I have been busy over the last too-many days sorting out the books, as in accounts, as in cashbook, as in financial reports, for the annual tax return. Our financial year is July 1-June 30 (America's is different, right?) but I've been dragging my feet on getting everything updated and accountant-ready. I'm almost there. Just have to find a few more pieces of paperwork, print the reports, and finish filing everything away. The last is a real time-taker but I'm telling myself the rewards are worth it. This only has to be done once. If I file and stow everything neatly in the deep, dark cupboard of archives, I will never have to see them again. But, oh the temptation to just bundle it all up and dump it in the cupboard unfiled. I must be strong. I must finish the job. Perhaps I will reward myself with chocolate if I do.
Copies of my first ever Lithuanian translation arrived in the mail last week. I always get a kick out of discovering one of my books in another country and/or language. Lithuania. Wow. And how gorgeous is this cover? I do believe it is my favourite of all, especially as it more closely resembles my characters than the original cover.
So, I've decided to run another mini giveaway. Let me know (in the comments) the characters' names and I will send a prize pack to the first correct answer.
P.S. I will draw the winner in a week's time, on Saturday, November 4.
When you've spent 20+ hours on planes getting to London, there is something very soothing about the smooth rolling land-locked speed of the Eurostar train trip to Paris. Very nice. And I wasn't at all uneasy about that twenty-odd minutes spent deep under the English Channel. Perhaps that had something to do with the 4.45am wake-up call and the fact that I was still pretty much asleep.
For anyone who has done the Eurostar, I have two questions:
1. how do you get the water over the bathroom basins to work? (there's ten minutes I won't be getting back.) 2. why are there no seats numbered 19 and 20, or 29 and 30? (or possibly 9 and 10, although I didn't check.)
So, here I am in Paris with ex-Melbournian and now Paris-based writer Gabrielle Luthy and a well-known tower.
I interrupt my prolonged travelogue with this startling newsflash, heard on the radio and seen on yesterday's news service. Apparently American customs' officers are cracking down on visitors bringing in stashes of Vegemite for their homesick friends and rellies living/working in the good ole U.S. of A.
...as I was at the end of the last post, allow me to introduce you to the squirrel which resides in this dinky cottage garden on the edge of St James Park. This is centralish London, folks, not the shires and it did cross my mind that the critter was from central casting (same as those aforementioned bobbies) and employed by the tourist commission.
Whatever, he hopped right up onto the fence in front of us, adopted numerous cutely photogenic angles, then threatened to pounce when no food-for-payment was forthcoming. Put me in mind of that scene from Christmas Vacation with the squirrel in the Christmas tree. I backed away rather quickly. Can you blame me? Just look at that evil red eye.
Remember my previous comment about Shoestring Travel? This was especially evident at meal-time in London. Have I mentioned that London is a Very Expensive Place? I do believe I have, but it bears repeating under this heading. Luckily breakfast was included in our prize package at our hotel, Rydges Kensington Plaza. A decent, clean, friendly-staffed, smallish hotel with a terrific location right across the road from:
(a) an underground station on 2 lines that took us almost everywhere we needed to go, including Heathrow, without a train change (b) an internet cafe, one of the few things that wasn't expensive although I didn't visit much because there was too much else to be doing (c) a small shopping strip which included reasonably-priced (for London) restaurants, fast-food places for when even reasonably-priced was too much, and a Waitroses.
If I lived in London and worked in London places such as Waitroses and Marks and Spencer Simply Food would become my best friends. I would shamelessly shop their ready-prepared meals and high quality fruit and veg and healthier takeaways than previously mentioned fast food joints. This was the way we afforded to eat during our week in London. From memory we had one lunch in town, one pub lunch on our day out of town, and one restaurant dinner. Which pretty much ate up all our food money. Other times Waitroses was our friend.
Oh, and for a special treat there was lunch from Harrod's Food Hall. A scoop of the most delicious salads: one included crabmeat with mango, the other salmon and avocado and crisp green beans. Yum. And for dessert a creme brulee from the patisserie. For the same price as a fast-food cafe lunch. Did I say yum? I'm salivating remembering.
Here's a picture of me in Harrod's Food Hall. Standing by one of the many chocolatiers. Looking like I'm in paradise.
And this is the view from our hotel window, which may lead you to ask "what view?" but I kinda liked this view of the neighbourhood backyards. It's so English without being postcard and it also put me in mind of that scene in The Full Monty (not set in London, but that's by-the-by) where they're streaking through the backyards and over those walls to escape getting nicked. Did anyone else love that movie?
In the months before I left, there was much to-do about airport security and carry-on requirements in the UK following the liquid bomb scare. I checked my airline website immediately before leaving for the current status, which included a strict one bag per passenger, no liquids, gels, etc. The previous ban on mobile phones, PC's, PDA's etc had been lifted and we didn't suffer the ignominy of having to carry our possessions in clear plastic bags.
