Fiona Lowe's Blog, page 4

It’s May and the mornings are crisp and the days glorious! May has five weekends and we are having one of those months where there is something on every single weekend, ranging from parent teacher interviews to live theatre to a trip to Hobart to visit The Lad. We are also preparing for the arrival in June of our French exchange student :-)

Writing news…I’m doing edits on my 21st��medical romance for Mills & Boon. I was a bit worried about this book as it is quite different from my usual medical romances but my editor loved it so PHEW!

I’ve also had some fun writing a hot and sexy short story, which will be part of an anthology later in the year. I’ll keep you posted when I know the titles and release dates of both these stories. ��Right now I am surrounded by sheaves of papers and am creating a mind map as I try to nail down some ideas for my next novel. Right now it’s all gauzy ideas floating past so I hope to wrestle them into a book.

I have TWO books up for pre-order, both releasing in early July!

Truly Madly Montana, book 2 in my Medicine River��series is up for pre-order everywhere and the buy links are here. It’s release date is July 7th 2015.��I had a lot of fun writing this book. Millie and Will bounced onto the page and despite their own personal demons, were determined to have a great time. Montana Actually��ended with Millie heading off to medical school and now she’s home for the summer to work. The last person she expected to meet was Will, the Australian flying doctor, the guy she had a ridiculous crush on the year before. A guy who never noticed her other than as ‘one of the guys.’ Thankfully, she’s totally over him now. Well, almost totally ;-)

As with all my single title contemporary romances, you get two romances in the one book. The secodary romance features Ethan, my hipster librarian-IT guru and Tara, Bear Paw’s new deputy sheriff. If you gave these two people animal spirits, Ethan’s would be a Golden Retriever–enthusiastic and postive– and Tara, a cool, detached cat, who never shows any emotion. Getting them together was like pulling teeth.To read the first chapter of��Truly Madly Montana, click here.

I also have Unlocking His Surgeon’s Heart, which is part of the Harlequin Mills & Boon��Midwives on Call series. It releases on July 1st! ��Lilia is a dedicated midwife in a small coastal town. She loves her work but to a certain extent she’s hiding behind it. Her world is small and safe, which is how she wants and needs it to be. The arrival of an arrogant and grumpy city surgeon is something to be endured for four, short weeks and she’s endured worse so how hard could it possibly be? For more information, buy links, and photos click here for my website page.

��Whether you’re in the northern hemisphere and enjoying spring or in the southern hemisphere feeling the nips of a looming winter, I hope you have plenty of time for reading!

Fiona x

It���s April 25th today and in Australia and New Zealand that means Anzac Day. For those of you reading this who are ��not from either of these countries,��it is a day when we remember the men and women who have served in the��defence��of our countries. A bit like Memorial Day in the US, although Anzac Day came into being because of a specific battle in Turkey on April 25th 1915. That is 100 years ago today.��

It was the day Australia lost it���s innocence and came of age. 8,700 Australians and 2,700New Zealanders died during the Gallipoli campaign along with many British, French and Indian and Turkish soldiers. With a small population, the deaths of young man during WW1 changed the lives��of an entire generation.

Of course in later years Australian troops fought in WW2, the Korean War and Vietnam. During the Vietnam war years, Anzac Day became a focus for anti- war sentiment. Then during the 70s and 80s it became for many a public holiday and the chance for a sleep in and a picnic.

Life changes and in the last two decades there has been a definite shift. Perhaps having forces serving in��Afghanistan��and Iraq effected us. ��Perhaps it is to do with more Australian history taught in schools or the fact that more Australians travel and are visiting the Turkish peninsula, but Anzac Day is once again a day where many people take time to reflect and give thanks.��There are no longer any Gallipoli veterans alive to ��march on Anzac day but their descendents proudly march along with soldiers who served in other wars and in peace-keeping missions.

Lest We Forget.

