Heidi Rice's Blog, page 7

Goodreads Giveaway of On the First Night of Christmas in Spanish

The postie arrived this morning with three new copies of On the First Night of Christmas in Spanish — AKA Más Que Palabras...

So I'm doing a Goodreads Giveaway (of course)

Enter below for a chance to win an autographed copy.


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Goodreads Book Giveaway Más que palabras by Heidi Rice Giveaway ends June 18, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to Win

Goodreads Giveaway of Too Close for Comfort in Large Print

My sexy Mexican-American hero Zane Montoya (half-brother of Nate Graystone from One Night So Pregnant!) and my sassy Scottish heroine Iona MacCabe are now getting it together in Large Print... So I'm doing a Goodreads Giveaway to celebrate.... As you do.

You have five days to enter starting NOW!!!


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Goodreads Book Giveaway Too Close for Comfort by Heidi Rice Giveaway ends May 30, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to Win

My sexy RITA nominated hunk, Brent O'Neill!So the Romance...

My sexy RITA nominated hunk, Brent O'Neill!
So the Romance Writers of America® announced the nominations for this year’s RITA® Awards on Thursday… And me, being a complete plonker, was not aware of this (because I’d got my dates confused) until I picked up the phone and the fabulous Helen Kay Dimon introduced herself and told me she had some very good news for me.

Her news: My second Red Hot Read for Cosmopolitan magazine, 10 Rules to Sex Up a Blind Date, had been nominated for an award in the Best Romance Novella category. Cue much babbling, lots of teary thank yous and then a mad rush to get a plane ticket to NYC in July and register for the conference.


The proof, as listed on the RWA website!

Just wanted to share my AMAZING news. I’m so excited about this. Obviously it would be terrific if I won, but frankly just getting nominated is such an honour I’m already over the moon and far away. I loved this story about sex, lies and Twitter etiquette, so it’s absolutely amazing to have it honoured in this way.

In other news, I have signed off on my first longer book, a woman’s fiction novel with a strong reunion romance at its heart, which will be out next February in the UK and currently has a working title of So Now You’re Back. I’m super proud of this book, which is quite a departure from my series work, it’s certainly been quite a steep learning curve writing a book with this much complexity. But I love it now, and I hope you will too…

Meanwhile, back to my current writing project – a novella for Tule in our Fairytales of New York quartet - which I am working on while doing a little snoopy dancing (which is not that easy, let me tell you)!

Fifty Shades of Grey The Movie... Why I loved it!

So picture the scene, it's Friday 13th February, my bessie romance-writing mate Abby Green and I are sitting in an Islington cinema with about 300 women of all ages (and about five brave boyfriends) ready to see the much talked about... And much maligned... New movie version of EL James erotic bestseller...



Ok, hold that thought. Because before I go any further I want to say this is IMHO a critic proof movie. Why? Because the people (mostly women I will admit) who loved the book and who found the characters of billionaire dominant Christian Grey and virginal English lit student Anatasia Steele compelling will be looking for something very different in this movie than those people who didn't read or like the book. I'm not saying the non-fans  and their opinions don't count (after all, some of them may still love this movie!). And if you pay money for a movie you're entitled to enjoy it. And to have an opinion if you don't. But frankly, I'm not really interested in their opinion - and that includes you, snide critic from The New Yorker - and I'm not remotely interested in all the scathing value judgements some people have seen fit to make about those of us that enjoyed the books and/or enjoyed the movie either. Because frankly, life's way too short to have to justify what you enjoy watching/reading/playing etc for your own entertainment (as long as it's legal, obviously).

So back to myself and my fellow romance writer and FSOG fan in that cinema in Islington... Did we enjoy the experience...? Well we had high expectations, and they were (actually quite surprisingly) not disappointed. We were thoroughly entertained.

So why were we so surprised?

Well, this is a romance people (when I say romance here I mean the genre term as opposed to something that is romantic), and the difficulty with bringing a straight romance to the screen (and why so few of them are) is that it's not plot led, the key points of the story go on inside the characters heads - especially if you don't have the quick-fire dialogue supplied by rom-coms. How do you convey that on screen? That was Sam Taylor Johnson's challenge and the challenge for the two leading actors - Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson - and they rose to it admirably (no pun intended there, folks)... They took it seriously enough to make the characters live but at the same time not so seriously that it became  heavy or overly dramatic (or dare I say, cheesy). That's a very hard trick to pull off, but they did it because the end result here is a slick, sexy, entertaining, fabulously overblown romantic fantasy, which also manages to be witty and self aware.


