Janice Preston's Blog

Reblogged from my good friend and fellow author, Morton S. Gray’s blog who often hosts fellow writers on her blog http://www.mortonsgray.com!

Morton S. Gray - Author

This week I’m joined on my blog by good friend and author, Janice Preston. Janice has just published The Rags to Riches Governess for Mills and Boon. I will include my own review of the book at the end of the post.

Over to Janice to tell us about her childhood holiday memories …

Thank you for inviting me onto your blog to talk about my memories of childhood holidays, Morton.

My mind has been in the past a great deal of late, as I lost my Dad at the end of November. We made a start on sorting out his home and that, of course, included a number of photo albums as well as boxfuls of loose photographs, which triggered so many happy memories. Knowing I was to write this post, my plan was to return to Dad’s bungalow after the New Year and pick out a…

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I couldn’t resist reblogging this, from the very lovely Frankie at Chicks, Rogues and Scandals! Thank you for your unfailing support, Frankie – and Merry Christmas

A recent review of my debut novel, Mary and the Marquis – published five years ago this month! I’m so relieved that Rose enjoyed it!

Rose is Reading

Lucas Alastair, Marquis of Rothley/Mary Vale

Published: August 1, 2014

My Rating:  5/5 Stars

CURED WITH A KISS… 

When destitute widow Mary Vale aids an injured man on the road, she is shocked to discover that he is the reclusive Lucas Alastair, Marquis of Rothley! She’s intrigued by the dark marquis, but when she offers to nurse him back to health in return for shelter, he proves a difficult patient!

Lucas hides some deep emotion beneath his brusque manner, and a stolen kiss leaves her longing for more…. Able to help mend his physical injuries, can Mary heal the wounds of his painful past?

Mary and the Marquis is author Janice Preston’s debut novel. I’m a big fan of Ms. Preston’s work and decided to read the few books from her backlist that I’ve yet to read. This was a fabulous debut and a…

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An exclusive excerpt from Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir, reblogged from Morton S Gray – Author

Morton S. Gray - Author

I am delighted to feature an excerpt this week from Janice Preston‘s latest release Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir.

This scene takes place backstage at the Sans Pareil Theatre (now the Adephi Theatre), on the Strand in London –

Dominic entered the backstage area and immediately spied a cloaked and hooded figure lurking in a doorway up ahead. He adjusted his grip on his ebony cane, which handily concealed a sword, but the figure did not move as he passed. He’d taken two steps past before the scent of roses reached him, sending the hair on the back of his neck on end. He pivoted round to face…Miss Liberty Lovejoy.

Liberty gasped as a vice-like grip encircled her upper arm. The thick wool of the cloak she wore did little to disguise the strength in those fingers. Heart pumping with fear, she raised her eyes to her assailant…

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An insight from me, Lara, Elisabeth and Nicole on writing the Lochmore Legacy series!

Amanda Writes

Thank you so much, Amanda, for inviting me onto your blog to tell your readers a little about The Lochmore Legacy – a series of four linked but standalone Highland romances set in different historical time periods.

When Mills and Boon asked me to write a Victorian set romance as the first book of The Lochmore Legacy I was torn between excitement and nerves: excitement because I loved the premise of the series, and nerves because of the responsibility of writing that first book; excitement at the prospect of tackling a new-to-me historical period (I usually write Regencies), and nerves for the exact same reason; excitement when I learned my fellow authors would be Lara Temple, Elisabeth Hobbes and Nicole Locke, and nerves because, well, how much worse would it be if I let down such good friends? But I said yes. I promised myself when I first became a…

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The early reviews for His Convenient Highland Wedding are fantastic! Here is one of them, from Books and Wine Gums.

Books and Wine Gums

When I first heard about the new Mills and Boon continuity series, a set of four novels working their way back through time to tell the story of two warring Scottish clans, I was fascinated by the idea. Each written by a different author, the stories making up The Lochmore Legacy work back from the Victorian period to Medieval Scotland, focusing on sets of key relationships as the overall narrative unfolds. At the heart of the quartet is a mystery, established in Preston’s novel when Flora McCrieff discovers a skeleton hidden in an abandoned turret of her ancestral home. In amongst the bones is a brooch, an object which exerts a strange hold over the young girl. ‘The surface was decorated with a plant she recognises – a thrift, with its tuft of leaves and its distinctive flowers aloft on slender stems. Two swords crossed at the centre in an…

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This was a lovely surprise to see on the Review Sisters’ blog just now! I couldn’t resist sharing it! The Review Sisters are 5 lovely book reviewers who – yes, it’s true – they review books! Why not pop over to their blog and give them your support? And discover more wonderful books to read!

