Sunday 4 December 2011

A Shameful Consquence Carol Marinelli - A Review by Mary Middleton

I read a lot of romances. Most of them are enjoyed, put aside ...forgotten. But not this one.  From the first pages Carol Marinelli hooks the reader into the story. Instantly, you empathise with Constantina, tricked into a loveless marriage from which there seems to be no escape. Then, along comes Nico Eliades and poor Constantina's troubles increase. 
The author leads you through the twists and turns of the plot so competently that you forget the toppling washing pile in the kitchen, that the children need collecting from school and that you have your own half written novel to complete. It's probably best to set aside a weekend where you can be alone with it, undisturbed.
You will live in this story. The characters are convincing, the settings seductive and the sex scenes are wonderful, not so hot as to makes you cringe but warm and sensuous so that you check your watch to see how long it is until your partner gets home.
Wonderful stuff, Ms Marinelli but, please, don't leave us hanging like this, there must be a story to follow for Zanda.

Monday 14 November 2011

Plotting and Planning

I've been quiet lately, keeping my head down, marketing my books, promoting the work of friends, reading and reviewing.  Now, however, I am back doing what I really love, writing.
It is unfortunate that authors today have to spend so  much time away from the keyboard. How I'd love to have been a writer in the 1950's, hammering away at an old typewriter keyboard while someone else worried about selling the thing. To be able to focus purely on the work in progress would be bliss but it is a luxury that even the biggest authors no longer enjoy.

I don't have a title for my next novel yet but I'm thinking along the lines of Tango or Foxtrot and no, it isnt a detective drama!  I, and millions like me, am enchanted by the celebrity show, Strictly Come Dancing and I can't wait to get stuck in, place my characters in a similar world. I have the protaganists in my head, their motivation, the conflict and the resolution are all sketched out nicely on the page. All that remains is for me to add the passion and a sprinkle of sequins. I promise you, this will be one to keep; you are going to love it.

I will keep you posted on the progress. Just give  me a few months and it will be with you.

Saturday 1 October 2011

Tips and Advice for New Writers

I have read a lot of blogs lately providing invaluable advice on how to get a novel down on paper and infront of a publisher. There are, it seems, reams of important rules you must follow, things you must never do, cliches you must never ever use. It is a tough world with millions of talented writers all fighting for the spotlight. Only the best will succeed. So, I thought I'd add my little bit of wisdom to the pot.

My advice would be this: Have fun with your writing. If you don't enjoy every stage of the process then find another job/hobby. There is no point in becoming an author if  you don't love the solitude, the frustration, the failure, the criticism and the very small pay cheque.

Never listen to people who say you are doing it 'wrong.' We all have different methods and if you want to develop a writing style that is unique, which is I presume something we are all striving for, you are not going to suceed if you tie yourself in knots trying to write just like your favourite author. Your story must be yours and your voice unique and to stand out from the crowd you sometimes have to break rules!

Stressing about rules at this stage will stifle your creativity.  Every writer's first draft, whether they admit it or not, is full of cliches, typo's, over writing, errors in continuity etc. etc. etc.  These things are easily ironed out  later on in the writing process.  If you develop a unique writing style and a strong voice, it can make even a rubbish plot sound good. So relax, pour a glass of wine, open some chocolate and have a good time with it, let your imagination run away with you. If an author enjoys writing the book then it will invariably be an entertaining read.

When you have a completed manuscript, put it away and don't look at it for at least a month; write something else, begin your next novel, write some shorts or do some blogging. If you think your novel is ready to send off to a publisher or agent, then it probably isn't ... yet.
Once the month is up re-read your work and smooth out the gaffs that will by now be very apparent.  Then, get a friend to read it and highlight anything they notice, act on any improvements they may suggest. My husband is invaluable for this task and has learned not to tell me that everything I write is 'wonderful.'  He has developed an objective, critical eye and I cannot thank him enough for that.
After making those corrections, leave it another couple of weeks before going through the whole editing process again. I stress that you cannot edit enough, it is a process that crafts your rough diamond into a flawless jewel.

