Till 17th June
I’m shouting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MARIAH’S MARRIAGE is where the exciting Lady Daisy made her debut and that book is Free until 17th June
MuseItUp with coupon code MARIAHFREE (Includes a version for kindle)
http://bit.ly/MariahsMarriageMIUFREE
Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/MariahsMarriageFREE
Apple http://bit.ly/MariahsMarriageAppleFREE
kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/mariah-s-marriage-3
Another wonderful lady from CK Volnek for MuseItUp. Don’t you think her brooding air is so suitable for a lady in a dilemma?
DAISY’S DILEMMA is available to pre-order now from:
MuseItUp and amazon. Links are below. What’s it about? Back to London for this one, 1822, when Lady Daisy, sister of Tobias, Earl of Mellon, is recovering from food poisoning. Lady Daisy was one of those secondary characters who simply cried out for a place to tell her own story. So, here it is:
Lady Daisy should be ecstatic when her brother, the earl, allows Mr. John Brent to propose. She’s been plotting their marriage for two years. However, she is surprised to find herself underwhelmed and blames their distant cousin, Reuben, for unsettling her.
Reuben Longreach wonders whether the earl understands the first thing about Daisy’s nature and her need for a life with more drama than the Season allows. It’s abundantly clear to him that Daisy and John are not suited, but the minx accepts his proposal nonetheless.
Meanwhile, Daisy hatches a plan to attach Reuben to her beautiful, beleaguered Scots cousin, Elspeth. Little does she know that Elspeth is the focus of a more sinister plot that threatens Daisy too.
Will Reuben be able to thwart the forces surrounding Daisy before she is irretrievably tied to John? Will Daisy find the maturity to recognise her dilemma may be of her own making before it’s too late?
Publication date is 16th June, but you can pre-order and it’ll be automatically sent to your e-reader from:
amazon UK and US or MuseItUp or kobo
This one, Thomas Pitts, London 1761
Professor Stana Nenadic gave an absorbing (I missed my bus!) and enticingly illustrated talk about Scottish artisans, design education and the luxury trades in Scotland last night under the auspices of the Old Edinburgh Club.
I joined the club with just this sort of little gift in mind. Like many another historical novelist, I tour stately homes, scale the ramparts of ruinous castles and haunt costume museums, but you don’t always get the words right and the cheery assistant doesn’t always get the function of a piece exactly right.
Professor Nenadic chose a glass epergne made in Edinburgh to mark the marriage of Queen Victoria as the main item to illustrate her theme. The epergne was already out of favour as a functional piece at that time and by the time the craftsman had finished making his one, it was already a museum candidate.
Design education was increasingly important for the apprentice artisan from the middle of the nineteenth century on. Many firms sent their boys to the major centres. I suspect many families have in their possession wonderful ‘prentice pieces created by some of these lads towards the end of their course.
And what was the function of an epergne? It sat in the middle of the dining room table and displayed food. It’s heyday was that time when the whole meal was sent to the table at once and before the kind of service we now experience.
Bella’s Betrothal http://goo.gl/P3lmzk
Mariah’s Marriage http://goo.gl/4LWt1H
Mirror work
The essence of a book is sometimes captured in a few words.
MARIAH’S MARRIAGE While Tobias, Earl of Mellon begs Mariah not to quarrel, the reader knows there’s a promise of lots to come:
“Oh, Mariah, let us not quarrel. We will be married within the month. At least your papa’s house contains plenty of books. You may practise throwing them.” anne stenhouse
http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage amazon US
BELLA’S BETROTHAL Charles’s frustration over Bella’s intransigence is very clear in this short extract:
…a solitary figure ahead among some gorse and shrubs. Charles thought she made a beautiful picture in her riding habit with the exquisite hat Jenny Menzies wished to inherit. He thought the girl might get it sooner rather than later if he followed his instincts. At that precise moment, he wanted to shake Bella hard. Then he would lock her in the castle in Strath Menzies and hold her forever. anne stenhouse
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK
http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US
https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.
html https://www.omnilit.com/product-mariah039smarriage-1173550-149.html
Mills and Boon are running a masterclass in Paradise Road on 28th February. Price is a hefty £195, but maybe if you live in London that looks like a snip.
