THE GREAT ADVENTURE CALENDAR GIVEAWAY

DAY THREE

3rd December

I’m sure you’re all sick to death of looking at my face, so here’s a seasonal picture of a snow globe. Not exactly like the one that was shattered in the “oops” moment at the airport, you understand. That one was an antique. Made from Venetian glass. The replacement had something of a "frog prince" feel about it. I was the frog...

Enough. I really don't want to think about it and you're here to see who won the Day One copy of THE BRIDESMAID'S REWARD.

Dodie’s really big turn on was chocolate, as most of you guessed, but someone remembered a really bad moment she had with cheeseburger and Liz thought ice cream was good, too. Actually anything but cabbage soup was the right answer!

Every one of your emails went into the very posh panama hat that Liz’s best-beloved wears when he watches cricket and Estella’s name – lucky girl – was the one that he pulled out. A copy of THE BRIDESMAID’S REWARD is on it’s way to you in the US right now, Estella.

And because several people have asked this, Liz asked me to reassure you all that the draw is open to everyone, no matter where in the world you are!

So on to Day Three and behind the door today, I can reveal the cover of ALL SHE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS. Very seasonal, or it would be if Maddy wasn't on an escape mission from Christmas. Running her own successful business means that life is hectic enough and all she wants for Christmas is a little peace and quiet. She hadn’t planned on being marooned on a deserted tropical island, though. One with no mod cons. Especially with Hugo Griffin, a man who’s made no secret of the fact that he despises her.

So here’s the question – and there are no wrong answers! Who would you most like to be marooned with in some tropical island paradise this Christmas?

You know what to do. Email Liz at liz @lizfielding.com with Day Three in the subject line, your name and address and your fantasy companion in the body. The winner of Day Two will be posted here tomorrow.

Oh, and in case anyone is the slightest bit interested in my story, THE SHEIKH'S UNSUITABLE BRIDE is now available online at the Mills & Boon and eHarlequin websites. And here as an eBook.

THE GREAT ADVENT CALENDAR GIVEAWAY

DAY TWO

2nd December

First, Liz has asked me to give you some news. Kathleen, in Florida, won the BRIDES FOR CHRISTMAS competition, lucky thing. Congratulations, Kathleen, the book will be in the post today.

My own news is a bit mixed. I've been shopping. With a sheikh. Which had it's moments. But here's the thing. I should have taken him to Harrods. Or Hamleys. Or Aspreys, but you know what parking is like in London and he was short of time so I took him to one of those massive out-of-town stores.

I have to tell you the man has clearly never experienced self-service before. But then he didn't have to. One smile from Sheikh Zahir and that busty blonde at the information desk was falling over herself...

Pathetic.

Anyway, enough of my troubles. I've opened Day Two on the Advent Calendar and found A STRANGER'S KISS.

It was Liz's fourth book. The heroine, Tara, is whisked off to Bahrain by Adam Blackmore on a business trip and she gets in all kinds of trouble, too.

But then she was in trouble the minute she flung herself at him in a restaurant and pretended he was her boyfriend.

Good grief...

Anyway, for a chance to win this book, email Liz at liz @lizfielding.com with Day Two in the subject line, and your name and address in the body with the answer to the following question.

Where was Liz born?

THE GREAT ADVENT CALENDAR BOOK EVENT - DAY ONE

Okay, Liz, is deep in deadline so I'm helping out here. It's actually easier now that I've got this amazing limo job because there's a lot more hanging around -- I'm doing this while I'm having tea at the Embassy -- and anyway, I've got to do something to keep my mind off Sheikh Zahir. He's my Very Important Person. If I get this right...

If.

I'm trying to be good and not let Sadie down, but he hadn't even got in the car before I was in trouble. You know that breakfast cereal that goes Snap, Crackle & Pop? Well this was more Golly, Oops & ... And the word I'm not allowed to say.

Anyway, enough about me. I'm opening the first door of the Advent Calendar...

DECEMBER 1ST

THE BRIDESMAID'S REWARD is behind the door in Day One of the Liz Fielding Advent Calendar.

It's going to take a miracle for Dodie to lose two dress sizes in time for her sister's wedding, especially given her major weakness. .......

She soon discovers another weakness, though, her live-in personal trainer, Brad Morgan, a man determined to prove to Dodie that the ultimate reward is finding a man who loves her just as she is. (Ignore the picture on the cover -- she never gets thin!)

This book was short-listed for the RNA Romance Prize a few years ago and proved something of a fan favourite. To win your own signed copy you're going to have to fill in that blank up there. Email me at liz @lizfielding.com -- I'll chose the winner at lunchtime on the 2nd (Liz is on UK time) -- Day One in the subject line and with what you think is Dodie's weakness, along with your name and snail mail address in the body. It helps get the prizes out quickly if she doesn't have to wait for a reply (especially with the way her email has been lately).