Overwriting is the worst mistake a would-be writer makes, long flowery passages of description that take up space on the page, detract from the plot and bore your poor reader to death. Be concise, be punchy and above all, be interesting.
Just because your friends love your story doesn't mean it is any good. Think youself lucky to have such loving and supportive friends  but don't let their praise go to your head; every writer in the world needs outside help. Get yourelf a critique partner, someone who you haven't known since infant school is preferable. Show it to a stranger, post it on a writers' website and ask for critiques, then brace yourself for the onslaught.
Even constructive criticism hurts like hell but it is usually correct. Read the comments objectively and take on board anything you agree with (it may take a week or so to see that the reader is actually right). Once you know what changes to make, you will find that good editing improves your piece no end.
If you don't agree (and be honest with yourself, now) then ignore the advice, the story is yours, you should write to please yourself and you will not, and cannot, please everybody.
I read alot of amateur work and talent is always visible, even in the early stages when I have to trawl through oceans of misplaced commas and flowery phrases. Formatting problems are common too but computer skills are necessary to an author and are easily learnt. So, if formatting is your weakness, book yourself a course and learn to do it properly.
The things I cannot tolerate (and not just in the work of  newbies) is bad grammar and incorrect spelling and that is because both of those errors are avoidable. I had one manuscript that persistently used the symbol & instead of 'and.' I had to stop reading it; it was unacceptable. Every reader should check and re-check their work, hire an editor if need be, although small errors will still slip through. If all else fails use your spell checker.

Every one of us is learning to be the best that we can. I am not the best, most intellectual writer in the world and neither am I in the best seller lists but I am a reader who has read widely and I do know good work when I see it and, in my experience, the independent and unpublished writers usually knock the socks off many of the big names. The shame is that mainstream publishers don't seem to be able to see us, probably because they all have their heads somewhere where it is very, very dark.

Sunday 18 September 2011

A close look at Mike Williams - the love interest in For One Night Only

Both of my romances presently available on Kindle are selling well. I have had mostly good comments on both Vittorio's Virgin and For One Night Only but the most recurrent question seems to be. 'Is Mike based on someone you know?' The odd thing is nobody has asked me if Vittorio Bianchi is based on a real person. I have come to the conclusion that either Mike's character is so convincing that readers can only assume he is a real person OR that he is the sort of man we can all attain and as such, just what we are looking for.


Most of  my characters are loosely based on people I have seen or met at some time or other. I take different aspects from different people to make up a whole. My work is largely inspired by real life experiences, either my own or somebody else's. I like to keep it as real as possible, too much fantasy can result in unconvincing story lines. But, I am sorry to say, Mike Williams is largely a figment of my imagination.

He is very ordinary, the sort of bloke you see everyday in the street or in the supermarket; he may come and fix your boiler or you may even be married to him.
I have read a lot of romance and sometimes I get very tired of super good looking alpha males with some deep seated psychological hang up that can only be put right by a certain woman; the woman made for  him.

I wanted a new type of love interest and so, after some deliberation I decided to try and put a chubby Welshman in the spotlight. Mike is, deep down, a good hearted, ordinary man who has lost his way. He is bored, unhappy in his job and his lifestyle has become stale.  Usually it is the female characters that play this role but I wanted  a different perspective.  I wanted Mike to be the one to realise his dreams. During the novel his character slowly unfolds, the reader is taken deeper into his psyche to discover a man that is surprisingly sensual, funny and who loves his wife and kids without reservation.

When his wife, Nicola, is tempted away from the marriage bed, he is prepared to forgive her everything and, after a heap of trials and misunderstandings, they manage to overcome their problems. Perhaps the truth is that men like Mike don't come along very often after all.

I enjoyed portraying an ordinary man as a lover. After all, how many of us ever get to share a relationship with a stinking rich Adonis? Mike may not have a fleet of Porsches or a Mayfair mansion but he has so much more.  He has his faults and dubious habits but is a family man, the sort of guy that watches sport on a Saturday afternoon with his feet on the coffee table, goes to bed in his socks, eats pizza straight from the box.  We all know, or have known, a Mike Williams, haven't we?  And you'd not swap him would you? Isn't the ordinary, frustrating man snoring on the sofa beside you right now, secretly the man  of your dreams? Shouldn't we let them  know it?

