A very sad day

Gillian Johnson
1941 - 2010


Love you, Mum xx

Bits and pieces

I've just heard that Invitation To The Boss's Ball has been awarded a certificate of merit in the Short Contemporary category of the HOLT medallion! I'm so thrilled!

A full list of all the winners and finalists is here.

New stuff

Well, I popped into my blog to do a new post, and before I knew it I had accidentally applied a brand new template and ended up spending hours tweaking colours and creating a longer banner to fit. Argh. I really should have been writing instead. Having said that, I like the new look and that I can customise more in this template, so it wasn't time wasted, merely displaced.

The Bridesmaid's Secret (which, I have to say, might just be my favourite book so far) is now available online as an ebook and to order the paperback edition in both the UK and the North America. Click on the the 'browse this book' button in the sidebar if you want a sneaky peak at chapter one. (Since mine is the second book in the 2-in-1, the easiest way to read my first chapter is to go to the table of contents when the window pops up, and scroll down to the second chapter one).

But... there's actually a prologue at the start of this book, and if you want a read of that instead you can click here and visit my website for a squizz.

Holiday and surprises!

I've just come back from a much-needed holiday on the South Devon coast. Just look at these pics and you'll see why I'm so rested:

Anyway, I came home to the news that Invitation To The Boss's Ball is a finalist in the GDRWA's Booksellers' Best Award! And I found an honest-to-goodness glass award to put on my mantlepiece for my Golden Quill Award win. Made the tortoruously slow drive home on the motorway worth it!

Now I've just got to knuckle down and write the next book...

The Bridesmaid's Secret - Inspiration

My hero and heroine in The Bridesmaid's Secret had a summer romance back when they were teenagers. I thought the 'flashback' scenes of Gwen Stefani's video for 'Cool' perfectly captured that wonderful sense of summer sun and first love:

Golden Quill

Really excited to share that Blind-Date Baby won the Traditional Romance category of the Golden Quill awards. For a full list of finalists and winners, click here.

Writing Grace and Noah's story was a bit of a rollercoaster - I scrapped most of the book and had to rewrite it in a fortnight - so I consider it a bit of a miracle story. It was part of the BlindDateBrides.com mini-series. More info can be found here.

The Bridesmaid's Secret - Inspiration

This is the first time I've been asked to take part in an M&B contunuity - a series of books all about a family group. Because of the intricate nature of the family history and of the need to make sure everyone gets their facts straight, the editors for Romance come up with an over-arching storyline and a basic plot for each book. It's up to us authors to take the story, make it our own and breathe life into it.

I've realised since I've started writing seriously that two writers can take an identical idea and craft something very different an unique out of it, so I wasn't scared that being given a basic plot would stifle my creativity. I just had to find my way to tell Jackie and Romano's story - and, to be honest, it wasn't difficult. As I read the story outline my brain started buzzing with ideas to bring the rich conflict to life. Ooh, I knew I was going to have fun with this one!

First up, I had to get to know my characters... Jackie Patterson was never going to be an easy heroine. "Think Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada," the editors said. Ouch. Make your characters identifiable, all the writing books say. And with a M&B Romance, the heroine is supposed to be someone readers would want to be best friends with. I couldn't see anyone wanting to do anything but throttle Jackie. She's high-maintenance, demanding and hard as nails. But... Underneath all of that, there was a headstrong teenage girl who'd had her heart broken, who'd had to grow up fast and had punished herself mercilessly for her youthful mistakes. I knew Jackie's past held the secret to her likeability. The venomous editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine wasn't who she was really - it was just who she'd had to become to survive. And once I worked that out about her, I knew I could make her someone readers could warm to, even if she rarely let down her guard.

I didn't have a picture of Jackie to use as inspiration when I wrote the book, but if I had to find one, I'd say the the actress Jennifer Connelly is the right physical type. She has those refined features and that hint of determination in her eyes that I always imagined Jackie had. If you added honey highlights to Jennifer's long, dark hair, I reckon she'd be a dead ringer for Jackie.

