Liz Fielding, ELOPING WITH EMMY, and Giveaways!

Romance writer and multi published UK based novelist Liz Fielding when asked about....

WHERE DO YOU GET IDEAS?

 This is the universal question – the one thing every author is asked over and over again. It’s not often I can be absolutely sure. Usually stories evolve slowly. A photograph will spark something in the brain, characters will walk onto the stage that is waiting for them, a line of dialogue will hum in the imagination… And so it begins.  But occasionally you can pinpoint the exact moment a story began.

 That’s how it is with Eloping With Emmy.

 It was a Saturday afternoon. I was on my own – unusual – and I picked up the Radio Times (the magazine listing the television and radio programmes for the week) and that afternoon, buried amongst the sport, was an old movie that I’d never seen. It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. I read the blurb, reached for the remote and grabbed a notebook.

 I had a great afternoon watching a fabulous movie – it won the entire sweep of major Oscars that year – Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director. Runaway heiress, down at heel hero… I made some notes, but mostly I just watched and over the next few days my writing brain began to play with ideas.

 Scenes ran through my head, made some more notes. Some ideas were discarded (I seem to remember one in a hayloft that that never made it onto the page), some jelled, none were anything like the scenes in the movie, but that’s not how inspiration works. It’s like the sparkplug in your car. It fires the engine, but after that you’re the one applying the fuel.

I sent the first three chapters to my editor and asked her what she thought and then got on with writing Wild Fire.

It was a while before she came back to me – on the day I delivered Wild Fire. And she wanted the rest of the book by the end of the month. Gulp. I had twenty-six days to finish Eloping With Emmy; I delivered the manuscript on the last day of the month.

My book isn’t anything like It Happened One Night. Emmy isn’t running away from marriage to a boring millionaire (!) and Tom isn’t down at heel in any way, although he is from a completely different social strata. They are, however, forced to stick together on their journey across England and France, even though their objectives are at odds. She is determined to reach the man she’s vowed to marry. His assignment is to stop the wedding, whatever it takes.

What I learned from It Happened One Night was the value of the journey as a crucible. According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary a crucible is – “A vessel, usually of earthenware, made to endure great heat, used for fusing metals. A melting pot. Fig. Used of any severe test or trial.”

And that – according to my very first editor - is what every great romance needs.

Leave a comment telling me what romantic movie you’ve loved and if there was a crucible, how it held the hero and heroine together.

I’ll draw a winner from the comments for an eBook download of Eloping With Emmy, a signed copy of my new Harlequin Romance, The Last WomanHe’d Ever Date and an eBook download of Liz Fielding’sLittle Book of Writing Romance.

Eloping With Emmy

Back Blurb


Hot shot legal eagle, Tom Brodie, has been landed with an assignment to test any man to his limits - do whatever it takes to prevent headstrong heiress Emerald Carlisle from marrying a fortune-hunter. He is not happy about it, and when Emmy stows away in his car, his day goes from bad to worse, but since she's the only one who knows where to find the man in question he has no choice but take her along for the ride.

It's a bumpy one!

Emmy is not a woman to sit back and let things fall as they will. She has a plan and she keeps Brodie on his toes in a rollercoaster chase across the UK and France. He's more than up to the challenge, but falling in love with Emmy along the way is always going to end with his heart in pieces.

THE LAST WOMAN HE'D EVER DATE

Back Blurb

Claire Thackeray: Hardworking single mom and gossip columnist. Hoping for the inside scoop on sexy billionaire Hal North, aka her teen crush!

Most wary of: Gorgeous men who set her heart racing. (Been there, got the T-shirt—and the baby!)

Hal North: Bad boy made good. Back in his hometown as new owner of the Cranbrook Park estate. Determined to put his troubled past behind him.

Most wary of: Journalists—especially pretty ones, like new neighbor and tenant Claire Thackeray.


Liz Fielding around the web:

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Donna Alward talks on her THE LAST REAL COWBOY! And Gifts!

