Nicola Marsh's Blog, page 58

New Voices writing comp

All you budding category romance writers out there, Mills and Boon have just launched another New Voices competition.

They bought several authors from last year's comp, so go check it out here.


Good luck!

Life's curve balls

Life has a way of throwing you curve balls when you least expect it.

Saturday night, I'd had a ball at a party, get in the car to drive home and see little flashes of light out of the corner of my left eye (not UFOs, flashes in my eyes!)

Took a couple of Panadol, went to bed.
Sunday morning, flashes eased but blurry spots floating in my eye constantly.
Monday, more of the same, so this morning I went to an optometrist.

Turns out I have a PVD in my left eye.
Posterior Vitreous Detachment, where the jelly-like vitreous detaches from part of the retina at the back of the eye. The floaters are bits of jelly.

No cure, just have to live with it.

Yeah, it's a major pain, but could've been worse.
If the flashing lights come back, could be sign of retinal detachment and that's instant surgery to minimise loss of vision.
Pretty scary stuff!

No reason it happens, idiopathic, but it tends to happen in older people over 60! Hello! Not there for a quite a while yet! The joys of getting older...

In the meantime, I'll still be writing and reading and doing my best to ignore the blurry bits.
Interestingly, it's worse in brighter light, so if you see me swanning around in sunglasses permanently, it's not an ego thing, it's a necessity. :)

Melbourne Spring Fashion Week

MELBOURNE SPRING FASHION WEEK is huge and this year, I was thrilled to be a part of it.


Over 400 copies of GIRL IN A VINTAGE DRESS, my current release, were popped into goodie bags.

Huge thanks to my Mills & Boon Australia for sourcing so many copies for this event.


To check out the fab fashion, visit the MSFW website.

WINNER!

The winner of the recent blog hop is Lauriehere.

Laurie wins 3 books:
-Girl in a Vintage Dress
-Her Bad, Bad Boss
-Deserted Island, Dreamy Ex!

Please email me privately to arrange your prize mail out, Laurie.

And stay tuned everyone, more book giveaways coming shortly.

Along with a fab blog comp for writers! Involving a super agent!

WEEKEND BOOK CLUB: Friends to Forever

I adore the Harlequin Romance series for its varied voices.


Some readers think the series is too 'sweet' and avoid it but let me tell you, as an author who writes for the series and who reads widely across it, these romances are packed with sizzle, sexual tension adding to the page turning quality of the books.


Some books in the series are lighter (eg. The Fun Factor mini series most of my books appear in) and some are emotional heart-wrenchers.


Nikki Logan's Friends to Forever is the latter.
Here's the blurb:


She was the high school princess. He was the high school nobody.
But Marc Duncannon and Beth Hughes were the best of friends—until a heated kiss exposed secrets and ruined everything….
Ten years later Beth seeks out Marc, and finds him battling to save a stranded whale. Together on a lonely Australian beach, they face exhaustion, the elements and their own personal demons—for Beth and Marc need to save each other, too. They discover that their friendship is worth fighting for—but between them might be something even stronger…perhaps a love that could last a lifetime…?

I remember reading Nikki Logan's debut and being blown away.
This book hasn't changed my opinion of her writing style.

Friends to Forever is character driven all the way.

An alcoholic heroine battling her demons and an emotionally scarred hero in desperate need of loving.

The poignant and realistic way in which they deal with their past is truly magical to read.


And I love how Nikki layers nature into all her books (this one features saving a stranded whale.)

An excellent, emotional read.

What are you reading this weekend?

READER REVIEW: Girl in a Vintage Dress

I love it when readers 'get' me.
When they can tell what has gone into the book by reading it.
This is one of those readers.

Just stumbled across this review for GIRL IN A VINTAGE DRESS on Goodreads:

Oh, how I adored this book, I really did.

Everything about it feels beautiful.

I am into vintage and retro myself (I really do wear my hair and makeup like my avatar!) and I could tell that Nicola Marsh had not only done her research very thoroughly but also enjoyed it!
The descriptions of Lola's shop, clothes, accessories, hair, make up etc are fantastic, I could really visualise everything.

