Enter the fabulous Garland Girls I’m often asked about secondary characters in my romances, especially  about my Rita nominated book, The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess. Does dress designer and, in this instance, wedding planner, Princess Violet have her own story?  Do the Garland Girls appear in other books?The Garland Girls

I created the Garland Agency and the slightly terrifying Amanda Garland,  for the book Dating Her Boss.

When Jilly Prescott , having been offered an interview by the Garland Agency, arrives in London clutching her certificates for incredible typing and shorthand speeds Amanda Garland is torn.

Her brother needs help, but he’s suspicious of her efforts to tempt him out of a very dark place by sending him her most attractive temps, who he immediately finds reasons to dismiss.

Jilly, with her uncontrollable mop of hair and a Geordie accent that elocution lessons have not been able to entirely eradicate, will bypass that problem and deal with his immediate need for secretarial help.

Jilly, who is in London to catch up with her childhood sweetheart, only to have her dreams smashed, touches Max’s grieving heart and he sets out to help her be noticed in her friend’s glamorous new world. The truth is that he’s already noticed  her himself.

With that book reaching its happy conclusion I was left with Amanda. What was her story?

A woman needs a man like a fish needs…

Well, you know how that goes.  Self-sufficient, successful, and independently wealthy, Amanda needs no one to make her life complete. Except…with love all around her, and a baby niece or nephew about to arrive, her biological alarm clocks goes off. Being Amanda Garland, she deals with it as efficiently as any other problem.

There isn’t a man in her life so she’s going to use a donor clinic to achieve her dream. That’s until she meets car hire chauffeur Daniel Redford and the plan begins to unravel.

Never waste a good idea

Early in my writing career, about book three or four, I created my own lifestyle magazine called Celebrity, which pops up whenever I need one in a story. It has a rival, Glitz, created by my friend and fabulous writer, Jessica Hart. (They both appeared in If the Shoe Fits.)

Having created the Garland Agency, whenever I need a competent woman to take charge of a difficult situation, this was the place to go.  Philly in The Temp & the Tycoon is a Garland Girl. And and it’s Amanda Garland who in The Sheikh’s Convenient Princess, sends Ruby to the desert fastness of Bram al Ansari when his personal assistant has a skiing accident.

Bram has just received a warning from his brother that he’s about to be trapped into an arranged marriage. He doesn’t need a PA, he needs a convenient wife…

Back to Princess Violet

At this point, Princess Violet (which is where this post started) believing this to be a love match is determined to give Ruby and Bram a wedding that, while private, will be unforgettable.,

And yes, she does have her own story. Descended from a runaway princess who took with her the legendary ruby encrusted dagger, the Blood of Tariq, I wrote Violet’s story, Chosen As the Sheikh’s Wife as a special commission for the 100th anniversary of Mills and Boon which is published in 100 Arabian Nights.

It’s a novella, but packed with action. A life-changing discovery, a life-threatening situation, a marriage of convenience, a kidnapping and an attempted coup. And two lovely people falling in love.