Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife will be available in the US this June! And in July, Her Passionate Italian will be available in the UK.

Click the covers for more about these Kate Walker books.

A Message from Kate...

Hello again!

I was supposed to write this letter for the beginning of the month, but life got so hectic that I’m only just finding the time to write it. That’s been the story of my year! But I suppose that I should have expected that life would be busy this year, with the special Mills & Boon Centenary celebrations, but I didn’t think it would be quite this crazy.

But then there have been other things that have kept me busy as well. If you read my blog regularly, then you’ll be up to date with most or all of these, but if you haven’t visited for a while then I’ll give you a quick summary.

First of all, and most important is about my award-winning 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance. Back in September, the publisher told me that the first edition of this hugely popular book was completely sold out. We had known that this was coming and so I had started work on a second edition, wanting to have it ready as soon as possible. This second edition was published on April 8th, and on April 15th the new edition was officially launched at the London Book Fair at Earl’s Court. You can read all about this special day on my blog here (London Book Fair Release).

Why did I want to write a second edition? Well, first there's the obvious reason - the fact that the first edition sold out. That meant that no one can get a copy any more, unless they found one second-hand. Even Amazon doesn't have any used copies available.

Then there was the fact that some of the information in the original edition needed updating - for example, there were the names of some lines - Mills and Boon 'Tender Romance' was back to being just Mills & Boon Romance. And Silhouette Romance had merged with that line to be Harlequin Romance. Then there was the Modern Extra line which is now selling as Modern Heat. Nothing stays exactly the same in romance publishing for very long. And that includes the focus of the different lines; there are changes in the guidelines and the things that editors are looking for in submissions. So obviously it was time to plan a second edition.

But I also decided that if I was going to bring out a second edition, it was going to be an improved and expanded new edition as well as a revised one. I know a lot about writing romance but there are some things that only the authors who write for specific lines really know about.

And so I decided that the best way to make the book even more helpful would be to include advice from the horses' mouths so to speak. Only I didn't call it that - I called this new section From The Authors' Desks. I sent out questionnaires to lots of my wonderful friends who write romance for many different lines - and 21 of them answered. SO I'm thrilled to be able to say that the new edition is not only revised and updated, it also has this 40+ pages extra with advice and tips from 21 currently published authors. Authors like Michelle Reid, Anne McAllister, Sandra Marton in Presents, Liz Fielding, Natasha Oakley, in Romance, Trish Wylie and Julie Cohen in Modern Heat (Trish in Romance too!) - and Kate Hardy in Mod Heat and Medicals - along with Gill Sanderson and Margaret McDonagh. And in Historicals there's Nicola Cornick and Michelle Styles. . .and that's only as a taster. There's also Holly Jacobs from Harlequin Everlasting - er - Superromance (see there's another of those lines that came and went) and Yvonne Lindsay from Desire. Hopefully, whatever line you're aiming for you'll find something to help you there. You can read about this new edition and where you can buy it on my Writers page.

Other things that have kept me busy have been joining in the celebrations for that special Centenary Year for Mills and Boon. In February I was in London, this time at The Wallace Collection for the wonderful party that launched the celebrations, and in May I will be at Lincoln Book Festival for another special celebration, with three other great authors (Kate Hardy, Natasha Oakley and Trish Wylie). I will also be running a workshop to launch the second edition of the 12 Point Guide. You can find the details of both events on my Events page.

And I have been working on an exciting project that will hopefully be coming up in the future. Documentary maker Julie Moggan approached me for help with a documentary she plans to make about Mills & Boon. Julie has been interviewing authors and editors, but she would also like to talk to M&B readers. So if you are in the UK and would like to contribute to this documentary - here’s what Julie has to say:

Hi there, my name’s Julie. I’m a documentary maker and a fan of romantic fiction. I want to make a warm, intelligent documentary that celebrates the Mills & Boon publishing phenomenon in the year of its centenary. I want the film to take us into the personal worlds of Mills & Boon novelists and avid readers, to uncover the secrets of Mills & Boon’s enduring success and find answers to the perennial question ‘What do women really want ?!?!’.

I’m at the very early stages of research and at this point I’m very keen to chat to devoted fans of Mills & Boon novels, to hear what it is about the books that they love so much. I would also really love to hear from Mills & Boon novelists, to learn more about their lives & writing. I had a really exciting and inspiring meeting with Kate last week and she very kindly offered to let me make this posting on her website. So please do get in touch if you would be willing to talk. All discussion at this point would be off-camera and you’d be under no obligation to appear in the final documentary.

I look forward to hearing from you and telling you more about my project.

All the best
Julie Moggan
juliemoggan@yahoo.com

Finally, some more exciting news about books I have coming out this year – Firstly, there is the reprint of my novella The Duke’s Secret Wife which originally came out in 2002 in the collection Society Weddings, with Promised to the Sheikh by Sharon Kendrick. This will be published in the special Mills & Boon Centenary Collection and will be published in August.

And in the same month, all three books in The Alcolar Family trilogy are going to be reprinted in one volume as a collection in the By Request series. For those of you who don't know about The Alcolar Family or missed it the first time around, the Alcolars are two brothers, (well - half brothers - they have the same father - Juan Alcolar - but different mothers) and a sister, from a complicated aristocratic Spanish family and each book tells the story of one of them and their personal journey to their happy ever after. I know that a lot of you have written to say that you missed one or other of the books in this trilogy, so now this is you chance to get all three in one complete volume.

The details of both these books will appear on my books page and I’ll be able to tell you more about them the next time I write – which I hope will be very soon.

Until then, I send you all my warmest wishes and I hope you have lots of wonderful books to read.

Kate

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