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Kindle update

 I have just checked out my author page  Mary Middleton on Amazon Kindle and was most surprised to see how quickly Vittorio's Virgin is selling.  For One Night Only is lagging a little behind. I wonder if I should think up a more intriging title?  Anyway, its still all going very well. If any of you wonderful people are into reviewing I'm sure some lovely reviews will help move things along. The more I sell, the more I can afford to write.  Maybe the dream of being able to earn a living from writing, rather than just funding an expensive hobby is getting closer. Let's hope so.
The Greek Tycoon's Secret Daughter is proving a little more troublesome than the other novels were to write but the plot is more intricate and the characters definitely don't like being told what to do.
Sometimes I just let them get on with it to see where they will take me but there are plot lines that Jonathan in particular needs to adhere to and he is proving a very forceful person. If he wasn't so gorgeous I might get very cross but he looks at me with those dark troubled eyes and I find myself weakening, giving in to his demands.
Many of you, I know, are not looking forward to winter but for writers there is nothing better than a warm fireside, rain lashed windows. A day, uninterrupted by phonecalls or visitors and unhampered  by the guilt of not mowing the lawn is like heaven to me. Once the oil tank if filled, the store cupboard and freezer well stocked, I, for one, will look forward to producing a lot of work over the coming winter season.

Monday 29 August 2011

New Work in Progress

With my first two novels doing so well on kindle, I thought I would blog about my WIP, The Greek Tycoon's Secret Daughter. I find that if I discuss my work as I write, it defines and hones the characters into shape and  helps me decide where the story is going. I am not the sort of writer that knows exactly what is going to happen before they type the first word. I work from a rough outline and allow  my characters the freedom to make up their own minds - they usually know much better than me what they want.

I am having a lot of fun with this one, Charlotte is certainly headstrong enough to take the reins from my hands and as for Jonathan, well, if mean and moody is your bag, then he has it all. I look forward to updating you on its progress.

The plot so far.

Charlotte Martin's four year old son has cerebal palsy and only an expensive operation can ensure he retains his mobility. But the only place the operation can be performed is in the USA. Charlotte's problem is that she is penniless and has nobody to turn to for help and so is forced to search for her natural father, Greek tycoon, Nicoli Barberis, to ask for his help.
Beyond all her hopes Nicoli welcomes them with open arms and is eager to make up for the lost years. The only fly in the ointment comes in the form of Nicoli's stepson and heir, the devastatingly handsome, John Barberis-Jones, who is not prepared to share either his step-father or his inheritance.  
The Greek Tycoon's Secret Daughter is a passionate story of pride, love and compromise.




Wednesday 24 August 2011

Exciting News

I've been away for sometime busy polishing and editing my manuscripts for publication and I'm excited to announce that both Vittorio's Virgin and For One Night Only are now available on Kindle for the affordable sum of £2.09, not much to pay for a couple of nights entertainment.

For One Night Only is a heartwarming story of ordinary people wrestling with mid-life confusion, marital conflict and enduring love. Nicola Williams is discontented with her lot in life and when she bumps into an old flame and a new door opens offering new opportunites she almost steps through it .  It is not until she is on the very brink of disaster that she realises just how much she has to lose. If you like to read about love, laughter and lovely sex  Click here to buy your copy now



Vittorio Bianchi, abandoned by his mother,  ignored by his father and cheated on by his wife has some serious hangups.  Determined that his siyear old daughter will not grow up to be like her mother, his parenting methods are harsh. Until he meets with the level headed Miss Jennifer Trent who manages to show him that some women can be trusted. If you like to read about foreign locations, alpha males and real women in sumptious settings Click here to buy your copy now

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Book Review of Kate Walker's The Proud Wife


The Proud Wife
By
Kate Walker
A Review by Mary Middleton

Think of everything you love about a Mills and Boon and you will find it in The Proud Wife. Kate Walker skilfully creates the sexual tension, mental anguish and tangled emotion that makes a novel sizzle.
Aside from the convincing backdrops and accomplished narrative, Pietro and Marina emerge as free standing, fully developed characters with all the flaws, confusion and complexities of real human beings. The reader is dragged into their world to share their torment and it is impossible to put the book down until their trials are resolved.
It is no surprise that Kate is one of the more successful authors of this genre. She understands people and the barriers that can keep us from achieving personal fulfilment. Because she knows exactly what makes her characters tick they come alive on the page and the reader is personally involved with their happiness and craves the resolution as deeply as they do.
Marina is a fully rounded woman, no swooning, no soppy weaknesses; she emerges as a strong, modern, convincing woman who stands on her own two feet. Pietro is troubled, with some skeletons in his cupboard but he is essentially a good, fair minded man (aside from being stupendously good looking) and as such, is the type of man we can all fall in love with.
When you open The Proud Wife you will become involved in Marina and Pietro’s journey and can expect vivid scenery, sizzling sex scenes and heart wrenching dark moments but you can be safe in the knowledge that it will all come right it the end.
The Proud Wife is a romance that sparkles.

