50th party blog guest - Nicola Marsh

I’ve known Nicola Marsh for so many years that I can’t remember how long ago we first met! Anyway, she’s an inspiration in the way she writes so fast. (She’s catching me up at a rate of knots.) And we talk about – yeah, you guessed it. Gorgeous men, food, films…)

Anyway, over to Nic:

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER…

I’m thrilled to help Kate celebrate her 50th book for Harlequin. What a monumental achievement, congrats Kate! I’ve known Kate for many years online and she’s always generous with her time. She’s also incredibly supportive and I’ll never forget her sending me one of her wonderful books as a pep-up when I needed it a few years back.

Her books are a delicious combination of sweet and sexy, and you can’t help but smile at her sigh-worthy happy endings.

Speaking of happy endings, I’m a bit partial to creating them myself. The challenge is taking two seemingly opposite characters and getting them through the ups and downs of a relationship to reach their HEA.

One of my favorite ways of doing this is in a marriage of convenience. (Or inconvenience as I like to call it!)

Enforced proximity driven by strong motivations is a guaranteed recipe for fireworks, and that’s what I’ve created in my current releases NOT THE MARRYING KIND (Entangled Publishing’s Indulgence series) and MARRYING THE ENEMY (Harlequin Presents Extra.)

In NOT THE MARRYING KIND, a reformed Vegas bad boy is the instigator of the marriage, whereas in MARRYING THE ENEMY it’s a feisty lapidary desperate to save her family’s jewelry business who proposes marriage to a brooding magnate, the son of a jailed criminal.

While Beck and Poppy, and Ruby and Jax take very different routes towards their HEA, I can safely say they reach a point when their respective marriages become very real!

To be in the running to win an e-book of NOT THE MARRYING KIND, complete this sentence:

My Happily Ever After would include ______
(insert your fantasy guy. Hugh Jackman? Ryan Gosling? Channing Tatum? Sky’s the limit!)


USA TODAY bestselling author Nicola Marsh writes flirty fiction with flair.

She’s had 32 books published with Harlequin Romance and Presents series, a fun, flirty contemporary mainstream romance BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD with Entangled Publishing (nominated for Romantic Book of the Year 2012) and sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

Her first category romance for Entangled Publishing’s Indulgence series, NOT THE MARRYING KIND, releases July 2012, with another category contemporary romance FALLING FOR FLYNN releasing with Crimson Romance October 2012.

Her urban fantasy young adult novel SCION OF THE SUN releases November 2013 with Month9Books.

She loves interacting with readers so you can find her:

Blog: www.nicolamarsh.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/NicolaMarshAuthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NicolaMarsh

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/Nicola_Marsh

Where to buy Nicola Marsh's books:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Not-the-Marrying-Kind-ebook/dp/B008LIHU4W/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1343040440&sr=1-1&keywords=not+the+marrying+kind
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-the-marrying-kind-nicola-marsh/1112117584?ean=2940014622158
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Marrying-Enemy-Nicola-Marsh/9780373528844

be my valentine?

Still being thoroughly spoiled: my dear friend Michelle sent me a beautiful orchid yesterday (thank you again, Michelle), and my best local friend came over with, ahem, special chocolate and a treasure pot marked 'handbag fund' (and yes, it's pink... I'm just surprised she didn't customise it and write 'Radley' on it, too).

Today I’m off to London to see the Tutankhamun exhibition, but meanwhile nip over to Nicola Marsh’s blog to be my valentine, and you’ll get the chance to win a signed copy of my new book, Sold to the Highest Bidder.

And remember the Modern Heat Valentine’s Treasure Hunt is still going! I’m back again later in the month – with a chance to win ‘In Bed with Her Italian Boss’, aka Breakfast at Giovanni’s, my award-winning book. (And how fantastic it feels to be able to write that!)
Now for something a little less nice. UK authors: you may have read that the government is considering reducing PLR. This money is an important source of income for many authors (note that, as with the music biz, big advances and authors who need to become tax exiles are news precisely because they’re rare), so please go and sign the petition asking the government to keep the funding as it is.

Son has decided he can't wait for his birthday to get a Digiblue camera and is using the family DVD camera instead. Discovered he has recorded the same scene over and over and over again today. Why? ‘I had keep going until my sister got her lines right.’ Uh-huh. Actors of the future, start trembling now. If he switches from animation to movies, he’s going to be a very, very pernickety director...

new month, and it will DEFINITELY be better than January…

Current work: TCVB
Listening to: Mischa Maisky, Cellissimo
Reading: errr… got caught up with the outline of the book
Steps yesterday: about 9k (must try harder but not today)

New month: and as January was dreadful, I know that February will be a lot better. (And not just because I have lots of lovely things lined up for the next two and a bit weeks - London on Monday, lunch out with Jo and Sarah on Tuesday, family up on Sunday, out to dinner on Monday, Tutankhamun on Weds, Madam's godmothers up for the weekend... oh, and have I mentioned my new furniture is due and I have some wonderful books on my TBR pile, including a signed copy of my friend Jane Jackson's new book Devil's Prize?)