Details are here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mills-boon-romance-writing-masterclass-february-tickets-15327241191
I once attended one of their days in Newcastle and found it useful and fun. If you go do report back and tell us all.
Prima Magazine and Mills & Boon have put their considerable skills together to set up this competition for a new romance writer.
http://www.prima.co.uk/leisure/tv-and-books/prima-mills-and-boon-writing-competition
Winning would bring you publication of that first chapter in prima and a one-to-one session with an M&B editor and you might see your 50,000 word novel published. Closing isn’t until 31st March so plenty of time to think about it.
Oh, and it’s short. 1,000 word synopsis and 800 word first chapter.
My lovely publishers, MuseItUp have contracted Daisy’s Dilemma to appear later this spring.
Exciting in itself, but I’ve teamed up with Edinburgh fundraiser, Charlotte Bray to create something even more exciting.
Daisy’s dilemma is a continuation or spin-off from my debut historical novel, Mariah’s Marriage and picks up the story of sparky, restless Lady Daisy Mellon. It’s almost complete, but with edits still to come, there was scope to accommodate Charlotte’s exciting offer.
It might make a one-off pressie for the person who has everything.
It does make an interesting idea for pressies in those awkward Jan/Feb months when Christmas is so recently past.
It might be just what you’re looking for.
Come back next week and find out what.
http://goo.gl/4LWt1H Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/JjY907 Mariah’s Marriage US
http://goo.gl/P3lmzk Bella’s Betrothal UK
http://goo.gl/7mh8FI Bella’s Betrothal US
Plot, structure characters, but the greatest of these is characters.
I’ve been struggling with a plot glitch for some weeks now and sinking into what’s looking seriously like writers’ block. I could not find a way to write the scene I saw so clearly in my mind’s eye. Why?
BECAUSE THE CHARACTER I HAD CREATED WOULD NOT DO THAT.
That’s why. You (generic writer you) can always tell that the plot is frog-marching everyone to a conclusion when the characters begin to grimace. Then they girn and then they go back into lurk and everything stops.
So why was this? The answer – and I really hope it is an answer- was in the structure. Cart before horse again and I saw it, but I didn’t see it. And now I do. So lots of hard work just when the Festive season is making demands.
Are you a writer? What stops you in your writing tracks?
http://goo.gl/4LWt1H Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/JjY907 Mariah’s Marriage US
http://goo.gl/P3lmzk Bella’s Betrothal UK
http://goo.gl/7mh8FI Bella’s Betrothal US
Edinburgh Writers’ Club now meets in the Wash Bar and we had a cheerful crush of members and guests last night to hear Janne Moller of Black and White publishing talk about Publishing.
It’s always good to hear how it is on the other side and Janne was clear about the constraints and challenges facing today’s publisher.
Her advice to those wishing to submit was equally clear. Don’t send me several pages of your backstory, is rule number one. When an editor is receiving around five mss a day, she doesn’t have time for that. Instead do send:
A short and interesting synopsis of the story and a few sample chapters
Your name and contact details.
A reply won’t come back too quickly and in the pressurised weeks around August – early November when the Christmas market books are going out, it is even slower. A quieter time to submit is December, January and February.
Janne cautioned against sending mss that are not visible in a house’s list. Black and White, for example, don’t publish poetry. This should tell the poet to go elsewhere rather than make him think, “They need me.”
Black and White publish around 45 books a year and about 10 will be fiction. Janne said in reply to a question that she was looking for contemporary women’s fiction with global appeal. As she is the foreign rights sales’ person, she wants to know the story will travel.
She used an expression I haven’t come across but might pin up over the wall behind my pc:
“microcosm within the macrocosm.”
Isn’t that what interests us all? How our individual story or drama sits within the global?
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