OUT TODAY: Another Home, Another Love by Gwen Kirkwood

Gwen Kirkwood was born, and schooled, in Yorkshire but moved to Scotland to work. After meeting her husband, a Scottish dairyfarmer, she has spent most of her adult life north of the Border. Gwen has three children and six grandchildren. With a background in farming she has also written 15 family sagas and also 6 shorter romance novels. Another Home, Another Love is her first novel for Robert Hale.

ANOTHER HOME, ANOTHER LOVE BY GWEN KIRKWOOD – OFFICIAL BLURB

Rosemary Palmer-Farr loves farming and animals and has spent much of her childhood at Bengairney Farm with her dearest friends, the Carafords. Now, as a young woman, she wants to prove herself a good businesswoman by running the gardens of her father’s dwindling estate. Her mother, Catherine, is not impressed and wants her to secure a good marriage. She looks down on the Carafords because they are only tenant farmers.

When childhood friendship deepens into love, Catherine takes action and extracts a promise from Sam Caraford calculated to keep the young couple apart. She throws Rosemary into the company of eligible young gentleman, but Rosemary despises their attitudes and yearns only for Sam’s love.

Praise for the Author

‘Kirkwood’s ability to involve her readers emotionally will have them rooting for the hero’ – Booklist

‘Delivers a realism and charm which has become the hallmark of her books’ – Dumfries & Galloway Standard

‘Romance with a capital R’ – Manchester Evening News

 ‘Romance with more than a touch of steel to it and with a fine feel for the countryside’ – Northern Echo, Darlington

Another Home, Another Love is now available to buy in hardback at a limited time only discount of 30%.

Carole Llewellyn Launches ‘For the Love of Catherine’ in Devon

Carole Llewellyn was born in Bridgend, South Wales and previously worked in PR and in the theatre before becoming a successful businesswoman. She has written a variety of short stories for national magazines and newspapers including The Daily Telegraph and Woman’s Weekly and is now a full-time writer. Her previous novels, Megan and Rhiannon were also published by Robert Hale Ltd.

Here’s what happened when Llewellyn’s new book For the Love of Catherine was launched at the Torbay Book Shop in Paignton, Devon on 4th April:

My book launch party, held by Matthew Clarke at The Torbay Bookshop, Devon (one of the top independent booksellers), was a resounding success. All were invited to meet me for a glass of wine and a chat. The turn out surpassed all my expectations. The atmosphere in shop was buzzing and my pen was kept busy. A great night! A big thank you to all those who attended.

- Carole Llewellwyn

Carole Llewellyn is currently working on her next novel ‘WOMEN OF STRAW’…

FOR THE LOVE OF CATHERINE OFFICIAL PLOT – SYNOPSIS

14^th APRIL, 1912.

RMS Titanic Struck by an Iceberg!

In the chaos of the sinking ship, Mair Parsons is separated from her infant daughter, Catherine, and her travelling companion and future mother-in-law, Ethel Jenkins, the kind woman who has tried to compensate Mair for the mother’s love she has never known.

The disaster changes all their lives. During her repatriation to Britain Mair has time to reassess her life and knows that before she can find true happiness she must find out the truth about her absent mother, even if it means leaving her beloved Wales and the fiancé and family who care for her.

Her search takes her to London where she becomes a Nightingale Nurse at St Thomas’s hospital and meets the exciting doctor, Andrew Baxter. With new love and a new career, can she be truly happy? Or will her heart be forever bound to those she loves in Wales?

Millie Vigor on Sailing Into Publishing

All the nice girls love a sailor, but sailors long for new horizons and tend to sail off to foreign parts and stay away for months.  I was married to a sailor.  One day he said, ‘I’m going aboard a ship.  We’re going Far East.  I shall be away a year and a month.’

It wasn’t the first time I’d been left alone, but never for quite so long.  I would have to find something to occupy me in the winter evenings.  I thought I’d go to night school and learn to type.  It might come in useful some day.   But that would mean a babysitter and a 40 mile round trip to town.  Instead I bought myself a portable typewriter and a Teach Yourself to Type book. I stuck bits of paper on the keys and taught myself to touch type.  Then I wrote Letter From a Home-Based Wife, packed it up and sent it to the editor of the Naval Base Newsletter.  A few days later I received a copy with my piece in it and a request for more.  Wow!  I was a writer.  No, not yet.

