The champagne is popping in the Brooke household for the release of A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER, out today in the United States!

If you’d like to help me celebrate, I’m over at Romance Bandits with my release day twin, Susan Sey, whose fabulous contemporary romance KISS THE GIRL launches today also. We are giving away books galore and chatting about the inspiration for our novels.

Here’s a peek at my inspiration board for A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER:

You can read more about A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER here.

…Beachy Keen

…Bush walking

…Baking

…Renovating

And oh, yeah, writing the next book in the Ministry of Marriage series!

Wonderful news! Beckenham’s book will be out next year, followed by Lydgate and Xavier. Can’t tell you how much fun I’m having with the Westruther men!

Recently, I was delighted to be a guest lecturer at the University of Queensland for the Genre Fiction Creative Writing course. I’ve run many creative writing workshops over the years but I haven’t been in a lecture theatre since I completed my law degree many years ago. Gosh I was nervous!

However, it turned out to be a lot of fun, particularly at the end when I could stop yabbering and the students made comments and asked questions.

Anyway, for the purpose of the lecture, I dug out one of my favourite quotes about writing. It has stayed with me for many years, so I thought I’d share it on this blog.

It’s from Don Whittington, who used to write a column called THE INK-STAINED WRETCH. When he talked about that indefinable sparkle that makes people want to read your work, and editors want to buy, he called it the X factor.

He said:

It was our talent that led us writers to try writing. We are not normal. Why? Because we are talented in a way that others are not. Do you think that carpenters hammer secretly at night building houses in their backyard? Houses they are afraid to show anybody because someone might think they are not talented? No. They don’t need our validation to be carpenters. They just do it. My point is that to uncover the X-Factor you must indulge your own unique talent. Be as modest as you like at the cocktail party, but when you pick up that keyboard remind yourself that there has never been another writer like you in the entire history of creation. Set yourself free.

Isn’t it gorgeous? This is the Australian Trade Paperback edition of MAD ABOUT THE EARL, due out in February 2012 from Penguin Australia. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. I love that the cover artist, Cathy Larsen, has been so faithful to the Regency period. Rosamund’s gown is the same gorgeous cobalt blue as on the U.S. cover and doesn’t Griffin look splendid? I think my beast of a hero has undergone a transformation by the time this portrait is taken!

This is my dog Monty, who is the inspiration for the ageing Great Dane, Ophelia, in MAD ABOUT THE EARL. Monty is a Great Dane/Ridgeback cross with the Harlequin Dane colouring and a very pronounced ridge. She’s not much to look at and she’s getting on in years now, but when she runs, she’s pure canine poetry in motion.

Here she is waiting patiently as I cook the evening meal. She knows that if she looks pathetic enough I will always give her raw off-cuts of eye fillet or grain-fed chicken breast that I’m trimming before I cook it for the family. Of course, Ophelia is an aristocratic dog so she’s pure-bred Dane but her personality is definitely Monty’s!

Here is my beautiful blue cover for MAD ABOUT THE EARL (released on January 3 2012)!

I was so pleased the artist used blue because of the scene where Rosamund and Griffin first meet:

There has been much excitement in the Brooke household because copies of the gorgeous Australian edition of HEIRESS IN LOVE arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the way they have turned out — thank you, Penguin Australia! I was surprised to find an excerpt of my next Ministry of Marriage novel, MAD ABOUT THE EARL in the back as a bonus read, so keep your eye out for that, too.

I’m working on copy edits for MAD ABOUT THE EARL (affectionately known as MATE) at the moment. This is the last chance I have to make substantial changes to the book. After that, it’s a final proofread and then the book is out of my hands.

The brilliant and thoughtful writer, Barbara Samuel, believes that once the writer has finished a book it ceases to be hers, but becomes the property of each reader who reads it. I love that idea. It’s true, because while I put the words on the page, it’s each reader’s imagination that brings all of the color and detail of the story to life. I think it’s another reason many of us become disappointed with film adaptations of novels. They interfere with our personal version of a book.

Loath as I am to part with it, I am going to offer a signed Trade Paperback of HEIRESS IN LOVE as a prize to some lucky person on my newsletter list. The winner will be drawn on 30 June so if you’re not on the list already, go ahead and join! You can subscribe on my home page.

I look forward to meeting you.

Like every other reader on the planet, I’ve joined Goodreads. I also have a fabulous contest running there. See below.

Should authors review other authors’ books?

This is a question I’ve struggled with when deciding whether to post reviews on Goodreads. On the one hand, authors are almost always avid readers. Like any reader, they have opinions on books and there is, of course, a tradition of writers reviewing story that probably dates back to the beginning of storytelling itself. No doubt Homer was heckled by rival epic poets as he spun his tales. “Enough of the wine-dark sea, already! Can’t he vary his prose a little?”

But there are a number of arguments against writers reviewing fiction, particularly if they review in the genre in which they write.

First–conflict of interest. Essentially, some writers see other writers in the same field as competitors. Can they really give an unbiased view of someone else’s work when they compete in the same market?

My personal view is that authors are not in direct competition for the consumer dollar the way rival soap powder manufacturers are. You only need one brand of soap powder in a given week or month. I’d like to meet the reader who can stop at one book if they see another they would like equally well. However, I feel that one should avoid the appearance of bias as well as the reality of it and that is one reason I am not going to provide criticism of any novels here.

Second–the author looks at books in a slightly different way from readers who do not write. We tend to admire the fresh, the original, the structurally perfect. We notice and become irritated by bad technique. We see the tricks and devices that are designed to produce certain emotions in the reader and if they are too obvious to us, they make us cross our arms and refuse to follow where the author leads.

That is not to say that readers are unsophisticated or unintelligent–far from it. But the writer’s experience of a novel will often be skewed by her knowledge of how a book is written in the first place.

So I’m not going to provide critical analysis of books that haven’t worked for me in this forum. I’m going to share my thoughts on the books I love and leave the criticism to those who I believe are in a better position to give it.

This post has also been posted on my Goodreads blog.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Heiress in Love
by Christina Brooke

Giveaway ends May 20, 2011.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

We have a winner!

I have notified the lucky winner of my January/February contest by email. She will soon receive four fabulous historical romances plus a coverflat of HEIRESS IN LOVE!

Thank you to all of you who joined my Brooke-Club. You will automatically be entered into the next draw. Details soon!