April News

We've had a busy month, with 8 new Minx books out and many other projects percolating.
Here's a roundup of April's news.

Romy - New book out via Harper Impulse - Waking Up in Vegas will be available from May 9th, and is available for pre-order now on Amazon and Amazon UK.

Rae - Re-release of Let's Misbehave - available exclusively on Amazon and Amazon UK now.




Rae - New book, Prohibited Passion is now also available on Amazon and Amazon UK.

Kat - Undertaking Love via HarperCollins, available everywhere now including Amazon and Amazon UK.






Tara - Mills and Boon/Harlequin debut A Hint of Scandal is now available to pre-order on Amazon and Amazon UK.

Maya - The Sinful Art of Revenge is available in bookshops and as an ebook (Amazon and Amazon UK amongst others).








Suzanne - After a bumper March in which she sold five short stories and the large print rights for Hidden Heartache, Suz sold a further two short stories this month, and her latest People's Friend pocket novel Your Secret Smile, is available in shops now.

Kitty French - Knight and Stay release date Monday 6th May.






In other news, Lorraine has two books out on submission, Maya has delivered her 4th Mills and Boon, and Sally is preparing a new book to self publish... watch this space!

Author Spotlight - Aimee Duffy

1. Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.

Not much has changed since the last time you lovely ladies had me here (sadly). Still hammering away at the keyboard, abusing my delete button and spending too much money on shoes.

2. What number book is this? First? 100th? 200th?(Nora only!)

Published? Four if you include the short I had in a Christmas anthology last year. If you mean manuscript I have countless wips on my laptop, waiting to be fixed and submitted. Six new since the last time I was here.

3. Everyone who writes knows it's not easy - what methods do you use to keep at it on days when it would be so much easier to go shoe shopping?

It isn’t easy to keep focused and I have no willpower at all. I pick shopping over writing any day. Thankfully I’m not minted so can’t afford to shop all the time. Instead, I make myself do something writing related every day. Even get up early to rack up the words. Still, Sundays are the most productive. I treat that as my main writing day now. I’m not satisfied until I have at least 5k down on a Sunday.

4. What is your top promo tip for other authors?

Promo is hard. I hate it. I feel like a serial spammer when I go at it. However, it’s necessary if you want to get the word out about your release, so it’s a must. I highly recommend booking a good blog tour, especially one who offers the hosts a chance to review your book. My latest find is Tasty Book Tours and Lisa is lovely to work with. She also has her own professional review site, Tasty Book Reviews.

5. How does writing fit into your day? Or does your day fit in around your writing?

It doesn’t, not now that work is crazy, but I make it. Whether I stay up until 1am or set my alarm a few hours early, I make a point of writing, revising, or promoting, every day.

6. Is there a book you haven't written yet that you're dying to? What genre?

I’m half way through a single title shifter story, and I’d like to breach the line into erotic romance (when I’m braver!).

7. Any craft books you recommend?

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Great for pointing out the difference between showing and telling. Plus it has a huge ‘dictionary’ of emotions, and instead of meanings, the book lists possible reactions to the emotion to help improve writing. It’s my new bible.

8. What was the most fun part of writing this book?

Sander’s mother is a movie star and his father is a director. They didn’t have time for him when he was growing up, so left him with a nanny. When he makes his ‘fake’ relationship with Chloe public, there’s a scene where his parents gate-crash a celebration dinner for Chloe in The Ivy and give the poor girl a hard time. I loved all the poison dripping out around the table. (What does that say about me?)

9. Could you be friends with any of your heroines?

I could so easily be best friends with Chloe. She’s down to earth, real and has a heart of gold. Plus she has the same Barbour coat as me ;o).

10. At what point in your career did you actually start to feel like you were a writer?

I still don’t really. Yes, I write. Yup, I have three books published, but do I feel like an author? No. This all still feels like a hobby I love doing, which is fantastic, because who wants two jobs?

When pretend turns to desire, heartbreak is unavoidable.

Sander Chase needs a date for his ex-fiancée's engagement party, but he doesn't have time for a woman in his life. Between working on the TV show Do You Have What It Takes? and his band reforming, he's too busy for a relationship. What he needs is a pretend girlfriend. He thinks he may have found the perfect woman for the job, and the bribe he offers means she's sure to accept.

After losing her job in the film industry, breaking up with her movie star boyfriend, and finding out her mum has dementia, Chloe Butler returned to the UK determined to put her life back together. The last thing she needs is to parade around London on the arm of a celebrity, and after the heartbreak caused by her ex, she swore she'd never again date a star. But when Sander offers her a chance at her dream job, it's not something she can turn down.

As Chloe gets to know Sander she learns he's nothing like her scumbag ex. But she struggles to fight her attraction to him, knowing their relationship is only for show and their separation date is closing in fast.

Ignoring the insane chemistry between them should be easy for Sander, especially since he carries a secret that means there can be no future for them, but the more time he spends with Chloe, the harder it is to keep his hands to himself.

