There’s romance, and then there’s romance that incorporates dance and makes you feel like Baby in Dirty Dancing. There’s a good reason why most good romance films incorporate a dance between the lovers at some point – there is no clearer, more evocative way to convey passion and vulnerability than
When you think of Italy, you think of opera – the two are inextricably bound. Opera is so passionate, so dramatic, so epic; no wonder I chose to set my passionate, dramatic, epic novel The Echoes of Love in Italy! In another life, had I the musical genius, I would
From the blurb: Nothing sings as sweetly as love, or burns quite like betrayal Rosanna Menici is just a girl when she meets Roberto Rossini, the man who will change her life. In the years to come, their destinies are bound together by their extraordinary talents as opera singers and
Today I’m delighted to be participating in the fifth annual Spooktacular Giveaway Hop run by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer. I’m giving away a paperback copy of my passionate romance novel The Echoes of Love, set in Venice, Italy: To enter, simply comment on this
How many women, since he first found fame on ER, have fantasised about marrying George Clooney? Well, it was British-Lebanese human rights lawyer AmalAlamuddin who finally had the honour last week. And the location for the most high-profile wedding since William and Kate? Venice. The wedding festivities, which spanned a weekend,
George R.R. Martin is without doubt an exceptional writer. He has just one flaw, according to fans: he doesn’t write quickly enough to keep up with their demands! That’s not to say that George is a plodding writer by any means. But the bestselling and world-renowned series he is currently
I could fill a blog post a day on how Amazon is changing the face of publishing – the repercussions of its actions are monumental and wide-reaching. Takethe seemingly simple decision by Amazon to supply copies of out-of-print books itself using its print-on-demand service. Then, theoretically, when the publisher’s print
Have you heard of new publishing innovation The Chatsfield? If you’re thinking That sounds like a cross between a Chesterfield, the swanky couch, and Chatsworth, the stately home, you’re not far off the mark. In a nutshell, The Chatsfieldis a fictional online luxury hotel, a ‘world of style, spectacle and
I have written before of that quintessential symbol of Venice, setting for my novel The Echoes of Love: the gondola. But what of its pilot, the gondolier? In my novel, when the lovers take a gondola ride, I write simply that ‘the gondolier stood perched at the stern behind them,
From the blurb: Some memories can be forgotten . . . Others won’t ever go away. For renowned actor Sir Mungo, his quiet home village in Devon provides the perfect retreat. Close by are his brother and his wife, and the rural location makes his home the ideal getaway for
This week I’ve been reading the brilliant Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers by Paul Dickson. Regular readers of my blog will known that I am a logophile – a lover of words; so much so that on a summer’s afternoon I’m often to be found like this: Yes, I’m reading a
I take a great interest in trends in publishing, especially within the romance genre, and it has struck me how much popular fiction in the past two to three years is set in a futuristic dystopia. Books like The Hunger Games and Divergent are bestsellers, spawning films and TV series
The course of true love never did run smooth’ – so wrote Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I think that no single axiom is more explored in romantic fiction! A romance story that unfolds simply, without a hiccup, is delightful, but uninteresting in literary terms. So authors create
I’m delighted to be participating in this Stuck in a Good Book Giveaway Hop. I’m giving away two paperback copies of my epic romance novel, The Echoes of Love, a passionate love story set in Italy. The Echoes of Love is a beautiful, poignant story
Do you use Google as a browser? If so, you may have noticed, on 9 September, that Google marked 186 years since the birth of writer Leo Tolstoy with a slideshow of images: from Tolstoy writing by candlelight, to the first meeting of Anna and Vronsky in Anna Karenina, and
When I travel to a new city, I’m always interested to see the main sights. In Venice, for example – where I went recently to get a feel for the setting in my latest novel, The Echoes of Love – I followed the crowds to all the main attractions: St
Recently, Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, took to Twitter to answer a fan’s question: ‘Is there a difference between a romance novel and a love story?’ In stating her case that her own novels are absolutely not romance novels (as, to her frustration, they are often categorised), Diana
To date, I have published six novels: three standalones and a trilogy. The trilogy follows three generations of families, but essentially each novel can stand alone as one, cohesive love story. Increasingly, I’m finding that readers me ask whether I’ll write a sequel to a novel they’ve enjoyed. ‘Why oh
I have always been interested in mythology. The Greek myths, which inspired my new book Aphrodite’s Tears, were written thousands of years ago by wise men who helped to shape our modern thinking, and many of those stories have withstood the test of time and are relevant today. I am
A maze of dry, meandering paths led them across the island. On either side crumbling stone temples, toppled columns and the remains of statues told a story of the once-great sacred island. Damian and Oriel were greeted by something new at every bend. Whether it was a view of the
A story reported widely in the British press last week caught my eye: ‘Crime pays,’ read the headline in the Telegraph; ‘thrillers and detective novels now outsell all other fiction.’ According to data by Nielsen BookScan shared at the London Book Fair, sales of crime and thriller novels in the
‘Tell me about this house. It seems enormous, a real labyrinth…’ So says Oriel, the heroine of my new novel Aphrodite’s Tears, with regard to the big house on the island of Helios where her new boss lives. Nods to Greek mythology are interwoven throughout Aphrodite’s Tears, and of course
For my latest novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, I took inspiration from the classic stories of Greek mythology. I grew up with these stories, told to me by my governess and my parents, and one of my oldest and most treasured possessions is a children’s compendium of myths based on the epic
Recently, the editors at Bookish.com published an article compiling favourite romance novel heroines as chosen by romance authors (http://www.bookish.com/articles/favorite-romance-heroines/). The heroines in the list were from modern-era novels, with one notable exception: Elizabeth Bennet of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. When I consider my favourite characters in romance, I invariably find
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