ISBN-13: 978-0263886412
Also available on Kindle

Monday 23 May 2011

Alpha Males


Well, this is my first blog and I thought I'd ramble on about the thing that, if we are really honest, draws women to romance novels, the alpha male. Critics of romance are quick to dismiss the male characters as unrealistic, plastic people that lack substance and, on the surface, they may be right, there are some undisputable similarites.

They are always handsome, always rich and usually brooding and sexually unsurpassable,often with a flaw that can only be mended by the love of a good woman - a woman the reader can identify with. 
The male characters put the romance into the genre simply because it is most women's dream to be the object of an alpha male's desire.


For many women, after a long day at the office or of wrestling with a couple of cranky kids all day,  there is nothing nicer than to slip into a hot bubbling bath with a broad chested, smouldering hunk of muscle -a fictional one, of course.

But, let's face it, few of us are ever going to meet anyone as handsome or as rich as a romance hero ...or maybe we do, at least once.

Apart from being rich, my own smoulderingly sexy, alpha male fills most of the above criteria or at least he does in my head; which is all that  matters. 

I think romance is a lot to do with your personal outlook.  My man is getting on a bit now, he has grey hair and a few wrinkles and he doesnt own a big yacht to sail me away around the world.  But he does it for me.

What I think I am trying to say is that alpha males are all in the mind. When in a novel, the ordinary girl from the east of London looks upon her wild eyed, Italian billionaire she is looking at him through the eyes of love; eyes that can change the most ordinary bloke into an adonis.  To a woman in love her man is an alpha male, his eyes do have the ability to weaken her knees and his touch does burn her like a brand. 

Most of  us have been close enough to feel the passion at some point, haven't we? So what's wrong with celebrating the feeling?

Women in love

Since I blogged last time about Alpha Males, this time I thought I should turn my attention to the women. I have made quite a study of the characters in the romance novels, both male and female and, although there are a lot of stereotypes, some stand out from the crowd.
The romances with the most developed characters are the ones that work, the ones we remember. It isn't so much the plot or the luxury of the settings but the way in which the characters interact with eachother and the way in which they resolve the problems the author has set them.

There is little point in creating a wonderful world as a back drop for wooden, unconvincing characters.  Women today are forceful, they know what they want and they go out to get it. Would they put up with man who was little more than a moody bully or would they tell him to take a running jump?  I know what I'd do, no matter how darned good looking and rich he was. 

Modern women deserve respect and I hope they don't settle for anything less? I know, as well as anyone, that love can make you do silly things, it can make you blind to a man's faults and there are plenty of us who end up with the wrong man the first time round; but I am not sure it has a place in romance.

If, at the end of a novel, the heroine ends up with a  man who has bullied her and abused his power through out the story then, to me, it doesn't quite constitute a happy ending.  I am too aware that leopards rarely change their spots and am left thinking, is this man going to revert to type? Are they really going to be happy?  The author has lost me because she hasn't convinced me of her male lead's integrity.

If I reach the end of a novel where the male character is fully rounded, even if he goes through a period of seeming to be threatening, because i have been made aware of his good points and can believe that his redeeming features outweigh the bad, then it leaves me a happy bunny with a rosy glow. which is the author's intention, isnt it?

Some Thoughts on the Agonies of Cathy and Heathcliff

The two main characters of Emily Bronte’s earth shattering novel, Wuthering Heights are now part of our collective consciousness and, therefore, need no introduction. At the time of publication, because of the restrictions placed upon female writers, the novel was issued under the male pseudonym of Ellis Bell. Regarded initially by some as scandalous and ‘coarse’ it remains one of the most discussed books of all time.

Wuthering Heights is an unconventional romance and some would say it isn’t a love story at all but for me there isn’t a love story to top it. The storyline is deeply troubling and evades satisfactory analysis but, nevertheless, I love everything about it; the construction, the unreliable narrators, the stormy characters and wild setting of the wild moors, the creaking farmhouse and the stately Grange. The sweeping story is just like life, or how life can be; wildly chaotic, ungovernable and I wish with all my heart I had written it.

