Kate’s 25th party, guest blogger #6 – Maggie Kingsley

Today I’m delighted to welcome Maggie Kingsley from Scotland – she was one of the authors whose books I read a lot when I decided I wanted to write a Medical Romance. I particularly enjoy her romances set in the Belfield Infirmary – and she also wrote one of the best ‘marriage in jeopardy’ books I’ve read so far, The Surgeon’s Marriage. Maggie’s kept me going at times when I’ve been tearing my hair out over a book; she tells me stories to make me laugh, gives me outrageous dares (our ‘bets’ are always payable in chocolate) and she was the one I turned to when my hero in Seeing Stars decided he was going to do his wedding vows in Gaelic… (She definitely deserved the book’s dedication!)

So here’s Maggie Kingsley:

Gosh, but this is a bit like This is Your Life, isn’t it?

Well, I can honestly say I knew Kate before she became a star medical romance writer. I’m a member of the UK Romantic Novelists’ Association, and that’s how I first met Kate, through romna, the online loop for the association. She’d obviously seen a post from me on the loop, and thought, ‘She doesn’t sound too much like an ogre,’ because she emailed me privately saying, ‘I want to be a medical romance writer and could you recommend any medical books’. I emailed back, recommending some books I’d found useful, and I also warned her that medical books were expensive – which they are, fiendishly so – and telling her that although it wasn’t easy to get the balance of medical detail and romance right it could be done.

Do you remember that, Kate? I didn’t realise you were already a published author – though not in the medical romance line. I thought you were just starting out, so you must have thought, Hey, I don’t need all of these nuts and bolts bits of advice about writing, but you never said so. I liked you as a person even way back then. Your enthusiasm just shone through your emails, and when you had your first medical romance published I was thrilled to bits for you.

Now? Well, we’ve been through a lot together since then. Good times for both of us, and sadly some bad times, and you’ve become not just a writing colleague, but also a friend, and I don’t use that word lightly. Hey, I’m a Scot. We don’t ‘do’ group hugs, and we’re not big on showing our emotions. Stiff, upper lip Calvinists, that’s us, but Kate’s one of the few people I’d willingly hug and say, ‘I’m proud of you kid, and here’s to your next twenty-five books’.

GIVEAWAY: Maggie’s giving away a copy of her August book, The Consultant’s Italian Knight.

GIVEAWAY QUESTION : Oops, almost forgot. Kate wants a question from me, and the person who gets it right will receive a copy of my The Consultant’s Italian Knight which will be available in paperback in August, so my question is ‘What’s Kate’s dog called?’ (I think she’s letting everyone off lightly, so I’m adding a rider: please tell me about an important dog – or cat – in your life.)