Full Glitz and Gorgeousness

Judy Astley writes about the party that launched the RNA's 50th anniversary celebrations.


Well don’t we RNA folks scrub up well?

The cocktail party launch for Loves Me, Loves Me Not had all of us in full glitz and gorgeousness… and that was just the boys. The venue was the Cavalry and Guards Club on Piccadilly - an appropriately glam location hung all about with portraits of horse-mounted battles, medal-decked generals and Men in Uniform.

Drink flowed. Phil Weedon very wisely photographed all the contributors on the staircase from above for max glamour/ slenderness impact and speeches were generous, warm and… short.
Katie Fforde referred to our Big Fat Gold Book and toasted: 'To Us.' Claire Somerville of HMB called the book 'A pot-pourri of story-telling' and Sue Moorcroft kindly (and surely inaccurately) said that the authors had been ‘absolutely no trouble’ during the book’s compiling. She then thanked - and made a presentation to - Jan Jones, who had so tirelessly read every single contribution to the book.

A fab ‘do’ all round – friendly, fun as well as thoroughly and deservedly celebratory. As I left, I went upstairs to collect my coat and came across a large gathering of dinner-jacketed men. Obviously I couldn’t help imagining them in uniform, scarlet jackets, swords, plumed headgear, gleaming boots… on horseback. Mmmmm….

Liz Fielding's thoughts on Loves Me, Loves Me Not

I was so excited to receive a copy of LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT a few weeks ago. The cover is just gorgeous and I couldn’t believe how big it was, but then it does contain forty stories which, at my reckoning, is around 200,000 words. A real blockbuster of a book.

I’m still working my way through the stories, picking and choosing to meet my mood. But that’s the joy of an anthology of short stories. You can read a story in the bath, or before bed, or maybe lose yourself temporarily in another world for ten minutes while the potatoes boil dry on the stove.

The range in this anthology is just amazing. I’ve read my first ever vampire story, a charming Regency, stories set in Australia, in the middle ages and very much in the here and now. I have found some wonderful new authors and been entertained by a lot of old favourites. I’ve laughed, cried and been totally blown away by a story so shimmeringly beautiful that it is worth the price of the book all by itself.

My story, THE PARTNERSHIP DEAL offers, I hope, the essence of what I write for Mills & Boon “Romance”. A little humour, a little sizzle and, after a very unpromising beginning, followed by an even worse discovery, the promise of an unexpected future.

Definitely one for the Christmas stocking of anyone you know who loves to read.