And don't forget -- there'll book another book tomorrow.

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM DIANA METCALFE

Gosh, that makes me sound like the Queen, doesn't it?

Hi, you don't know me -- yet. Liz has plans to change all that, but right now I'm a chauffeur -- well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. It's my ambition to be a chauffeur -- to be entrusted with a limousine, drive VIPs to fancy parties. Earn enough dosh to buy my own taxi cab.
Right now I get to the drive the minibus. Do the school run. Run groups to the airport. Take the girls out on their hen nights.

I enjoy it but, trust me, glamorous it's not.

Liz, bless her, has promised to put what she calls a "little sizzle" into my life. I've told her not to bother. Really. I can't cope with sizzle right now. What I do want is "sparkle". To be more precise, a sparkly pink taxi cab of my own. Maybe, one day, a whole fleet of sparkly pink taxi cabs...

Anyway, while she's working on that, I'm here to tell you what she's got lined up for December on her blog.

The Liz Fielding Advent Calendar.

I always loved Advent Calendars when I was a kid and Freddy -- my little boy -- loves them too. He bounces out of bed each morning in December to open the door, see the picture -- his grandad bought him one with chocolate in it last year, which made the bouncing even more ... well, bouncy.

Liz's version, you'll be glad to discover, has daily treats, too. Fat-free treats.

Behind the door, each day from the 1st to 25th December, Liz's Advent Calendar will contain a signed book for one lucky reader. That's twenty-five books!

We had a fabulous time looking through the boxes that she stores in the loft of the Snap & Scribble (think Heidi at Grandpa's) this morning. She got quite moist-eyed at some titles. Hugged one or two close, the way you do favourite soft toys when you open a cupboard door and see them cooched up, forgotten. Occasionally she got a bit tight-lipped, muttering something about there being nothing like arty experiments to kill a book stone dead. I didn't ask...

The first one out of the box was A Stranger's Kiss. She hated the brown, she said. And then there was Baby On Loan -- that one was in a Mother's Day gift pack in the UK -- with a bar of soap.

There were some books with grey and white striped covers that I'd never seen before. And there were the ones that were like half a heart. It seems booksellers were supposed to display them to make a complete heart. As if they didn't have better things to do.

There were even yellow covers like this one.

Oh, it's an office romance. I love those!

There were loads of Australian covers, too, which, apart from some really old ones, were all blue. But I think I liked the American covers best. They have so much more impact.

Anyway, what's going to happen is this. Each day there'll be a different book behind the door and all you have to do is turn up and take part in whatever is happening for a chance to win the book of the day. Signed of course. With one of Liz's special "Celebrating 50 Books" bookmarks.

Uh-oh... Got to dash. The boss is in a flap about some emergency...

Put the date in your diary, okay? 1st December. I'll try and drop by to remind you --

Okay, Sadie! I'm coming...

AND THE WINNER IS...

Thanks to everyone for the input last week on your favourite kind of stories. It's fascinating to hear what makes a reader pick up a book -- even more interesting to know what turns them off! I've had the best belowed draw a winner of THE SHEIKH'S UNSUITABLE BRIDE at random from his best panama hat and the name that came is Nathalie.

Congratulations, Nathalie. Drop me a line at liz @ lizfielding.com (no gaps) with your full name and street address and I'll get it in the post to you.

There's still time to join the newsletter group at yahoo and send in an entry for my one spare copy of BRIDES FOR CHRISTMAS. Just click on the icon opposite, then read my last newsletter and you'll know what to do.

There were a dozen things I wanted to blog about. The fact that the primroses are going crazy in the wood -- April guys, you've supposed to be spring flowers. That I've just had a great review for REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION from Likes Books, and they are seriously hard to impress. That the sheikh novella I wrote in the summer will be called CHOSEN AS THE SHEIKH'S WIFE and will be available in July as part of the Mills & Boon 100th Anniversary celebrations -- more about that later.

The problem is that I need to put every waking moment into the current book at the moment. I've missed my deadline, a first, and it's still nowhere near The End. Bitten off more than I can chew with this one...

Reading: The Outcast by Sadie Jones

FREE BOOK MONDAY ON DANICA'S BLOG

Danica, or Dream as some of us know her, is giving away a copy of Reunited: Marriage in Million on her blog this week, bless her. She also has some interesting stuff to say about the writer's journey. Worth checking out.

SCARY TUESDAY

As for me, having woken up a cold sweat after a really nasty nightmare, only to discover that the stairs light had gone out so that it was totally dark, I now have to go and visit Bill, my lovely dental surgeon. He hails from New York, but has lived here in Wales for a v. long time.

One of my wisdom teeth is showing its age and needs a little attention. With a drill. Whimper...

