Ann Lethbridge - Mills & Boon New Voices - Foreword by Katie Fforde

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by Katie Fforde

The simple answer is, I became addicted. I started reading Mills & Boon® novels when my life was quite stressful. My husband and I were running a pair of narrow boats as a hotel, we started at Easter and we didn’t have a day off until we closed for the season in October. Having a book you could pick up and put down and keep abreast of the plot, where you didn’t have to read through a lot of dull stuff before you got to the “good bits” (Mills & Boon® novels are all “good bits.”) was a real prop. Two or three minutes reading, away from cooking, passengers, manhandling the boat, kept me sane.

And, oh, how I related to them! I loved the thought of meeting a sexy millionaire who would “take me away from all this.” I used to imagine a car stopping as I carried bags and bags of provisions back along the road to our boats, and somehow sweeping me away from my cares and responsibilities.

When we gave up our boat business and bought a house in Wales, I had babies. My time was even more limited and, with my husband away at sea a lot of the time, I was also lonely.

I found companionship in those books. If I had a little pile of them waiting to be read, I knew I could be transported in an instant, away from the nappy bucket, the coal shed and the chicken house.

Later, when my children slept better and I read with more discernment, I realised the books were not all the same. There were some writers I looked out for, Sara Craven, Penny Jordan, Sophie Weston, Betty Neels. I began to notice the different sorts of books and develop favourites. This was when I thought that I wanted to write one. I wanted to give to others the escape, the pleasure and the missing romance (my husband was a sailor!)that I had had from Mills&Boon® novels.

I also thought (in my naivety) that, as they were only half the length of most novels around at the time and they published many, many more of them each month than mainstream publishers, my chances of success must be better.

Eventually, when we got to Stroud, and after I’d had my third child, I started writing.

I loved it! I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association and found other mad, totally committed, die-hard romantic women who only wanted to write novels for Mills & Boon and I made eight attempts. And failed.

It took me eight years to find out I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t create characters, plot and a stonking romance and fit it all into fifty thousand words and it was a sad revelation. But I learnt so much about writing I look at those eight years of failure as my apprenticeship. All writers should try and write for Mills & Boon and when they don’t make the grade they mustn’t fool themselves that their writing is “too good” for genre fiction. The fact is, they are extremely hard to get right and I salute all the authors who made it. I also thank them deeply, for all the happiness, escape and pure pleasure they have given me over the years.

Consequently, I am delighted to applaud and introduce to you four writers who got their personal camels through the eye of the needle and produced fantastic stories for Mills & Boon this year. Lynn Raye Harris, Nikki Logan, Molly Evans and Ann Lethbridge have all done a brilliant job, achieving publication in the Modern™, Romance, Medical™ and Historical series. (I’m only slightly jealous!) If you love romance, you’ll love Mills & Boon New Voices and, if you haven’t read a Mills & Boon romance for a while, this collection should make you remember just how good falling for a gorgeous man can make you feel. You can travel from an Arabian principality to Queensland, Australia to New Mexico’s Santa Fe and back in time to Regency England, all without moving from the safety of the sofa. There’s a desert prince, a rugged Aussie, a handsome ER doctor and a Regency earl all waiting to please you – irresistible? I hope so. It certainly works for me!

Love and best wishes,

Katie Fforde

To LB. I miss you.

And to Mike. My everything, times two.

LYNN RAYE HARRISread her first Mills & Boon® romance when her grandmother carted home a box from a sale. She didn’t know she wanted to be a writer then, but she definitely knew she wanted to marry a sheikh or a prince and live the glamorous life she read about in the pages. Instead, she married a military man and moved around the world. These days she makes her home in North Alabama with her handsome husband and two crazy cats. Writing for Mills & Boon is a dream come true. You can visit her at www.lynnrayeharris.com

Lynn Raye Harris now writes for Mills & Boon®

Modern™; her latest novel, The Devil’s Heart, was available in July 2010 and she plans to have a new book out in early 2011.

Dear Reader,

I read my very first Mills & Boon® novel when I was about ten years old. I don’t remember anything about it, really, except that it featured a desert sheikh, a beautiful Englishwoman and a lot of emotional scenes that made me worry whether or not everything would work out in the end.

Naturally, the romance did work out and the beautiful English heroine got to stay with the handsome desert sheikh who loved her so passionately. Oh, swoon. I was hooked. For the next several years, I read every Mills & Boon romance I could get my hands on. But if there was a sheikh in any of the books, that was the one I read first.

Fast-forward many years, and I am now a Mills & Boon® author writing my own stories of passion and happy-ever-after. It’s truly a dream come true to follow in the footsteps of my favourite authors. I have written stories featuring an ex-bullfighter, princes and even an ex-mercenary – but until now, I’ve not written a sheikh.

When my editor asked me if I wanted to write a sheikh for this story, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. I immediately could see the desert, the swirling sands, the heat and a gorgeous man dressed in the traditional white robes and flowing headdress. But who was his heroine? Finally, it came to me. This was a story about a second chance at love.

King Zafir bin Rashid al-Khalifa once had a passionate affair with American archaeologist Dr Geneva Gray. But the relationship didn’t work out for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact they came from two different worlds and had different expectations of what a life together might be like. Ten years later, when they meet again, circumstances have changed quite a bit. The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is their need for each other.

I had so much fun writing Zafir and Genie’s story and I hated letting them go in the end. I hope you’ll agree that it’s a passionate and beautiful love story when you’ve finished. So sit down, get comfortable and let yourself be swept into the desert for a few hours. Feel the heat, see the sand, smell the spices. Enjoy.