50th party blog guest - India Grey

I’ve known India Grey since she first sold to M&B. And I met her when I was in bossy PTA chair mode. You want the full story? It was Kate Walker’s celebration for her 50th book, and it struck me that we would all be taking her a present, and wouldn’t it be so much nicer if we all clubbed together and got her something REALLY special to mark the occasion? So I sent India a quick email, explaining that we hadn’t actually met and I wasn’t a total nutter, but would she like to join in with a big present for Kate… and I had this lovely, ‘What, THE Kate Hardy?’ email back. (It still puts a smile on my face today. Actually, I did the same thing when Caroline Anderson first rang me. ‘What, THE Caroline…?’ And Caroline still teases me about it years and years later.)

India is absolutely the most stylish person I know. She’s the one I squeaked to when I was doing a spread in the local paper (a Valentine dinner, using recipes from my books) and two days before the photo shoot I realised I didn’t actually own an apron and I needed a massive amount of style help, pronto. (India came straight back with suggestions, including web links and photographs, and helped me choose an Emma Bridgewater apron.) And I’ve borrowed some of her jewellery and fashion sense for my more stylish heroines. I was delighted to be at an RNA lunch when we’d both been shortlisted for an award and I could cheer her as the winner. (I admit that I do envy her trophy. I didn’t have a trophy, the year I won, though I did spend the entire prize money on a Pandora bracelet and three beads to commemorate it.)

Anyway, over to India:

I’m writing this on my first day back at my desk after the annual Mills and Boon author lunch and toast, where I saw Kate (looking extremely glamorous) receive her pin for 50 books. The rousing applause that accompanied this was a reflection of how much she’s loved by her fellow writers and all at Mills and Boon.

It’s easy to understand why. As a newly-signed writer I was shocked and more than a little starstruck to see her name appear in my email inbox one day, and incredibly touched that she introduced herself by explaining who she was, LIKE I HADN’T BEEN A FAN FOR AGES. Since then we’ve shared more than a few laughs about that. We’ve shared a lot of other stuff too. Stuff About kids (our youngests are the same age), stuff about heroes and writing. Stuff about what to wear for Posh Events and where to go on holiday; stuff about favourite tea and chocolate and shops. But one of the things I love sharing between us most is stuff about music.

I can’t remember where it started, or what were the first recommendations we swapped, but I do know that my CD collection and i-pod playlists are fuller and richer and considerably more fun for Kate’s influence. This is a girl who knows her music, and it was she that I turned to (or emailed) when I needed a classical piece for a particular scene in a book. The Chopin she suggested was perfect, but the amazing thing about Kate is she’s just as hot on contemporary things that hit the spot too. Exotically-named bands I’d never have come to know without her, like Dexter Freebish and Porcupine Tree, new or lesser-known songs by artists I might have already heard of but never really listened to (hope she’ll forgive the poor grammar in that sentence!)

I thought for ages about what music to share here (in fact I had to resort to an hour-long mid-morning bath, with my best and most inspiring bath oil and my i-pod on shuffle) and in the end decided on Frisky and Mannish, who I haven’t yet shared with Kate. I chose them because they’re talented and creative and original, like she is, and because this song – a mash up between Kate Bush and Kate Nash, is the ultimate celebration of All Things Kate. And because it always makes me feel better – just like Kate’s books. (Check out their Lily Allen/Noel Coward mash-up as well, and the Question song and the Busted tribute...)



Congratulations on 50 witty, wise and wonderful books, Kate, and (in the words of ABBA) thank you for the music! (and everything else).

I can’t give away music, so instead I’m going to parcel up some of the other things Kate and I have shared – chocolate and books – in return for the names of some of the songs that mean something to you, or that you’ve shared with special people in your life. I’d love to look them up and have a listen!

You can find out more about India at her website http://www.indiagrey.com or on her blog at http://indiagrey.blogspot.co.uk
Or follow her on Twitter @indiagrey

Congrats to India/RNA report (long post)

Current work: (taking a day off, as it’s my birthday)

Listening to: Joe Lynn Turner
Reading: Druin Burch, Digging up the Dead (bio of surgeon Astley Cooper – thoroughly enjoyed it, and learned some v interesting new things)

First off, congratulations to my mate India Grey on winning the RNA Romance Prize 2009 for her lovely book ‘Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure’ – I’m so pleased for her! She’s a great writer AND she’s also a lovely, lovely person, so it’s well deserved.