Emily Bronte was just thirty when she died but hopefully she took some satisfaction from having written such a shockingly brilliant novel. The Brontes had a tough life. I am not going to go deeply into all the conflicting opinions and controversy that surrounds them, I am just going to say, ‘it was tough.’

Death was no stranger to Emily. The girls’ mother and two of their sisters died while they were young and, largely ignored by their father, Reverend Patrick Bronte, the three remaining sisters and their brother, Branwell formed a strong bond. In later years Branwell became an alcoholic and a drug addict and was subject to bouts of insanity during which he threatened suicide and murder. The bouts of delirium eventually ended in his death. Sickness, death, madness, anorexia, class, religion, race and gender issues and, of course, love are all to be found within the pages of a Bronte novel which when one considers their life experiences is no surprise. In Emily’s case what is remarkable is the consummate skill and detail with which she created Wuthering Heights.

The love between Cathy and Heathcliff is one of several romantic relationships depicted in the novel and it is the one that everyone remembers. The wild sweeping passion, the unrequited longing and the strength of the love that transcends even death is not easily forgotten. The puzzling thing is how such ungoverned emotion emerged from the mind of an unmarried, sheltered twenty eight year old woman.

Surrounded all her life by death, alcohol/drug abuse and madness Emily knew all about passion and she knew about love and grief but surely she must have experienced love at first hand to be able to gain such a deep understanding of how being in love feels.

The recurring themes were shocking to the nineteenth century world but she neither promotes nor judges but merely presents the negative facts of life as she sees them. The resulting novel is such a whirl of emotion that it is impossible to logically account for every element of the story and the plot remains largely indefinable, just as love is.

The love she presents between Cathy and Heathcliff is a destructive one. We are never quite sure of the reasons why they cannot be together but we have our suspicions although we know that, ultimately, they belong together. Cathy’s matter of fact statement, ‘I am Heathcliff,’ is the most revealing of all. Emily doesn’t have her say, I want Heathcliff or I love Heathcliff but ‘I am Heathcliff.’ And it comes from the heart. For Cathy, Heathcliff transcends everything; he is her soul, her body, her breath, her blood, her life, her passion.

We cannot choose who we love. It is something quite outside human control. We can deny it or we can walk away from it but the emotion will always remain. There is an academic school of thought that believes Cathy and Heathcliff are siblings, either he is her bastard brother brought into the home by their father or that, because they have been raised as siblings, there is a legal bar to their union.

I am not in the position to state this as fact but it is an interesting hypothesis to explore. Emily Bronte has been quite oblique about the detail of the situation and she would have been aware that indelicate matters such as incest were not for the pages of a novel. But, when you consider all her other controversial themes, race, religion, gender, madness, then it wouldn’t surprise me if she had also quietly embraced the subject of incest. If her intention was to examine forbidden love then I can’t think of a love that is more forbidden than a romantic attachment between brother and sister.

There was a bar to sexual relationships between those brought up as siblings, there may well still be today, but even if there was no blood tie their relationship still contravened social and moral boundaries of the time. But does that matter? Their love is never consummated; what Bronte is doing is examining the feeling of forbidden love, the desperate wrenching pain that it inflicts upon those involved.

Bronte uses the impetuosity and tempestuous behaviour of the couple to demonstrate that forbidden love is a part of the human condition just like all the other unpleasant social taboos that the Brontes chose not to omit from their work.

For me, Heathcliff is a hero to end all heroes. He may be a dark, threatening antithesis of what we have come to expect in a romance and his actions may make it difficult to sympathise with him but he loves Cathy, unreservedly.

Unconformist in every way, it is a simpler matter for him to ignore the bar to their union but Cathy, more conventional than Heathcliff, denies their love because of the social taboos that surround it. Or maybe I should say she tries to deny it, for their love does not end with death and she does not find rest until Heathcliff’s demise many years later. Their unfulfilled love drives Cathy to an early grave and turns Heathcliff into a bitter, cruel man.

I have read Wuthering Heights many times. It is a puzzle and a storm – a whirling cyclone created by the uncontrollable passion of the forbidden love of two souls who belonged together. For me, the enigma is increased by the fact that the novel was the work of a unique young woman who’s soul, in the words of her sister Charlotte, was made up of ‘a peculiar music -- wild, melancholy, and elevating.’