Recipe for ANZAC Biscuits���these are ���cookies��� that were sent to the soldiers. They had no eggs so could keep for a long time and they are YUMMY! We make them a lot and they���re an Australian cultural icon.

1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
2 tablespoons golden syrup or treacle
150g unsalted butter, chopped
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

Preheat oven to 170��C. Place the flour, oats, sugar and coconut in a large bowl and stir to combine. In a small saucepan place the golden syrup and butter and stir over low heat until the butter has fully melted. Mix the bicarb soda with 1 1/2 tablespoons water and add to the golden syrup mixture. It will bubble whilst you are stirring together so remove from the heat. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together until fully combined. Roll tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on baking trays lined with non stick baking paper, pressing down on the tops to flatten slightly. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown

“I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper and Keep him Company,” goes the song��(part of the sound track for A Clockwork Orange and Frank). Well, I am not sure about that life but I did have fun visiting a lighthouse this weekend. I live less than an hour from two lighthouses and if I drive another two hours I can count a third. They were built in the late 1800s along the Shipwreck coast.

As Boy Wonder needs hours behind the wheel in his quest for driving experience, we packed a picnic and headed not so far down the road. The sun was shining from time to time and we joined the throng of international tourists who flcok to my backyard in droves. Today I heard Spanish, French, Finnish, Swedish, Ceylonese, Italian, German, Japanese, Mandarin…the list goes on :-)

We climbed the glorious spiral staircase; a little longer and prettier than the one I climb to my office and the view from the top into Bass Strait was spectacular. As I gazed down on the lighthouse keepers’ cottages, I pictured the isolation of the life of a lighthouse keeper and their family. Being a kid though, wouldl have been awesome! All that glorious beach to explore, playing in the dunes, watching the ships come past, fishing, beach combing, sigh, I want to do it!

For those of you with kids, the TV show, ‘Around the Twist’ was filmed at this lighthouse. Paul Jennings, who wrote the books, lives further along the coast.

Between Boy Wonder and DH, we have a lot of photos so I’ll let them do the talking. This is the Split Point Lighthouse and I can recoomend an overnight stay at Cape Otway Lighthouse just out of Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road. We did that with the kids years ago and it was fabulous.

The old lighthouse keepers’ cottages. Love the slate roof!

Easter is a four-day holiday where I live and for us this year it meant four days of great food, family gatherings, lots of car journeys, ��a partial lunar eclipse and doing the final page pass for Truly Madly Montana; this meant��reading word-by-word a 110,000 word novel! Have I ever mentioned that I DETEST proof reading? It’s a certain kind of torture.

 

Easter started a little earlier than usual as The Lad flew back from college for the week, (YAY) arriving on��Wednesday night. ��I spent a week going from bakery to bakery until I found THE perfect hot cross bun for Good Friday morning. I live for the annual shot of fruit and spices in a warm, light bun dripping with butter!

We live a long away from our extended family on both sides and it was our turn to journey. Good Friday, my sister-in-law cooked fish and on Easter Sunday my sister cooked a BBQ. I thought it was all wonderful as all I had to do was whip up a salad and a dessert. Boy Wonder and I poured over the cookbooks and as I have a bumper autumn lemon crop, the choice was obvious. How cute are these mini lemon meringue pies I made?

Boy Wonder ��(16) did a lot of driving as he is gathering hours. He has to have 120 hours driving experience��before he can sit his driver’s test. My husband was on supervising duty and I sat in the back proof reading Truly Madly Montana and studying the style manual. I do LOVE the cover of this book. The canoes are from a photo of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park where much of the book is set. :-) Truly Madly Montana is book 2 in the Medicine River series and is up for preorder everywhere. Amazon currently has it on sale at $5.99 along with Montana Actually, which is book one.

Of course, the Easter bunny came on Easter morning so now we are swimming in chocolate, which I will be forced to eat. I guess that means today I head back to the gym and life returns to normal.

What did you do over your Easter weekend?

For Fiona’s complete list of novels click here.

