I can't begin to tell
you how
excited I am today. Wanna know why? Because Liz Fielding is on the
bloggity. LIZ freakin' FIELDING!!! Only my favorite Harlequin Romance
author EVER!!! I do not exaggerate. When I want a romantic, comfort
read, I reach for a Liz Fielding book. If you have not read her, RUN,
do not walk to your bookstore or Amazon website and start stocking up
on her books!! I am both honored and privileged to have Liz visit
today. Please give Liz a very warm Deanna's World welcome. Kick back
and join me in learning more about Liz...
About Liz
I
met my husband when we were both working in Zambia. We were both
members of the Lusaka Theatre Club appearing in a production of St
Joan. He was playing John De Stogumber in St Joan and I was page boy to
the Earl of Warwick. He swears it was the purple tights that got him.
We travelled a lot with his job, Africa and the Middle East, then we
had babies, settled down and I started to write. My first book,
An Image of You, set
in Kenya, was published in 1992, re-released by Harlequin Special
Releases (July 20, 2015).
The
writing life is not glamorous. I still have to wash the dishes, make
the beds, iron the best-beloved’s shirts, keep on top of the weeds in
the garden but, while I’m doing all that, I have time to live in my
head with my characters. Get to know them. Hear them talking.
I
love listening to the radio – not music, talk radio – hearing people
talk about their lives, and radio drama, too. I read crime when I’m
writing (reading other author’s romances tends to lead you down
sidepaths). I read a lot.
I’ve written 63 books and two short
stories for Harlequin Romance, three full length mainstream romances
and my Little Book of Writing Romance, a non-fiction how-to for
writers. I’m hoping to emulate the wonderful Betty Neels and still be
writing in my nineties.
Most asked question
"Where
do you get your ideas from?"
The
real answer is, I fear, is the one the questioner least wants to hear,
the one that authors hate to admit to, the one that sounds like a cop
out. We don’t know. It’s a kind of magic. They are absorbed by osmosis
from the atmosphere. Overheard snatches of conversations, a newspaper
headline, a line in a film will start a thread of thought.
It’s
an ephemeral thing, a scrap of cobweb drifting on warm air. It can be
lost in a moment of distraction, blown away in the slightest draught.
Or it can touch against other thoughts, picking up the grit of
character, conflict, motivation until it becomes tangible; the bones of
a story needing only to be clothed in words, translated from thought to
paper (which is the really hard bit, by the way).
Today we are featuring
The Ice Cream Girls please! by Liz.
I
have written three books about the Amery sisters – Lovage (Tempted By
Trouble), Sorrel (Anything But Vanilla) and Angelica (Vettori’s Damsel
in Distress) over several years, telling how their lives changed with
the arrival of “Rosie”, a vintage ice cream van. From desperately
struggling to survive on the money Lovage earned as a waitress, to
running their own successful ice cream events company, “Scoop!”
I
loved every minute I spent with those girls and so, this spring I’ve
written a short story about two of the characters who helped drive the
plot in Anything But Vanilla, Ria (the flamboyant Knickerbocker Gloria
herself) and Graeme Laing (stiff, disapproving and a millionaire).
Melting
Mr Frosty’s Heart is with my copy-editor at the moment, but I’ll be
launching it very soon – first to my faithful newsletter readers, who
will be able to read it free.
And finally, what’s next
I’ve
just delivered a new book to my editor – it’s got a fabulously romantic
location, a disinherited sheikh, a career girl with a family secret, a
marriage of convenience and a touch of danger. My working title is The
Sheikh’s Temporary Princess but it may clash with something else
already in the slips waiting to be published so I have to wait for my
editor’s ideas (and then negotiate for something I can live with!)
(Deanna) UPDATE: I got
an update from Liz that the new book now has a title. It's The
Sheikh's Convenient Princess
.
I'm super excited for another sheikh story from Liz. I love her
sheikhs. They are nothing like the real life sheikhs I encountered when
I was living in the Middle East. :-p
It will be published in February 2017.
I’m
now working on an author-led mini-series with three other
fabulous authors. I can’t reveal too much about this at the moment but
it will be published next summer.
Check out some of these
titles by Liz too
About the author
Liz Fielding:
Website
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Facebook
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Twitter
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