Good news!

Wow. Just wow.

I've just had an email to let me know that both books that I entered in the Golden Quill contest have made the final cut this year!

Swept Off Her Stilettos - hero and heroine casting

Coreen had "bit parts" into other books before she got a story of her own. That meant she was pretty fully formed in my head before I started writing Swept Off Her Stilettos. Initially, she appeared in my head like one of Alberto Vargas's pin-up girls come to life: sexy, cheeky and totally gorgeous.

Apart from the photograph I posted the other day, other good matches the Coreen would be:

Holly Willoughby, British TV presenter who caused a storm wearing a not-particularly revealing dress on Saturday evening TV. It was the body she'd put inside it that caused all the fuss. Now, I've seen women on television wearing a lot less and hardly generates any column inches at all. That was what I wanted for Coreen – an eye-popping figure. If Holly had dark hair instead of blonde, she'd be a pretty good match for Coreen Fraser.

Throw in a dash of Martine McCutcheon, who played opposite Hugh Grant in Love Actually, and we'd be almost there. Martine has a cheeky glint in her eye that would make her perfect for the part of Coreen, should some Hollywood executive ever decide to make my little book into a movie. (Well, a girl can dream, can't she?)

And what about Adam? How did I see him? Well, the picture of Matthew Fox below on the left was my earliest match, but the other day I stumbled across a photo of Bradley Cooper (centre) that also made me stop and think, "Adam". In fact, if I put those two pictures together in a line-up with the guy on the cover of the UK edition of Swept Off Her Stilettos, he's a pretty good match!

Book of the week!

Have just discovered that Swept Off Her Stilettos is Now magazine's book of the week, with a four star review!

Here's what they say:

Dita Von Teese's retro-luxe glamour would fade quickly into the background if vintage vixen Coreen Fraser stood beside her. Now that she's got fashion firmly wrapped around her finger, can she convince her crush Nicholas to put a ring on it? But when her best friend Adam reveals his own feelings for her, Coreen must decide where her affections truly lie.

Swept Off Her Stilettos - Inspiration

Sometimes I have to root around in my memory to remember where the idea for a book came from, but not with this one. There was one big polka-dotted inspiration for this book: my heroine, Coreen.

She first appeared in Invitation To The Boss's Ball as the heroine's best friend, and immediately began to steal the show. Alice was a skinny redhead, not confident in her own sexuality, and I decided she needed a best friend and business partner who was her complete opposite, so up popped Coreen.

Coreen accused Alice of being a doormat where men were concerned:

'I do not invite men to walk all over me,’ Alice said in a quiet, but surprisingly defiant tone, well aware that Coreen would have no trouble kicking just about any man into line with her pillar-box red, patent, peep-toes wedges. Vintage, of course.

And with that line, I pretty much had an idea who Coreen was - a vintage drama queen who expected every man she met to fall down and worship at her feet. Of course, when I decided to give her her own story, it was obvious she should run into a man who refused to do just that. I had a rich, alpha hero all picked out for her, and then, somehow, that idea got flipped on its head too. Enter Adam. That's when the fun really began!

I spotted this lovely photo while looking at vintage fashion blogs when I was doing the research that this book. The dark hair, the red lips, the slightly cheeky glint in the model's eye, all reminded me of Coreen.

Many thanks to Rodelle from Adore Vintage for the use of this photo.

News round-up

Well, so much for posting from RWA! I got so busy I hardly had time to turn my computer on! I'm going to post an update on my adventures in New York in the next couple of days, but first I've got a few bits of news to share:

First off (and I'm really excited by this!) my latest book, Swept Off Her Stilettos, is available now at Mills and Boon! It'll be on the shelves next month in the UK, and also available online at Harlequin too. You can read a bit if you click on the 'browse' widget in the sidebar. (Yes, I know the cover is different, but it's the same book, I promise!)

If you enjoyed either Alice's story (Invitation To The Boss's Ball) or Jennie's story (Three Weddings And A Baby/Millionaire's Baby Bombshell), then you'll have met the heroine, Coreen, before. She's an irrespressible flirt, a vintage-fashion queen and a danger to anything with a Y chromosome. Of course, her no-prisoners approach to romance is going to end her up in trouble eventually....

Second bit of good news is that the middle book in these three linked books, Three Weddings And A Baby is only £1.49 at Amazon.co.uk at the moment - a total bargain! And it's also reduced to $2.38 at Amazon.com.

And lastly, my books are now available on iTunes - including the audio book version of Invitation To The Boss's Ball. Just search for "fiona harper" and up my books pop!

More cover love!

Oh, my goodness! I have just seen the North American cover for Swept Off Her Stilettos (UK version to the left), and I squealed with excitement! Now I have two very different, but totally gorgeous covers for the same book. Don't know which I like best!


Here's the North American cover:


Unlike some covers I've had (cough...mentioning no names, Millionaire's Baby Bombshell), this one is actually straight from a scene in the book. Check it out:


Everything about dancing with Nicholas was perfect. His hand was warm and sure on my back as he guided me round our impromptu dance floor. He talked easily to me, all the while looking effortlessly drool-worthy and smiling into my eyes.

