London Treasure Hunt

I’m interrupting my own blogging on the RWA conference to tell you about a totally cool London happening.

Last year I had a book out called Saying Yes To The Millionaire, about safety-conscious Fern and daredevil Josh and their mad race around London for four days on a charity treasure hunt.

Little did I know that there was a real London Treasure Hunt last summer! And they’re having another one this year on Saturday 22^nd August. It lasts one day and there’s a prize-giving party at the end of it.

I so wish I could do it! It would be amazing to dash around London, tasting a little of what my characters’ experienced, but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it. (Sob) Maybe next year?

If you’re interested in taking part – teams can be from two to six people – and registration is open now. (http://www.thelondontreasurehunt.com) It costs £20 per person to enter and they will be raising money for Macmillan Cancer Care and Ragalla Aid. Go on! You know you want to! I do! (Another sob).

Romance Prize 2009

Finally I can let the cat out of the bag and tell you that I've made the shortlist for the RNA's Romance Prize again this year!

Here's the full press release, including the shortlist:

The Romantic Novelists’ Association, who will announce the shortlist for the Romantic Novel of the Year award on 13th January, is also honouring writers of shorter romances such as those published by Harlequin Mills and Boon.

“Although both awards celebrate novels with a high romantic content,” explains Catherine Jones, Chairman of the RNA, “the Romance Prize honours the most memorable stories set around a single theme that concentrates on the developing love affair.”

The Romance Prize will be presented at the RNA’s Awards Lunch on 10th February 2009 at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington. The winner will be selected from the following books:

What's Love Got to Do With It? - Lucy Broadbent (Little Black Dress, Headline)
The Wild Card - Beth Elliott (Robert Hale)
Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure - India Grey (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
Sold to the Highest Bidder - Kate Hardy (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
Saying Yes to the Millionaire - Fiona Harper (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
Promoted to Wife and Mother - Jessica Hart (Harlequin Mills & Boon)

Fiona Harper has been short-listed before, and both Jessica Hart and Kate Hardy are past winners. Kate Hardy, who won in 2008 with Breakfast at Giovanni’s, had this to say: "Winning the Romance Prize has been the highlight of my career to date, and it's certainly opened up opportunities. I'm very proud to have won the award and to be part of the RNA - and have been delighted by messages of support over the year. I even had a personal letter of congratulations from the chancellor of the University of Leicester!"

The shortlist will be judged by Margaret James, creative writing teacher for the London School of Journalism and regular columnist with Writing Magazine; Paul Reizin, writer, producer and journalist; and Linda Leatherbarrow, prize-winning short story writer, reviewer and MA lecturer at Middlesex.

Margaret James, a member of the RNA for 20 years with 13 published novels to her credit and a former organiser of the Romance Prize and the New Writers’ Scheme, says it’s a delight to be involved in the judging. “I'm finding the shortlisted novels are perfect reading treats for these cold winter evenings, and I know that choosing a winner is going to be very hard.”

Former journalist and TV producer Paul Reizin is the author of three comic novels and a memoir of his life in the lonely hearts, Date Expectations - the true story of how he met his wife. Reizin says: “Romantic fiction is generally thought to be a female preserve, so in helping judge the 2009 Romance Prize, it’s particularly nice to be asked to provide a male perspective.”

Linda Leatherbarrow’s story collection Essential Kit was published by Maia in 2004. She has won a Bridport Prize, an Asham Award and is a three time winner of the London Writers Competition. Her stories have been widely published and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Linda says: “I was delighted to be asked to judge this prize and look forward very much to meeting the short-listed authors.”


Now, do I read the ones on the shortlist I haven't read yet and continue to scare myself silly before the ceremony on 10th Feb, or do I bury my head in the sand and remain blissfully ignorant?

Anyway, congratulations to all the other authors on the shortlist and I look forward to saying hello to you all on the day!

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 8 part 1

Chapter 8 also brings enough locations to split it into a couple of posts. Fern and Josh’s first clue leads them to another tube station, but since they only make a pit stop at this point and return to it later, I’m going to skip on to the next couple of locations first.

The first destination is Old Billingsgate fish market. It lies on the north side of the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge and was the city’s main fish market for more than 900 years, renowned for its noise and foul language. The market moved to new premises in 1982, but old building remains, although it is not open to the public.

