy for getting back on track.

Ben Armytage is running away. After being left at the altar and publicly humiliated, he’s taking his vintage motorcycle on an extended road trip from Argentina to Alaska. Having his journey interrupted by a breakdown and sharing a house with a curvy, redheaded lawyer in a town obsessed with weddings was never on his itinerary.

Though being stuck in a luxury log cabin isn’t really a hardship, living together with their broken hearts isn’t easy. When the attraction between Amy and Ben proves unstoppable, they’ll both begin rethinking their plans…

Read an excerpt, here!

Reviews have been enthusiastic!

“If you’re a fan of well-written contemporary romance, I would suggest Runaway Groom. You get THREE HEA’s in one novel!!” Harlequin Junkies

“Fiona Lowe always has a way of mixing comedy with a sweet, hot, romance, Runaway Groom was no exception. There was a wonderful balance between the romance building between Amy and Ben and their own personal battles. It was a wonderful addition to the series.” Kristen Johnson Goodreads Reviewer

Runaway Groom is available on shelf for the next four weeks at Kmart, Big W, and Target. If you can’t get to the shops, you can order it from Booktopia.

Happy Reading!

Fiona x