It was perfect. It was.

Only…

I was reminded of those cakes in the coffee shop display case that I always yearned for but never seemed to fit the bill. Finally I’d found one that matched what my taste buds craved. It had all the right ingredients, looked divine, but now I’d taken a bite I’d discovered that it tasted all…wrong.

Dancing with Nicholas wasn’t a dream come true, it was an effort. What surprised me most was that I wasn’t bitterly disappointed. Instead I had that horrible, warm scratchy feeling you get when you know there’s somewhere else you need to be, something else you need to be doing. I was almost grateful to Louisa when the track on the gramophone changed and she nabbed the opportunity to cut in.

When I stepped out of Nicholas’s hold I knew Adam was standing behind me, waiting for me to turn around and glide into his arms. And I couldn’t stop myself.

‘I didn’t know you could sing like that,’ he whispered into my ear and a whole series of teeny-tiny fireworks detonated up the back of my neck.

I controlled the resulting quiver well enough to answer him. ‘You’re not the only one to have secrets, Conrad.’

But I couldn’t keep the banter up. The air around us seemed too heavy for our usual frivolity.

Adam didn’t smile at me as we danced. He didn’t even talk. If he had, I might not have heard him. All I was aware of was his strong, capable fingers holding mine, of his broad palm at the small of my back. I couldn’t hold his gaze. It was too intense, too full of things I was too scared to label, so when the needle on the gramophone scratched its way onto a slower song, I rested my temple against his cheek and closed my eyes.

I have no idea how long we swayed and turned like that. Eventually, though, I noticed the air on my bare arms had become cooler, that the light behind my closed eyelids had dimmed to almost nothing. I flickered my lashes apart and opened my eyes.

We were on the terrace. In the moonlight. The warm yellow glow of the drawing room was only feet away, but it felt as if we were in a different world. The sheer curtains over the doors fluttered and curled in the light breeze, beckoning us back. Silently, by mutual agreement and the meeting of eyes, we ignored their call.

Had we stopped dancing? I wasn’t sure.

The way Adam looked at me…it brought tears to the backs of my eyes. Such gentleness. Such openness. Such acceptance. I couldn’t breathe with the intensity of it. Something deep down inside of me turned over. It felt like a door being opened.

Adam brought his hand up to the side of my face and his fingertips traced the line of my cheekbone then threaded up past my temple into the soft waves of my hair. I knew what was coming, and yet I didn’t know. Couldn’t quite get myself to believe it was true, that it was Adam and I standing here in the moonlight like this. I stayed completely still.

He dipped his head forward and our lips touched, just for a moment, and then he pulled back slightly so he was only millimetres away. I closed my eyes and let the weight of my head rest in his hand, and then I waited, a well of longing rising up within me. I didn’t tease or taunt or dare. I surrendered. Maybe for the first time in my life.

And, as a reward, I got what I’d truly been longing for, because Adam really knew how to kiss. His lips brushed over mine slowly, teasing me, and then he deepened the kiss so swiftly I hardly knew what to do with myself. I felt as if I was falling and being caught all at the same time.

I lost myself. Along with the sense of time and gravity and reason.

And that’s why I had to put an end to it.

That’s why I had to push him away gently, my palms flattened on his chest.

Even so, it was my lips that clung as he drew away, my hands that bunched his shirt up into wrinkles before the cotton slipped through my fingers.

I blinked and looked at him. ‘What was that for?’

Eyes of warm espresso with caramel running through them. I didn’t have to look at his mouth to know he was smiling ever so faintly.

‘You know why.’

My heart hiccupped. Did I? Did I know why? Certainly not in my conscious brain. That part was freaking out. But somewhere else, somewhere instinctual and primal, I knew that I knew. I also knew I had to make sure those two parts of my brain never touched, because if they did…well, I sensed there’d be trouble. And a whole heap of hurt.

Copyright © 2011 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Cover Art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited
® and ‘ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its affiliated companies, used under license.

Copyright © 2011 by Fiona Harper
Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books SA.

Special Offers!

I've just discovered that Invitation To The Boss's Ball (in a 2-in-1 with Nicola Marsh's A Trip With The Tycoon) is on sale at Mills & Boon. Only £1.99 for two books - either ebook or print! Not bad.

This is a very timely offer too, as Invitation To The Boss's Ball introduced the three heroines in what I refer to as my Vintage Fashion trilogy. Book two was Three Weddings And A Baby, my most recent release, and book three, Swept Off Her Stilettos, will be available very, very soon!


Invitation To The Boss's Ball won the Romantic Times reviewer's choice award last year, and was shortlisted for the HOLT medallion, the Bookseller's Best Awards and the Golden Quill Awards!

Not only that, but I've just noticed that Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After is also on sale at M&B, paired with the fabulous Oh-So-Sensible Secretary by Jessica Hart. I's buy the book just for Jessica's story. Summer and Phin's story was one of my top romance reads last year and I was thrilled to be in such illustrious company.