Imagine my surprise when, on arrival at Heathrow, I discovered that this was pretty much an honour system. Lots of signs stating what you could take on the plane, several bins for disposing of contraband bottles of water and tubes of toothpaste, and then just the regular screening procedure, same as any airport. No, not the same as any airport. Decidedly slacker than either Sydney or Hong Kong, I'd say. There were people all over the plane skiving off to the bathrooms shortly before landing (and subsequently hogging them!) with toiletry bags in hand. Can't tell me they didn't have their toothpaste, deodorant and moisturisers in their hand luggage.
Same couldn't be said about London security in general. Walking around Westminster it was rather chilling to see the number of heavily armed police patrols. And by heavily armed I don't mean bobbies with truncheons. I'm talking big-ass weaponry and matching vests. There was definitely a heavy presence around the government departments, parliament and suchlike. I was rather keen to take a picture but my son suggested, in his dry way, that he'd rather not be questioned about why we were photographing security measures. I guess he had a point.
Struggling to find pictures to match the topic, I have come up with a shot of Buckingham Palace during the feted Changing of the Guard. As far as tourist attractions go, a little over-feted, in my humble opinion but that's by the by. In the second close-up picture (click to enlarge) take note of the two figures standing on top of the palace. I would like to think it's the Queen and her BFF taking in the view or a sly cigarette. My dh suggests it is security.
This picture is as close as you can get to 10 Downing Street. I had best add that this is the British Prime Minister's residence. Seeing as my expensively-educated son did not know this, I figure some readers may not either. *shaking my head* I believe the security has been like this for quite some time, whereas in the past you could wander right on by the front door. Son couldn't see why anyone would want to, but it's an iconic address and therefore had to be visited. Or, in this case, walked by.
You're all readers, right? So you're probably like me, reading everywhere and everything, including the road signs. I know you, too, would have been tickled by the quaint and unusual names of English villages and London suburbs. What's not to like about places such as Elephant and Castle or Stow on the Wold or Little Rollright or Chipping Sodbury or Puddletown. The best I can do in my part of the world is Grong Grong. Or Walla Walla. How about you -- do you have any quaint or unsual town names in your part of the world?
Thinking about the 2 stopovers in Hong Kong I've discovered that the lasting impression is one of disappointment. Which is in itself disappointing. My last visit, 17 years ago, was all about the shopping. Everything was excellent value, from jewellery to known brands to labels we couldn't access in those long-ago days. Now we have become global. What can't you buy on-line? What isn't available in our own stores, markets or eBay? Being on a shoestring budget (note the sign, which is quite by accident!) meant we could only browse and window shop the designer malls. Just another type of sightseeing, really.
Shopping aside, there was the disappointment caused by the relentless mist hanging over the harbour. We postponed our trip up to The Peak thinking the view might clear up or be better on the return trip. 'twasn't. Our hotel rooms didn't disappoint, however, and neither did this same city skyline at night with a spectacular light show beyond the dark waters of the harbour. Don't go to Hong Kong without a harvourview room. That's my Honkers tip.
We did a harbour cruise to Tsing Ma Bridge, toted as the world's longest suspension bridge carrying both road and rail, and the western shoreline past the world's largest container terminal. So, okay, that may not sound riveting but I enjoyed seeing all the new developments and it was such a contrast to the history of London and Paris. I hate to end on another note of disappointment, but I booked another specialty "tour" for my return--a morning of tai chi, feng shui and the tea-making ceremony--only to have it cancelled due to lack of interest. And that was the biggest disappointment of all.
Lots of folks expressed envy over my trip, before adding that the one thing they didn't envy was the long flight. For the record Sydney-London is 10,600 miles which takes around 23 hours including time spent somewhere on the ground refuelling. Depending on the airline, that stop might be Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, or in my case, Hong Kong. That's because one of the sponsors was Cathay Pacific (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and we decided to stop over a night both going and coming home. Boy, am I glad we did! The stopover meant legs of around 9 hrs and 13 hrs split by a civil 24 hrs of sleep and sightseeing.
I didn't mind the flying. I had my PDA with eBooks. I had movies. I've grown immune to airline food. And I even managed to sleep a little on the overnight flights, although not as much as I intended because of the eBooks. What a boon to travel. No bulky, weighty books to carry, no overhead light annoying other passengers trying to sleep, and the adjustable brightness on the screen makes it most eye friendly. I am one happy reader and give the experience a hearty two-thumbs up...which I'm also giving to Cathay Pacific for their check-in service alone. I did the check-in on-line and the dedicated desk at the airport meant no lines, no waiting, the most efficient service I've encountered.
The pictures are 2 of many taken from the Eiffel Tower, by the way.