I worked hard to improve my writing, joined writer’s groups and courses and thought I was ready to write the novel.  There are three in the drawer which are unpublished but proof that I can stay the course.  A degree of success came in articles published in various magazines, a few short stories read on local radio then an autobiographical book published in 2003.   But still the novel eluded me.

I live in Shetland and was told the story of a girl from a city in the south of England who married a Shetland man and came to live with him in an isolated croft house.  It was 1946 and life on the islands at that time was very hard.  But she stayed.  I thought about her often and she stuck in my head.  I began to weave stories around her and realised I had a story to write.

After much planning and hours spent at the keyboard of my computer I thought the book I had written was as good as I could get it, so I packed it up and sent it off to a publisher.  It came back with the regulation rejection slip so I sent it out again . . . and again.  Each time it came home I looked to see where I could improve it.

Eventually my submission landed on the desk of someone at Robert Hale Ltd and a few days later I received an email asking for the whole typescript.  A brand new copy was sent off and, fingers crossed, I waited.  Imagine my delight when they said they would like to publish.  I was ecstatic.  Publication of my book, Catherine of Deepdale, had been my dream, but dreams need help to make them come true and I am grateful to all at Robert Hale who have help me do that.

- Millie Vigor

Catherine of Deepdale by Millie Vigor is available now to pre-order with a 30% discount for a limited time only. It will be published by Robert Hale Ltd. on 30 April 2012

‘The Unexpected Miss Bennet’ Author Patrice Sarath on Miss Mary Bennet

Like many Jane Austen fans, I’ve read Pride & Prejudice many times and each time I’ve gained a deeper appreciation of the story, the characters, the setting, and the social commentary that Austen excels at. I became very sympathetic to Mary, the not-pretty, socially awkward, priggish middle sister. Austen is kind of unforgiving toward Mary. Mary makes dull observations, she has no sense of humor, she can’t play the piano or sing very well, and she sermonizes unendingly. She was probably really annoying to live with. I thought, wow, Mary really has middle child syndrome.

And I thought, hmmm – why doesn’t Mr. Collins want to marry Mary Bennet? She’d be perfect for him, right? They’re both insufferable and stupid – it would be a match made in heaven. Thankfully, Jane Austen reserved Mr. Collins for Charlotte Lucas, thereby clearing the field for me.

In writing about Mary I had to take a character who is one-dimensional and round her out a bit. But first I had to understand her better and to do that, I turned to that expert on all things female in the 18th and 19th centuries – Fordyce, as in Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women. Yes, I read Fordyce’s Sermons as a way into Mary Bennet’s psyche. This was actually really fun. Even in Jane Austen’s day Fordyce was considered old and stuffy, but he provided some good advice. Some of this I use in The Unexpected Miss Bennet, as in the scene when the older ladies are hoping to get Mary to gossip, and she knows to beware of their wiles because Fordyce warned her about these types of women, who seek to lead young women astray. (Yeah, he had issues). Mary also comes to see that Fordyce is not the be-all and end-all of knowledge, and maybe it’s time to find a new guide for her new life.

I wanted to make sure that ‘my’ Mary was identifiable as the Mary Bennet created by Jane Austen, and I think I succeeded. Mary is still devout, and she still sermonizes – a little. But she sees there is a wider world out there, and she gains some self-knowledge and makes new friends because she has become open to what life offers. Regency-era women lived very constrained lives so I didn’t have her go through any crazy adventures, but only what makes sense for the character.

I’m a romantic at heart. Romance is such a hopeful genre, and I thought it was a perfect way to explore a character who is mostly overlooked. When writing The Unexpected Miss Bennet, I found that I felt very protective of Mary. After all that she had been through in Pride & Prejudice, she deserved to fall in love with a good guy. When I created a love interest for her, I wanted Mr. Aikens to be a breath of fresh air. That was fun too, to create my very own new character for Pride & Prejudice.

No one can out-Austen Austen, but I hope I successfully kept to the spirit of the original while writing my sequel. It was a fun, fascinating experience, and I hope that readers end up with the same sympathy for Mary Bennet that I have.

