WELCOME PIA FENTON!

I am so pleased to welcome the fantastic Pia Fenton (aka Christina Courtenay) on to my blog today to talk about her latest book, a YA contemporary romance novel entitled New England Dreams. Pia writes historical romance, time slip and YA contemporary romance, mainly published by independent publisher Choc Lit. 

She is half Swedish and was brought up in Sweden. In her teens, she moved to Japan where she had the opportunity to travel extensively in the Far East. She is a former chairman of the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association. Her novels Highland Storms and The Gilded Fan have both won the RoNA Award for Best Historical Romantic Novel of the Year (in 2012 and 2014 respectively). Her latest novels are The Jade Lioness (historical) and New England Dreams (YA contemporary romance). Coming soon – The Velvet Cloak of Moonlight (time slip).

Pia and I have met a few times at the Romantic Novelists Conference, and I couldn't wait to hear more about her life, how she got into writing, and of course all about her latest book. Over to you, Pia….

New England Dreams is a Young Adult contemporary romance, the 4^th instalment in my Northbrooke High series which features UK heroines clashing with US heroes in an American high school setting. The other three books are New England Rocks, New England Crush and New England TLC. The first one was published by Choc Lit, but they subsequently decided not to continue with a YA imprint, so I self-published the others as I had already written them.

I have to admit I’m not very techie, so luckily I didn’t undertake this endeavour on my own – I got together with three other YA authors who were also keen to self-publish and we work together as a group. We have a website, blog and Twitter account under the name Paisley Piranha and I have found the support of the others invaluable! Everything is always easier when you work as a team. During the weekend of 29^th-31^st July we were selling our books at YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention) which is part of the London Film & Comic Con – very exciting!

New England Rocks, first in the series, was inspired by a high school reunion I attended a couple of years back. I was lucky enough to live in Tokyo as a teenager and went to the American School in Japan (ASIJ) for three years. I had a fantastic time and meeting up with some of my old friends from back then made so many memories come flooding into my brain, I just knew I had to do something with them.

Of course, everything wasn’t perfect (what teenager’s life ever is?!) and with hindsight there were things I would have chosen to do differently. I started to think about how I would have liked to change things back then and how I should have acted and decided to write it down. This turned into book one of the Northbrooke High series and I’ve just carried on from there.

I wasn’t one of those people who always wanted to write – I didn’t scribble down stories as a child, but I did daydream a lot and perhaps that helped? I was a voracious reader, but never tried writing myself until I’d had my first child and decided I wanted to stay at home with her. The only work I could think of which would let me do that was to write, so I had a go. I really enjoyed it and thought it was dead easy – until my manuscripts (yes, plural, I sent two off at once to give the publisher a choice – <cringe> how naïve was I?!) came winging back very quickly. In the end, it took me 21 years to get published, but I had so much fun writing, it was worth it.

I normally write historical or time slip stories for adults, which involve a lot of research, but sometimes I want to write using nothing but my imagination. So basically, writing YA is a sort of holiday for me – when I give myself permission to just write and have fun!

The latest one, New England Dreams, was inspired by a crazy thing I did once – kiss a guy I met on a plane, a complete stranger. I really can’t remember now how it came about, it just seemed a natural progression from talking, I suppose, and nothing ever came of it (he lived in Alaska, I lived in Sweden). But although I can’t even recall what he looked like, the memory stayed with me and my story grew from that.

I’m sure we all do silly things occasionally, that’s human nature, but I’d love to hear what some of you have done!

PIA IS OFFERING A FREE COPY OF NEW ENGLAND DREAMS TO WHOEVER LEAVES THE MOST AMUSING COMMENT BELOW!

Firstly though, the back cover blurb from New England Dreams.

When opposites attract, can dreams come true?

Staying in New England for a few months is just what Sienna Randall needs after all the family problems she's been dealing with at home in London. The last thing she's expecting is romance, so it's a total surprise when she ends up kissing a guy she meets on the flight.

Kyle Everett is Sienna's complete opposite – he’s clean-cut and over-polished, she has piercings and pink dreads. But he can’t resist making out with her. He is, after all, Northbrooke High’s number one player. Except Sienna's different from other girls. He’s definitely expecting to see her again – until they're separated by irate airline officials before he can get her number.

Fate throws them together once more, but when Sienna turns up in Kyle's home room, neither admits to having met before. The chemistry between them is still there though – should they let it have free rein or should the attraction stay in their dreams?

Buy links:-

Paperback - https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-England-Dreams-Northbrooke-High/dp/1533681724/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1468752808&sr=8-3&keywords=Pia+Fenton

Ebook (Kindle only) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/England-Dreams-Northbrooke-High-Book-ebook/dp/B01H2SM000/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1468752808&sr=8-5&keywords=Pia+Fenton

Don't forget – Pia is giving away a free copy of her latest book, to whoever leaves the most amusing (in our opinion) comment!

Thank you, Pia!

A Love-ly RNA Conference

Karen King, Ann Evans, Chrissie Bradshaw,
Sheryl Browne, Lynda Stacey.

Last weekend was one of my writing highlights of the year – the Romantic Novelist Association's annual conference. 

This year is was held at Lancaster University, and it was my third conference. My good pal, author Karen King and I teamed up, and we took the train north feeling really excited to be going along to another RNA gathering.

