RNA Launches Revamped Website

Fifty and fabulous on the web.

This weekend, I've sat back and watched my baby go out into the world. Not a real baby you understand - but something that took a lot of time and effort and love just the same. I'm talking about the new RNA website.

I wanted the site to be just like the RNA itself - smart, colourful, exciting and interesting, useful and .... (insert the adjective of your choice)

It was a team effort - three of us working together to get something out there to tell the world that the RNA is 50 years old this year - and we are just fabulous!

Do drop by and have a look. I hope you'll love it was much as we do.

Janet

Janet Gover took the role of RNA press Officer in November - just in time for the 50th Anniversary year. When not promoting the RNA, she writes romantic novels set in Australia for Little Black Dress. Her most recent, The Bachelor and Spinster Ball was released in November.

http://www.janetgover.com/

Dental Impression Material Equals Love for Julia Williams

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer of romantic fiction should find in her life partner, a like minded romantic soul...

Alas in my case, I have married a man without a romantic bone in his body. So it was that on our first Valentine's together, I with deep love in my heart searched the flower shops of Liverpool high and low, for a bunch of orchids (=forever), which I left, rather mysteriously I felt, on the bonnet of his car.
"Why have you bought me flowers?" was his unreconstructed male response, before producing a home made Valentine's present for me. "Here's my heart," he said. How lovely, I thought, till I realised it was made out of dental impression material...

The years passed and the most I could ever hope for was a card (never flowers - oh how I longed for a bunch of red roses), maybe a meal (but invariably we'd always forget to book and end up wandering the streets trying to find a seat at any table that would have us.) I even turned up one year with a red rose given to me by a stranger in a flower shop, and even that didn't work...

So in the end, I resigned myself to the fact that despite his many fine qualities, the man I had married was never going to fulfil my requirements in the romance department (just as well I can create fictional heroes for that), until Valentine's Day eight years ago...

I was four days from giving birth to our fourth and last child, so he was dutifully out in Sainsbury's doing the shopping. From whence, he came with the biggest bunch of red roses you've ever seen.
"I saw these and thought of you," he said, probably as much surprised by his actions as I was.
I vowed then and there never to worry if he never bought me another flower in my life, at least he'd done it once...

Which is just as well really. We spent last Valentine's Day in a freezing cold chalet at Pontins, with all four children. Who says romance is dead?

To find out more about Julia's latest book - LAST CHRISTMAS visit her website http://www.juliawilliamsauthor.com/

Janet Woods Writes of Cardless Valentine's Days - Except One

Author Janet Woods tells of Valentine's Days without cards except one has...

A tale of woe...I've never ever received a valentine card, unless I can count the drawing from my grandson. It was a bleeding heart with "XXXs from Brodie" on it, Still, I've managed to celebrate 50 years of happy marriage without one. Instead I've enjoyed gifts of flowers, chocolates and other surprises for no reason at all.

1835, England. A married woman, pregnant with her sea-captain lover’s child, dies giving birth. The child, Serafina Finn, is abandoned to an orphanage and grows up longing to feel that she belongs somewhere. Eighteen years later, her father, hearing rumours that his lost daughter survived, dispatches a detective, Adam Chapman, to discover the truth. Adam finds, and falls in love with, Serafina – but, even if he can prove her identity, will her real family accept her?

http://janet-woods.com/

Anita Burgh's Best Valentine's Day

Best selling novelist, Anita Burgh, shares her best Valentine's Day...

It is the sixties, Cambridge. Married at twenty I am, at thirty, alone, but happy with my children. Valentine’s Day arrives, not that I expect anything, there’s no one special enough at the moment – I feel a momentary bleakness. At the bedroom door there is a sound of shuffling and shushing. My three children enter. My daughter carries a tray with tea and burnt toast. My youngest son a bunch of daffodils which have seen better days. My eldest hands me a huge hand decorated card. “To the best and most beautiful Ma in the world. Admired by men – Happy Valentine.” It has never been bettered.

