Ally Blake's Blog, page 2

"Second Chance Honeymoon" release day!

I have a problem with secondary characters.  Don't get me wrong, it s a good problem.  Kind of.  the problem?  They have a way of trying their darndest to takeover my books!
 
In fact the one time I tried to write that had only the hero and heroine and not another soul, my editor asked me nicely to put some in because she loved my secondary characters so much. Lesson learned.  Give them free reign.  As they can be mighty fine at giving insights into the main characters.
 
SECOND CHANCE HONEYMOON (out June 23rd and 99c on Amazon for the first 2 days!)  is about JJ.  After losing her job and finding herself on the verge of an existential crisis, she decides to take a cruise to let her hair down and just have some fun.  A little sun, a little rum and, what the heck, maybe a summer fling while she's at it.
 
Here we have another problem.  The cruise her best friend - and newly minted travel agent - books her on is a Second Honeymoon cruise, filled to capacity with marrieds, every one over sixty years of age.
 
And here we come to the secondary characters.  How could a ship-full of septuagenarian party-animals not put in their 2 cents.  Especially when they have themselves a solitary, unattached  twentysomething in need of some life lessons.

Like magic the strongest appeared on the page as JJs dinner companions - ex vacuum cleaner salesman Bernie with his yoda-esque cadence and his dear sweet Myrtle, staid Samuel (or is he) and mousy Carol (oh she'll surprise you!), and best of all Hazel.  Brash, bombastic Hazel with her uber-cleavage and her new husband Frank who'd rather stare at the menu all night than engage in the ship gossip. 
 
Here's a little snippet of JJs first night with her regular dinner table, the beginning courtesy of JJ's fairy godmother the indomitable Hazel:

   “Frank and I are on our honeymoon. Third marriage for me, third cruise. Fifth marriage for him, first cruise. Between us we have eight kids and seventeen grandkids. It counts.”
   Bernie’s eyes opened wider with each confession while Myrtle looked about nervously as if admitting as much might get them chucked off the ship.
In order to ease the strain creaking at the table, JJ dove in. “I’m Juliana, but you can call me JJ. I’m . . . between jobs. Sydneysider. I’m not married, so you’re one up on me. Though I was. Once. Divorced actually. It was all over less than a day after the wedding.”So much for clearing the strain hanging over the dinner table. JJ sat back in her chair blaming all the honeymoon talk.“A day?” Myrtle asked, hand to her throat.“What anniversary would that be, do you think?” Bernie asked into the silence.“One year is paper,” quiet Carol added helpfully.“Shredded paper, then?” Hazel added.JJ coughed out a laugh. “Bark,” Bernie said, then bit back a smile. “From the tree used to make the paper.”“Wood shavings,” Frank added without looking up.“Wood shavings,” Hazel said proudly, as if the case was now closed. “There it is folks.”While JJ laughed along with the rest of them, enough that she had to hold her belly, she couldn’t help thinking that they’d not gone back far enough. Dust, she thought. The dust left on the air when the tree is cut down. It floats off into nothing, becoming nothing, disappearing as if it had never really been there at all.Sometimes, sitting alone in her dingy apartment she wondered if she was that dust, all that remained of the dauntless girl she’d once been.“To the paths that brought us here and the journey ahead,” Myrtle said, lifting her glass and beaming at Bernie’s words.She nodded at the glass in front of JJ which Hazel was filing to the brim with something red and shiny and delicious-looking.“To getting up to no good,” Hazel joined in, clinking JJ’s glass before placing it in her hand.With vigor, and intent, feeling less like dust than she had in a long time, JJ lifted her glass high. “To adventure.” With a rousing cheer the table yelled, “Here, here!”

SECOND CHANCE HONEYMOON is out now on Amazon .

"Like" the Holiday Books Facebook page and check out their website for more great honeymoon #summerreads coming your way.

harlequin junkie

Today is my Mum's birthday - Happy Birthday Mum!!!

And I'm also over visiting with the always gracious Harlequin Junkie chatting about my latest Harlequin Kiss - THE DANCE OFF.



Come say "hi" for your chance to win not one, but TWO back list Ally Blake ebooks!

happy new year!