And why were we so entertained?

For starters, I thought Dakota Johnson captured the intrigued, curious, smart and increasingly empowered Ana beautifully. She's sassy, she's witty, and she's also incredibly sweet (not unlike her Mum in Working Girl funnily enough). While Jamie Dornan brought a boyish vulnerability to the enigmatic, sexy and ultimately extremely f****d up Christian. They have a lot of on-screen chemistry and the sex scenes are erotic without being explicit (well, not more explicit than an 18 rating would allow, anyway).

Now a lot of people have slammed the BDSM elements in the books and the film as being anti-women, encouraging violence against women and/or not being indicative of real BDSM relationships... And yet the extreme misogyny in say a film like Inherent Vice is passed off as what? Artistic license... But I digress, the point surely is that both films are fiction.

The difference with FSOG is that this is a story told from a female perspective, it's a story made to turn women on (and has in droves) and it understands that just as there is a difference between women's 'rape fantasies' and actual rape (go grab yourselves a copy of Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden if you don't know what this is), there is also a difference between the depiction of a real BDSM relationship and what is depicted here - a fictional BDSM relationship which Christian demands because he is scared of intimacy and cannot bear to be touched and which Ana confronts head on firstly because she is falling for him, but also because it actually turns her on! And yes, people, the readers of FSOG and fans of this movie do know that it's fiction and not reality. Just in case you were wondering... Amazing isn't it!

James's book took these characters more seriously, but really you couldn't do that in a movie - a book is an intimate and personal experience for a reader - a movie is not, because you're viewing it with loads of other herberts, most of whom you don't know from Adam. Luckily, the movie's playfulness not just with the characters but also with the book's iconography admirably help it get over that hump. And explain why there was a round of applause when Christian first appeared and a lot of laughs when he said 'Laters Baby' for the first time...!

But anyway, in both the book and the movie, it's the romance - the journey of Christian and Ana's relationship (not all of which is romantic BTW) that's driving the story. Not the sex. The sex is like the action scenes in a James Bond movie, it's important to the story only in so far as this is where the relationship changes in some way...

That said, this is supposed to be a sexy movie and what I loved was the eroticism and playfulness in the sex scenes. There is one particular scene where Christian spanks Ana, but it's very clear that they are both getting off on the experience. There's also the witty sexually charged scene when they are negotiating the notorious 'contract' - when Dakota's Ana is both naive and bold while Dornan's Christian is both frustrated and captivated.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Not at all playful is the scene at the end of the film.... Again, the actors and the filmmakers got this scene exactly right (for me).. Even though Ana consents beforehand, in fact encourages it, because she is curious to know exactly how far Christian 'wants' to go, and doesn't use her 'safe word' during the incident which would have ended it, there's no doubt that she is a victim here... The scene is dark, it's disturbing, it's not sexy. Christian goes way too far, he hurts and humiliates Ana and Ana confronts him and walks out on him... If this were real would we still consider Christian to be a romantic character? Um no, we wouldn't. But if James Bond were real would we still consider him a hero after he had shot, garrotted, stabbed, blown up, etc a load of living breathing actual people? Oh, but wait a minute... They're NOT real.

We can handle the fact that JB is a mass murderer because we know he is a good guy who has to kill all those people to get that ticking time bomb out of the Houses of Parliament (or whatever)... Just like we can handle what Christian does to Ana because she stands up to him, and because this is going to reveal something to her that will eventually make him much more vulnerable than she is. And if you love romance it's those essential pivotal turning points in a relationship, the moments when your hero or heroine is forced to confront or reveal their greatest fears/or inner conflicts and vulnerabilities that is the vicarious pleasure you seek.

If you don't 'get' that, if that's not something you get vicarious pleasure from, you're probably not going to enjoy this movie the way I did... But if you do, you just might be one of the people clapping at the end with a great big smile on your face thinking how you can't wait to see the next film, instead of yawning... Or cursing, Or running to Facebook to say what a load of exploitative, disturbing crap you thought it all was and how you pity the poor buggers who are too stupid to realise that!

Oh, and there's also a great soundtrack. Beyonce's reworking of Crazy in Love and Haunted capture the movie's glorious guilty pleasure tone perfectly... Not that I felt remotely guilty mind you for enjoying it.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas...

Just popping in to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'm deep in revisions for my first Single Title book which will be out in August next year (hopefully) under the title Love, Cake and Having It All. Very excited about this book. If you want a few more clues to the content check out my Pinterest board. Or the Coming Soon page on my website.

