For me, back to school means back to work. With a book due in at the end of next month, I couldn’t quite afford to take the full two weeks off for Easter, but with the daughter at home all day everyday, work has been crammed into evenings and weekend mornings while she’s watching cartoons with the husband, before we head out for family holiday fun.

We’re incredibly fortunate; by working from home I have great flexibility about when I work – invaluable when we have no close family living nearby, and feel kinda guilty about taking too much advantage of the very generous friends who offer to entertain the daughter for odd afternoons when they think I’m getting a little stressed out about falling behind.

Still, with the husband working full time and studying for his PhD in something scientific (I think it has to do with magnets…) it has felt a little like we’re working shifts here this holiday. The husband took last Friday off work to spend having adventures with the daughter. I handed her over to him at 9am and, barring occasional stop ins for emergency hugs, and once to show me her new swimming costume (“Guess where we’re going Mummy! You’ll never guess!”) left them to it until 4pm. At which point I cleared the desk, packed away my computer, let the husband into the study (with laptop and notes in hand) and took over the train track making, dinner cooking, bath and bedtime songs and story reading routines. At 8pm, the husband stopped work long enough for us to eat pizza together, then we both got back to it for another hour or two. He got the study, I got the sofa. And the leftover mini eggs.

So it’s nice to be back to my usual routine this week, working mornings in my little study, then spending time with the daughter in the afternoon. She’s developed a newfound love of hoovering to go with her dusting obsession, so for once the housework is actually getting done with some regularity.

And tomorrow evening they announce the school places for the district. Come September, whichever school she ends up at, my little girl will be heading off in a uniform for the first time, and I’ll have six hours of uninterrupted peace to write my stories.

So for now, I think I’ll go and get the train set out, ready for when she gets back from nursery. We still haven’t managed to make a track with no dead ends that uses all the pieces. Must achieve it before September…

But it’s March 1st, St David’s Day, and surely it has to be spring by now, right?

Spring always makes me want to do things. Not clean, obviously, but other things. Start new projects, undertake new activities, make something.

In this spirit, the daughter is starting ballet class today – something she is beyond excited about. She’s been to a couple of taster classes with a friend and, while she might not have a natural genius for dance, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly. She’s been practicing her gallops ever since. It’s like taking a very small horse for a walk.

I, on the other hand, am in something of a holding pattern, unable to get going on all sorts of things. I’ve just finished up revisions on one book, and am now waiting for edits from my agent. I’m expecting content edits any day for Summer of Love, and copy edits for Stranded with the Tycoon. (There are a lot of edits in my future, it seems. Expect whining.) And then there’s my editor’s thoughts on my proposal for my next Mills and Boon novel, something I’m waiting very anxiously for!

So there’s a lot of hurry up and wait going on around here. On the plus side, we’re halfway through redecorating the study! The husband has painted and papered the walls, we’ve spent the obligatory five hours in IKEA choosing desks, shelves, lighting, desk chair and bookcase, and the very indulgent reading chair was delivered this morning… we’re just waiting for the carpet to arrive and get fitted before we can put it all together. Sigh.

If only I were a more patient person. Perhaps I’ll go outline another book while I wait…

Still, I wanted to update the blog with the latest dates and details for my upcoming releases…

Firstly, my debut Harlequin Mills and Boon novel! Titled Stranded with the Tycoon, this will be released as a Harlequin Romance novel in the US this September. It’ll also have a digital, hardback and large print release in the UK in the same month, although it won’t be available as a paperback over here. (Don’t worry! They promise my future releases will… And I’m really liking that assumed plural there!)

Secondly, the third part of my Love from Wales series, Summer of Love, is currently scheduled for release (digital only) from Lyrical Press on December 2nd. This is always subject to change until a couple of months out, but I’ll keep you updated on any shifts. I’m hoping that just as winter is beginning to bite, you’ll all be ready to read about a summer full of weddings, love and jewellery…

Right! Must get back to work. Many more books to write!

You Have My Heart, Sweet Valentine Love, by D. Sharon Pruitt

Well, apparently the good news isn’t over for this week! I’m delighted to report that I’ve just signed a new contract with Lyrical Press to publish the third book in my Love from Wales series – Summer of Love.

This book was a bit of a beast to get from my head down onto paper, but I’m pleased with the end product. No word yet on a release date – and I still have the joy of edits ahead yet – but as soon as I have details I’ll be sharing them here.

In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of what it’s all about…

Summer of Love

Boutique jewelry designer, Lily Thomas, knows that hating the boring ring her fiancé bought her isn’t a good enough reason for ending a seven year relationship. Especially when settling down with Edward is the only thing she’s ever done right in the eyes of her mother, and her hometown. Everyone else is doing it – Lily’s best friend Cora, her cousin, her friends from work, old school friends… it seems that everyone is getting married that summer. Why not her?