As for my hero, Romano is a fashion designer, and a bit of a playboy. I can't say I always warm to playboy heroes - probably because I think the whole 'double standard' thing is unfair - but I can forgive a hero of this sort if he's got good motivation for being this way, and if he's willing to change once he discovered the error of his ways. Once I got into the story, I quite enjoyed writing a hero with a devilish streak, probably because I knew what was coming! I realised that once Jackie's secret was out, the news would change Romano's life for ever. It would be time to see whether he had it in him to step up to the plate and be the hero I hoped he could be.

The Brides of Bella Rosa

I was very excited when I was asked to contribute to a new continuity within the M&B Romance/Harlequin Romance line - The Brides of Bella Rosa.

Here's the skinny on the new series:

THE BRIDES OF BELLA ROSA
Romance, rivalry and a family reunited.

Lisa Firenze and Luca Casali: for years their sibling rivalry has disturbed the quiet, sleepy Italian town of Monta Correnti, and their two feuding restaurants have divided the market square.
Now, as the keys to the restaurants are handed down to Lisa and Luca's children, will history repeat itself?

Can the next generation undo its parents' mistakes, reunite the families and ultimately join the two restaurants?

Or are there more secrets to be revealed...?

My book is book four in the series, the story of Lisa's middle daughter, Jackie - named after Jackie Onasis, and doing her very best to be as stylish and poised. But underneath Jackie's flawless exterior is a damaged woman, who has too many secrets to hold. It's only a matter of time before they all start spilling out...

Over the next couple of week I'm going to be blogging about the background and inspiration for the story, but if you can't wait until then, you can take a peek at my website, where I've posted some pictures and an excerpt.

More good news!

I got some more good news! Both Blind-Date Baby and Invitation To The Boss's Ball are finalists in the Golden Quill Awards' Tradtitional category.

I've been working hard for the last three weeks on revising Jennie and Alex's story, so this news was a much needed boost.

Best Harlequin Romance of 2009

I'm thrilled to be able to announce that Invitation To The Boss's Ball has won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for Best Harlequin Romance of 2009!




Great news to spur me on while I struggle with my revsions. I'm a visual thinker, and find it helpful if I can 'see' my story structure. Post-it notes are my best friends. But in an attempt to get my head round my current story, my desk is looking like a scene from Bruce Almighty. Well, sort of...

And it'll probably get worse before it gets better.

RNA 50th Anniversary Awards Lunch

This year the Romantic Novelists' Association is celebrating its 50th birthday, and yesterday was the annual awards ceremony, held at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. To celebrate the RNA's birthday, the awards have had a bit of a revamp, and are now called the Pure Passion awards, and a couple of new categories have been added.

Our illustrius chairman, Katie Fforde, kicked off the proceedings, and then we had a really lovely lunch:

A melon and pineapple salsa starter
Guinea fowl with fondant potato and a confit cabbage cake (which was much nicer than it sounds!)
Pure Chocolate Passion, the official RNA 50th Anniversary dessert.

And look at how gorgeous it was:

Once we were all settled with our coffees the presentation of the awards began. This year our guest speaker was the charming Barry Norman, who joked about how he was probably past being the "thinking-woman's crumpet" and how we'd probably have preffered Colin Firth to be standing up there on the stage iin a wet T-shirt - but since Colin was busy that lunchtime, we'd have to put up with him instead. I thought he was funny and gracious and I didn't mind a bit that there was no dripping-wet Colin presenting the awards.

People's Choice Award
This was an award to recognise new and developing authors in romantic fiction. Romance buyers selected a shortlist and then romance readers voted for their favourites at http://www.lovereading.com/. And the winner was - Missing You by Louise Douglas.

Next up was the RNA Love Story of the Year, which is for shorter romantic fiction (think Mills & Boon or Little Black Dress) where the focus is strongly on the developing love affair. The winner was Animal Instincts by Nell Dixon. This is Nell's second win for this award, as she took home the trophy in 2007, when it was called the Romance Prize.