Monday opened with freezing fog, so it was an unpleasant school run. It had all burned off by the time my taxi arrived; picked up a copy of the EDP (and lovely Emma had done me a fabulous piece) and a latte. Easy journey in (with Astley Cooper's biography - v enjoyable read); and I was pleasantly surprised when a man gave me his seat on the tube. (Either manners are improving, or I looked tired... And, as he looked to be in his early 20s, it rather chastened me to think I could technically be his mother's age. Am probably officially middle-aged now, anyway.) To M&S in Marble Arch to get some boots and then a salmon salad in their café. I always forget that the arch was built on the site of Tyburn. (Lightbulbs flickering.) And then I dodged the rain to visit the Wellcome Museum. (Medical history fascinates me. It's an area I intend to work in more in the future.) Except... Clearly I misread their website, as it turned out that the exhibitions were closed on Mondays. Spent a while enjoying their Virtal library, then headed for the café and a chance to do some work on the current synopsis. (It was pouring with rain, or I would've gone exploring.) Met Fi and Liz - dinner at Strada was scrummy, particularly the panna cotta. Much talking...

And then it was Tuesday.

So how does it feel, being on the shortlist at an awards do?

It's a real mixture of emotions. Pride (and a fair sprinkle of 'I'd better pinch myself and wake up now') that someone rates your work so highly. Delight, because you know you'll get the chance to catch up with friends you haven't seen for a while. Worry that you're going to make a fool of yourself - that you're going to spill something down yourself or fall over, while everyone's watching you. (That one’s probably personal paranoia as I’m a tad – all right, a lot – on the clumsy side.)

And then there's the moment when the chief of judges steps up to the podium and reads through the shortlist, saying what the judges thought of each. That's when your heart starts beating so hard that you're sure people will hear it. (That is humanly possible - according to Druin Burch, in Georgian London, a man once crossed the street to ask politician John Thelwall what the noise was, and his wife once woke him to say that someone was hammering on the door.)

Anyway, on Tuesday morning I was very relieved to see that the threatened snow hadn't materialised. Fi took my case, but at King's Cross I discovered that the Circle line was out of action. Caught the District line to Edgeware Rd, then luckily there was a train to High Street Kensington - and, hooray, no rain, so it was a pleasant walk to the Royal Garden Hotel.

Went to change my boots and raincoat to my shoes and posh jacket; met up with lovely Fiona Harper, Beth Elliott and Jessica Hart. (LTR - Beth, Fiona, Me, Jessica)

Poor India Grey was stuck on a train at this point - but finally made it. (Note how cool and beautiful and dignified she looks in the pic below. I'd be a gibbering wreck if my train was delayed by 90 minutes and I was on the shortlist of an awards do...)

Phil, our very witty photographer, took photos of the shortlistees; then we went through to the main area, where I had a chance to talk to my lovely editor and wonderful agent, and catch up with mates including Jan Jones,

Milly Johnson, Sara Craven, Joanna Maitland, Heidi Rice, Gill Sanderson, Julie Cohen, Ray-Anne Lutener (yeah yeah, so am namedropping) etc etc. Also lovely to meet up with new friends (waves to Jo Brown) and my lovely former editor Emma. It was a fab, fab day and many thanks to the organisers – that kind of event means a LOT of hard work beforehand, and I really appreciated it.

Lunch was utterly fab - from the table setting (and thank you to the RNA for the lovely rose they gave all the shortlisted authors)

to the food itself: Scottish salmon parfait with tuna tartar and crème fraiche caviar

followed by fillet of chicken filled with a Paris mushroom mousse, marsala cream sauce, marquis potates and sugar snap peas

and then bitter lemon tart with crème fraiche sorbet and raspberry jelly. (All beautifully presented, and beautifully cooked.)

And then it was the moment - Margaret James, chair of the judges, took the stage and our book covers all came up on the screens behind her.

Margaret has a quiet voice, so I didn't quite catch what the judges said about my book (other than the bit about my hero was even nice to the heroine's dog - so if anyone can quietly tell me, it would be appreciated) - but I was so thrilled for my mate India Grey when her name was read out as the winner of the RNA Romance Prize 2009. Congrats, India!

Judy Piatkus was given the inaugural lifetime achievement award and made a lovely speech. (Pic is Catherine Jones, RNA chair, on the left, and Judy on the right.)

Then the main award was won by Julia Gregson, who also made a moving speech.

Walked back to the Tube with my mate Carol Townsend, quick coffee, then faced tube delays back to Bloomsbury. Dinner with Fi at Liverpool Street station, and then home. And, yup, the train was delayed… But my cabbie was lovely – a book-lover with a very eclectic taste, so we had a great chat all the way home.

Today, I’m knackered! But I need to print out my manuscript for my agent, check I’ve transferred all my files, drop my PC in to my lovely tecchies, mosey into town to the Pandora shop (thank you, luvverly family and friends, who’ve clubbed together to buy the bead I really want but know is disgracefully expensive), and… well, see what I feel like and what the weather’s doing.

more winners...

Sorry, I've been a bit slack on this front - blame the tooth! Jill Shalvis and Nicola Cornick will be picking their winners on their return. In the meantime I have two more winners:

India Grey says: 'My girls and I have just got down to the serious business of picking a winner (didn't trust Ruby the cat this time after she was such a huge disappointment last time). Anyway, the name picked out of the box was Katie S. Thanks again for inviting me to contribute. I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments and it was so lovely to be amongst friends and kindred chocoholics!! I'll pass your details to India, Katie.