It is spring 1915. Far away in France, the Great War was not over by Christmas as was confidently predicted. It shows no sign of ending, and the peaceful calm of Cresswell Manor in Devon has been shattered. It is now a convalescent home for soldiers from the Front. They arrive in increasing numbers to recover from their wounds - their minds and bodies broken. The old social order is crumbling as surely as time begins to breach the walls of the ancient manor house... this glorious saga of home life against the terrible backdrop of 'the war to end all wars'.

http://www.anitaburgh.com/

http://anitaburgh.blogspot.com/

NWS Member Jenny Barden Talks of the Practical Side of Love

Jenny Barden,New Writers' Scheme member and contributor to Love Writing, shares a practical Valentine's Day...

The first Valentine's Day my husband bought me roses was several years after our marriage when the children were small, finances were precarious, life was a never-ending scramble, and our house had just been put on the market. I was amazed and profoundly touched. He'd never bought me flowers before. 'Darling, they're beautiful!' I said, kissing him. 'They should do the trick,' he replied, marching straight past me and into the living room. 'Flowers always help sell a house.' I suppose, as a surveyor, he should have known, and a few weeks later he was proved right. Well, at least the house sold! I gave him a hug afterwards. That, surely, is love!

Jenny has just completed her novel, To the Ends of the World, which follows the first of Drake's great adventures, but with one special difference - suppose a woman had by chance been there... To discover more visit http://www.jennybarden.com

Red Roses, a Symbol of Love - Even Dead Ones by Anna Jacobs

Anna Jacobs, author of over 47 novels, tells us how even a bouquet of dead roses can mean love...

Many years ago, when we were first married, I bought my husband some red roses for Valentine’s Day and it turned out that no one had ever bought him roses before, even though he’s a very liberated man. He loved them so much that he wouldn’t let me throw them away even when they died, so for two extra weeks we had a vase of extremely dead roses standing in our living room. It made me feel warm and happy every time I looked at them, and I caught him smiling at them or touching them with his fingertips several times. We still smile over that memory. I’ve bought him flowers since but they’ve never had the impact of that first time with red roses.




The four Blake sisters have no work and life is hard. Cassandra has fallen in love with Reece Gregory, but he too is out of work and can’t support a wife. When he’s offered a chance to start a new life in Australia, he takes it and promises to send for her. Her father’s health is failing so she can’t leave him.
Their uncle’s childless wife loathes them. She has Cassandra kidnapped to force the other sisters to sail with a group of starving cotton lasses to Australia.
When Cassandra escapes, she follows them. Reece is in Australia too. Surely now she’ll find happiness? But the voyage brings its own difficulties and the past still casts a long shadow.
http://www.annajacobs.com

Eileen Ramsay Shares Two of Her Best Valentine's Days

February has become synonymous with romance - thank you Saint Valentine. So we asked a few RNA members to tell us about some of their Valentine's experiences. Scottish author Eileen Ramsay kicks of the month with two of her best...

Valentine's Day 1969 Washington DC. My boyfriend rings my doorbell at 6am. Nothing exciting. He's a health fanatic and thinks 100 metre sprints will keep my arthritis at bay - we have done this before. I must love him.
Up and down Massachusetts Avenue we go, and eventually, just outside the British Embassy I am allowed to collapse in a quivering heap.
'Will you marry me?' he bends down, holding out a really rather lovely diamond ring.
Frankly, I want to kill him, horribly, but I nod and grab the ring.
Fast forward 40 years.
My husband, still jogging, brings me coffee in bed. With it is a beautiful little parcel which contains an antique three-stone ruby ring. I hold out my hand for him to slip it on and the phone rings. It is my younger son.
'Hi, Mum, Barnaby has just been born. Happy Valentine's Day.'
Barnaby, our first grand child. My heart sings, Deo Gratias.
I bet this year it will be Toblerone.