Amy Andrews' first...light-bulb moment romance.

Please welcome the fantabulous Amy Andrews to the "You Always Remember Your First" party.  Amy's books and mine have often come out togehter in Australia, and we've written a super sexy duet for Harlequin Kiss due out next July/August!  As an extra double whammy, today's Amy's birthday!!!   Happy Birthday Amy!!!
The first romance I read that made a true, light-bulb moment impression on me was Getting Rid of Bradley by Jennifer Crusie.
It was one of her Harlequins and I remember after I’d devoured it and smiled like a loon a lot and actually laughed out loud in places and sighed a happy sign at the end, I knew this was the kind of book I wanted to write.
Prior to GROB I’d read mostly from the Harlequin Presents/Sexy range – Carole Mortimer, Charlotte Lamb, Ann Mather, Penny Jordan - these were my staples. And I still adore the brooding Presents heroes and all that screaming sexual tension and THE wonderful sexy times. But here was a book that was sexy in an entirely different way. It was light and funny, it was a little irreverent.  But still oh so sexy.  It was a freaking revelation!
Ever read a book that’s just taken all your expectations and assumptions and turned them upside down?  Tell me all about it at Ally's Facebook page for the chance to win an ebook of 'Tis the Season To Be Kissed!


Amy
Website  |  Facebook  

Fiona Lowe's first...romance read!

Next to the party is Fiona Lowe - long time writing friend, conference roomie, and winner of just about every romance award under the sun for her fabulous Boomerang Bride.
The first time I read a romance novel I was 14 and my mother handed me Pride and Prejudice. I started reading and at page 100 said, “this is SO boring.”  She said, keep reading.

Midway through the book I said, “Oh, that horrible Mr. Darcy!” and she said, “keep reading.”

I did and when I put the book down with a sigh of, “Mr. Darcy!” My love of romance fiction was born.

Fiona
Website  |  Facebook  

Charlotte Phillips'...favourite Christmas first!

We're getting closer to Christmas - yippee! -  and the delightful Charlotte Phillips is here telling us all about her favourite Christmas first! 
My favourite Christmas ‘first’?
This would have to be my five year old daughter’s first Christmas. Not just because of all the magic associated with that but also because my now husband asked me to marry him. I woke up on Christmas morning with a sparkly engagement ring, spent the whole day celebrating with family and had the best time ever!  (AB: Oh how gorgeous!)    Charlotte Website


Charlotte has two gorgeous holiday tales out !   Including her first book Secrets of the Rich and Famous.

Fiona Harper's first...crush!

Wonderful writer, Fiona Harper is next up, here to tell us all about her first crush.  Everybody say awwww...  Or should that be phwoooar... :)
I’m going to admit to my first celebrity crush! It was the lovely Pierce Brosnan, but I’m showing my age if I tell you it was way before he was asked to play Bond, when he’d become a bit more rough and rugged-looking. No, I fell for Pierce as mysterious detective Remington Steele. This was a great TV series from the early 80s.

The basic premise was that Laura Holt, ace detective, was having trouble attracting clients for her newly-formed business because she was a woman, so she invented a fictional boss – and one day a handsome stranger with a shady past steps into the role. In the vein of shows like Moonlighting and Castle, it paired a straight-laced detective heroine with a loose-cannon male sidekick and I loved it. There’s something about a charmer that I just can’t resist. (I also have a crush on Nathan Fillion as Castle, but that one developed much later in life!)  (AB:  Yes, yes, and yes!)

Pierce was great in it: witty, infuriating, a little bit dangerous… The only downside was the hair. Which, let’s face it was a bit on the bouffant side. We’ll forgive him, though. It was the 80s, after all!
 
Fiona
Website  |  Facebook  


A copy of Fiona's delightful Christmas story MAKE MY WISH COME TRUE  is up for grabs over at my Facebook page !  Just let us know your first celeb crush o be in the draw.

Lucy King's first...book that will never see the light of day!

Next up in my "You never forget your first..." party, is the fabulous Lucy King, writer of gorgeously sexy books I adore.  