I'm also going to help teach the Mills and Boon writing masterclass on 24 January 2015. Tickets are almost sold out but if you want to spend the day with me and the M&B eds learning how to become a best selling romance writer early bird prices are still available here.



Have a wonderful Christmas and see you in 2015!

I'm Misbehaving for 99p This Christmas

Misbehaving Under the Mistletoe - an anthology wot I wrote with Charlotte Phillips and Nina Harrington and which contains my sexy Christmas cracker On the First Night of Christmas - is currently 99p on Amazon UK... And rocking Amazon's erotica charts with the likes of EL James and Sylvia Day! Yippee....



Not sure why it's been classed as erotica, although there are erotic bits and misbehaving, so maybe that explains it. Though I do kind of wish I'd slipped a blindfold in there now while my ed wasn't looking... Hmm, maybe I should do a Christmas bondage story for next year?

Spice up your life Heidi-style for 59p... Or less!

Yup, you read that right... Five of my books are currently available on Kindle on Amazon UK for a ridiculous 59p and rocking the Romance Bestseller list... (Which I'm sure has nothing whatsoever to do with that preposterous price!).

Anyway, if you fancy grabbing an ebook to spice up your life (and FYI, I have no idea how long they'll be this cheap so you might want to get a move on) here they are:

Ebooks for 59p
Bedded by a Bad Boy

My first ever published book, this is the story of motorcycle-riding bad boy Monroe Latimer, and fiesty English rose Jessie Connor. She's looking for love, family and happy ever after, he'd happily run a mile from all three... But one skinny-dip in the pool of his long-lost brother's Long Island estate and Monroe's life is set to get a whole lot more complicated...

Buy at Amazon UK


On the First Night of Christmas

All Cassidy Fitzgerald wants for Christmas is a candy man extraordinaire to perk up her sadly neglected libido. Completely by chance she jumps into the car of her former school crush Jace Ryan on Oxford Street. He's all grown up now, even more gorgeous and has the sort of superior skills Cassidy is looking for... Maybe the Christmas fairies have finally given Cassidy a break? Only problem is, as Jace and Cassie share the festive season in a luxury London hotel, it turns out it's not just Cassidy's libido that's in danger of  getting hooked on Jace.

Buy at Amazon UK


The Good, the Bad and the Wild

Eva Redmond is a risk-averse and super studious London genealogical researcher with a wardrobe full of beige who is on a comission to track down the illegitimate grandson of an Italian dukedom... She travels to San Francisco to locate Nick Delisantro - former London runaway turned Hollywood scriptwriter - convinced he's the man she's seeking. But one hot motorbike ride through nighttime San Francisco leads to an even hotter ride in Nick's Haight Ashbury apartment and suddenly it's not just Eva's commission (and her wardrobe full of beige) that's in danger of going down for the count.

Buy at Amazon UK

One Night, So Pregnant!

What do you do when you discover you're pregnant by a man you barely know (except in the Biblical sense, obviously). That's for ex-at SF party planner Tess Tremaine to know and buff billionaire businessman Nate Graystone to find out after one hot clinch in a janitor's closet leads to a life-changing experience for both of them. The clue's in the title for this one... Which is a linked book to The Good, the Bad and the Wild.

Buy at Amazon UK


Too Close for Comfort

Another linked book, this one follows on from One Night So Pregnant and tells the story of Nate Graystone's drop-dead delicious Mexican-American half-brother Zane Montoya. A Californian private eye who picks up Scottish wildlife artist Iona MacCabe as she's trying to break into her ex-lover's motel room... He ends up having to 'keep her contained' in his beach house on Seven Mile Drive and well, one thing leads to another and... You get the picture. Or at least you will if you pick up the book.

Buy at Amazon UK
Or Less!
Goodreads Giveaways Galore!

And if 59p is too steep for you (you cheapskate!), why not enter the NINE.... Yes you read that right... NINE Goodreads Giveaways I have running at the moment in the sidebar on the right. And you could win a book for free. Whether you read in Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese... Or just plain old English, I've got you covered.

Author stalking, Romance talking and Single Title News.

Good lord, it's been nearly two months since I've blogged here... Sorry, I've been busy.

So first off I'm going to direct you to a couple of other blogs I've done recently.

[image error] One on my Fangirl adventures meeting Nora Roberts and Diana Gabaldon one heady week in August with Abby Green... It's a great story for fans of those authors and their milieux (ie West Coast of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands!) which I did for the Pink Heart Society.