At first I thought I may have cause to be fickle, forsaking my love of grand old London for the chic and temperamental Paris. But no. It was only a one-day stand, a day spent awestruck at the grandeur of the buildings and the views from the Tour Eiffel (dare I admit from just the first floor? but in my defence, those 320-odd steps were enough and I have a thing with heights and we had a lunch meeting to make) and the Gothic magnificence of Notre Dame and the bridges and le fromage et jambon and the cafe creme.
But then it rained, you see, and the traffic became a nightmare and after an accident (the way they drive, no surprise!) snarled the city streets even more, there we were stuck in our taxi with the clock ticking and it took a herculean effort on the part of our tres gallant taxi driver to get us close enough to Gare du Nord. Then we ran, through the rain, shoes kicked off to help with speed, and fell onto our return train with bare minutes to spare.
And so ended my brief fling with Paris. I will return one day, with more time to explore and more time to enjoy...the streets, the buildings, the art and culture and history. And the patisseries.
Home again, in the process of downloading the pictures, and decided to start by adding one to each of my postcards. Sort of like placeholders while I wait for my brain to catch up with my body. I've chosen this London shot because it encapsulates my favourite image of London: a grand townhouse of the type I picture when reading a regency-set romance, taken through the sunshine and leafery on a stroll through Green Park.
The original postcard, from October 4: You may have already noticed that this postcard is the cheapskate variety without a picture. That's because my photos -- all 150+ of them thus far -- are still on my camera. I will also point out that since everything in London is ridiculously expensive, I didn't look at paying to download them and I'm not paying for too long on this hotel internet either. We need to eat, an expensive procedure here. But that's the only downside. Everything else is as wonderful as I remember from 17 years ago. Love the public transport that makes it so easy to get about. Love the pomp and ceremony, the buildings that transport me to every fabulous Regency I've read, the accents that transport me to every favourite Brit movie I've seen, the galleries, the West End theatres and loads more that I will save for another time. Like when the internet isn't costing me tonight's dinner budget! Wish you were here. Cheers, Bron.
Courtesy of recommendations on a couple of on-line travel forums--who variously described this as HK's best value and best-kept secret--we booked a harbourview suite at the Hong Kong YMCA. Might I repeat BEST VALUE. In capitals. For the same price as a standard room in another 3 or possibly 4 star hotel, we have a king-sized bed and a separate sitting room and a view of Hong Kong's least well-kept secret, the fantabulous Victoria Harbour. Although it isn't the harbour which is the attraction, but the view of the island's skyscrapers doing their evening light show. Huge sigh of contentment. Tomorrow we shop. The day after we head home. The week and a bit has gone much too fast, sob, but I must return. I must work. There will be shopping to pay for. Stay tuned for the pictures...
If I tell you that Christmas is coming, do you promise not to panic?Because this early taste of Christmas is just as delicious as the cover promises. I devoured it in a single sitting last Sunday afternoon and recommend it to anyone who loves a sexy, romantic, emotionally-charged category romance.
Here is the cover blurb:
From inside her cubicle walls, Holly Christmas had secretly pined for Connor Knight, craving just one evening of incendiary passion with the elusive millionaire. So when Connor sought a few hours of solace in his virgin secretary's arms, she readily succumbed.
Then, a few weeks after their clandestine encounter, Holly received a surprising late Christmas gift: she was pregnant. Connor quickly offered to take care of her, but Holly knew her scandalous past would never allow her to accept his proposal…not even for the sake of their baby.
The Boss's Christmas Seduction is Kiwi author Yvonne Lindsay's debut, an October release in North America, November in Australia/New Zealand, and available as an eBook to readers all over the world. I invited Yvonne to be our guest this week at Sunburnt Author and she has happily obliged.
I love your twist on the traditional want-a-baby storyline. How did you come up with the idea?
Yvonne: The original idea for the story came through a writing exercise I did for a RWNZ meeting where we had to come up with a back page blurb with a Christmas theme. I was working on something else at the time so a fresh idea was fun to tackle and afterwards I let it simmer in the back of my mind. Through that 'simmer' period I kept weighing up the gulf between one who has had a privileged upbringing and one who hasn't and I kept asking myself how could Connor and Holly's situation possibly get worse? Brainstorming with two special writing friends was also a huge help when I needed a fresh perspective on any aspect of the story that I needed help with.
This story is crammed with emotion. Is that something you deliberately work to instil in your stories or is it just your natural writing style?
Yvonne: You know, it's funny, but I don't see my writing as crammed with emotion. Whenever I've finished a book and I start to read other writers I always feel my work is lacking, that I haven't gone deep enough. When I'm writing, my first draft is rather sparse on the emotional punch that I try to layer back through on subsequent read/write throughs. Sometimes I'll be near the end of a story, and be fully immersed in the character, and all of a sudden I'll know I need to go back to a point in the beginning to deepen their response to a situation. It's only as I come to really know the character that I can plumb their emotional depths. Sometimes it's alot more difficult to do that than others.