But when her high school crush, Alex Harper, moves back to Felinfach, he shows her that pretending to be someone she’s not, just to keep her fiancé happy, isn’t the right way to start a marriage either.

Alex, meanwhile, is dreaming of a whole new life. He’s left behind the money and the women of his successful city career, moved home to settle down, and is ready to start a new career as a photographer. But he hadn’t counted on his little cousin’s best friend, Lily, growing up so damn distractingly gorgeous. The town wild child isn’t at all what he had in mind for a future bride, never mind that she’s still engaged to someone else.

But when Lily calls off her engagement, and she and Alex strike a wedding buddies pact – agreeing to accompany each other to all the weddings they have scheduled that summer – the whole town is suddenly talking about them. And if they’re going to talk anyway, why not make the most of it? As long as they both know it’s only a summer fling…

Alice in Wonderland Cake, made by the lovely Georgina

So, it’s been a bit of an exciting week, here at Pembroke Cottage. Firstly, and most importantly, the Daughter turned four, with all the pomp and ceremony you might expect. She’d spent weeks, possibly months, planning the details. She’d chosen the theme – Alice in Wonderland, of course – decided on the invitation design, discussed party games at length, looked at cake sketches, revised and refined the guest list, chosen the perfect Alice outfit and matching headband… everything. She had also become convinced, erroneously, that once she turned four, she’d suddenly be able to whistle. I think this was the only major let down of the big day.

But there were moments when I though the party might not happen at all. Almost all of the party supplies were selected and ordered while I was in a medicated haze earlier in the month. I lost four hours staring at a party website and, afterwards, wasn’t actually able to recount what I’d ordered. And then, the day before her birthday, I got a phone call.

Let’s backtrack a little. Last year, I wrote a new romance that I submitted to Mills and Boon. They liked it, but had some changes they wanted me to make. I met with my very lovely editor at the Festival of Romance in November, and we discussed the plot changes and character tweaks we wanted to include. All of which was fine, except I was committed to another big project at the time, and had to admit I wouldn’t get around to the revisions until the New Year. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem – they wanted to see it whenever it was ready.

So, back to 2013. The other project reached a point where I could take a couple of weeks off, and once I was over the lurgy I got stuck into the revisions for M&B. I was about two thirds of the way through by last Thursday, when they called.

M&B: “How are the revisions going?”

Me, thinking of the teetering stack of scribbled on manuscript pages covering my dining table: “Um, okay. Should be with you by next Wednesday, actually.”

M&B: “Any chance we could have it tomorrow…?”

And so ensued a rather panicked revision. Because I tend to revise on the printed manuscript, with post-it notes, highlighters and red pen on hand, every single change I made had to be typed up. And since I’d written several whole new scenes for this one… it took a while.

But I got it done – somewhere in between roping in friends to take on choir duties, getting a few hours sleep before the Daughter bounced in wanting to open presents, making pink pancakes for breakfast, packing the daughter off to school, opening more presents on her return, food shopping for the party, taking her to a friend’s birthday party, opening more presents with Mum and Dad when they arrived, and collapsing with a glass of wine and chips from the chippie on Friday evening.

I made the husband clean the house for our guests.

And then, I had to put the whole thing out of my mind to focus on the party. Fortunately, my very talented friend, Georgina, had agreed to make the amazing Alice in Wonderland cake you see above, so all I had to do was knock up a few jam tarts, chocolate chip muffins and some rather oddly shaped biscuits. Savory goods were delegated to Dad, the Husband took care of the decorations, Uncle Mike was in charge of keeping all adults in attendance topped up on tea and coffee, and Mum stage managed the party games and treasure hunt for the party bags.

Then, at half past four, we sent all the sugar-high children home, bunged stuff in the bin, and I went and passed out upstairs.

I’d just about recovered by Monday, when my lovely editor called to tell me that Mills and Boon wanted to sign me up for a two book deal.

Obviously, I said yes.

Perhaps it’s the new school year thing, or maybe just the way the weather forces us inside more. Or it could be the impending Christmas season, and all the planning it requires.

Although, honestly, it might just be that I tend to have a lot going on in autumn, and suddenly realise that if I want to stand a fighting chance of getting it all done, I need a better organisational system!

Anyway, I like to imagine myself sitting contemplatively in front of a roaring fire, sipping a hot chocolate, while I map out my plans and schemes for the winter in a beautiful leather notebook.

In reality, I’m usually wearing an amusingly furry fleece over my pyjamas and big fuzzy socks, because the heating in our new house is rubbish, swigging wine from a very large glass, and scribbling indecipherable notes to myself in the back of the Boots Christmas catalogue.

Something that’s making the whole ‘To Do’ panic worse this year is that I still haven’t adjusted to the new rhythms of how we live in this new house, and this new town. This new season of our lives, even.