- Patrice Sarath

The Unexpected Miss Bennet by Patrice Sarath is available to buy now in hardback

RoNA Awards 2012: The Results

Earlier this week, the Gladstone Library played host to a group of romantic ladies (and a few men) who had joined together to celebrate romantic fiction at its finest. There was bubbly and frocks in every direction and a fantastic atmosphere as every person in the room was clearly a massive lover of romantic books. From the epic to the historic, the hilarious to the contemporary, authors and readers alike got to delight in proceedings.

Robert Hale Ltd Author Jan Jones was nominated for her book The Kydd Inheritance but lost out to former Robert Hale Author Sarah Mallory, who won the coveted RoNA Rose Award for her book The Dangerous Lord Darrington. (Her novel The Belles Dames Club by Melinda Hammond is out now in ebook format - available at Amazon Kindle Store, Apple iBookstore, Waterstones, Kobo and Mobi).

Many congratulations to Sarah on her win and indeed all the winners from yesterday’s award ceremony. Thanks also to all those people behind the scenes who organised such a fantastic afternoon.

Check out the album below for our pictures from the event.

Here are the full list of winners:

CONTEMPORARY ROMANTIC NOVEL

Summer of Love By Katie Fforde

EPIC ROMANTIC NOVEL

The Kashmir Shawl By Rosie Thomas

HISTORICAL ROMANTIC NOVEL

Highland Storms By Christina Courtenay

ROMANTIC COMEDY NOVEL

Please Don’t Stop the Music By Jane Lovering

YOUNG ADULT ROMANTIC NOVEL

Dark Ride By Caroline Green

THE RoNA ROSE AWARD

The Dangerous Lord Darrington By Sarah Mallory

THE HARRY BOWLING PRIZE WINNER

A Dark Flowering by Natalie Lloyd-Evans

Author Interview: Jan Jones Discusses Her RoNA Rose Award Nomination and All Things Romance

Credit: John Robertson

Congratulations on your nomination for The RoNA Rose Award for The Kydd Inheritance. How does it feel to be nominated?

Thank you, I’m absolutely thrilled! This is the third year running that I’ve been shortlisted for the award (it was previously called the Love Story of the Year). I’ve been up against very strong stories each time, so I’m delighted that the reading panel enjoy my books enough to include them on the shortlists.

Why do you think the Romance genre is so popular?

I think love, companionship and happiness are things that everybody wants. They make your heart beat faster, they make the day brighter. Reading about characters you care for going on that journey and finding that bond makes you feel good by proxy. It lifts the soul.

Why did you choose to write Romance books?

I write books that I’d like to read. (I also write mystery serials and general-interest short stories.) In the case of the romances, I get caught up with my characters and want to write their story. I also want to make my readers happy!

Where do the ideas for your books come from?

There are no shortage of ideas in my head – it’s more a case of which ones make short stories, which ones are suitable for magazine serials and which ones have the potential for a full novel. I usually start off with the main characters and the situation and take it from there. I normally know what the ending will be, and a couple of key scenes along the way, but the rest of the book comes from the development of the characters themselves. It is as much a delight for me to find out about and write as it is – I hope – for readers to read.

How useful do you find it, as a writer, to belong to like-minded societies like the RNA?

Oh, beyond compare. Writers are generally a bit odd, living inside our heads as we do for long periods of time. It was a huge relief to me when I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association and discovered masses of other people who did just the same. I’ve made a lot of very good friends through the RNA whom I would never have met otherwise. On the business side, The RNA also has parties which are tremendous for networking, and they run conferences where we can all hone our craft, brush up on our PR, find out about the latest opportunities and trends, or simply talk about work.

As a regular tweeter, do you recommend it to would-be writers as a source of support?

Definitely. The lovely thing about Twitter is that you don’t have to be glued to it all the time, but it is there whenever you need a tiny break. Any time of the day or night you can log on and chat to someone. It’s a good source of answers to quick questions, it is lovely for cyber-hugs if you feel a bit low or convinced that what you’ve just written is rubbish. It’s good for keeping in contact with existing friends and for making new ones. Getting a Twitter response is instant gratification – it reminds you that you are not alone in the universe.

The Kydd Inheritance is out now in hardback.

You can follow Jan on Twitter @janjonesauthor or check out her blog.

If you would like more information about the Romantic Novelists’ Association, check out their website.