RNA award winner Eileen Ramsay delivers a passionate new novel, set in the tumultuous world of classical music. Juliet Crawford is a brilliant and beautiful young orchestra conductor, living in Edinburgh, and dreaming of success. When she is offered the chance of a lifetime to get ahead with her career, with the incredible possibility of permanently leading a prestigious American orchestra, she decides nothing will stand in her way. But it is there that she meets the handsome young Czech conductor Karel Haken. As the attraction between them builds to a crescendo, she knows their ambitions will always push them apart. Does she dare to love him despite everything?

http://www.eileenramsay.co.uk/

February Releases

Sarah Mallory - WICKED CAPTAIN, WAYWARD WIFE
Mills & Boon
5th February 2010
£13.50
Evelina believed she was a widow, but her rakish husband is very much alive!
http://www.sarahmallory.com/









Janet Gover - THE FARMER NEEDS A WIFE
Ulverscroft Large Print
February 1st 2010
£16.99
Love blossoms in unexpected places when an Australian magazine launches a campaign to find wives for lonely farmers.
http://www.janetgover.com/





Anne Whitfield - HOOKED ON YOU
The Wild Rose Press
February 5th 2010
7.30
Working for a sexy man sounded fabulous, but Katie should have been careful what she wished for, because gorgeous employers are a hazard to the heart.

http://www.annewhitfield.com/
http://annewhitfield.blogspot.com/






Kate Hardy - GOOD GIRL OR GOLD DIGGER
Mills & Boon
19 Feb 2010
£3.19
Chief (female) mechanic of steam museum falls for wealthy rescuer...
http://www.katehardy.com/
http://katehardy.blogspot.com/












Jo Beverley - THE STANFORTH SECRETS
Penguin Signet, NY
February 2nd 2010
6.93
Widowed Chloe Stanforth wants to escape her home before the new Lord Stanforth
arrives, but she can't abandon her people to murder and mayhem.
http://www.jobev.com/











Louise Allen - THE VISCOUNT'S BETROTHAL
Harlequin
February 2010
Escaping from a matchmaking family Decima ends up snowbound with the man of her dreams.

http://www.louiseallenregency.co.uk/

Janet Mullany - IMPROPER RELATIONS
Headline/Little Black Dress
February 18, 2010
5.99
A Regency chicklit with a lot of annoying relatives and about finding love where you least expect it.

Liz Fielding, Susan Stephens, Alexandra Sellers - LORDS OF THE DESERT

Harlequin Mills & Boon

February

£6.99

Arabian Nights times three.

Susanna Kearsley - SEASON OF STORMS

Allison & Busby

February 8, 2010

£10.99

When Celia joins a group of actors attempting to stage an 'unstageable' play at the playwright's estate in Italy, she finds herself plunged into romance and intrigue.I've attached a jpeg of the cover. http://www.susannakearsley.com/

Kate Allan - THE SMUGGLER RETURNS

Linford Romance

1st February 2010

£8.99

Love and revenge in 18th century Cornwall

Sarah Duncan on Research

Author of one of this year's longlisted books for the Romantic Novel of the Year, Sarah Duncan, tells us about what inspired to A Single To Rome...

I must confess right from the start that I’m a lazy sort of writer. When I’m looking for a background for a book I think through things I already know a bit about. For Nice Girls Do it was C18th symbolic landscape gardens, which I’d done as part of my History of Art degree, for Another Woman’s Husband is was Shakespearean cue scripts, which I’d learnt about at drama school. (I must quickly add here that Adultery for Beginners was ENTIRELY a work of fiction.)



But I thought I’d run out of specialist knowledge for my new book until my partner suggested Rome. I’d been a student there during my degree, so knew the city quite well – and the research trips would be fun. So that was settled – the book was going to be set in Rome.




Having decided that, I had to work out how I was going to get my heroine there. Originally I was going to have her working in Italy as an art historian, but it became clear that wasn’t right so going Rome became escaping from a broken heart. But what was she going to do when she got there?