There were two RNA Lifetime Achievment Awards given out this year - one to Maeve Binchy, who gave her acceptance speech via video, and one for Joanna Trollope. Here's Joanna giving her speech, after surprising RNA president, Diane Pearson, with a bear-crushing hug:

RNA Romantic Comedy of the Year
Books entered for the Romantic Novel of the Year that scored the highest for their comedy element were shorlisted for this award. And the prize went to The Nearly-Weds by Jane Costello.

The Harry Bowling Prize
This is the first year that the long-established Harry Bowling prize has come under the umbrella of the RNA's awards. The award is for new writers who have not previously published an adult work of fiction. Entries are judged on a first chapter and synopsis and must have an urban setting.

The judges were so impressed with the standard of the writing that they awarded a runner-up prize to John Barfield for his book Sunrise, but he hopped onto the platform and scooped up his award so quickly I only got a very blurred photo. Perhaps the idea of speaking in front of a couple of hundred female romantic novelists put the wind up him! I know Mr Harper found the whole experience nerve-wracking just when he came to cheer me on a couple of years ago. The winner was Fear No Evil by Debbie Johnson.

RNA Romantic Film of the Year
The RNA decided to celebrate the link between film and romantic fiction by asking readers at http://www.lovereading.com/ to vote for their favourite film adapted from a novel that was released in 2009. The winner was An Education, adapted by Nick Hornby, from Lynn Barber's memoir. Lynn, who accepted the award, said she didn't really think of her story as being romantic and that the RNA was generous in accepting it as such. She also said she wished she looked like Carey Mulligan. (But then again, don't we all!)

Last of all it was time to announce the Romantic Novel of the Year 2010!
I managed to read the whole of the shortlist this year, and the books ranged from bright, sparkling chick-lit, to romance with a paranormal edge, to kick-ass romantic suspense, and East-End sagas with delicous villains, but the winner was Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon, and I have to say I was thrilled it won, because it was my favourite of the bunch!
The heroine of the book inherits a dog kennels and rescue centre, and I loved the way that each of the dogs the main characters adopted helped them with the life lessons they needed to learn to secure their happy endings, and (as the heroine of the book kept saying to eveyone) I'm not even really a Dog Person.

Here are a few more of my photos from the afternoon:

The packed ballroom at the Royal Garden Hotel, where we had record turn out for the event.

Love Story of the Year contender Nina Harrington and M&B Senior Editor Joanne Grant.

A table of M&B authors and editors, with Love Story of the Year shortlisted author Natatlie Rivers looking serene in the centre.

Penny Jordan's outrageously gorgeous five-inch red heels, being modelled by M&B editor Meg Lewis (and she's not the only woman in the room who was tempted to run away with them!).

RT Top Pick - again!

I'm so thrilled! I discovered yesterday that Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After is a Romantic Times Top Pick for April.


Here's the review:


HOUSEKEEPER'S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER (4.5) by Fiona Harper: Four years ago, Ellie Bond's life changed in a heartbeat. A car wreck took her husband and daughter, and she suffered a near-fatal head injury. Now she's trying to move on, despite lingering memory problems, taking a job as housekeeper to talent manager Mark Wilder. Getting involved with Mark -- who's got a reputation -- would be a bad idea, but Ellie can't help it. Although generally allergic to commitment because of his gold-digging ex-wife, Mark's unusually susceptible to Ellie. A solid plot and great characters form the basis for an outstanding story. The author never strikes a false note, tempering poignancy perfectly with humour.

Things to obsess about once the book is finished...

Deadline has passed and book went in on time. Hooray!

Got a horrible cold (as I often do after a deadline in the winter). Not so hooray.

I also have to confess a new obsession. Edible glitter.

Near to where I live is a cake craft shop. Now, I am not one of those gifted individuals who can fashion impressive models out of fondant icing. I tried once. Never again. Just trying to get the icing flat over the cake almost had me in tears. From that day on my daughters were told that they'd have to put up with good old buttercream for their birthday cakes or it was a trip to Marks & Spencers. Anyway, I digress...