Sometimes it’s the little things that catch me out: the fact we have a washer/dryer, now, rather than separate appliances, or how the postman unerringly delivers the mail – and the inevitable red ‘you were out so now you have to come and get your sack load of parcels from the sorting office’ card – when I’m either taking the daughter to school, or picking her up again.

But there are bigger things too – new friends, for me and for the daughter – and new opportunities to get and out do things, to play and have fun, or to chat over a cup of tea. These are some of the main reasons we moved here, and something I’m enjoying immensely – but I haven’t got used yet to the time it takes out of my day. There’s the fact I don’t have a car most days – rarely a problem, as most things are within walking distance. But it means we walk a lot more (often to the sorting office to pick up the aforementioned sack load of parcels) discovering new playgrounds on the way, and new piles of leaves to jump in. Wonderful things, things that give a new flow to the day. I like the flow, I’m just not quite sure where it goes yet.

And – I know this is really, really obvious, but sometimes I’m a bit slow – living further away means it takes longer to get places. It makes it harder to get together with friends from our old town, but only because I haven’t managed to plan it properly yet. And because I only just found the hoover behind a stack of boxes, and the house isn’t exactly ready for visitors right now!

I know everything will fall into place – we’ve only actually had less than three weeks living in this house – but I’m impatient. I love the new rhythms of our new life, and I want everything else – work, housework, obligations and travel – to slot neatly into place around them. So in the meantime, I’m scribbling my lists of things to be done, and highlighting the calendar so I can’t possibly forget that the daughter has to wear pyjamas to school tomorrow for Children in Need. Hopefully nothing major will slip through the cracks while I’m scrabbling around, trying to get on top of everything. Not least the very many books I’m supposed to be writing, revising or submitting…

One new tradition that’s developed very early in our new house is the Tradition of the Sunday Pudding. We can’t manage it every week, but if we’re all here for Sunday dinner, it’s a must. And it is by far my favourite of our new rhythms, for obvious, pudding related reasons.

It started the day that I unpacked the books. They’re all tucked on shelves in an alcove at the bottom of the stairs and, because the new kitchen is so tiny, the cook books have a shelf all of their own. While I was lugging around cardboard boxes, and trying to clear up after myself, I realised that the daughter had curled up in the alcove, with her I Can Cook book. Shortly afterwards, she appeared, holding the book open at the relevant page, and said, “Mummy, can I make these?”

Obviously the response to any pudding-making related question is usually yes. “Of course,” I said. “Why don’t we make them for pudding on Sunday?”

So that weekend, the daughter and I hunted around the shelves of the new, differently organised, Tesco for the relevant ingredients, and she made Sunday Pudding with, quite honestly, very little help from me!

This week’s pudding was such a success, I felt it qualified as an actual bake. So, here’s Bake 39, courtesy of the daughter, and the BBC book, I Can Cook. I’ll admit, I doubled the recipe from the quantities here, but we did have some left over!

Bake 39: Bread & Butter Surprise

Ingredients:

• 25g soft butter
• 2 slices of day-old bread
• 2 tinned pear halves
• 50g milk chocolate drops
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 25g caster sugar

Method:

• Grease a small-ish oven proof dish
• Butter the dread and cut into triangles
• Cut the tinned pears into bite sized pieces
• Arrange half the bread in a layer to cover the bottom of the dish
• Sprinkle half the chocolate drops over, and then half the pear
• Arrange the rest of the bread on top, the sprinkle with the rest of the chocolate and pear
• Mix the egg, milk and sugar in a jug, then pour over the bread to cover
• Bake for 25-30 minutes at 200°C
• Serve to grateful parents!

Instead of doing any of these things, however, I made this cake to take with us. Because I have Priorities.

When I’d asked the family at large what sort of cake they’d like me to make to bring, the straw poll was split between coffee cake and chocolate cake. So I went with the best of both, with this yummy recipe, more or less exactly from The Great British Bake Off How To Bake book.

I tried to get a photo of the cake, but the best I could manage was a comedy selection of Uncle Mike eating it:

Bake 38: Speckled Mocha Cake

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

• 175g unsalted butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 175g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp espresso powder, dissolved in 2 tbsp water
• 50g dark chocolate

For the filling:

• 50g dark chocolate
• 1 tbsp espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tbsp water
• 50 unsalted butter
• 100g icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until really creamy, then gradually beat in the sugar, until pale and fluffy
3. Beat the eggs then gradually add to the butter and sugar, beating well after every addition
4. Sift the flower and baking powder into the bowl and fold in with a spoon, followed by the coffee
5. Grate in the chocolate and mix gently
6. Divide the mixture evenly between two greased and lined sandwich tins and bake for 20-25 minutes
7. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack
8. To make the filling, chop the chocolate roughly and put in a heatproof bowl with the coffee
9. Set over a pan of steaming hot water and leave to melt
10. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir, then add the butter and icing sugar
11. Beat until smooth, then leave to firm up until it’s ready to spread
12. Sandwich the sponges together with the filling, and dust with icing sugar to serve

We spent October half term deep in the depths of Sherwood Forest with 22 of our nearest and dearest, where I got to: indulge my inner Maid Marion by picking up a crossbow (and being great at it, thank you), eat pancakes and fajitas and many, many other yummy things, go bowling for the first time in a decade, relax in the spa, kick through leaves wearing an amusing bobble hat, and generally have a wonderful time.