And another which I did for Read a Romance blog celebrating great dialogue in romance novels. I'm giving away two ebook copies of my latest Cosmo Red Hot Read 10 Rules to Sex Up a Blind Date on that one so get over there now. And if you want to read a sneak peek, I finally have a page for the book up on my website.

I'll also be popping up on Kate Hardy's 60th Book FB blog party on 6th October, so if you want an invite let me know in the comments - tons of authors and prize giveaways on that.


But, in my writing news, basically I've been AWOL recently because I've been deep in the writing cave writing my first Single Title book. Here's a clue to the content on my Pinterest board, but I'm under contract with M&B's ST imprint in the UK and I'm very excited about this project. I'm not gonna lie to you, it's been quite a challenge making the switch from series to ST (sub-plot? what's that?) but I'm really enjoying it and I hope the result is going to reflect that. It'll be out next Summer,  the title is as yet unconfirmed. So stay tuned, as all shall be revealed in due course.

Smexy Cover Reveal for Cosmo #2

My cover and blurb have arrived for my 2nd Cosmo Red Hot Read which is out on digital October 1st... I LOVE that guy, the perfect combo of hot and cute for my hero Brent O'Neill.

The Buff Cover
 
The Blurb

#WorstDatesEver

After a nasty breakup, Tally Gladstone has no interest in anything serious. But she's dipped her wary toe back into dating with a few blind dates — all bad... Or Worse. The only good thing to come out if it is a sizable following on social media. Her latest date is doomed from the get-go — he isn't even straight! But at least he knows someone who meets her every very exacting wish.

#EpicHotLover?

American-in-London  Brent O'Neill is everything she wants — on paper. He's hot, sexy and emotionally off-limits. Tally can play all she likes without getting burned. He's so good in bed he's addictive. But her millions of social media followers want disaster, not boring-ever-after. They might get their way yet — how is she going to walk away before her heart is in tatters?

Watch this space for a sneak peek.... Coming soon.

Sad News, Fun News and What Heidi Did Next...

So, I have some sad news and some fun news and some hints about what I'm doing next…

Sad News
Harlequin KISS/M&B Modern Tempted is going to be ending, I think the last book in KISS is out in November and the last MT in January (but don’t quote me on that). My last book in the line Beach Bar Baby, came out in June, and I had no more plans to write for KISS but I am still pretty gutted to see this line go. There were a host of really talented authors in it and we wrote some AWESOME books, sadly in this super-competitive marketplace we could not manage to get them into the hands of enough readers. Publishing is a business and you have to roll with the punches, so have no fear I’m sure we’ll all find new homes but if you want more news about ‘what the KISS authors did next’ just check out the KISS & Tempt Facebook page where we will be chatting about book launches, new ventures, etc.

Fun News
With the RWA conference looming I am currently in the process of packing to go to San Antonio Texas next week. Yeehaw! I’ll be Tweeting and Facebooking and blogging and generally flitting about on social media being a romance diva and romance reader (ie: stalking some of my favourite authors!) but if you want to meet me I’ll be at the Literacy Autographing signing copies of Beach Bar Baby and The Wedding Party (my 2-in-1 with Charlotte Phillips) on Wednesday 23rd 5.30pm-7.30pm at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel… So come on down if you’re in the area.

What Heidi's Doing Next (she hopes!)
Ok, so you may be wondering what the heck I’ve been doing since I finished writing Beach Bar Baby. Well, first off, I wrote another Cosmo Red Hot Read which is out in October. It's called 10 Rules to Sex Up a Blind Date and I'll be sticking up a sneak peek on my website as soon as I have cover art, but until then…I have a Pinterest board and...

Take one London journalist with a secret Twitter habit desperate to get laid, one US wolf in geek’s clothing, put them together and what have you got..? A super-steamy tale of hot sex, not entirely white lies and a few important lessons in Twitter etiquette.

Next up I’ve got three other projects on the go:

Firstly a quartet of linked novellas with three other fabulous former KISS authors – Amy Andrews, Kelly Hunter and Lucy King – with the working title Fairytales of New York… And that’s all I’m saying on the subject. But we expect it to be fabulous and we’re hoping to get it out next year.

Next up is the book I’m currently working on, I have a sneak peek on the subject matter up on Pinterest, but basically it’s a longer book, I’m hoping to sign the contract very soon. And you’ll be the first to know all the intimate details when I do…

And last but not least, I am still hoping to write more series books for Harlequin. I don’t know where, or how or with which line, but rest assured I’m working on it… Honest.