Where was I? Oh, yes - the cake craft shop. It has fabulous displays of wedding cakes and themed cupcakes, and I was particularly taken by a display last year where the cupcakes were all glittery. At Christmas I decided my raspberry pavlova needed a bit of a Christmas 'wow' factor, and ventured inside to buy a tiny pot of glitter. I chose 'holographic silver'. Oh, my goodness. It's so pretty (the picture doesn't really do it justice - doesn't capture the way it sparkled alluringly).

Tiny little bits of glitter that change from blue to pink to green to gold and back to silver. I decorated everything I could with it at Christmas and it made it all look as if it had been sprinkled with a combination of frost and fairy dust.

Recently my eldest became a teenager. Wanted a turquoise cake. Turquoise buttercream, of course. While I love my holographic silver glitter, I was overcome with a desire to purchase more glitter in a different colour. I decided pink would be marvellous. And then I bought some bigger pink sparkly flakes, just to add texture. The result was very pretty too, even with my complete lack of skill for icing anything neatly. But now I want more! There was purple and teal and blossom and gold...

I think I may be in trouble. I keep thinking that my warming winter casseroles could do with a bit of a 'wow' factor.

Eight-fingered Typing

Ouch! I managed to squish my little finger between the arm of my desk chair and my desk yesterday and, boy, did it hurt. I don't normally make a fuss when I hurt myself, but this deserved it. Have been typing with my little finger bandaged to it's next-door neighbour all day. Funnily enough, it hasn't made much of a difference. Maybe that's because my typing is so atrocious?

And I'm looking forward to episode 3 of Glee tonight! Sigh. To be able to sing like Lea Michele, who plays Rachel...

Good news and bad news

Bad news is that I'm on a deadline. Jennie and Alex's story is due in on 1st Feb. Slightly better news is that I am not scarily behind, and a slow and steady slog should see it finished and polished in time. But it does mean my erratic web presence is going to be, well...erratic. Nothing new there, then!

Good news is that I have delicous new covers for my next book, Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After! Check out this glorious North American cover:

It's fabulous! My best cover so far - all romantic and barefoot and Caribbean paradise. Love it. Love it.

This was the first book I ever wrote - a story about a housekeeper and a playboy. All I can say is that writing your first novel is a steep learning curve. I finished the book and realised it was a bit pschizophrenic. Sometimes it was heart-breakingly sad and sometimes it was slapstick funny, and the two didn't quite seem to gel. So I put it to one side and got on with Blind-Date Marriage, which happened to be the first book I sold.

Five years on, I decided I knew how to fix it. The humour's still there (this is me we're talking about, I can't stay sensible for too long - it gives me hives), but it's balanced with the emotion now. And I added extra depth and dimensions to the hero and heroine, took out a villainous glamour model and wrote a seriously romatic scene involving sunset in the Caribbean.

Wish someone would have told me that overhauling an old book is five times as painful as writing a brand new one. But I can't regret it now. I had a soft spot for my first hero and heroine, and I'm glad they got their Happy Ever After (literally - have you seen the title?)

Funnily enough, my title for the book was The Barefoot Bride, and there Ellie is - barefoot on the cover. And my orginal working title was The Reluctant Cinderella - and I discovered it's been flashed up as part of the 'In Her Shoes' mini-series about modern-day Cinderellas. It's fate, I tell you.

And if that wasn't enough, I've been paired up with one of my favourite Romance authors, Jessica Hart for the UK edition. I'm so excited I'm going to get to read her story Oh-So-Sensible Secretary when my author copies arrive it's not funny. And I like the UK cover too. While it's not a scene from my book, like the North American one is, the slightly cheeky expression on the model's face sums up my Ellie perfectly.

Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After is out in March in the UK and April in the US.

Harlequin Romance/Mills & Boon Romance Giveaway!

