Step Into The Story

A couple of months ago on one of my writing loops we were discussing hot starts, those first lines of books that grab you and draw you in right from the off. I love hot starts; maybe it's because I can be an impatient reader, wanting something to happen, wanting to be swept away at the beginning of the book. There is a school of thought that says that modern life has trained people to have such a short attention span that if you don't grab them within 10 seconds you've lost them. I'd hate to think that I had the concentration of a gnat but maybe there is something in this. One of my favourite first lines is: "I picked four of them up at White Waltham in the new Cherokee Six 300 that never got a chance to grow old." This, from Dick Francis's book Rat Race , flags up the drama that is to come, creates a sense of expectation and already has me on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happens. It's short, sharp and direct with an element of danger. We...

Hello! I'm back from Washington DC where I had the most fantastic time at the RWA Conference! I loved the city and had a wonderful time at the book signings, parties and workshops, meeting new people and putting faces to those I've been chatting with over the email for months or even years. In a few days I'll be posting my impressions of the trip complete with some splendid photos taken by my dh who had an even better time in Washington DC than I did! First though, a small quiz. It's called "match the shoe to the blogger" and all you have to do is name the four Cinderellas whose shoes are in the photo above, taken after the Golden Heart and RITA ceremony on Saturday night. The prize for the first correct answer selected by Monty is a copy of my third Brides of Fortune book, The Undoing of a Lady! And here is a clue: There are two Word Wenches, one Romance Bandit and one Risky Regency blogger in the picture! Name that shoe in one! Good luck!

Yesterday I was guiding tour parties around Ashdown House on a lovely, hot and sunny summer's day. For the first time we had other events happening at the house and it was fabulous! First there was an early music ensemble playing in the gardens. When we were on the roof balcony we could hear "Greensleeves"wafting up to us on the breeze which was wonderfully evocative. Then there were the living history re-enactors. A horse and carriage was taking visitors around the estate and it was extraordinary to see a historic vehicle using the old Ashdown carriage drive and the road down to the stables. But for me the absolute best bit was having the living history re-enactors wandering about the house and gardens and chatting to us all. On the guided tour we talk about the reasons that the staircase at Ashdown is so wide and one of them is to accommodate the breadth of ladies' skirts. I'd never seen a lady in period dress trying to ascend the stairs until yesterday and now...

Congratulations to Beth, whom Monty has picked to win a copy of The Scandals of an Innocent in the rugged hero casting contest! Thank you so much to everyone who entered. I really enjoyed the debate and hope you did too. For those of you wondering how Monty chooses contest winners (and over the years I've had a few enquiries) I am indebted to my friend and writing colleague Kate Walker, who first gave me the idea. Kate's adorable cats feature heavily in her blog and I thought Monty should stir himself from deep Labrador torpor and do the same. So when a prize is drawn I put down numbered cards, one for each entry, each with an identical dog biscuit on it. Monty is then positioned equidistant from all the biscuits and the winner is the person whose card he goes to first. He particularly likes my website prize drawing with large numbers of entries because then it becomes a competition between us to see how many biscuits he can hoover up before I grab them back!