This week RBH invited Romance Author Donna Alward to share with us about the heros she likes to write and read about. But as she says there are damaged heroines and heros who love them!

Damaged Heroines and the Heroes who love them….

I tend to write damaged heroes. I love a good broody, wounded man who falls really hard for the right woman. Wounded heroines are a harder challenge for me. Maybe because we don’t want to feel sorry for a heroine. We want to see strong, independent women we can cheer for – and because the majority of readers of Romance are women and the main protagonist is generally female, you really have to make sure she’s relatable. The hero is the man you dream of, but you walk in the heroine’s shoes.

Wounded heroines need special sorts of heroes. My last three Harlequin Romances have all starred wounded heroines – some of the scars are visible, some are not. In my current release, THE LAST REAL COWBOY, social worker Angela Beck seems confident at the beginning, like she has her crap together. She’s Executive Director of Butterfly House, a second-stage housing shelter for abused women. She’s a hard worker and she’s strong and determined to make it a success.

But Angela hasn’t dealt with her own issues yet, and her own secret: that she feels guilty for leaving after high school – leaving her mother to deal with her abusive father all by herself. There’s a little piece of her that still hopes her mother will be strong enough to leave him someday.

It takes a big man to deal with that sort of baggage.

In walks Sam Diamond. Sam seems pretty cocky at the beginning, but he’s also carrying a fair burden – the day-to-day running of Diamondback Ranch in the wake of his father’s stroke. Not just the practical running of it but stepping in as the de facto head of the family even though that title still belongs to his Dad, Virgil. Sam knows how to love and how to care for someone. And he’ll protect those he loves ‘til the end. They are two pretty strong personalities to put together, and sparks fly a bit, but they’re a pretty good team, too.

In THE REBEL RANCHER, the follow up book out next month, Angela’s first client Clara is our wounded heroine. As a client of Butterfly House, we know she’s come from an abusive relationship and jumping into another is not in the plan. Especially with a man like Tyson Diamond – the rebellious Diamond who left the ranch at 18 and never looked back. Ty’s got a reputation as a bad boy and that scares her to death – until she meets him and sees a whole other side to him. She sees the hurt behind the bravado. The calm beneath the charisma. Clara’s a wounded bird, and Ty, despite his reputation, is loyal and especially gentle. I don’t have to tell you that I really love Ty, do I?

And last fall I wrote a damaged heroine whose scars are pretty obvious – HOW A COWBOY STOLE HER HEART - Meg Briggs is a breast cancer survivor. She’s gone through a mastectomy and chemo. While inner wounds are easier to ignore, it’s harder when it’s so obvious and well-known. Meg is, to a large extent, identified by her cancer.

Clay is an old friend and he hasn’t always been a good one. Before her treatment they had words and now he needs to apologize for not being there for her. Clay’s had his own experiences with the Big C and the truth is it scares him to death. But he’s stronger than he gives himself credit for. And he loves Meg – he always has. What Clay has to offer is acceptance – of her diagnosis, her treatment, and what the future might mean. And the scene where that acceptance is tangible is my favourite scene in the book.

It’s resonated with readers as well – this book has been nominated for Romance Writers of America’s RITA award, has won the Colorado Award of Excellence, and is also nominated in the National Reader’s Choice Awards and the Booksellers’ Best Awards.

[Wow! Donna! Congratulations on being nominated for so many awards!]

I think what it comes down to is that we all have scars of some sort, and we all dream of rising above them. Throw in a dreamy, sexy and strong hero and you get a Happy Ever After that makes it all worth it.

Donna’s website: www.donnaalward.com

Twitter: @DonnaAlward

Buy links at Harlequin: THE LAST REAL COWBOY

 

Buy link at Amazon for THE LAST REAL COWBOY

And last we have a gift from Donna Alward! You can download her book Hired By The Cowboy among some more books! Well altogether sixteen books are available for you to download FREE!