This is where Fern has her least favourite challenge – eating yucky things! There is a large terrace in front of the building, where I placed my imaginary fishmonger’s stand. And as Fern leans over the railing, feeling a little green, she gets a fantastic view of Tower Bridge.

From there, my hero and heroine race to the most romantic destination in Saying Yes To The Millionaire – St. Dunstan-in-the-East. I wandered into this ruined church completely by accident more than 20 years ago and was entranced to find a beautiful garden inside. It truly is one of London’s hidden treasures, tucked away inside the old city. The spire was built by Christopher Wren, the architect responsible for St Paul’s Cathedral, and is one of the surviving features of the Blitz in 1941.

“Instead of the musty air and vaulted ceiling of a centuries-old church, it was as if she'd stumbled into a corner of Eden. The ancient stone walls were still in place with their ornate arched window frames, but where the pews should have been was a garden—stone paths, drooping shrubs and a softly gurgling fountain. Another world amidst the pollution-stained buildings and grimy streets.”

Chapter 8 , Saying Yes To The Millionaire.

A thunder storm rolls in and things get a little hot and steamy between Fern and Josh in this very spot in one of the ruined towers:

"She found a spot under a thick branch thrusting through one of the glassless windows where the rain wasn't falling so hard. She reached out and grabbed a handful of Josh's T-shirt and pulled him close so he was covered too.

Still concentrating on the camera, he shook the water out of his hair. Her pulse began to gallop. He was very sexy when he was damp, and he was only a few inches from her.

He stopped checking the camera and smiled at her. ‘Back to Aldwych tube station. Do you want to wait here for a minute or two or shall we just get going?’ he stuffed the camera into his pocket, then flinched and let out a yell as a big drop of water hit him on the back of the head and rolled down between his shoulder blades. ‘Not much shelter here, is there?’

She looked at him, suddenly feeling very serious.

‘It's enough.’

Rain was running down his face and she reached up to smooth it away from his cheeks, to explore the damp spikes of his hair with her fingertips.

Josh froze. The look in her eyes totally floored him—so full of warmth and tenderness and... desire... for him. He shouldn't want her to look at him that way but, oh boy, he did."

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 7 part 2

Every good treasure hunt needs a map, doesn’t it? I think the clue involving the London Underground map was my favourite bit of the treasure hunt element of Saying Yes To The Millionaire. I had an idea early on that I would like to send them on a photo scavenger hunt on the London Underground system as it’s such a vital part of the city.

I remembered reading about the Henry Beck’s design for Tube map and how ground-breaking it had been. Before Beck’s map, the stations had always been depicted in their geographical locations. Take a look at this:

Confusing isn’t it! Henry Beck came up with the idea of showing the stations in relation to each other, ignoring the geographical distances and kept it simple by only using horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. The ironic thing was that Mr Beck, an engineering draughtsman by trade, was unemployed at the time he came up with his idea, after having been made redundant by London Underground. He was paid five guineas for his work and was often not credited for his idea, even though it was the basis of many modern transport maps.

Here’s a copy of Henry Beck’s original drawing that I printed out while I was writing the book. It is little more than a doodle, with a few sketchy lines representing the different Underground lines and a few dots to represent the stations. It wasn’t easy working out a trail of ten stations that would tax the treasure hunt contestants because, if you look closely, you’ll see there aren’t that many dots and they are on just one or two lines.

I wanted to map out the ten stops on the trail, even if I didn’t use most of them in the book. The first challenge was to work out which stations the blobs were. I got out my trusty pocket tube map and almost instantly got stuck. Some of the stations were obvious, but I couldn’t work out the rest. It wasn’t until I took a good look at the 19030s version of the map, which resembles Beck’s sketch much more closely, that I could identify the stations.

Noticing the differences between the original map and today’s map – changes in names, stations that had appeared or disappeared - gave me an idea for Fern and Josh's final destination for this day of the race, but more about that in the post about chapter 8…

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 7

After the Covent Garden busking challenge, day 3 of the treasure hunt leads Fern and Josh all over the place. They find themselves in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which runs under the River Thames between Cutty Sark Gardens and Island Gardens, on the Isle of Dogs. It is 1,217 feet in length and approx 50 feet deep. Its original purpose was to allow south London residents to get to work in the docks on the Isle of Dogs without having to rely on the ferries and was opened in 1902.