 

 

So I’ve fallen down on blogging here once a week. Part of the reason is that I’ve been writing a book and when I’m busy working I don’t do very many exciting things to blog about. Life as a writer is like any job….lots of long, boring bits with occassional moments of excitement.

I was excited last night as I hit send and emailed my 21st Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical romance off to my editor. If you want to see photos that inspired the book I have called Her Italian Protector, cIick here at Pinterest.) ��So last night I opened champagne, sat back and contemplated a few days off over Easter before starting my next project and BAM! My email pinged with copyedits for a different book due in a week.

I guess I know what I will be doing on the many car journeys we are taking over Easter! Reading the final pass of Truly Madly Montana and trying to stay alert for typos and punctuation mistakes. I find proof reading one of the hardest parts of being an author.

It’s autumn down here now: cool mornings, cool evenings and glorious days. It’s also school holidays so Boy Wonder is home and we’re trying to do a few fun things amidst the routine stuff. We’ve been bike riding and he’s having mates around to visit and we have some movies planned. The Lad flies in tonight for a week’s break from uni so it will be great having all four of us together again for a short time. We’ve got some shows to see at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

 

Book Wise: Truly Madly Montana, book 2�� is up for pre-order and it’s $5.99 at Amazon US store. That’s a saving of $2 on the eBook version. The print version is also available to pre-order.

Of course, Montana Actually is still availabe in print or eBook format everywhere��(buy links)��and the reviews are really positive with a 4.02 average at Goodreads.

All my medical romances are availabe as eBooks now so if you’ve missed any you can catch up with them. I have a handy-dandy list of all titles here, in print format :-)

I generally pop into Facebook most days and Twitter so if you’re on social media you can catch me there and I look forward to seeing you!

If you celebrate Passover or Easter, I wish you a happy, joyous time over the coming week.

Best wishes,

Fiona xx

 

(This blog also appears today over at the Love Is The Best Medicine because it was my turn to blog there too!)

This weekend was the Australian Romance Readers Convention in the national capital, Canberra! Canberra was warm and sunny…not that I left the hotel but you know, it was nice to know the weather was glorious ;-)

Although, teeny-tiny compared with Amercia’s RT convention, ARRA is a lovely warm and intimate gathering. It was a terrific weekend and a good opportunity to mix and meet with romance readers! Most of them were women but there were a few blokes about and the one thing they all have in common is a voracious appetite for reading romance. The weekened kicked off on Friday night with drinks, a full conference day on Saturday including a fabulous books signing and a splendid awards dinner that had a 1920’s theme followed by another day of sessions on the Sunday. Books were launched (Rachael Johns’ Road To Hope and the ARRA book Tribal Law, sensational food was eaten and the quirky QT Hotel in Canberra was awash with the love of romance fiction :-)

I took part in a panel and the book signing. The rest of the time I popped to some sessions and caught up with some fellow authors I only get to see once a year or two including medical romance authors Avril Tremayne,��Fiona McArthur and Amy Andrews. The best way to describe the fun is a photo stream so here goes!

Me chatting with Mr. President! (The QT hotel in Canberra has a political theme)

The book signing. I just LOVE my banner and my cool Big Sky Country shopping bags!

The wonderful regency authors in their garb.

Me as a flapper at the awards dinner

Silly fun in the photo booth :-)

Book swag!

Canberra airport art

So now I am home, the high heels are back in the cupboard and real life is calling. How was your weekend and have you ever attended a romance readers event?

Autumn is in the air this morning! For the first time in a long time the cat slept on the bed from around 4am and when I ran to the gym at six, it was less than 10C. I LOVE autumn. It is my most favourite season; warm sunny days and crisp mornings and evenings.

What does March mean for me?

Next weekend, I’m going to my very first Australian Romance Readers Convention! It’s being held in Canberra…I bet the mornings will be crisp there! I’m really looking forward to this.

I’m working on my 21st medical romance for Mills & Boon, and plan to have it finished by March 26th before the two week term break. I’m really enjoying writing this slow-burn story.

