The Festival of Romance - fun and celebration!

I could have floated back to Scotland on a cloud of bliss after this weekend at The Festival of Romance instead of taking an Easyjet flight. This event, held annually in Bedford England, was three days of excitement and celebration amongst romance authors, readers, and industry professionals.
 

It was fantastic to meet up again with those peeps I already know and to finally meet those I feel I already know so well online but hadn’t yet met face to face. It might appear weird to throw yourself into the arms of people you’ve never met in real life and practically hug the life out of them – yet it felt complete appropriate to do so when these are people I already loved!

I was in contact with lovely JB of Brook Cottage Books before and during my journey to Bedford, as I was flying in from Glasgow to London Luton and she was flying in from Belfast. She sent me a photo so I’d recognise her when we finally met – and this is us just mere seconds after we did!
 

 

Ditto lovely Carol ‘Dizzy C’ (pic below) of Dizzy C's Little Book Blog, the wonderful Kim the Bookworm and fabulous Heidi of ‘Cosmochicklitian’
 

On the Friday night, Linn B Halton, Mandy Baggot and Sheryl Browne and I went to a fabulous Bedford Italian Restaurant for fun, wine and pizza!
 

 

Then at the Saturday night Gala Dinner, just when I thought the festival was only about being amongst fabulous friends, it also became a celebration of our success - when Linn B Halton, Editor in Chief of the emagazine with which I'm an associate editor - was awarded the 2013 Festival of Romance 'Innovation in Romantic Fiction' Industry award for “evolving the loveahappyending.com author/reader initiative into an interactive lifestyle magazine”.

 

 

After receiving her award, Linn said: “Being nominated was a huge honour, but to actually win the award was overwhelming. As organiser of LLm I was thrilled to accept this on behalf of everyone involved. There are thirty-two contributors in total involved with LLm and it is the wide range of articles (including book reviews) that saw our hit counter tip over the 3 million mark a couple of days ago, and we are now at a staggering 3,045,639.”
 

 

Huge congratulations to all the winners of all awards at this year's Festival of Romance and thanks to event organiser Kate Allan for all her hard work - what a fabulous weekend!

Innovation in Romantic Fiction Author winner – Linn B Halton with some of the Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine team

  

 

Left to right: Carol, Heidi, JB, Linn, Mandy, Sheryl, & myself

Festival of Romance - and Loveahappyending Lifestyle!

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO THE LOVEAHAPPYENDING TEAM!

 

LLm Editor in Chief, our own Linn B Halton has been shortlisted for the Innovation in Romantic Fiction (Author) award for evolving the loveahappyending.com author/reader initiative into an interactive lifestyle magazine.

 

Linn B Halton



 

And Carol Wright from Dizzy C's Little Book Blog, JB Johnston from Brook Cottage Books and Tanya Farrell from After the Final Chapters, all in the Loveahappyending Review Team have been nominated for Best Romance Blogger!

 

CONGRATULATIONS AND WELL DONE LADIES!

 Click here for the full announcement

 

8th to 10th November in Bedford

 

 

Festival of Romance 2013

The Festival of Romance celebrates romantic fiction in all its forms and gives readers a chance to meet favourite and new authors as well as taking part in lots of fun events and parties.

It is the UK's ONLY convention dedicated to romantic fiction.

You can book tickets online for all the Festival events.

Check out what's on and see which of your favourite authors are attending.

See you at the Festival of Romance!

 

Sunshine…!

 

I hardly noticed the awful wind and rain that dashed this part of the world this week, as I was happily holed up in my office, head down writing. Soon I’ll be able to send my non-fiction book ‘How To Party Online’ to my lovely Editor and very soon after that it will be available on Amazon for Kindle. It’s been a fun book to produce and quite a departure from the fiction I usually write. I can’t wait to find out what those of you who have encouraged me to write this book think of it!

 

So, the week has flown by, and today not only did I discover it was Friday but that the sun was shining down on Scotland. Hurray!

 

I was especially pleased to be awarded The Sunshine Award from my lovely friend Linn B Halton. Linn is a fabulous author and the founder of Loveahappyending Lifestyle. The award is a lovely sunny flower that bloggers give to other bloggers “who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”. Thank you Linn, I’m thrilled!

Now I have to answer a few questions:

Favourite Colour: Green. It always looks fresh - although I rarely wear green clothes!

Favourite Animal: I have two doggies – Polly and Ruby, my West Highland Terriers.