Content Warning: contains more denial than you'll find in a courtroom, more sexual tension than most people could handle, and explosive sex that some readers may find long overdue.


Never Say Never is available from Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks and Beachwalk Press.

Editor-Proof Your Writing

I'm a sucker for a few things. Licorice all-sorts, chocolate, music while I write, and craft books on writing. I've decided to feature some of my favorites over the next few blog posts from me here on the Minxes blog. Years ago I did a fantastic online course on editing by Don McNair in which he laid out 21 ways to eliminate foggy writing and clean up your manuscript. At this stage, I hadn't been published, but the first manuscript I ran through his system ended up being the first book I sold, Catch Me A Catch.

I'm delighted to say that Don has now put all that information into a book, called Editor-Proof Your Writing, and it's available for kindle and also in print (I've got a paperback version).

The thing I like best about this book is that you work on your own writing with it. Don encourages the reader to take the first chapter of your work in progress and apply each of his editing processes in turn to it. This means that instead of being a general 'book about editing', it is instead a powerful tool that you can apply to your words, your story, to strengthen it and strip away redundancies. Yes, it means 21 passes of the same material, but the insight into the way you write, the things you automatically do and shouldn't, is very powerful. Not everyone has the same weaknesses in writing, but using this book means that you quickly identify yours.

As an example here's one of my problems:

Use fewer -ing words.
She started walking toward the door.
Do we mean she got one foot into the air and stopped? No, you say? Well the author should have said this instead:
She walked toward the door.

The new sentence eliminates a word. One unit of fog. More importantly, it strengthens the action. She didn't just start something, she actually did it.

Another example:

Picking up a rock, she threw it at the dog.
This sentence defies logic. How can the girl do both simultaneously, which is implied? Mustn't she pick up the rock before she throws it? Let's say instead:
She picked up a rock and threw it at the dog.

Another great section for me is a section about superflous verbiage (another one of my problems).
Here are a couple of examples, the second line is the improvement:

Betty yawned and then made a casual comment about it being no big deal.
Betty yawned and said it was no big deal.

He looked toward the village, but with the mist so thick it was difficult to see it.
He looked toward the village, almost hidden by the thick mist.

Personally, when I'm writing I just write. I get the words onto the page, and don't worry too much about my stylistic errors, or foggy writing. But after I've finished a manuscript, I go through it and clean it up. Don's notes help me with that, and I'm glad I now have them all in one place in a book!

Undertaking Love

I'm so excited to be able to say that this time next week will be launch day for Undertaking Love!

It's a book that is very close to my heart. It seemed to take forever to write, and it is the book I wrote when I final realised that, much as I dearly wanted it to at the time, my style was never going to fit the guidelines for category romance.

When I started to write Undertaking Love I had no clue what the heck I was going to do with it, and it is only by luck that I posted the partial onto HarperCollins Authonomy website. That seems a long time ago now, and it has been an exciting ride (punctuated by those loooooooong nail-biting periods of silence that we are all accustomed to of course).

The book has changed title, I've changed pseudonym, and here we are at last, almost good to go. :O)

The amazon listing went live a couple of weeks ago for pre-order, and from there on in things really started to hot up. Review copies have gone out, and last week Undertaking Love featured in The Sun national newspaper as their e-book of the week!
That was a real thrill, as was the subsequent effect on the rankings. I'm already addicted to watching sales and rankings data from my Kitty French books, so this is my brand new baby to obsess over. :O)

I'm ridiculously excited already;  I think a tranquilizer dart might be required next week!

Kat xx

The official blurb for Undertaking Love from HarperCollins, and the links to Amazon UK & US.

The moment love-phobic Marla Jacobs discovers that the shop next to her Little White Wedding Chapel is to become a funeral parlour, she declares all-out war.

Marla’s chapel in the sleepy Shropshire countryside has become a nation-wide sensation, but the arrival of Funeral Director Gabriel Ryan threatens everything Marla has worked for. She can picture the scene: wedding limos fighting for space in the street with hearses; brides bumping into widows; bouquets being swapped for wreaths

Marla’s not going down without a fight. She enlists a motley crew of weird and wonderful local supporters, and the battle lines are drawn. But, as soon as Marla meets her nemesis, she realises just how much trouble she’s really in. His gypsy curls and Irish lilt make her stomach fizz – how is she supposed to concentrate on destroying him, when half the time she’s struggling not to rip the shirt off his back?

Funny, romantic, and dangerously sexy, UNDERTAKING LOVE is a delightful debut from an exciting new voice in Women’s fiction.

Click HERE for Undertaking Love on Amazon UK, available on pre-order now.

Click HERE for Undertaking Love on Amazon US, available on pre-order now. 

Thoughts and Prayers

In light of the events taking place just now at the Boston marathon, we've decided not to run our planned light hearted post today.

All of our thoughts and prayers are with those involved and their families at this horrible time.

The Minxes xx