Ahem. Getting ahead of myself.

Played with both books yesterday. Drove me crackers in the morning - because the Modern Heat was the one in my head, and the Medical is the one with the first deadline. However, managed to switch books in the evening after a small epiphany: my gorgeous Welsh doctor plays the cello. And he plays my favourite piano music to the heroine… on the cello. (I switch between piano and classical guitar all the time, so I’m very comfortable with having my hero write his own arrangements on the cello.)

Obviously I’m having a ball making my soundtrack for the book. However, I can’t find a version of my favourite Beethoven piano sonata played on the cello (it’s the Pathetique, so if anyone knows a source, particularly for the second movement, please let me know). I did find a lovely cello version of my favourite Chopin piano nocturne on YouTube; this is one that my mum used to play when she was pregnant with me and I still have the actual vinyl. (I sometimes wonder if she learned to play it on the piano herself, as I know we had one when I was very small. However, everyone I could ask is too young to remember, has an unreliable memory, or is no longer with us.) While I was messing about on YouTube, discovered a new-to-me cellist – Maurice Gendron. Really emotive stuff (I think even more so than Casals) so I, ahem, went shopping.

And why am I making an issue about music in a Med? My heroine shares my… disability isn’t the right word, because I refuse to be treated like a second-class citizen. I can do just about anything a 'normal' person does. But she has moderate-to-severe hearing loss. Same cause as mine. So in some respects this is going to be one of the most personal books I’ve ever written. Unlike me, she isn’t a music junkie. But my hero introduces her to the sheer joy of music… and the scene I have in mind is utterly sizzling. (It’s probably going to make me cry. Music – especially when it’s given back to you after you thought you’d have to live without it – is… Words fail me. Just a wonderful, wonderful feeling.)

All righty. Go and win some books before I get soppy. The Modern Heat Authors’ Valentine's treasure hunt starts today. Because I’m nice, I’ll tell you where to start – with Natalie Anderson. (And after Nat, it’s me. I will actually be posting on Sunday this week.) There’s also a chance to win books over at Nicola Marsh’s blog in her ‘Be My Valentine’ competition (first up is by one of my absolute favourite authors). Enjoy!

As for me... I'm off to write. Joy, joy, joy. I love the beginning of a book.

win lots of stuff

Current work: website coding, book outlines
Listening to: Corelli
Reading: Sarah Morgan, The Sheikh’s Virgin Princess (I really enjoyed this and it isn’t just because she’s one of my mates – fast pace, good plot, gorgeous hero, and I thoroughly enjoyed the heroine)
Steps yesterday: 14,214 (and apparently I walk fast… so how how HOW is the flab not melting? oh, yeah, the biscuits that made me buy them in M&S yesterday)

Dog is very pleased that I’m home and life is back to normal (ish). He is currently lying on his back in my office, snoring, in a state of doggy bliss. He’s going to be disappointed at lunch, though, as I’m having ravioli and salad rather than chicken…

I have two books in my head at the moment – the one I’m supposed to be writing and the one I was originally going to write this month (given that the former should have been written by now). The latter is currently winning – especially as I’d like the heroine’s job and I like even more what she really wanted to do as a career but couldn’t due to circumstances… I might have to give in and scribble down the bits in my head (would be a shame to forget them and waste the time). However, I need to get back to my lovely Welsh doctor as I want Med Duo #2 (working title TCVB) in a state where I can work on it on the PDA on Sunday/Monday morning before the lunch.

Blimey. I’m sounding like me again. (And it’s so lovely not to wake up every day worried sick, going to hospital after the school run, and then being too drained to work in the evening and getting miserable about it.) (The worries are still there, but not quite the same, and I’m not blogging about it because it’s not fixable stuff and moaning about it will achieve nothing – I’d rather stick to making lemonade and being my usual Pollyanna self.)

Anyway. The point of this was to talk about all the exciting things coming up in February.

Apart from the RNA awards lunch on Monday (where, just in case you didn’t know, I’ve been shortlisted for the Romance Prize 2008 with Breakfast at Giovanni’s, which will be released as In Bed With Her Italian Boss in the US in April), there are some exciting competitions where you can win stuff – including books by me.

First off, there’s the Modern Heat Authors’ Treasure Hunt.

Follow the trail, answer ALL the questions, and send in your answer at the end of the month and you’ll be in with the chance of winning a stack of fabulous books! Mine include an advance copy of my March UK release, Sold To the Highest Bidder, and a copy of my US April release, In Bed With Her Italian Boss (though you’ll be getting the UK version, Breakfast at Giovanni’s – everything’s the same except the cover!). Want a sneak preview? Nip over here…

Secondly, Nicola Marsh is running a ‘Be My Valentine’ competition from February 1 to February 14.

And again you have a chance to win books by lots of authors (including mine) as well as a grand prize on February 14. Go over to Nic's blog to find out more about the rules and how to enter.

I will be reminding you about these exciting events throughout February...