At the back of my mind I thought I might do something with the Romantic Poets so I visited the Protestant Cemetery on the outskirts of Rome to see the graves of Shelley and Keats. Reading the guidebook I discovered that Shelley’s little boy, who was charmingly nicknamed Willmouse, had died before his father, and was also buried in the cemetery. When Shelley was buried, they arranged for Willmouse to be interred with his father – but when his grave was dug up Willmouse wasn’t there…

As I wandered around the daisy strewn lawns of the cemetery the ghost of an idea for a plot came to me, and I knew what Natalie was going to do. I visited the Shelleys’ house in Rome, which is used for offices in real life, but in the book it’s the Tea Museum. And I did a lot of food research, as one of the characters is a food writer. It’s a hard life being a novelist.

Liz Fenwick shares a Dubai Christmas Tree

Member of the RNA's New Writers' Scheme Liz Fenwick talks about a tree in Dubai...

Most years we have traveled home to Cornwall from wherever we have been living (Moscow, Jakarta,London, Houston, and Dubai) except for the two years we lived in Calagary and because of this Christmas and Cornwall are totally linked in children's minds as well as ours. However this year we knew my husband wouldn't be able to steal enough time from the office to make the journey worthwhile so we accepted that Christmas would be in Dubai...

This is our second 'tour of duty' here and during our first one we purchased our first artificial tree to make the villa festive knowing that we would have a real tree in Cornwall. Our collection of ornaments in Cornwall is filled with precious memories of grandparents, children's creations, and all the places we have lived so what could I decorate the tree in Dubai with? I didn't want to go to great expense so the children and I walked the beach collecting shells (they were then 9, 7, and 2). We came home and painted them all gold to varying degrees. That year the tree glistened with sea shells and lights. Each year since then we have added silly and inexpensive ornaments to our Dubai tree.

This year because we wouldn't be in Cornwall we splashed out on a real tree here. But of course we don't have the traditional ornaments just shells, camels, bears and bits.....

Hope your Christmas was wonderful and that the coming New Year willed be filled with blessings.

Liz

http://lizfenwick.blogspot.com/
http://www.lizfenwick.com/

Lemon Tree Very Christmasy

Best selling author Rosemary Laurey shares her tales of an unusual Christmas Tree...


Well, I finally broke down and decided I wanted a tree with lights, but just could not face hauling everything up from the basement. So I went down and fished out one string of lights and put them on the lemon tree in my work room window.. Not quite as impressive as some to displays my neighbors have up but what the heck? And must have been the warmth of the bulbs but two flower buds opened. So now I have lights and the scent of lemon blossom.



Merry Christmas everyone :-)

Coming on December 18th from Elloras Cave: Turkish Delight - see: http://www.rosemarylaurey.com/html/vampires.htm

For my WW2 trilogy visit: http://www.brytewood.co.uk/

New Choc Lit author, Christina Courtenay, talks of her Scandinavian celebrations...

God Jul!
24th December is the day Christmas is celebrated in Scandinavia, so ”God Jul” or good yuletide to you all! (The “jul” is pronounced just like the English word Yule.)

Christmas trees are as individual as their owners (here is a photo of ours for this year), and ours is usually dressed all in red and silver, with the odd splash of gold. Not sure why, but over the years those are the colours I always seem to buy. And like Jan, I buy at least one new bauble every year – they’re just so beautiful, how can anyone resist?

For me, although I know it’s not good for the planet, it has to be a real tree, simply because of the wonderful scent. There’s nothing like coming down on Christmas morning and being met by the fragrance of fir or spruce. To make up for this non-PC behaviour, I plant a small Christmas tree in our garden every year after the holidays. Here’s a photo of this year’s lucky “little one” (Isn’t it adorable? Not even a foot high!)