It's the thought of meeting up with familiar faces, making new friends, and basically just being around so many people who share that love of writing. It's such an amazing atmosphere, lots of buzz and noise, lots of laughter and chat – and of course plenty of time to eat and drink.

Of course it wasn't all socialising. It was brilliantly organised with the programme of talks, workshops and one-to-ones sent out to delegates some weeks before the event so that you can say which sessions you plan on attending, and arrange a one-to-one consultation with one of the top editors or literary agents who attend. You have to be quick in booking these however, as places are highly coveted.

Sheryl Browne, Karen King, Ann Evans

Around 220 romantic novelists attended the conference, who ranged from those on the New Writers' Scheme to multi published big name writers. But the friendliness of the event ensured there was no divide between the published and non-published, or those published traditionally or the self published. Everyone mixed together, sharing news, catching up on the year gone by and generally making new friends and having fun.

There were around 35 different talks and workshops ranging from 'Author marketing – brand, plan and goals' led by author Liz Fenwick and Brigid Coady of Harper Collins, to 'Romancing the YA readership – what makes a book successful for teen readers' presented by author Joss Stirling.

Tracy Bloom. Katy Haye and Ian Skillicorn ran an excellent session on 'The business of self publishing', and Sarah Wendell had jetted over from the USA to run a brilliant – and funny session of 'Reviews – getting them, dealing with them and managing them.' Her initial piece of advice for any writer about to look at a review about her book is to eat chocolate! She wasn't joking – eat lots of chocolate or something equally as messy because then you'll have sticky fingers and won't be tempted to use your keyboard and reply to a review as a knee jerk reaction. Good advice!

Friday night's dessert - Yum!

The Romaniacs – a group of authors who got together to support each other a few years ago, gave an inspiring panel talk called, 'Pens & Pompoms – writing against the odds'. Complete with pompoms there were rousing cheers and support for those who were facing – or had faced difficult times in their lives. The ladies talked of the problems they had faced, and gave great advice on how they managed to get through those bad times and get back to their writing.

There was lots and lots going on, with frequent tea, coffee and biscuit breaks, lunch breaks and then dinner and a bar in the evenings. The highlight of the weekend was the Gala Dinner on the Saturday evening which included the presentation of the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy. This was a short story competition, judged anonymously, and the winner and highly commended announced on the night.

Meeting one of my favourite romantic novelists,
Freda Lightfoot.

2010 was the RNA's Golden anniversary and the society is rightly proud of its long history and its association with so many professionals in the world of romantic fiction. It holds numerous social events and meetings with top speakers, sharing expertise and knowledge. It runs competitions and a New Writers Scheme. It also publishes a quarterly magazine, Romance Matters.

Lots of books and their authors at the conference.

Why not take a look at their website? The RNA welcomes traditionally published and self published writers - and they have great conferences!!  :http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/

My website: http://www,annevansbooks.co.uk

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Twitter: @annevansauthor

Blog: http://www,blogger.com/annsawriter

A Little Romance

As well as writing children's books, I am quite partial to writing a nice romance every now and then. In fact when I first started writing 30 odd years ago, it was romances that I particularly wanted to write. At the time I joined The Romantic Novelists Association (RNA) as a probationer, and went along to a couple of their events.

There was a weekend in Bournmouth where I heard author Mary Wibberley, talk and recall being absolutely awe inspired by her. I bought her guide on writing romance, To Writers with Love which she signed for me.

I was saddened to learn that she passed away in December last year. She'd written almost 50 books for Mills & Boon, the first being Black Niall in 1973.

When my writing went in the direction of children's books and non fiction, romance got put on the back burner for some 20 years. Then a couple of years ago, I caught the romance-writing bug again and finally got two romances published as floppies with My Weekly and People's Friend – and then in large print and ebooks.

This all rekindled my interest in writing romance, and I re-joined the RNA, this time as a full member. Good friend and fellow author Karen King – who writes romance under the name of Kay Harborne joined at the same time, and in July this year we went along to their annual conference, which was superb.

It was held at the Harper Adams University, Telford and for the three days we were treated to a packed programme of talks and workshops by top romance authors, publishers, editors, agents and other professionals. At each period there was always a choice of three different session to attend, so you were just spoilt for choice as to who you were going to be inspired by next!

Gala Dinner starter!

Food and drink was wonderful – it was good to see they recognised the fact that writers like to eat and drink! There was a free drinks party before dinner on the first night - courtesy of Independent Publishing at Amazon. And they again provided lots of free wine the following night before the gala dinner.

Author Pamela Hartshorne gave a fascinating talk.

There was also an opportunity to have a one-to-one with editors and agents, which you pre-booked and submitted some work beforehand that you wanted feedback or comments from. 

All these slots were quickly nabbed, and I think everyone there really appreciated the opportunity of talking about their latest masterpiece with a possible publisher, or agent.

A little pre-dinner drink with Karen King.

Everybody was networking, exchanging emails, phone numbers and business cards. And a few new friendships sprang up too, no doubt.

It was just such a great three days – and if the RNA is an organisation that you think would interest you, then I'd recommend you take a look and see what they have to offer. As well as conferences and get togethers, they have annual awards and lots of other activities going on.