music for the soul

My hubby thinks himself the Bee Gees fan in the family, what with his surety that "Staying Alive" is the best song ever written.

My heroine is a bit of a seventies music buff, so after immersing myself in Stevie Wonder while writing my current work in progrees, I've now made a switch to the Bee Gees Greatest Hits.

So there my hero was standing by a raging bonfire on the beach, awaiting the arrival of my heroine when a reggae band struck up some Bee Gees on their steel drums. At that moment my CD player switched over to "How Deep is Your Love". It was like the song had been sent to me by my muse, cause I tell ya that song is some fabulous kind of mood music!

Here it is, live, for all of you looking for a bit of chill...

tweet! tweet!

I watch Ellen every day as Toddler Girl loooves the dancing. And like her I have finally succumbed to the fun!

I am now tweeting on TWITTER. So for anyone out there in blogland who is addicited to seeing what fun little things other people are doing on a daily basis, come on over to My Twitter Page and have a lookie see!

I've heard that there are some celebs out there tweeting to their heart's content. Any fun ones you can recommend??? While this thing is hot in my head I thought it might be fun to have a trawl. And you know what? It's already giving me little snippety ideas for my next book ;).

Tweet Tweet!

out now! in spanish

La Novia del Jefe, the Spanish version of HIRED: THE BOSS'S BRIDE is out now. You can grab it online through Amazon and other outlets.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The novel is mostly set in a beautiful old art auction house on High Street in Melbourne. Mitch Hanover's business is in much need of a makeover, and he's even more in need of Veronica.

EXCERPT

When Veronica Bing was a little girl her grand plan in life was to have blue eyes and blonde hair.
Long blonde hair down to her waist and the kind of baby blue eyes that made a girl able to get away with anything. And to be a fairy princess with wings. And with braces on her teeth and divorced parents as all the kids at school had them. Oh, and she’d wanted a hot pink car.
Not too much to ask, right?
Instead, her hair had grown in thick, wavy, and dark, and after six months in her late teens when she’d fulfilled her lifelong dream of being blonde, she’d realised she’d looked like a fruitcake and gone back to her natural brunette. Alas her eyes had also remained muddy brown from the moment she was born and she’d had to learn find other ways to get what she wanted.
The wings had never appeared. In fact she’d soon discovered she was allergic to flying – if nausea, sweating palms, shortness of breath could be classed as signs of an allergy. Funnily enough mangoes, apricots and tall dark handsome men who saw her as the answer to all their connubial dreams produced the same symptoms. Hence the fact that she as yet remained prince-free making the princess dream also null and void.
Her teeth had grown in spectacularly well, unfortunately without help of braces. And as she’d been a happy accident, a late and only child of Don and Phyllis Bing who’d been about to hit their fifties at the time she was born and by that stage had been married thirty years already, her parents had never divorced. Instead her father had died of a heart attack while Veronica was still in high school and her mother had taken her time passing away from a broken heart. Though the medicos had claimed it was Alzheimer’s, Veronica had left University to care for her mum and thus knew better.
And as to the hot pink car? Well, one out of seven ain’t bad!

REVIEWS

4 1/2 stars from Romantic Times. "Ally Blake's Hired: The Boss's Bride is as breezy, sexy and warm hearted as its remarkable heroine, and its hero is pretty special too."

Buy here ~ Read more

male on monday

Head on over to the Pink Heart Society today to find out who I based my leading man, Adam Tyler, on in my latest UK release. Think smooth dark voice, soulful piano moves, famous family...

Set behind the scenes of a reality dating TV show, HOW TO MARRY A BILLIONAIRE is out come May across the UK as a "By Request" reprint entitled BARGAINING WITH THE BILLIONAIRE. This is a 3 book collection alongside stories by Robyn Donald and Kay Thorpe.

Adam Tyler was my first ever attempt at a darker hero. But looking back now he's just as much of a puppy dog as all my heroes ;). Here's a little taste test of Cara Marlowe's impressions when she meets our guy for the first time...

Cara sat upright on the plain simple chair as she waited for Jeff to return. She stared down at her red shoes which glistened prettily back at her. And she winced. Jeff had walked ahead of her the whole time and she was sure he had not even glanced at her feet once.
But the guy in the foyer had. She was sure of that. In fact she was sure he had compiled an internal data file of every inch of her, so intense had been his gaze. It was all she had been able to do to keep her footing. New shoes or no new shoes. A guy like that would make any rational woman’s knees go weak without even trying.
He had dark wavy hair, intense blue eyes, a solid build, hands that looked as though they could play the piano and change a light bulb. He was a hunk and a half. She wondered briefly what he was doing there, waiting in the foyer where those involved with the new secret show had been told to wait.
What if he was the single guy? The one she might have to style? She pictured him in his immaculate suit with his glossy shoes and his expensive haircut. If he was the one, her job would be redundant. If he was the one, she would have nothing more to do than straighten his tie, and run her hands through his hair just before the cameras rolled.
The thought of getting so up close and personal with that particular gentleman made her suddenly uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat, then gave a little laugh out loud. What need would a guy like that have for going on a dating show? He was gorgeous. The strong silent type. She imagined a wave of horror rolling across those deep blue eyes at the mere suggestion.
An alarm went off somewhere in the building and Cara clicked to, remembering she was meant to be preparing for the most important job interview of her life. That was what she should have been focussed on, not daydreaming about the exact shade of some stranger’s blue eyes.

Order BARGAINING WITH THE BILLIONIARE now online!

how not to write a romance novel

Are you one of those who has their most brilliant, inspired ideas at three in the morning, or when you're just about to fall asleep at night?

That's me. Settled somewhere between dream and sleep my inner lightbulb is at it's most excited.

So when I had a brilliant idea a couple of nights aback about the revisions on Meg & Zach's tale, I reached for my notepad and pen (this is so common I can find it in the dark wihtout even touching anything else along the way!), and using the "place your finger at the top left hand side of the page and write to the edge, then move your finger down a centimetre and go forth again" method of writing in the dark, made my notes.

This method is fail safe! Unless the paper has already been written on at the three the morning before... If anyone can translate anything I've said on the top three-quarters of the page, you have a skill I alas do not.

Lesson learned? Doubtful.

in the cave

I'm back in the cave with the lush and lovely Meg and the hard and heavenly Zach.

Enjoying myself there actually, as there is some more tweaking to be done that I just KNOW will make the story stronger. But it's rather time-consuming and head-filling stuff, so if you don't see me popping up here or anywhre the next several days you'll know why!

Of course, if Toddler Girl has anything to say about the matter I'll surely have more weird and wonderful 'Adventures in the Life Of...' any moment...

worse than dunked

An addendum to my last post...

Not only does Toddler Girl love the pool, she loves grooming herself. Any tissue poking out of a box is primed for her to grab and walk about the house cleaning her ears, nose, mouth, belly button, telling us about each feature as she does so. Any brush or comb is hers with which to brush everyone's, and everything's, hair.

Yesterday, the one moment in the day the bathroom door had not been left closed I found Toddler Girl in there with the toilet brush in hand. She looked up at me, in pure, sweet innocence, and said "teeth?" I fear how much mouth scrubbing might have been going on had I been ten seconds later...

Ah, the joys ;).