We also had a Halloween party, where three small witches (the daughter and her cousins) ran shrieking around the villa devouring chocolate for several hours.

At one point, we actually got them to all stand still at the same time:

Although not face the camera, obviously.

Usually, the end of a holiday is a bit depressing. But not for us! Because we were heading off to a Very Important Wedding, and spending the weekend with some of our dearest friends.

I’d share more photos, but most of them appear to involve people wearing a bright pink hat at a rakish angle, some time after the band packed up and went home…

When I did finally tear myself away from the party and made it to my hotel room, I found the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from the bride and groom, as an anniversary present. Clearly, the first weekend in November is the only one to get married on.

Back home, it was back to school yesterday and, of course, Bonfire Night! I’m not usually a fan of loud noises, but I do have a fondness for fireworks. Since we were all tired, we decided to just a have a few small, quiet fireworks in the back garden.

Of course, the husband then came home with a huge box of assorted fireworks and a packet of rockets.

The daughter sat through them with her bunny mitten hands clamped firmly over her ears, and decided she liked the sparklers best. As do I.

But now it’s back to work. I’ve got a lot coming up in these last six or seven weeks before Christmas – not least, attending the Festival of Romance in Bedford as a VIP author later this month. Expect much posting about that, and if you’re planning on being there, please grab me and say hi! I’ll be the one with the teapot earrings…

I’m also woefully behind with my 52 bake challenge, but I’m hoping the season of Christmas baking will help me catch up. In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of the Speckled Mocha Cake I made to take on holiday, as being enjoyed by my brother, Uncle Mike, who also valiantly shared a room with the daughter for the week, and so had earned all the cake.

I’ll post the recipe on Friday, in an attempt to get back onto some sort of blogging schedule! In the meantime… revisions. Wish me luck!

So, what’s it about? Well…

Everyone’s talking about Mia Page. Again.

Mia Page has been the subject of gossip in Aberarian for half her life, ever since her father ran off with his secretary–and the contents of the local museum safe–when she was fourteen.

Still, Mia loves her hometown, loves working at the A to Z shop, eating seafood with her best friend Charlie at his restaurant, catching the classic midnight movie at the crumbling Coliseum cinema. And if she ever wonders if things might be even better if Charlie were more than just a friend, well, it’s only an idle thought in a lonely moment. After all, friendship always trumps romance, doesn’t it? And she’s never been one to rock the boat.

But everything she loves is suddenly under threat from Charlie’s ex-girlfriend, Becky, and her plans to turn Mia’s beloved Coliseum into a casino, transforming the sleepy seaside town forever. As Mia tries to pull the people of Aberarian together to save the town they adore, her father reappears, and people start asking what he wants to take from them this time…

But why’s it called An A to Z of Love?

Well, actually, there’s a nifty excerpt up on the Lyrical Press website at the moment that explains that.

And if that’s not enough, I’ve got another glimpse of Mia and Charlie here on the site, under the Love from Wales section.

Hopefully that will keep you going until July 23rd!

Firstly, I’m very excited to have been named as a ‘Rising Star or 2012′ by Romantic Fiction Online! I’m in fantastic company, so do take a look at all the wonderful books coming out from wonderful new writers this year.

It’s also a great privilege to be included on the list of books released by members of the Romantic Novelists Association this month. Although seeing my book on the same list as those by Joanne Harris and Carole Matthews is a little surreal!

Today, I’m over at the lovely Lucy Felthouse’s blog, talking about first impressions – my first impressions of being published author, including some of the surprising things I’ve learnt in the last two weeks, and giving readers a glimpse of my heroine’s first impression of the Avalon Inn…

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been visiting friends’ blogs to talk about the Avalon Inn, and the inspiration behind it. So if you’d like to know more about Carrie, Nate, the Seniors and the Avalon, check out the posts below:

• Attraction – at Cassandra Carr’s blog
• Inspiration – at Romance Novel Sluts blog
• Behind the Scenes at the Avalon Inn – at the Lyrical Press blog
• Getting To Know You… – at Bookin’ It Reviews blog
• Love from Wales – at SJ Clarke’s blog