Twin glazed domes sit on either side of the river. Inside is a circular lift, which used to have wooden benches all the way round. I’m not sure if they’re still there, as the lifts were updated in the 90s and I’ve never been there while the lifts have been open in recent years. No lifts means you have to use the stairs. If my daughters and I counted right on our last visit, there are more on one side than there are on the other, but there are more than 300 steps on both sides. The tunnel itself reminds me of some of the tunnels that join various sections of the London Underground, with its uniform white glazed tiles.

Once on the south side of the Thames, Fern and Josh visit the Cutty Sark, a fabulous old tea clipper that has been a popular tourist attraction there for many years. You can walk on the deck and go below to see how the sailors lived. This was a favourite place for my grandmother to take my sister and I when we were small and my favourite, favourite bit was the display of old figureheads that almost completely filled one of the lower decks. There are the traditional type carvings, beautiful women or spirits to guide the ship safely home, but there are also more unusual ones – Florence Nightingale, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and a fox hunter, complete in riding pinks.

While I was writing Saying Yes To The Millionaire, I was horrified to catch an article on the news which showed the beautiful old ship on fire! I was so saddened to think of all those wonderful artefacts – especially the figureheads – going up in flames. I later learned that, because the ship was undergoing renovation, most of the items of historical value had been removed and were elsewhere, but part of the hull and ship’s support system had been damaged. I decided to keep my scenes on the Cutty Sark in the book, because I think it’s a fantastic location, even though, in reality, Fern and Josh would probably not be able to visit the ship in it’s full glory until at least 2010. Although the police originally suspected arson, the cause of the fire has never been confirmed.

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 6

The beginning of Chapter 6 sees Fern and Josh navigating their way out of Chislehurst caves (see Chp 5 post for info). All Fern’s confidence has evaporated by the time they reach the sunlight. She’s started to realise that she can’t plan for everything and that to move forward, in the race and in life, she is going to have to take risks.

The first challenge of the day is busking to raise money for the day’s race in Covent Garden and it starts in Chapter 6 and concludes in Chapter 7. It’s an area of London filled with open-air cafes, street performers and markets. In the centre is the Piazza, with its covered central market which houses little shops and boutiques. Prices are not for the faint-hearted! There are also arts and crafts stalls here an in the nearby Jubilee Hall.

Covent Garden is a great place to hang out on a sunny summer’s day and people watch. If you like street entertainers, this is the place to come. The portico of St Paul’s church (see above) on the west side of the Piazza. Originally, this was to be the grand entrance to the church, but this meant placing the altar at the east end of the building, which caused a furore, and it the altar was moved the conventional position at the east end of the church, meaning the portico on the Piazza is now a fake door as the church is entered from the other side of the building. It provides a great backdrop for street entertainers, though, and this is where Fern and Josh, with the help from another team of twin brothers, wow the crowds with some hot salsa dancing. Josh starts to see a side to Fern she wasn’t even aware of herself, especially as they end the dance with her hand on his rear end and she really, really doesn’t want to let go!

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 5

Now I've sent the current book in (again!), I'll get get back to the buisness of locations and inspirations for Saying Yes To The Millionaire. Here's a quick re-cap of the locations with a little bit about what I was trying to do with the story at the same time:

Chapters 1 & 2 found Fern and Josh on the banks of the Thames - either high on a crane about to bungee jump, or walking along the Thames Embankment.

Chapter 3 was where the race started in Trafalgar Square.

At this point I wanted Fern to be terrified out of her wits. She doesn't like spur of the moment, high adrenaline things, so she's struggling, and happy to follow Josh around and do what he says.

Her lesson for the first day of the race (Thursday) was to be open to the world of glorious possibilities. Even though she might not enjoy all her experiences during this day of the race, at least she is experiencing something! I wanted her to see that even having a negative reaction to something was better than no reaction at all - it let her know she was alive rather than just hibernating!

Chapter 4 took them to Berwick Street Market, Speakers' Corner and the National Gallery.

In the market, Fern totally relies on Josh, even when he doesn't have the best ideas. But at Speakers' Corner she has to think for herself and finds that she can do something she's really scared of. By the time they get to the gallery clues, she's starting to feel more comfortable, starting to find her feet. She's actually starting to enjoy herself. By the time they head off into chapter 5 she's feeling pretty confident. Maybe over-confident? Time will tell.


CHAPTER 5
The first part of this chapter covers the finding of the painting clue that has all the other teams flumoxed (see chapter 4 post).