Mothering committments continue all through March…Saturday sport watching sailing, school committees, teaching Boy Wonder how to drive, listening to trombone practice…man that instrument can make some really bone shuddering sounds ;-)

And then at the end of the month there is Easter! Hot cross buns and chocolate and school holidays!

Truly Madly Montana is up for pre-order now so if you enjoyed Montana Actually and you don’t want to miss Millie and Will’s story, preorder it and get that lovely surprise on July 7th/8th when it pings onto your eReader or arrives in the mail :-)

All my March writing news is up at��http://www.fionalowe.com/index.php/wh....

What are your plans for March? I’d love to know!

This weekend was one of those weekend full of good things but come Monday morning, a girl feels like she needs another one to recover. I am often heard to say, ‘there is little difference between a toddler and a teenager. Both are ego centric and need a lot of time although parenting a toddler tends to be more physcial and a teenager more emotional.’

Remember, those days when they were little and you were up at sparrows cos they didn’t sleep? Well, Boy Wonder wanted to sleep this weekend but school committments meant he had to be up at 5AM to catch the bus a heck of a long way to compete in a sailing competition. This means his mother needed to be up a tad before that! Both DH and I had a nap later on in the day!

We saw a fabulous show on Saturday night called Wot? No Fish? Danny Braverman is on tour from London telling the story of his extended family using doodles on pay packets over the course of ��60 years. Put like that it sounds meh but it was AMAZING! If he ever tours near you, go see the show.

Sunday was a full day at school…the annual family day. Of course it was incredibly hot but always good to catch up with other parents and your kid’s friends. ��Then it was home at 5pm with an exhausted 16 year old who had a lot of homework still to do. FUN TIMES!

What did you get up to?

Last year, Harlequin started digitalizing the Mills & Boon medical romances of mine that had never been released in America. Now the last three books have hit the eBook stores :-) YAY!

Career Girl in the Country, (female surgeon in an Australian outback mining town) The Doctor Claims His Bride (A flying doctor and a remote area nurse on an indigenous island off the coast of Darwin) and The Surgeon’s Special Delivery (my first surrogacy story) are all up and ready to read!

To find out more, click on each title. This will take you to my website where you can read about the books, see photos that inspired the stories and for your convenience, find the buy links to the most popular eBook stores :-) I’m anything if not helpful ;-)

If you have missed any of my 25 medical romances, this is the ideal opportunity for ��a catch up:-)

What am I, a romance author doing today for Valentine’s Day? Doing what parents around the country do on a Saturday; driving kids to sport! Boy Wonder has a sailing competition and The Lad is flying back to Hobart for the start of the university year so either DH or I have an early get-up to drive him up the long, black road to Melbourne. If I’m lucky, I’ll glimpse the husband at some point late afternoon ;-)

When we lived in America, we did the full Valentine’s Day catastrophe; champagne, chocolates, dinner, slinky lingerie and it was fun. I guess we could do it again this year but after getting up at 5AM to get The Lad to the airport, I think we both might be asleep on the couch by 8pm! ��Still, it’s not about the chocolates and the flowers, although note to husband, roses are nice to receive, it’s more about making a concious effort every day of valuing those you love. Big gestures are impressive for sure, ��but if they only happen once a year, they’re not enough to sustain any relationship.��To be honest, the fact my husband does all of the ironing means it’s Valentine’s Day every Sunday.

If you’re not part of a couple then I recommend you go buy yourself a nice box of chocolates, pour yourself a glass of champagne and read a fabulous romance. And even if you are part of a couple, that idea might be tempting too!

Oh, and look out in your local coffee shop. If there is a Harlequin or Mills & Boon Author near you, they may have left you a gift as part of the #blinddatewithabook promotion :-)

Also, for my Aussie readers, finally your very OWN giveaway …I know some of you were disappointed with the US only packs. Pop over to my Facebook Author Page��to enter :-)

Happy Valentine’s Day!