Nell Dixon has picked Amy Andrews.

Prizes will be on their way shortly!

Kate’s 25th party, guest blogger #11 – India Grey

My next guest is a relatively new friend – and she’s also a brand new M&B author who just happens to be my shelfmate this month. (The Italian’s Defiant Mistress is a superb debut. I have a copy which I’ve been secretly reading under my desk when people think I’m working. I lurrrve Italian men, and Raphael is particularly gorgeous. The word ‘exquisite’ comes to mind.) And I owe Kate Walker a big thank you otherwise it would’ve been a lot longer until we’d met. (And I would have been terrified of said guest because, as you’ll see in her photograph, she also happens to be stunningly beautiful. I think she must have a picture in her attic. I mean, look at her surname. And even her first name is almost an anagram of… Well. Teasing apart, unlike her almost-namesake, she isn’t just beautiful, she has a really lovely personality and it’s impossible not to like her.) Anyway, without further ado, I’m delighted to introduce you to India Grey.

Hi... My name’s India Grey and I’m a chocolate addict.

Chocolate has to be one of the greatest inventions of all time. Chocolate is what you reach for when you’re tired, when you’re sad, when you want to comfort, celebrate or seduce, and I like to think I’m something of an expert on it (chocolate that is, not seduction, at which I’m hopeless.) After all, get this – I have emerged with full marks every time in a blind taste test between Dairy Milk, Galaxy, Green & Black’s, and a supermarket own-brand!*

*(Am I making this sound like it was some kind of official thing? Oh dear me, no. This was just something I persuaded my husband to conduct, to prove once and for all that although I may be a dismal failure in many areas of life—like checking bank statements and remembering to put the bins out—when it comes to chocolate expertise I reign supreme.)

Anyway, the point is, I’m tireless in my quest to sample and explore, and I thought I’d tried it all...

And then I met Kate.

Well, I say I met her, but at this stage that isn’t strictly true. I got to know her via the wonderful medium of email as she took on the task of organising a joint present for the lovely Kate Walker’s 50th book party, and we quickly discovered we shared many passions. Music being one, dark, brooding men another, and... oh yes... chocolate.

So, how excited was I the day that I received in the post a signed copy of In the Gardener’s Bed (containing dark, lovely Will Daines) and, along with it some small gold foil-wrapped squares? They looked deceptively ordinary, and I absent-mindedly unwrapped one as I devoured the first few pages of Kate’s book...

Heaven.

Total sensory overload.

(And the chocolate was pretty sensational too...)

This was my first introduction to Kate Hardy’s famous ‘better-than-sex’ gianduja from Hotel Chocolat, as featured in the London City General trilogy and mentioned fairly regularly in her blog. Tasting is believing, and from the first bite I was hooked. I’m quite sure it’s blessing in disguise that there isn’t a branch of Hotel Chocolat near me (if it is, it’s a very, very good disguise; so good in fact that most of the time I mistake this blessing for a complete tragedy) or I would be maybe the first newly signed Mills & Boon author to spend an advance cheque entirely on calories.

A few weeks of enforced abstinence later my birthday came around, and brought with it a package bearing Kate’s now-familiar handwriting. Inside was the most gorgeous box of Hotel Chocolat handmade chocolates – an assortment of ganaches and pralines and Florentines – all of them surprising, different, delicious. And just as wonderful as the chocolates themselves was the fact that they’d been sent by this lovely person whom I’d never even met, but whose kindness and warmth stretched all the way across the country and made my day. (She does that a lot, in fact!)

I’d been a fan of Kate’s for a long time before I became a friend, and reluctantly finishing the last of those chocolates (at lunchtime, at my computer, alone in the house just to make sure there would be no unpleasant issues about having to share it....) I concluded that you get the same qualities in a Kate Hardy book as you do in a good box of chocolates. (I think Forrest Gump said something along the same lines, although since he hadn’t been lucky enough to discover Kate Hardy’s books the comment was more general.) They’re both life-enhancing, mood-lifting, stress-soothing and utterly addictive. Both take the same basic ingredients (be it cocoa beans and cream, or a man and a woman with a sizzling attraction to each other) and manage to combine them in ways that are endlessly varied and unexpected, always delicious. But there are a couple of ways in which Kate’s books have the edge over the dark stuff....

1. They’re calorie-free



2. They’re great to share with friends!

GIVEAWAY: As a tribute to Kate’s own generosity, I’m offering some genuine Hotel Chocolat gorgeousness, along with a signed copy of my first book, to a randomly selected poster. (Oh yes... I discovered Hotel Chocolat have an online shop! Hurrah!!)

GIVEAWAY QUESTION: What’s your favourite chocolate, or your best chocolate-related memory?