Fern and Josh travel to Chislehurst Caves in South East London. Under a leafy, affluent suburb lies a network of caves that stretches for 22 miles. They are not actually caves, but mines. Although some people theorised they were made in the time of the druids (and there are plenty of spooky stories the tour guides tell) historical records first date mining for flint, chalk and lime in the 1200s.


This place used to seriously freak me out as a child. It was cold and damp and local legend mentioned a ghost of a woman who haunted a pool in the middle of the caves, and of people who had tried to stay the night there alone, but had died trying to find their way out of the maze of tunnels, screaming in fear after seeing the ghost.

Actually, getting lost in there would not be fun, as the tunnels all look the same and it's very difficult to work out where you are sometimes. However, this didn't stop the place being used as an air raid shelter during the Second World War, where it became like an underground city with 15000 inhabitants. In fact, the caves' history attracted artists like Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix, who all performed down there in the 1960s.

Fern, at this point, has become too comfortable. She's dug herself another little rut and she's going to stick in it, no matter what. And Fern's refusal to follow her instincts causes her team to miss and opportunity to maintain their lead. Her first lesson of this day of the race is to grab chances as they happen.

Behind the Scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire - Chp 4

Fern and Josh’s first clue is this:

Make your way to Berwick Street market. There you will find ten stalls with the Secret London logo on them. Two teams may work on each stall. Your team must sell £30 worth of fruit and veg in order to receive your next clue.




Berwick Street is a crowded little road lined with fabric shops, many selling material for saris. Incense wafts out of the fabric shops and mixes with the smells of fresh produce on the market stalls that line the pavement. I seriously wouldn’t consider buying electrical goods from some of the ‘geezers’ manning the stalls. Ever seen the comedy show ‘Only Fools And Horses’? Nuff said.



Next stop is Speakers’ Corner, an area at the edge of Hyde Park. On a Sunday, people can exercise their right to free speech here. Some of the 'speakers' make sense, some are out and out nutcases. It’s normally empty on weekdays (see photo), but for the purpose of the book, I invented an extra session complete with a baying crowd drawn by the radio coverage of the contest.




The following clue is a little more complicated and Fern and Josh find themselves back in Trafalgar Square and start hunting for a Turner painting – The Hay Wain:

It's housed in the National Gallery. I actually spent a day navigating Fern and Josh's route and working out which rooms they would end up in following their clues. The area of gallery that is closed in the book was really blocked off on the day I visited. Things are going fairly well until Fern starts to find her stride in the race and realises that they’re not only barking up the wrong tree, but in the wrong gallery looking for the wrong painting. Josh is so impressed, he plants a kiss on her, and that’s where things start to get complicated!

Next stop is another gallery – the Tate Britain. Fern and Josh discover they painting they are actually looking for is this one:

Which leads them to another paining, one of my absolute favourites – Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. I swear, when you stand in front of it, those paper lanterns really seem to glow. And I could stare at the frill details on the girls' dresses for hours...

Behind the scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire, Chp 3

The starting point for the Secret London treasure hunt that Fern and Josh take part in is Trafalgar Square.

The National Gallery (more about that later!) flanks the whole of the north side of the square and you can see down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament if you stand with your back to the gallery. (See if you can spot 'Big Ben' in the photo above. The name Big Ben actually refers to the bell inside the tower, rather than the tower itself, but who's splitting hairs?).

Nelson’s Column towers over the square, with grand stone lions flanking the base of this famous general's monument. It’s a popular place for outdoor meetings and rallies and I thought it would be a great location to start and finish the race. In fact, if you look in the photo below, there are railings and a stall set up right where I'd pictured the race starting.

Here’s the entrance to the tube station on Trafalgar Square, connected to Charing Cross by a long underground tunnel. Unfortunately, Fern’s brain has short-circuited and she’s forgotten that their next destination is in the opposite direction…

Behind the scenes: Saying Yes To The Millionaire, Chapters 1 & 2

Right! The current book is IN! So, as promised, here is some of the background to Fern and Josh's story, Saying Yes To The Millionaire.


First of all, let me introdice you to my hero and heroine. Fern Chambers is a risk analyst, who is happy with the fact that the most daring thing she does on a regular basis is try a new flavoured syrup in her decaff latte. But her best friend challenges her to say 'yes' to every question she is asked for a week, and because her friend is promising money to her favourite charity, Fern accepts.