The Review Sisters

About Janice Preston

Janice grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. After leaving school at eighteen, she moved to Devon and any thoughts of writing became lost in the hectic rush of life as a farmer’s wife, with two children and many animals to care for. When her children left home for university, she discovered a love of history and of the Regency period in particular and began to write seriously for the first time since her teens.

Real life then got in the way and Janice didn’t write again until 2009. She joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association in 2012 and her first Regency romance was accepted for publication by Harlequin Mills & Boon in late 2013.

Janice now lives in the West Midlands with her second husband and two cats and continues to write Regency romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon.

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And an update on The Book Thief – I loved it! (You’ll have to read the interview to understand that one lol)

authorsinterviews

Name  Janice Preston

Age  Much older than I feel, which is another way of saying I can be very immature!

Where are you from

I was born in London and grew up in Wembley. At 18 I decided I wanted to work with animals so I took myself off to Devon to do 6 months practical experience on a dairy farm before going to agricultural college. I never did get to college. I met my first husband, a dairy farmer and that was it! We had two children, a boy and a girl, who are both now adult. My son is married, with a son of his own and another baby on the way, which I’m thrilled about. I now live with my second husband in the West Midlands, and through him I have acquired a stepson and a stepdaughter.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?

Cinderella and the…

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Of course it is! Just kidding. But that headline illustrates how bad I am at keeping anyone up to date with my doings. And now I’m planning to produce a newsletter! You can guess how that will go. If you’d like to sign up for it, you can do so here. You can be confident you won’t be inundated with emails, but there will be giveaways!

Back to my blog. My fingers are now on the keyboard and, rather than follow my normal practice and type a post in Word and then copy and paste it into my blog, I’m trying something new, i.e. typing straight into my blog, because I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to blog ‘formally’ doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s too similar to the day job and I am therefore just too resistant to actually getting started. So here I am trying the brain dump method

Greetings!

I haven’t blogged since May and it’s now September, and where, exactly, did the summer disappear to? Mind you, if you do follow my blog you already know my output is sporadic at best!

Contrary to my lack of activity on my blog, it has been a busy time for me, so here is a whiz through my summer.

I’m delighted to say I signed another two book contract with Harlequin Mills & Boon at the end of April, plus a contract for a Regency novella which will be released for Christmas 2017. The deadlines for the 2 books were 31st August 2016 and 31st January 2017 – which seemed doable as I had already prepared outlines (unusual for me) – until I realised the deadline for the novella was 14th February 2017, just 2 weeks after the deadline for book #7!

So I have had my head down since then, writing book #6 (provisionally titled Duke in Disguise). It was hard going for a while and more than once I feared I would never make the deadline, which happened to be just two days before my husband and I set off on holiday, leaving me no room to manoeuvre. But I made it. Phew. Now my nerves are being soundly wracked as I await my editor’s verdict.

In the spring I was interviewed on our local BBC radio station as part of their community takeover event. I met Maggie, the interviewer, through a talk I gave to a writing group at my local library, and she asked if I would be willing to be interviewed by her on the radio. It took place at her house rather than at the radio station, which would have been more intimidating, and after our initial bout of ‘um’s and ‘er’s we managed just fine.

You can listen to me bumbling away here, if you so wish.

In June I took part in a Love at the Library event at Harbury Library, with Ellie Darkins, who writes for the Mills & Boon Cherish line. We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite our nerves beforehand. We spoke about the history of Mills & Boon and how we came to be writing for them (I’ve blogged about my journey before – you can read about it here) and then we held a Q&A session. The audience were lovely!

Then in July I sat on a panel at the inaugural Evesham Festival of Words with fellow local authors Alison May and Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn.

Our event was ‘Inside the minds of three authors’ and, after each reading an excerpt from our work, we discussed why we write what we write and our different approaches to writing. Again, the audience were fabulous which helped to settle my nerves.

I found with all three events that my nerves vanished as soon as I got going, and I realised the same thing happens with many of life’s challenges – perhaps it is the surge of adrenalin as I swing into action