SINGING A DUET...

...or rather writing one, since even the people who love me beg
me not to sing.

It was nearly two years ago – another November – when I had a breakfast meeting with my editors at the plush Churchill Hotel in the west end of London to discuss what I’d write in the year ahead.

I had all kind of ideas floating around in my head but the eds had only one. A duet. They wanted a duet for November/December and please, please, please could one of them be a Christmas book.

I resisted.

My worst experience with a book was a Christmas title. 

It had a gorgeous cover, one of my prettiest, but the truth of the matter is that you can’t sell a Christmas title when the hero and heroine are standing under a palm tree wearing nothing but swimsuits – even if the palm tree is
strung with tiny Christmas lights. And, let’s face it, when it comes to scheduling, not just for the its first outing,
but for all those foreign sales, there are only two months of the year when a Christmas title will fit the bill.

But the last time I did a Christmas duet – unintentionally – it was, apparently, a big hit and RomanceHQ wanted a repeat.

The really big problem about writing a duet is that it’s really hard work. They have to be delivered promptly, close enough together to be schedule in consecutive months. And Christmas won’t wait. But what can a starving writer, caught in a pincer movement between her editor and the series editor, say? With her crispy bacon and scrambled rapidly cooling in front of her there is only one answer. "If I say “yes”, can I eat?"

At which point we come to the second problem with writing a duet. They have to be linked in some way. One story twisted around the other. You have to think of two books at the same time and they have to overlap in some way. Which leads to other problems. Set up a scene in one book and you have to deliver it in the other.

But the books were written, the duet was given a name “Trading Places” and the strap line written –

Annie wanted anonymity
Lydia wanted the spotlight -
They both found love.

So here we are. It’s November and first up is Annie’s story, CHRISTMAS ANGEL FOR THE BILLIONAIRE.   Having been in the media spotlight all her life, she’s desperate for the chance to just walk down a street, stop at Starbucks for a coffee, check out the latest High St fashions without being pursued by the paparazzi. What she needs is a place holder, someone for the media – and her over-protective grandfather’s bodyguards -- to watch while she disappears for a while. And then she comes face to face with her “look alike”, Lydia Young. The open road
beckons and things are going swimmingly until she misses her turning and ends up in the Saxon’s kitchen being played off in a battle of wills by George Saxon and his teenage daughter.

As for Lydia, she’s having a ball until she discovers that she, too, is caught in the middle of a struggle between a divided family. More about that next month.

For now I have a 2-in-1 UK edition of Christmas Angel for the Billionaire, twinned with Jessica Hart’s wonderful Under the Boss’s Mistletoe to give away.

For a chance to win, tell me who you’d like to change places with and why. I’ll pick the winner on Friday.

CHRISTMAS ANGEL FOR THE BILLIONAIRE/HER DESERT DREAM
Annie and Lydia; two women, trading places, changing lives...
Read WILD LADY free at http://thebeaumontbrides.blogspot.com
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