Favourite Number: 7 (It’s my birth date)

Favourite Non-alcoholic Drink: Appletize or Becks Blue non-alcoholic beer.

Favourite Alcoholic Drink: Red Wine – something robust like a Shiraz.

Facebook or Twitter: They are both too different to choose between – so both!

Your Passion(s): My family. Travelling. Reading. Writing.

Giving or getting presents: Oh dear, I’m rubbish at this choosing game. Both!

Favourite Day: Every day!

Favourite Flowers: Daffodils.

And now I nominate these 7 lovely author bloggers whom I love to visit:

Paula Martin

Kit Domino

Rosemary Gemmell

Myra Duffy

Victoria Connelly

Jude Roust

Novel Points of View



Ruby, Polly, and Daffodils - three of my favourite things...

NEWS

My novel 'Bagpipes & Bullshot' has been nominated in The People’s Book Awards and I’d really appreciate your vote.

Please click the banner to go to the site and simply click on the stars to register your vote.

 

Thank you very much!

Haste ye Back…!

 



Books, books and ebooks!

This has been a busy week – a wonderful week – a week full of books and talking about books. On Tuesday night I was chatting via Skype on Blog Talk Radio with Inspirational Storyteller host Nancy Wait in New York. The subject was ‘inspiration’ and the special guest on the show was Linn B Halton, my lovely friend, fellow author, and the inspirational founder of Loveahappyending.com. Linn has written a fabulous blog about the programme here and there are links to the show.

 

Inspirational Storytellers on Blog Talk Radio

 

Also this week, it’s Read an Ebook Week! Check it out on the website. You may or may not know that my books are exclusive to Amazon to download and read on the Amazon Kindle Ereader. If you are an Amazon Select customer my books can be downloaded for free. If you don’t have an ereader and would like to read my books, then don’t despair, because you can download a FREE Kindle App from Amazon for your PC, Mac, Tablet, Android Phone and other mobile device. Just click here to pop over to Amazon and find out more about their range of free Apps.

Did you know that yesterday, March 7th, was World Book Day? Billed as the Biggest Book Show On Earth, the website is a fabulous resource. If you are a teacher, parent, bookseller, librarian or journalist – let’s celebrate books and help kids to read and enjoy books in all formats!

Also this week, I’d like to thank my writer buddy and fellow Romantic Novelist, Jude Roust. She surprised and delighted me by posting my debut TV appearance of three years ago to her blog 'Mad About Romance'. This short ITV news feature came about after I’d had a piece on research published in a writer’s magazine. At the time, I was researching my ‘disgruntled celebrity chef’ novel Reaching for the Stars, which caught the attention of a TV Producer. It just goes to show how one thing can lead to another! You can see the short film on Jude’s blog here.

This has also been my birthday week – so thank you for all the lovely messages on Facebook and Twitter and for your emails – I have enjoyed and appreciated every one!

 

 

Thank you to my lovely friend Jeannette for making me this birthday cake!

See you next Friday - Haste ye’ Back!

Author Showcase - Linn B Halton

Today I'm excited to showcase fabulous author Linn B Halton's cover reveal!

Never Alone is being released in January 2013 and it's a story of true love, but as we all know the path is never easy. Read on to find out how you can win an advance copy!

 

 

Linn says: I'm doing a fab splash around some wonderful blogs and websites to celebrate a brand new shiny cover, hot off the press. This story is full of heart and a young woman, Holly Atherton, who doesn't want to say 'yes' to having that wedding ring placed on her finger. Even though Will is the love of her life and absolutely gorgeous!

 

Before I tell you all about Holly's story I wanted to ask my host, fabulous author Janice Horton, whose books blend romance and a touch of Scotland so perfectly, what top tip she has for keeping a partner happy. Of course, I couldn't ask that question if I wasn't prepared to spill the beans myself....

 

Set aside 'together' time, whether that's an evening out or a short-break away, as long as it's romantic! Think of it as a date, or if you are going away together re-kindling your 'affair'. Don't let life get in the way!

 

So Janice, what's your little secret?

I think the way to keep your man happy is to appreciate him - and tell him so. Make him feel like a hero!

 

Ah, flatterly will get you everywhere ha! ha! But seriously, everyone has the need to feel wanted and valued so I think this is a great one for my master-list of top tips! Thank you Janice.

 

So what's going wrong with Holly's relationship in Never Alone?

 

 

 

 

Holly Atherton has a seemingly perfect life, until suddenly it all beings to unravel. She has spent her life living up to other people's expectations of her, trying to please them.