Also like Jan Jones (here) I’m sure most people have Christmas tree decorations that are special because of the memories associated with them. For me, it’s five miniature Japanese fans that remind me of some exotic Christmases in Tokyo many years ago. We somehow managed to combine both English and Swedish traditions with Japanese ones, which was great fun!
Happy Christmas!
Christina

http://christinacourtenay.wordpress.com/

Melinda Hammond/Sarah Mallory talks about A Growing Tree

Author of historicals Melinda Hammond/Sarah Mallory shares her tales of a growing tree...

Our neighbours have a small plantation where they grow Christmas trees. A few weeks before Christmas we see a succession of cars passing our window as people drive up to choose and buy their tree. A couple of years ago we went over and bought a little tree, but rather than cut it down we chose to dig up the roots and put it in a pot, and after Christmas we stood it in a quiet corner outside where it has continued to grow for the past couple of years, coming in about a week before Christmas for its annual makeover.

This year our tree was decorated with snow before we could bring it in (I think it looks beautiful, but of course we had to knock off the snow before we could bring it indoors, or risk a soggy carpet!).

If it survives this year I think we will have to plant it out, for it reaches the ceiling now. Perhaps we will buy it some outdoor lights for 2010.......

Melinda Hammond/Sarah Mallory

http://www.melindahammond.com/
http://www.sarahmallory.com/

Kate who writes as Kate Johnson and Cat Marsters shares tales of her Christmas Trees...

When I was a kid, we used to get a real tree, with roots and everything, and we used to get one that was the same height as my brother (it's his birthday on Christmas Day). The thing was, after tramping round the field (meadow? Orchard? Forest?), and finding one the right height, we'd take it home, pot it, and then it would be about eighteen inches higher.

This wasn't a problem when my brother was seven. Unfortunately, he hit six foot at about sixteen, and didn't stop. The last tree we got was 6'2". By the time we'd carried it in and levered it upright, we had to repaint the ceiling.

That was the year we got a fake tree. I love it: you never have to water it, it doesn't shed needles all over the place--and with a collection of cats and dogs that's a hazard all of its own. The tree used to shed so much that I thought it was traditional to buy a new vacuum cleaner every Christmas Eve. And best of all, with a fake tree my feline helpers actually have something to play with while I'm assembling it!

Merry Christmas everyone.

Kate
http://www.katejohnson.co.uk/

Christmas Down Under

Author of 46 books Anna Jacobs tells us about how Christmas feels in the warmer climes...

Christmas in Western Australia is just a teeny bit different from Christmas in the UK. Definitely no snow! In fact, it’s going to be very hot on Christmas Day - probably a ‘century’ as we call it (100 degrees Fahrenheit).

We live on a marina development with water frontage and on Christmas Day in the early morning, before it gets really hot, Father Christmas comes round in a boat blasting out Christmas carols. He gives bags of sweets to kids who go rushing down to their families’ jetties and graciously accepts the odd bottle of chilled beer in return.

We’ll be having a barbecue in the evening but will stay indoors in the air conditioning for most of the day watching the boats go past outside. When it’s cooled down enough to be comfortable, we too will go outside. Few people here sit out in the full summer sun, which is enemy number one. We can recognise tourists from cooler countries because they ‘grill’ themselves to a nice bright red. Dangerous, that.

As we eat our barbecued food in the evening, we can look down the central ‘canal’ and see the fancy Christmas lights on the houses reflected in the water. It’s very pretty. Small boats chug past looking at the ‘illuminations’ and bringing wafts of music and laughter, while tourist boats bring larger numbers of revellers.

The only things we have to guard against are mosquitoes, which try to do their own feasting - on us.

That’s our Australian Christmas.

Anna Jacobs

Anna Jacobs: 'Yesterday's Girl' (pbk 1/08), ‘Freedom’s Land’ (pbk 7/09), 'Farewell to Lancashire' (hbk 7/09, Aust trade pbk 1/10), ‘Saving Willowbrook’ (pbk 11/09), ‘In Focus’ (hbk 11/09) http://www.annajacobs.com/