and the winner is...

A coupla days back, as part of the Pink Heart Society's fantabulous second biffy celebrations, I asked: What ONE quality do you think makes for a really great, interesting, lovable, sexy romance hero?

My answer would have been Christian Bale ;). But you guys were far more inventive and clever than me. You made it really hard to choose! Every answer had me changing my mind as to which of you should win. But in the end, and as is the way of the world, only one of you lovelies gets the blue ribbon prize, and that person is...

ANGELA! Who said she loved "that hard to describe X-factor that makes me wish I was the heroine instead :)" Isn't she so right???

Angela, please send me an email at ally@allyblake.com with your postal addy and let me know which of the three books I have coming ou in North America over the next three months you'd like to receive.

Harlequin Presents "THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL"
Harlequin Romance "HIRED: THE BOSS'S BRIDE"
or, Harlequin Presents "A NIGHT WITH THE SOCIETY PLAYBOY"

what pressie does the little guy get?

Being that a month of celebrations should be on the cards for any birthday, over at the Pink Heart Society, the home for lovers of category romance, the Li'l Pink Dancing Guy is getting just that.

I've given him this lovely warm pink sheepskin hat. Cute no? It matches the warm bed socks I gave him last year. Yes, yes, I am a chilly little thing, and he does look so very cold himself. That's why I think he's always jumping!

Head on over to my website and you'll see that I have three books coming out in North America in the next three months! For the chance to win an autographed copy of any one of those books of your choice, tell me this:

What ONE quality do you think makes for a really great, interesting, lovable, sexy romance hero?

And don't forget to head over to the PHS tomorrow for the last day of our birthday celebrations and the chance to read more fab posts and win more fab prizes!

my current squeezes

Meet Gigi and Dylan from my current WIP 'Flirt'. It took some struggle to carve them from the rock of my mind, but now I've found them, I adore them.

He's the playboy brother of Cameron, my July 09 Romance hero, and he's soooo cheeky he makes me nervous. She's is the absolute last thing he saw coming.

Yum!

media savvy 101

Head on over to the Pink Heart Society today as I'm yakking about how to come out the other end of a media experience smiling, happy, and hopeful that new converts will be made to the great Romance cause!



And that reminds me I'm really going to have to get a copy of Brisbane Extra, the recent telly interview I was schlepped interstate to do, onto YouTube. Watch this space!

the 'magnate's' melbourne

Nicola Marsh and I parked in the city one recent night on our way to have dinner with a host of fabulous Harlequin authors.

The parking garage looked innocuous enough; grey slabs of concrete, reserved parks empty of the cars that lived in the during the day. The lift, much the same. And then it opened onto the lobby level and...oh my.

Marble floors, copper domes and double glazed tinted glass, and glossy granite, sandstone and bluestone as far as the eye could see. This was the kind of place where men in suits are born to work.

I had no idea where we had landed - only that I looooved it - until we hit the street. And there I was by a bulding I had walked past many a time and admired from afar.

I give you 333 Collins Street, the building in which my Magnate, my Damien, my hero in this month's Harlequin Presents, THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL, peddles his wares.

Collins Street is known as the Paris end of Melbourne. Beautiful architecture, gorgeous high end shops, the most elegant hotels, foliage that looks delicate and pretty in summer and stark and austere in winter. It's one of my very favourite areas of a city I love. Thankfully for Damien Halliburton, I finally met a hero worthy of walking that hallowed road. Who knows what heroes may come to life now I know about that goooorgeous lobby!

To find out why Damien and 333 Collins are a perfect fit, check out an excerpt here.

THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL is out now across North America!

buy it now at eHarlequin

Waldenbooks Bestseller ~ Romantic Times 4 1/2 star Top Pick

sold!

... my latest Harlequin Romance. Woohoo!

DATING THE REBEL TYCOON will be on bookshelves across North America and the United Kingdom in July 2009, and online via Harlequin and Mills and Boon a month earliler.

Here on the right is my hero Cameron Kelly. Very inspiring if I say so myself. Dark, glinting, but with a cowlick he's never quite been able to get under control. Yummy dontcha think?

If you want to know more about the guy, check out all sorts of stuff here...

so you think you can dance?

My 10 month old has started to dance.

And not to Iggle Piggle or the Sesame Street theme.