Enter Josh Adams, the boy next door. Or he was the boy next door, now he's the successful owner of a travel company and he's back in town for a bit. What a pity Fern discovers the teenage crush she used to have for him doesn't seem to have worn off. Josh is a daredevil, a wanderer, and he's looking for some excitement before he dashes off to some far-flung place. He discovers that there's a charity treasure hunt going on in London that weekend and decides that Fern is the perfect partner. Poor old Fern has no option but to say YES!


They first meet again when Fern is doing a bungee jump near the banks of the Thames. If you want to read about their first meeting click here and you can read the short excerpt on my website. There used to be a large crane set up near Battersea Park that was used for bungee jumps. It's not there anymore, but I invented a site somewhere near the Thames Embankment. There's always something being demolished or built somewhere in London and my imaginary crane was set up on a brown-field site awaiting development.


After the jump, Fern and Josh take a walk along the Thames Embankment, which runs along the river from Battersea Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. It was built in the 1860s on the foreshore of the Thames to provide a road and walkway on the surface and room for a new sewage system and underground lines underneath. The views walking along here are some of the prettiest in London and I am totally in love with the large black lampposts with grotesque round-headed Victorian fish wound round them.

If you look carefully on the front cover of the book, you can see that the artist has used this setting. Looking at Fern and Josh on the cover, they're a pretty good match for the people I pictured in my head too!


I have another reason for liking the Embankment, a much more personal one. It was sitting on a bench there, many moons ago on a chilly October evening, that my husband proposed to me, and I still think it's one of the most romantic places in the world!

Saying Yes To The Millionaire - the inspiration

What would you do if you had to say ‘yes’ to every question you were asked? I spotted a similar sentence on a tag line of a New Year article in a magazine. I’m sure you know the sort of article I’m talking about. The kind that encourages you to take up new hobbies and embrace strange fads. I stopped in my tracks and didn’t even bother to read the rest. The lightning bolt had already struck and an idea for a story was brewing. A nice, ordinary girl could get herself into all sorts of trouble if she accepted a challenge like that, couldn’t she?


This spark of a story then combined with another idea. I absolutely love the hit TV show ‘The Amazing Race’ in which teams race each other around the globe trying to beat each other to a million dollars and had been waiting for an excuse to throw a hero and heroine into that pressure-cooker situation where everything they’d been trying to hide would come bubbling to the surface.



And why send them racing round the globe, I thought, when they have the wonderful cosmopolitan city of London on their doorstep? So I set the entire book in London and learned some very interesting facts about the city in the process. So, because she can’t say no to Josh, Fern ends up partnering him in a treasure hunt that last four days. All they have is £10, the clothes on their backs and each other. I’m not telling you if they find the treasure first or not – you’ll have to read the book to find out!

Falling off the face of the earth...

My blog has been unusually quiet recently, I know. Unfortunately, my RSI has returned and I'm having to limit my time at the computer. Combine that with school holidays, a few health issues and a looming deadline... Well, let's just say I saw a ball of tumbleweed roll past.

And the problem is, after not blogging for a while, I couldn't think of anything to say! Fascinating, aren't I?

Anyway, my fifth book, Saying Yes To The Millionaire, the Summer Bride in the 'Bride for All Seaons' series, is going to be available online in a week or two, and I promised in my Dear Reader letter that I would give some in-depth behind-the-scenes info, so I reckon it's time to get going on that. I have so many locations I could talk about that it could easily take more than a month!

Saying Yes To The Millionaire is a fast-paced adventure in which the hero and heroine enter a treasure hunt and race round London for four days. It was great fun to write and I researched way more than I could ever fit in, but I had to work very hard on keeping the romance developing and letting the emotional story shine trhough. So, as I talk about the different locations and ideas behind the story, I'm going to add some snippets of advice for aspiring writers on how to use your plot to maximise your characters' emotional journeys.

And don't forget to pick up The Bride's Baby this month as Liz Fielding kicks off the 'Bride For All Seasons' series with the Spring Bride!

Decadence?

At the moment I am sitting in bed writing this on my laptop. Nope, not in a moment of pink-feather-boaed romance writer decadence, but because I am up to my eyeballs in cold and flu medication and my legs feel like jelly.

And, as if by magic, my proofs arrived. It's like they know when it's the worst time to turn up. Having said that, I'm quite enjoying reading Fern & Josh's story back ("Saying Yes to the Millionaire"). My editor seems to be very pleased with it, so we will just have to see how it does next June when it comes out.