The Harlequin Romance/M&B Romance authors have got together to send one lucky reader a fabulous Christmas present, Including:

• Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep – Michelle Douglas


• A Trip With The Tycoon – Nicola Marsh


• The Greek’s Long Lost Son – Rebecca Winters


• One Dance With The Cowboy – Donna Alward


• Boardroom Baby Surprise – Jackie Braun


• Her Desert Dream – Liz Fielding


• Invitation to the Boss’s Ball – Fiona Harper


• The Magic of a Family Christmas, plus a box of chocolates from the factory she toured while researching the book – Susan Meier


• Under The Boss’s Mistletoe – Jessica Hart


• The Daredevil Tycoon and The Family Next Door (LI) – Barbara McMahon


• Hired: Cinderella Chef – Myrna McKenzie


• Her Mediterranean Makeover – Claire Baxter


• A selection of tea and comfort goodies for when you’re reading - from new author Barbara Wallace

Visit the Harlequin Romance Authors' Blog to find out how to enter!

My secret weapon

Just glanced over to my bookshelf and was horrified to discover how many mugs have collected there in the last day or so. No wonder I can't find anything to drink out of downstairs (I have my desk and bookshelf in my bedroom - oh, for an office!).

Hate to think what might be mouldering at the bottom of some of those cups...

But it's obviously working! Progress is good on the book. So perhaps I should just stop mug-hoarding, wash up and boil the kettle once more.

Back to work!

Work on the latest book (imaginative working title: "Jennie & Alex" - and, yes, it's Jennie, the eloping sister from Invitation To The Boss's Ball) ground to a halt while the kids were off school for half term and we spent a week away in Norfolk with the family. Lovely scenery, good weather, great company.

I was walking on Holkham beach one afternoon and realised there was something familiar about it, and then I turned an looked back towards the shoreline, where a row of pine trees seperated the dunes from the sky.


Even though I'd never been there before, I recognised this beach - and a flash of a familar image from the back of my memory gave me the reason why. Holkham Beach is the wonderful wide stretch of sand that Gwyneth Paltrow walks up at the end of 'Shakespeare In Love' as the credits roll.

I would definitely like to go back when the weather is more like it is in the bottom picture than it was in mine!

Anyway, work on the new book is now going great guns (haven't reached the end of chapter three yet - one of my 'sticking points'), and at the moment I'm loving my heroine, loving my set up and loving the secondary characters.

I fear for the safety of said characters, though. My beginnings always end up too waffly and I end up having to cut words and people. But I need Auntie Barb with the orange foundation to complicate matters for Jennie now so she can't escape the hero later. And I need Jennie's parents' in there to paint a fuller picture of her character before Alex turns her world upside-down. Sigh. I just hope my editor agrees when I turn the book in!

Cinderella's Dress

My geeky heroine, Alice, has a vintage fashion makeover during the course of Invitation To The Boss’s Ball. She sees herself as a bit of a stick insect (not a problem I’ve ever had, unfortunately) but I wanted to show that all shapes and sizes can have issues about their bodies and that all of us can be beautiful and sexy. I think ‘sexy’ is more about what’s on the inside, anyway.

The best era of dress to suit Alice would have either been a flapper dress from the Twenties, or something bias cut from the Thirties. Since the ball she was attending had a theme of ‘Old Hollywood Glamour’ I chose the latter, thinking of stars such as Carole Lombard and Ginger Rogers when my imagination got to work on Alice’s attire. I don’t actually have a picture of the dress because it’s a combination of different ideas I saw when I was doing my research. The colour had to be deep, dark green, like the first picture, but I think the style was probably more like the other pictures, something that would flatter a willowy figure.


Why green? It’s my favourite colour – especially dark green. It’s possible that when I thought “Thirties” and “green dress” that I subliminally thought of Kiera Knightly’s dress in Atonement, but I haven’t seen the film and the green I had in mind was much darker. However, when I googled “green thirties dress” and tons of movie stills popped up, I decided this picture captured something of the wistful, romantic feel I wanted for some of the ball scenes and I used it as my computer wallpaper while I was writing the book.