Her favourite songs which never go by without a head bob, flapping arms, and kicking feet are Abba's "Waterloo", anything by the Black-Eyed Peas and Louis Prima singing "Just a Gigolo".

Seriously though, can you blame her?

my fifteen minutes...

I didn't even get ther chance to tell y'all here about the crazy day I had yesterday before the end played out on telly this evening!

Mills and Boon flew me to Brisbane for the day to be "the author" segment in a story on EXTRA, a local TV news show, about the 100th Anniversary of Mills and Boon. They also intervewed an avid reader and someone from the Sydney office.

It was a bit of a blast being schlepped up for the day. A very early peak hour drive to the airport went very smoothly. i had time to write in an airport coffee shop and on the two hour flight. I had time to spend a leaisurely couple of hours having lunch with my mum and sister and nephew before heading off to a beautiful old Queenslander for the shoot. Half an hour I was there, then back to the airport and back home again that night!

My lovely hubby watched Boo, who I missed desperately!!! Every baby I saw at the airport practically had me sniffling like a big sook. Lucky she was still awake when I got home so I could have a cuddle.

The show was only aired in Brissy, so when I get a copy I'll stick it up on YouTube for anyone who wants a lookie!

songs in my head

Do you ever wake up with a song in your head?

I often do, the words and notes ringing in my brain to the point that I feel like I've been singing it for a good hour before I've opened my eyes. Most of the time it's fab eighties classics that I have't heard for years but somehow up they pop in the wee small hours of the morning. Think Duran Duran, Madness, Simple Minds.

This morning? ""Yes - my name is Igglepiggle. Igglepiggle, niggle, wiggle, diggle! Yes - my name is Igglepiggle, Igglepiggle, wiggle, niggle, woo."

In the Night Garden is the strangest little show on telly. According to the show's website, it has developmental benefits for under fours. To my eyes it has lots of squeaking and kissing and bouncing about by some oddly cute plush toys (merchanidse alert!).

But my Boo now loves it since her older cousin Rory introduced it to her. And the Upsy Daisy toy she got from her dad for Father's Day means even with the telly turned off I can't get away from the show.

Or...that...song...

On a brighter note! Today at the Pink Heart Society I'm talking hot, yummy, classic hero material. Check it out here!

moving on up

My "The Magnate's Indecent Proposal" has moved up two spots on the Waldenbooks Bestseller list.

Come on friends, help him be the number one guy he so deserves to be!

Read an excerpt ~ Buy the book

my "magnate" gets out and about

The lovely Natasha Oakley has informed me that my current Harlequin Presents release, THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL has been given a TOP PICK rating by Romantic Times!!! Check out the rest of the RT Top Picks for September here.

It has also become my very first bestseller! Coming in ninth on the Waldenbooks bestseller list in North America for last week. The other great books on the list are all here.

And then - verrrry excitingly - the first new Harlequin Romance author bought in more than a year, Nina Harrington, just let me know she was in the middle of drafting an email to tell me how much she loved my Magnate when she got The Call. I have forgiven her for forgetting to send me the note til now ;).

Read an excerpt ~ Buy the book

a book a month across north america!

SEPTEMBER

Harlequin Presents

"THE MAGNATE'S INDECENT PROPOSAL"

Waldenbooks Bestseller

Romantic Times 4 1/2 star review TOP PICK!

OCTOBER

Harlequin Romance
"HIRED: THE BOSS'S BRIDE"

Romantic Times 4 1/2 star review

NOVEMBER

Harlequin Presents

"A NIGHT WITH THE SOCIETY PLAYBOY"

For excerpts, reviews, and behind the scenes news, check out more about all of these books on my website!

hippo biffy 2 u!!!

Today is the Pink Heart Society's 2nd Birthday!!!

Head on over there lots this month to say your congrats, to read great posts by the fabbest pusblished Harlequin & Silhouette authors, and for the chance to win free books!!!

Head on over there today, check out the comments to find out whre you can find the best pics in town of our mascot, Hugh Jackman. I'm certain more romance heroes have been 'cast' in our minds as Hugh than as any other man.

Anne McAllister and Kate Walker will fight over who 'own's the pic of him in a towel, so I'll give you another yummy lovely clothed one ;). I wanted to use a really lovely "Harlequin Romance Hugh" pic, then discovered Trish Wylie had already taken dibs!!! So here is "Modern Heat Hugh" for your viewing pleasure.

Happy Birthday PHS!!!!!!!!!!!!