The story is really good too! Chase and Lola are two wonderful characters; perfectly matched yet totally different, which makes for some really delicious tension.

What I like most about this book is the balance between the snappy, casual and fun writing and the tenderness of the romance.

Nicola Marsh's characters are always likeable and, more importantly, relatable and this is certainly the case with Chase and Lola (love that name!).

If I had to pick one word to describe this book it would be 'Gorgeous'. Because it really is!
Recommended.

The thing that struck me about this review is the reader picked up on how much I loved researching the vintage aspect. I spent hours pouring over vintage fashions and accessories and blogs, having an absolute ball, and I'm thrilled readers are getting a feel for my fun through the book.

Here's the full review.

Tech confusion

I recently asked about Netbooks on Twitter.
I need something ultra portable to write on that has Net access.

Loads of recommendations flooded in and I just got back from the shops after checking them out.

But here's the thing.
The iPad 2 was alongside them and oh so tempting.

I would buy a keyboard and dock to go with it but here's what I want to know.
All you writers out there, how good is it for writing?
The Pages app is the trick, yeah?

But when I upload to my old PC, will I lose Word formatting?

Or am I just better off buying a much cheaper Netbook and buying Net access?

So many decisions, so confusing!

I was also seriously tempted by the Mac computers too (to upgrade at home.)
I've never used Mac and would be interested to hear feedback.

All advice appreciated!

Play date

Today I'm visiting THE WRITING PLAYGROUND and talking hot heroes.

What's your favourite? CEO? Cowboy? Carpenter?
Come share.

I'm giving away a copy of TAG TEAM too!

Are you a follower?

Only a few days left to enter the BACK TO THE BOOKS giveaway hop.

I'm thrilled to welcome so many new followers to my blog. Stay tuned for more giveaways & competitions!

Check here for full details of this hop.

Branding

Timely post by Nathan Bransford on branding today.



He says there's no such thing as branding on the internet, only you, and I have to agree.



Because I've always wanted to write mainstream fiction alongside my Harlequin romances, I deliberately chose a generalised tagline "Flirty Fiction with Flair."



With the upcoming release of BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD, I've been toying with the idea of a separate blog, until I realised something.

I have a loyal following here. I look forward to interacting with those people daily.

I don't want to branch off somewhere else where I may miss out on those interactions.



Then there's Facebook & Twitter & Goodreads, where I chat daily too.

And I'm totally with Nathan. What you see on those media sites is ME. I chat life, books, kids, footy, food, Bollywood, publishing stuff.

I'm the brand.

Not a tagline, not what I write.

Me.



So that's what you're going to get.

Sure, there'll be loads of new Bollywood goodness here (stay tuned for some exciting reveals!) but what you see is what you get.



Nathan Bransford's post is reiterating this. Worth reading.



Don't forget the BACK TO THE BOOKS giveaway is running for another few days!

Check out my 3 book giveaway HERE.

READER REVIEW: Tag Team

My reading time has been seriously curtailed this week while working on BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD edits and uploading my very first short story to Amazon & Smashwords!



(So Weekend Book Club will return next weekend.)



I'm thrilled to see 3 ripper reviews up on Amazon in the first 2 days:



"a super fast paced awesome short story packed with tension and sexual sizzle amidst the International police drama, action and espionage...I've always enjoyed Nicola Marsh's contemporary romances and this short story delivers a powerful punch! The dialogue and action scenes felt like I was watching a movie rather than reading!"



"Hot, potent and riveting! Amidst a life or death situation these two really spark, through dialogue, tension and emotion. When they finally get it on it feels so real, deep and exciting. Nicola Marsh is a whizz with words, creating such wonderful, fresh, lively characters. My only wish? That there had been more to this story!"



"Tag Team by Nicola Marsh oozes sizzlin heat... short and steamy, but wafting with goodness..."



Thanks to Nas, Kerrin & Katrina. Read their full reviews here.



And snap up the story for 0.99 cents!

Available at Smashwords too



Don't forget my 3 book giveaway running all this week!