She has it all - the affluent family who dote on her, a job she loves in her father's business, and the perfect boyfriend. Will is a successful entrepreneur and they are about to start enjoying a lifestyle many can only dream about. His latest business deal will see them with homes in the UK and Los Angeles.

But what if you wake up one morning and find yourself wondering whether the path you are on is the one you are supposed to be taking? Is she too caught up in pleasing her parents and Will to take her future into her own hands?

 

 

 

When Holly's psychic sensitivity begins to surface she doesn't know how to handle it. Vivid dreams seem too real to ignore and she finds herself 'talking' to Nick, the recently deceased brother of her best friend, Celia.

Just having someone to whom she can offload what she's feeling helps and she feels happier moving forward with Will into their exciting new future and all seems well... the rest is coming soon!

 

 

 

 

TAKE PART - Thank you for helping me to celebrate this cover reveal. Simply leave your TOP TIP for keeping your man happy and 6 names will be randomly selected from the blogs taking part to receive an advance ecopy of Never Alone in December 2012.

Festive wishes to everyone!

To find out more about author Linn B Halton:Website 

A loveahappyending.com author

Signed by:http://www.sapphirestarpublishing.com/linnbhalton

Twitter: @LinnBHalton

Facebook: Linn B Halton

Romantic Novelists' Association page

  Amazon.co.uk (buy) Amazon.com (buy)

 

The Summer Audience Event

I could have floated back to Glasgow from Gloucestershire on a cloud of happiness rather than taken a flight with Easyjet. The Loveahappyending Summer Audience weekend was fabulous fun and an amazing success!  And it was all down to the organisational skills of the woman at the helm, Linn B Halton. I first met Linn on Twitter just over a year ago, when she said she was setting up a reader/writer website and asked if I like to be part of it. I was new to Twitter but immediately recognised this as a good opportunity. I’ve never looked back - loveahappyending.com became established - and Linn and I have become firm friends.

I’d never done an author talk before, and so I was naturally anxious when climbing the stage to deliver my Zero to my Latest Hero speech last Saturday but, happily, the support of my fellow loveahappyending.com authors and the warm vibes from all the avid readers attending the event gave me the boost I needed to talk, on a very personal level, about why and how I became a writer.

Delivering my 'Zero to my Latest Hero' talk!

The day was not only a fabulous success but also a wonderful opportunity to meet up with the seventeen loveahappyending.com authors attending and to catch up with some of my own 'Team Horton' Associate Readers and book bloggers like Louise Graham, Sharon (Shaz) Goodwin, Sue Fortin and Kim (The Book Worm) Nash.

With Kim 'The Book Worm' Nash

Thoughout the day, Kim was also broadcasting live via Stafford FM's Book Club and interviewing attendants!

With book blogger Louise Graham

With book blogger Sharon 'Shaz' Goodwin

With fellow author Mandy Baggot and my editor Kit Domino

With fellow Scottish author Chris Longmuir

Me with author & event organiser Linn B Halton and Lou Graham

One of the highlights of the day was the keynote speech by Catrin Collier, which everyone agreed was spell-binding. Catrin, under various pen names, has published over 41 novels worldwide. She has had three stage plays professionally performed in addition to publishing various articles and short stories. Her first Catrin Collier novel, Hearts of Gold was filmed as a mini-series by BBC Worldwide, and attracted an audience of 6.8 million viewers when shown on UK network TV. Another highlight came in the form of the lovely award-winning author Jill Mansell, who dropped in to select one lucky winner of a a stack of books and e-books, plus a ‘Devils With Wings’ signed poster by author Harvey Black.

Author Harvey Black with his alter-ego Jeremy - but which is which...?

The Loveahappyending Group Photo!

We polished off the day with a meal in a cosy Cotswold pub and raised our drinks to toast a fabulously successful event, each other, and to Linn B Halton and her lovely husband Lawrence for  making it all happen and for bringing us all together

Cheers!

You can read lots more about the Loveahappyending.com Summer Event, our Featured Authors and Associate Readers by visiting the website HERE

And tomorrow, Saturday 23^rd June, I’ve been asked to speak to authors in Dumfries and Galloway on ‘Building an Author Platform’.  The event, organised by The Creative Arts Business Network (CABN) in Scotland, is being held at the Urr Valley Hotel, Castle Douglas. I’m really looking forward to it and hope all this practice will stand me in good stead for doing lots more author talks in the future. I’ll report back on how it went next Friday. Wish me luck!