Congratulations, Ally, on ten years of awesome books (amazing achievement!) and thank you so much for having me here to join in your fabulous celebrations.  (AB: Pleasure!)
Ten years ago I’d just finished the first book I ever wrote. I’d had some time off work and thought hey, I used to devour these books, I’ve always wanted to write one and really, how hard can it be?
Yes. Well. Exactly. Pretty hard as it turns out. Not that I thought so at the time. I thought A Conflict of Interest was totally brilliant. Of course, it wasn’t, and it should never have seen the light of day, let alone been submitted to the M&B slush pile.  (AB: Soooo with you there.  My first was entitled 'The Muted Heat' - a god awful Seinfeld reference of a title which was probably the best thing about it!)
Set in the world of high-finance, zipping between London and Barcelona and bizarrely involving an illegitimate evil sister and a kidnapping, the plot was, as the rejection letter I eventually received pointed out, ‘rather far-fetched’. The heroine was spoilt, whiny and generally pretty unappealing. The hero was domineering, boorish and equally unappealing. In short, it was the complete opposite of Ally’s books, whose characters are people you could imagine being friends with, whose plots are gems and whose dialogue makes me wonder why I bother. Like this:

She stopped her fussing and said, ‘One little hint? Next time you’re looking to land yourself a girl, don’t bother with the chair. Props are for amateurs.’

That was from the wonderful The Magnate’s IndecentProposal . See what I mean? Fabulous. Maybe my favourite Ally Blake line ever.  (AB:  Argh!  You've made me blush!)
Lucy Website  |  Facebook  


Lucy is giving away a copy of her latest Harlequin Kiss THE REUNION lie over on my Facebook page !  So head on over and say hi!

Jessica Hart's first...book!

The gorgeous Jessica Hart is here chatting about her first book.  Sicne she's 60 books further along, I think that's brilliant!


First, congratulations, Ally, on ten years since your first book was published, and many great books since!  (AB: Thanks Jessica!)


My own first romance – first book, in fact - was published in January 1991 (I won’t tot up how many years ago that is now, because it’ll make me feel too old but it’s a lot more than ten!)  It was called A Sweeter Prejudice, and was set in an English village, with a scratchy, old-fashioned heroine who holds a really rather silly but not entirely inexplicable prejudice against Americans.  My hero, Nick Carleton, was (guess what?) an American movie star.  He comes to spend the summer in Stynch Magna and ends up living in the cottage next door – because Hollywood stars always want a tiny cottage in a quiet English village, right?  It’s a period piece now, set in a world before cell phones, videos and social media, but when I reread it recently before self-publishing, it was more fun than I remembered!


My 60th book, Mr (Not Quite) Perfect will be published in January 2014, but in the meantime, if you fancy an escape back to the 90s, A Sweeter Prejudice is available now as part of the Jessica Hart Vintage Collection, which makes it a double first: first published book, and first self-published book.  The Vintage Collection is available to download everywhere: just follow the links on my website.
 
JessicaWebsite  |  Facebook  


Jessica has a voucher to download all 5 of the Vintage Collection for anyone in need of a blast from the past.  Head over to my Facebook page to let us know: Who was the first movie star you ever dreamed would come and live next door?

Nicola Marsh's first...kiss :).

Nicola Marsh has arrived at the party!  Nic and I sold our first books within mere months of one another, so it wouldn't eb a celebration without her here.  Now, as far as firsts go, Nic has given up a doozy :).
First kiss? Hmm…we're talking a real, full-on pash here, and not playground kiss-chasey, right?  So…yeah, I'm hedging.   But here goes…
was in Singapore, when I was on holiday with my family. Met a lovely boy from Perth.   He looked like one of the Kemp brothers in Spandau Ballet so it was love at first sight.
We clubbed every night and danced until the wee hours.   He was polite and sweet and incredibly cute.  He took me to Raffles for a romantic breakfast, then we went shoe shopping. 
His flight was leaving that afternoon…and that's when he kissed me.   Wow. Fireworks.
So now you know!
NicolaWebsite  |  Facebook  


Care to share your first kiss?  Nicola is giving away an ebook of her latest YA novel Before over on my  Facebook page !