The Bridesmaid's Reward (What Women Want !) by Liz Fielding  (6)
|
The Ordinary Princess High Society Brides (Harlequin Romance) by Liz Fielding  (1)
|
Show Her The Money (Silhouette Bombshell) by Stephanie Feagan (6)
|
Lakeside Cottage by Susan Wiggs  (16)
$7.50
|
Princess Of Convenience (Harlequin Romance) by Marion Lennox |
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||||||
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
Excerpted from The Marriage Miracle (Romance) by Liz Fielding. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE… The one question a writer dreads – and it’s the one most often asked – is "Where do you get your ideas from?" The real answer is, I fear, is the one the questioner least wants to hear, the one that authors hate to admit to, the one that sounds like a cop out. We don’t know. It’s a kind of magic. They are absorbed by osmosis from the atmosphere. Overheard snatches of conversations, a newspaper headline, a line in a film will start a thread of thought. It’s an ephemeral thing, a scrap of cobweb drifting on warm air. It can be lost in a moment of distraction, blown away in the slightest draught. Or it can touch against other thoughts, picking up the grit of character, conflict, motivation until it becomes tangible; the bones of a story needing only to be clothed in words, translated from thought to paper (which is the really hard bit, by the way). Sometimes, though, it doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes, a minor character will appear in one story and is so real, so whole that you know instinctively that she has a story of her own to tell. That’s how it was for me with Matty Lang and THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE. From the moment she opened her mouth in A Wife on Paper she was giving me trouble. She flirted with the hero, she duffed up the bad guys, she demanded attention. The only way I could get her to behave, stay in the background, was to promise her a story of her own and after that she did exactly what was required of her, providing a solid prop for my heroine’s motivation, and no more. "Okay," she said, when I’d finished her cousin’s story. "Let’s start." There was only one problem; Matty Lang is in a wheelchair and since I don’t write fairy stories, there would be no magic wand to make that problem go away. Where would I find a hero worthy of her, a man with heart enough to see beyond her disability to the woman? Where would I find the words to draw in the reader, encourage her to risk the journey, take a leap of faith. Worse, it was going to be seriously Hard Work. It would involve research (which is not my favourite thing) and an intensity of emotional input that I knew would drain me dry. Matty, however, was not the kind of character to let some whining author stand in her way and finally I tentatively broached the idea with my editor. I’ll be honest, here; I was hoping that she would veto it, say, "This is not for us…" Rescue me so that I could go back to Matty with a clear conscience, say, "I’d do it in a heartbeat, honestly. It’s her fault…" No such luck. I wrote A Family of His Own. It won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize, was named Best Harlequin Romance of the year by Romantic Times and nominated for a RITA. Matty applauded politely, then said, ‘Right, I’ve been patient, now it’s my turn.’ I wrote Her Wish-List Bridegroom; single fathers, single mothers, cheating boyfriends, a cat called Archie. Lots of emotion in this one. For Juliet. Matty hated Juliet. ‘The woman’s a wimp,’ she said. ‘She didn’t have a father and her boyfriend stole her job. Big deal. It’s My Turn!’ I wrote A Nanny for Keeps. Emotion, humour, a six-year-old diva, chickens… Matty threw a pot of her favourite purple nail polish at the back of my head and said, ‘Enough with the livestock. IT’S MY TURN!’ I said, "Give me a break. I’ll get to you once I done the "feud" story…’ But she was right. It was her turn. Having a great character raring to go, however, is not enough. And that’s where the magic started. With the fairies. Day-glo bright, the Forest Fairies flew down onto the page and set about ruining Sebastian Wolseley’s day, year, life… I wrote a whole chapter about Sebastian and the fairies (still prevaricating) before I stopped fooling around and started again with the belated blessing of the marriage of the hero and heroine of A Wife on Paper. The guests have moved into the marquee to start the dancing, only Matty and Sebastian remain outside in the garden, detached, apart from the crowd, alone. Matty, because, well obviously dancing doesn’t hold much appeal for her. Sebastian because weddings come next to bottom on his list of fun events (and he’s already been to a funeral that day.)
THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE… The one question a writer dreads – and it’s the one most often asked – is "Where do you get your ideas from?" The real answer is, I fear, is the one the questioner least wants to hear, the one that authors hate to admit to, the one that sounds like a cop out. We don’t know. It’s a kind of magic. They are absorbed by osmosis from the atmosphere. Overheard snatches of conversations, a newspaper headline, a line in a film will start a thread of thought. It’s an ephemeral thing, a scrap of cobweb drifting on warm air. It can be lost in a moment of distraction, blown away in the slightest draught. Or it can touch against other thoughts, picking up the grit of character, conflict, motivation until it becomes tangible; the bones of a story needing only to be clothed in words, translated from thought to paper (which is the really hard bit, by the way). Sometimes, though, it doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes, a minor character will appear in one story and is so real, so whole that you know instinctively that she has a story of her own to tell. That’s how it was for me with Matty Lang and THE MARRIAGE MIRACLE. From the moment she opened her mouth in A Wife on Paper she was giving me trouble. She flirted with the hero, she duffed up the bad guys, she demanded attention. The only way I could get her to behave, stay in the background, was to promise her a story of her own and after that she did exactly what was required of her, providing a solid prop for my heroine’s motivation, and no more. "Okay," she said, when I’d finished her cousin’s story. "Let’s start." There was only one problem; Matty Lang is in a wheelchair and since I don’t write fairy stories, there would be no magic wand to make that problem go away. Where would I find a hero worthy of her, a man with heart enough to see beyond her disability to the woman? Where would I find the words to draw in the reader, encourage her to risk the journey, take a leap of faith. Worse, it was going to be seriously Hard Work. It would involve research (which is not my favourite thing) and an intensity of emotional input that I knew would drain me dry. Matty, however, was not the kind of character to let some whining author stand in her way and finally I tentatively broached the idea with my editor. I’ll be honest, here; I was hoping that she would veto it, say, "This is not for us…" Rescue me so that I could go back to Matty with a clear conscience, say, "I’d do it in a heartbeat, honestly. It’s her fault…" No such luck. I wrote A Family of His Own. It won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize, was named Best Harlequin Romance of the year by Romantic Times and nominated for a RITA. Matty applauded politely, then said, ‘Right, I’ve been patient, now it’s my turn.’ I wrote Her Wish-List Bridegroom; single fathers, single mothers, cheating boyfriends, a cat called Archie. Lots of emotion in this one. For Juliet. Matty hated Juliet. ‘The woman’s a wimp,’ she said. ‘She didn’t have a father and her boyfriend stole her job. Big deal. It’s My Turn!’ I wrote A Nanny for Keeps. Emotion, humour, a six-year-old diva, chickens… Matty threw a pot of her favourite purple nail polish at the back of my head and said, ‘Enough with the livestock. IT’S MY TURN!’ I said, "Give me a break. I’ll get to you once I done the "feud" story…’ But she was right. It was her turn. Having a great character raring to go, however, is not enough. And that’s where the magic started. With the fairies. Day-glo bright, the Forest Fairies flew down onto the page and set about ruining Sebastian Wolseley’s day, year, life… I wrote a whole chapter about Sebastian and the fairies (still prevaricating) before I stopped fooling around and started again with the belated blessing of the marriage of the hero and heroine of A Wife on Paper. The guests have moved into the marquee to start the dancing, only Matty and Sebastian remain outside in the garden, detached, apart from the crowd, alone. Matty, because, well obviously dancing doesn’t hold much appeal for her. Sebastian because weddings come next to bottom on his list of fun events (and he’s already been to a funeral that day.)
Matty interrupts his depressed contemplation of the contents of his champagne glass with, ‘You look as if you could do with something stronger.’ Sebastian, having a seriously bad day, is in no mood for a flirtation and somewhat sourly replies: ‘Do you tap dance for an encore?’ She lifted her eyebrows, but she didn’t smile. ‘Tap dance?’ ‘You’re not the cabaret? A mind reading act, perhaps?’ He heard the biting sarcasm coming from his mouth and wished he’d walked. He had no business inflicting his black mood on innocent bystanders. Or sitters. ‘It doesn’t take a mind-reader to see that you’re not exactly focussed on this whole ‘til-death-us-do-part’ thing,’ she countered, still not smiling, but not storming off, offended, either. ‘You’ve been holding your glass for so long that the contents must be warm. In fact I’d go as far as to suggest that you’d look more at home at a wake than at a reception to celebrate the blessing of a marriage.’ ‘Definitely a mind-reader,’ he said, finally abandoning the barely touched glass on her table. ‘Although I have a feeling that the wake I’ve just left will by now be making this party look sedate.’ That’s so bad! Having been drawn into conversation, he tries to escape by embarrassing her. Haven’t you been paying attention, Sebastian Wolseley? This is Matty Lang and you are so stuffed!
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product( What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|