Initially, I just pictured a pair of fabulous vintage shoes as Alice’s footwear, something satin or sparkly, but when I came across this picture, I knew they were perfect. Glass heels! Perfect for Cinderella! Of course, the heels aren’t really glass, they’re Lucite – a type of Perspex. In my mind, the heels on Alice’s shoes were entirely clear, unlike the shoes in the picture, which are only partly Lucite. Seriously, if these vintage shoes had been in my size, I would have bought them in an instant.

A change of clothes wasn’t all that Alice needed. If an ugly ducking is going to be a swan, she needs a complete makeover. I could have gone for a coiled and waved hairdo (see the top picture of Carole Lombard), but I decided that it wasn’t dramatic enough. The image that sprung instantly to mind was of movie star Veronica Lake, famed for her sexy peek-a-boo side parting. It was just the thing to knock not only Cameron’s socks off but the breath right out of his lungs.

Love Affair With Vintage Fashion

I’ve always had a thing about vintage clothes. I think it's a fascination for the dressing-up box that has never quite left me. As a student often bought my clothes in charity shops and second-hand shops, wearing vintage dresses and blouses before the phrase ‘vintage’ was widely used for other people's old clothes. When I was writing Invitation To The Boss's Ball I thought about some of the lovely dresses and blouses I had bought in various ‘retro’ shops, and I realised that I had owned more than just a couple of vintage items. At one time they had made up a major part of my wardrobe.

Here’s a pic of me in a 1950s dress that was a particular favourite in the late 80s. This was taken on my honeymoon, when I visited Venice. I don’t have the dress any more, unfortunately. It eventually disintegrated, but I wore it until it fell apart.

As I looked back through my photo albums, I discovered many more photos of vintage clothing I’d worn. Here’s one of me at my 21st birthday party, wearing a home-made peach lace cocktail dress I found in a shop near where I went to college. The satin bow round the waist was just the most amazing fabric. When Alice's admires the cocktail dress in the opening paragraphs of the book, it was this bow I was thinking about as I wrote:

"The old oyster-coloured satin had the most wonderful texture—smooth but not slippery, like modern imitations, stiff and reassuringly heavy. Anyone who saw the cocktail dress would just have itched to touch it, and this is what Alice did, letting her fingertips explore it fully, lingering on the crease of the sash as it folded into a bow just under the bust line."


As well as my charity shop finds there were the items I hijacked from my mother’s wardrobe. I still have two suede jackets of hers from the 60s, one brown, one bottle-green. Wish I could still fit into them. I have to confess to being a 'goth' in my latter teenage years, which happened to be around the time that Madonna first burst onto the pop scene. (Okay, seriously giving my age away here!) I dressed like many of my friends who had straight hair, but they teased me mercilessly for trying to look like Madonna - which I hotly denied, of course. I reckon it must be the curly hair - it added a different dimension to the look. But when I found this picture of myself in my mum's suede-fronted green jacket, I had to admit my friends might just have had a point. Oh well, being compared to someone who is now one of the world's most successful female artists isn't too shabby really, is it?

This picture was taken at a fancy dress party which had a 60s theme. The velvet and chiffon dress was one from that very decade, passed down to me by my grandmother. She recognised my penchant for old and unusual clothes, even though she often tutted at my fashion choices. The dress was originally knee length, but I shortened it to get an even stronger 60s look. Wish I hadn't now. Don't think I will ever be brave enough (or young enough) to wear it that short again.

At the very beginning of Invitation To The Boss's Ball, my vintage clothing aficionado heroine is unpacking a box that her partner has brought back from a house clearance:

"Alice carefully lifted a peacock-blue taffeta evening cape out of the box and when she saw what was underneath it, she froze. There they were, just sitting there—the perfect pair of shoes."

I have to own up to possessing that very peacock-blue cape. It's gorgeous, with vibrant blue watermarked taffeta on the outside, and a matching white taffeta lining. It has a little silver button at the collar and tailored slits in the front to elegantly slip your wrists through. Trying it on, you have to resist the urge to swan around like Grace Kelly. At least I do. Never had the courage or the occasion to wear it, though. Too worried about looking like a superhero who's lost her way. Maybe one day.