Do you like to read emotionally driven stories? Who are your favourite emotion-packed authors?
Yes, I do like to read emotionally charged stories. I think the authors who have most influenced me with their emotion-packed styles are Linda Howard and Suzanne Brockmann. There's something about their characters that continues to live with me long after I've put the book down. Of course there are numerous other authors, both ST and category, who strike a chord with me as a reader but those two would probably have had the biggest effect on me.
Readers are going to love the authenticity and the detail you put into your NZ setting...
Yvonne: I consider myself really lucky to live in a city like Auckland. We're spoiled for beaches and water sports here and our harbour is dotted with islands, some as conservation reserves, which are great to visit as day trips, and others as communities of their own. It was after a day out on the boat and doing a scenic trip around the back of one island that the idea of Connor having a privately owned island, just a ten minute flight from the CBD was born.
You also made the office setting very authentic. Have you worked as a PA in a corporate setting? Have you organised an office Christmas party? (and did Santa look like Connor? *g*)
Yvonne: Yes I have worked as a PA in a corporate setting but thankfully I never had to organise anything on the scale that Holly had to, I don't think I'd have managed with her flair for detail if Santa had looked like Connor! I've always admired people who can hold a gazillion strings and know when to tweak and when to let go of each one to bring something off like a large Christmas party all the while looking as though it was easy.
You obviously did loads of research--Andrea's illness and Connor's helicopter are 2 examples that spring readily to mind. Do you enjoy the research?
Hmmm, most research itself I find difficult, especially about something as emotive as Andrea's illness. The websites I visited while looking at heriditary illness, and the stories posted on so many of them, were very sobering and reminded me once again to be thankful every day for what I have in my life. The helicopter was easy. The man of the house is an avid air-anything-enthusiast so researching rich boys flying toys was easy. The hardest thing I find about research is knowing when to stop looking for more information. It's so easy to get wound up in the threads that one question leads to. You have to know when to pull the plug and when to use little enough of what you've learned so as not to be dumping information at the expense of your story. I don't know that I actually enjoy research all that much, it's a bit of a necessary evil in our industry.
Connor's story is the first of your New Zealand Knights trilogy. Tell us about the family and the brothers to come.
Yum, the Knight brothers are the three sons of an Italian immigrant father and an Irish immigrant mother. NZ is such a melting pot of nationalities so it was fun to explore the family dynamics. It hasn't been too unusual here in NZ for immigrant families to anglicise their names so the boys' grandparents changed the surname Cavaliere to Knight in an attempt to ease their transition to NZ life.
I cruelly took the boys' mother from them when they were young and impressionable--12, 10 and 8 years old--and gave the eldest the responsibility of caring for his younger brothers when their father turned to work and drink to assuage his loss. I originally plotted and wrote the stories in order of the brothers' ages, but the powers that be didn't buy them in that order.
Connor's story, the youngest brother, was originally my last story. He was the quiet brother, the sensible one, with the guarded heart. He still lives with the guilt that as an eight year old who'd had little to do with his ailing mother preferred to race out into the sunshine and the gardens to play rather than say goodbye. All he wants is to rebuild the sense of family that was lost when his mother passed away, and he'll do anything to protect it given half the chance.
The second story in the trilogy is Declan's. He's the caretaker, the one in charge. He feels responsible for everything and everyone. He carries the scars of responsibility that were borne by him after his mother died and his father went to pieces, and this responsibility he's brought into all other aspects of his life. Every day he battles with the fact that he could have saved his fiancee's life if he'd only been with her the day she fell during a rock climb. He's determined to stand alone and not to need anyone or anything more in his life than what he can provide himself.
Mason's is the third book in the New Zealand Knights trilogy. His was the most complex for me to write and I really had to dig deep into his loner psyche. I actually ended up writing his story three times before I got it right. He's a tough nut to crack. He's fiercely loyal and lives by his own code of ethics which finds most others wanting. He was driven to be a success and to take control of his life from the point at which he realised that life wasn't all about cracking the latest joke, but was all about making the right decisions and sticking by them.
And there was mention of cousins in The Boss's Christmas Seduction. Do you have plans for more Knights?
Oooh, now that you mention it Carmen does need her own story too, and she's bound to have sisters. Good point. I'll have to let that one gel for a bit. Right now I'm working on a stand alone story with a masterful Italian alpha hero and a discarded trophy wife. They're both very challenging people to work with!
Thanks for sharing some behind-the-scenes insights with us, Yvonne, and for agreeing to be our guest this week at Sunburnt Author. Readers, visitors, fans of category romance: if you have any further questions for Yvonne about this book or her upcoming projects or about her fabulous part of the world, ask away in the comments. Yvonne will be popping in during the week to read and respond. Have fun!