Meanwhile the wip is still creeping along. Manda is now on terra firma -- I left that poor woman hanging around by her fingertips for far too long but she really needs to stop giving Jago such a hard time.

FINALLY

Copies of my new sheikh book arrived while I was in London. Breakfast at the Churchill in Portman Square with my editorial team from Richmond was instructive. We talked a lot about popular themes and discussed future books, but I thought it would be fun to throw this one open to my blog visitors. I'm looking for comments on what kind of stories you really love. Is it the sultry sheikh riding out of the desert? The nine-to-five office romance, with love blossoming around the water cooler? Does the word baby in the title make you reach for a book, or bride? Are you a died in the wool Cinderella fan? Will a handsome prince float your boat?

Share your reading desires with me this week and on Sunday I'll put all the comments in a hat and draw one at random to receive a copy of THE SHEIKH'S UNSUITABLE BRIDE, which won't be available anywhere (unless you're a Reader Service subscriber) until next month.

WHO'S BEEN A CLEVER GIRL THEN?

Ally Blake, fabulous author -- I'm reading Steamy Surrender right now and it's stellar -- and wonderful website designer, has been working on a more personal production this year. To check out the result go to her blog.

All together now ... ahhhhh....







THE "SHEIKH" IS IN ARGENTINA

And hooray! The Sheikh's Guarded Heart has made it to South America --Argentina to be more precise .

You can find it here.

AUTUMN

We're having the most beautiful autumn here in Wales.

We've had a couple of crisp, frosty mornings with bright blue skies, but mostly it's just been unseasonably warm, with bright sunshine and as a result this weekend the best beloved took himself off into the woods in Llanarthne to test his new camera. It works -- here's the result!


LOVE AND LAUGHTER

Meanwhile, in Germany, Cora have published A Surprise Christmas Proposal in their Tiffany series here.

An English excerpt is online at my website, since it's also being republished in the UK in December as BRIDES FOR CHRISTMAS as a "By Request" available online now from the Mills & Boon link opposite).

SIZZLE, SEDUCE, SIMMER


Some Australian authors - familiarly known as the "the Melbourne Mob" -have got together and produced this gallimaufrey of delights as a way to celebrate the joys of eating, writing and the fact that these activities have brought them all together. And Mira, Australia have published it.

It was multi-award winning author Marion Lennox's baby, so you know you're onto a winner from the start. The fabulous Anne Gracie is in the line up, as is Trish Morey and Stephanie Laurens. You'll find more details of the line up, photographs of the launch party (I so-o-o wish I could have been at that one!) and how to buy at Ally Blake's blog.

My copy is already winging it's way from HMB Australia as we speak.

BIRD BY BIRD -- OR WORD BY WORD

I recently read Anne Lamott's wonderfully inspiration book, Bird by Bird. I need it at the moment since Manda and Jago's story is progressing word by word. And all Twyla Tharp's good stuff in The Creative Life about "turning up" for the job, too. Because I'm not. Turning up.

I'm sitting at the keyboard at seven o'clock. I'm here in body, but the mind is playing hookey.

The cold I picked up on the plane home from Italy is just refusing to quit. The doctor says it'll take six weeks and that all you can do is tough it out. But I can't focus and I'm getting mightily sick of waking up with a headache every day, and cough, cough, coughing. The fact that the story is dark and angsty isn't helping, either. I think Manda needs to give Jago another kick. Or maybe he needs to kiss her again (well, he can't kick her back, can he?)

And the guilt at not getting the words done is stopping me from going out and enjoying is spectacular weather we're having. Glorious sun in November. A bright red hot air balloon waltzed down the field at the bottom of the garden yesterday evening, very low -- honestly, you'd think it was August.

I really, really wanted to be up there, skimming the rooftops and forgetting all about the book.

Never mind. The postman brought Nicola Marsh's Purchased for Pleasure, Ally Blake's Steamy Surrender, and Diana Palmer's Winter Roses this week. I'm going to take the day off and, break open the chocolate (it's good for throats, yes?) and recharge the batteries.

ANNE WEALE

Anne Weale, who for fifty years wrote ground breaking romances for Mills & Boon, died on 24 October.

After selling short stories to a woman's magazine while still at school, Anne Weale became a newspaper reporter, the traditional training for a novelist. An enthusiastic traveller, she used authentic foreign backgrounds for her romances -- most famously, Antigua Kiss. She was, however, proudest of her "Longwarden" novels, Flora, All My Worldly Goods and Time & Chance which readers are still discovering in libraries and used book shops.

From 1998-2004, Anne wrote a website review column, Bookworm on the Net, for The Bookseller, the UK's leading book trade press magazine.

Anne was the most entertaining companion and I'll miss sharing breakfast with her at the New Cavendish Club. I'll miss her lively blog. I'll miss her emails. I'll miss her.