My first book for Tule Publishing, Baking for Keeps, has been made into a Hallmark Movie. Renamed Falling for You and starring Taylor Cole and Tyler Hynes it premieres on Saturday October 6 in the US!

Every day in August you can read a new chapter of the novella I wrote to accompany the Villa Rosa series, The Earl’s Villa Rosa Bride.

Theo Willoughby might be the Earl of Navenby but he’s not interested in being an Earl or running his family estate. Theo just wants to run his multi-million-pound business, but that means spending most of his time with his beautiful PA Elisaveta Marlowe. And that’s an issue, because he’s already engaged! His impending marriage may be one of convenience, but he’d never do anything to hurt his fiancée, yet the closer he gets to his wedding, the harder Elisaveta is to resist. . .

https://www.harlequin.com/shop/articles/357_the-earls-villa-rosa-bride.html

There are 20 chapters overall – and if you enjoy them, why not read the rest of the books in the Villa Rosa series? The first three are out now and my own A Proposal from the Crown Prince is currently available direct from the Harlequin and Mills & Boon sites and in a paperback 2/1 in selected UK stores.

 

A new month, a new book and Wimbledon on the television. It’s not always easy to get to work when I’m so easily distracted by the thud of balls, the line judge calls and the gladiatorial drama of tennis, but deadlines mean I can’t allow myself too much time away from the keyboard…

I’m really excited about the rapidly approaching release of my contribution to the Villa Rosa series, A Proposal From the Crown Prince. I’ve just finished Liz Fielding’s Her Pregnancy Bombshell which starts the season off, and Scarlet Wilson’s The Mysterious Italian Houseguest. They’re both absolutely fantastic so do grab them while you can! Next month Kate Hardy’s The Runaway Bride and the Billionaire continues the series, with my own concluding it in September. I have also written a companion online read which will be on the Harlequin site in August!

 

The Sheikh’s Pregnant Bride is out in October. It’s a standalone story, my very first take on the iconic sheikh romance. It’s also a reunion themed story (my favourite) and with a surrogate trope as well. There’s a lot going on and I can’t wait for it to be in readers’ hands.

October is a busy month, because it also is the release month for my second book for Tule Publishing. Their Christmas Carol is a sequel to Baking For Keeps and looks at what happens when missing bachelor, Nat Hathaway, finally returns to Marietta. Blurb and cover soon!

Finally I’ve just sent the first  draft of a wedding-themed duet to my editor. I am writing this one with Sophie Pembroke, and we’ve conjured up feuding sisters and a romantic Spanish island. My sister, Anna, is uptight, organised and knows exactly what she wants – and that doesn’t include a Spanish playboy who seems to spend half his time bare-chested. Title and release date when I have them!

As ever you can get in touch on Twitter @yrosered, FB @jessicagilmorewriter and email jessicagilmorewrites@gmail.com

The end of 2016 was multi-author series time and I found myself writing not one, not two but three in a row! I love getting involved in a series, writing is a pretty solitary job most of the time and so brain storming and creating characters and settings with other authors is a real treat. The first book was part of the Harlequin M&B Maids under the Mistletoe continuity and mine Her New Year Baby Secret (Jan 17) was the fourth and final book. This is a really lovely Christmas and New Year fairy tale series with lots of Cinderella themes.

Next I wrote my debut for the lovely Tule Publishing set in their fictional small town of Marietta, Montana during a charity Bachelor Bake-Off. Baking for Keeps (Feb 17) is a little longer than my Harlequin titles, a little sweeter and was a lot of fun to write.

Proposal from the Crown Prince isn’t out until August/September and I can’t wait for it be released. This is part of the Villa Rosa series: four sisters, one dilapidated pink villa on a gorgeous Mediterranean island. Proposal from  the Crown Prince is my first  Royalty title and I adored every second writing this book. I’m also setting a free online read on the island so keep an eye out for that on the Harlequin website!

Finally I just finished the first draft of a standalone Harlequin/M&B – a surrogate, a sheikh and a marriage of convenience! More details on that later…

Tonight the RT Convention in Las Vegas comes to a glittering climax with the presentation of the Reviewer’s Choice Awards. If I had been able to make it to Vegas then I would have collected what may be the first award I have won since the Ashford School Book Quiz back in 1989, as it is I’ll be drinking prosecco here in York (while the Convention attendees have lunch thanks to the time difference) and raising a toast to romance readers everywhere.

If I could make a speech though what would I say? There’s always the list of names to thank (and the panic that someone really important might be missed out). But if I was there tonight this might have been what I said:

I was an awkward child. Introverted, emotional, hot tempered with really big hair, thick glasses and teeth to rival Bugs Bunny. For several years I was raised by my mother and at times my school made us feel like the only single parent family in town. Money was tight and things weren’t easy. But I had books. In books I didn’t have to be me, I could be Anne Shirley or Joey Bettany or Pauline Fossil. I could travel to 1950s America with Sally J Freedman, the Ice Age with Ayla, outer space with Monica Hughes and the prairie with Laura Ingalls. Books taught me that the best people came from hard beginnings, that sex should be consensual and mutually pleasurable (thank you Jean M Auel and Jilly Cooper) and that there’s not much that friendship, cake and courage can’t fix.

We didn’t have much money and books were a Christmas and Birthday treat. Luckily my town had a big library and every week I could take six new books – or three new and three favourites – home. And the week after I could take them back and get more books. I’m not sure how I would have made it through my childhood without that constant and free access to books. Now libraries throughout the UK are under threat, closing, handed over to community control and starved of funds. There are many despicable decisions made in the name of austerity but taking access to books away from a populace is one of the worst. The flawed assumption that in the age of the internet books and libraries are obsolete. Libraries aren’t just gateways to knowledge and new worlds, they are community hubs, refuges and sanctuaries.  So thank you Grantham, Ashford, New Romney, Glasgow, Scarborough, Stoke Newington and Glastonbury Connecticut libraries. You have all been my home at one point or another and this award is for you.

(Of course I would also have thanked my husband and daughter, my first writing partner, Merilyn, first crit group Jane, Maggie and Julia, hugely supportive York writers Donna and Pam, my NWS readers Fi and Heidi, Flo, Charlotte, Kathryn and Pippa from M&B, the HQ romance writers esp my NY partner in crime Christy and all romance readers).

I am really looking forward to discussing all things romance with Ayisha Malik and Penrose Halson at this year’s Chiplitfest at 10am on Sat 23 April – come along and join in the discussion.

I am really honoured that RT Magazine gave their 2015 Reviewers’ Choice Award for Harlequin Romance to A Will, A Wish and A Proposal. The ceremony is next month at their Annual Convention. Sadly Vegas is too far for me to go but I’ll definitely be celebrating in style!

I’m escaping from my study not once but TWICE this spring so if you happen to be in  York in early March or Oxfordshire in late April and want to hear some romance related chatter then please do come along!

March 8th – York Explore 6pm – join me and three fellow romance authors as we celebrate International Women’s Day. I’ll be in conversation with Jessica Hart, author of sixty novels for Mills & Boon; Donna Douglas, author of the Sunday Times Bestselling Nightingale Girls books; and Emma Garcia, author of Never Google Heartbreak. The event is titled Wine, Woman and Romance – what could be more fun? More details here.

April 23 – Chiplitfest 10am – I am really looking forward to returning to Chiplitfest to discuss Unlikely Romance with Penrose Halson who has written about her experiences running a Bond Street Marriage Agency during the nineteen fifties and Ayisha Malik whose debut novel Sofia Khan is NOT Obliged is a humorous look at about searching for love as a British Muslim. I can’t wait to meet my fellow panelists! More details here.