Do I hear you say that romance is dead? Not for the millions of readers who find escape between the covers of a paperback novel.. . If you think that writing romantic fiction is a quick way to make a fortune forget it. Often the novel thats so easy to read & slips down as easily as a blancmange has taken a good deal of skill on the part of the author to achieve that very impression. In this comprehensive guide successful novelist Jean Saunders shows you the way to go about it including Tips from the Top from some of our best-selling novelists such as Jilly Cooper & Catherine Cookson who offer their writing advice. The most glittering names in romantic fiction had to start somewhere & none of us was born a writer however glamorous that may sound. Its a craft that can be learned & one that can bring immense pleasure & satisfaction to the writer as well as the reader. So lets get started & between these covers you will learn: How to structure a romance open chapters & write love scenes; How to do authentic research for historical or contemporary romance; How to submit manuscripts to publishers; How to survive the sting of rejection; How to break into the lucrative American romance market & more. ...

Written by trusted author Geoff Barton this new edition of a classroom favourite has been completely rewritten to support the latest Key Stage 3 requirements. The book offers skills-based writing support with a variety of engaging tasks for students of all abilities. Stand alone activities & resources can be easily built into existing lesson plans or serve as handy cover lessons. ...

Its clear to most members of Midsomer Worthys Writers Circle that asking bestselling author Max Jennings to talk to them is a little ambitious. Less clear are the reasons for secretary Gerald Hadleighs fierce objections to seeing the man -- a face from his past -- again. Astonishingly Jennings accepts the invitation but before the night is out Gerald is dead. Summoned to investigate Chief Inspector Barnaby finds that Geralds life is as much of a mystery to his neighbours as his violent death. The key is surely their illustrious guest speaker -- but where is he now? ...

I took the skull from its evidence bag & gently set it on the stainless steel table. ' Tell me who you are...' As a favour to a colleague Dr David Hunter is on the remote Hebridean island of Runa to inspect a grisly discovery. He's familiar with death in all its guises but is shocked by what he finds: a body incinerated but for the feet & a single h&. It appears to be a textbook case of spontaneous human combustion. The local police are certain it's an accidental death but Hunter is not convinced. Examining the scorched remains he finds evidence that this was no accident; this was murder. & as the isolated community considers the enormity of Hunter's findings a catastrophic storm hits the isl&. The power goes down communication with the outside world ceases...and the killing begins in earnest. ...

Written on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes never unfold too much tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book. ...

The Dewsbury Desperadoes are on their way to Pontefract for a gig at the Allied Butchers' & Architects' Club. The Girl with the Chestnut Eyes is on her way to somewhere. & Raymond is heading for Gulag Grimshy. Raymond Marks is a normal boy from a normal family in a normal northern town. His dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo; his fun-hating grandma believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre: '1 could never read his books but y' could tell from his picture there was nothing frivolous about John-Paul Sartre.' Felonious Uncle Jason & Appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish; frogs are flattened on Failsworth Boulevard; & Sickening Sonia's being sick in the majestic cathedral of words. Raymond Marks is a normal boy from a normal family in a normal northern town. Until on the banks of the Rochdale Canal the Flytrapping craze begins & for Raymond & his mam nothing is ever quite so normal again. In Raymond prize-winning & internationally acclaimed playwright Willy Russell has created an unforgettable character to rival his Shirley Valentine & educated Rita. The Wrong Boy is his extraordinary first novel. ...

The fantastic debut novel from Headlines latest thriller talent. Nine hundred & seventy three days. Thinking. Planning. Waiting for the perfect moment. Former Marine James Bishop will only have one opportunity to make his prison break. & one chance to prove that he isnt responsible for the murders that put him inside. Three years ago Bishop was the leader of an elite close protection team hired to protect a millionaire & his daughter. After being attacked Bishop regained consciousness to find seven bodies strewn throughout the millionaires Long Island mansion
- including those of his two charges
- & a mountain of evidence guaranteed to send him down for murder. But to find out who set him up & why Bishop needs to be free. & now the time has come to make his move. Prepare yourself for the most exciting debut thriller of the year...

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A gripping Quick Read from the master of the race against time thriller. Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are hiking in the Scottish highlands with three friends when you come across a girl. She is half-naked has been badly beaten & she can't speak English. She is clearly running away from someone. Do you stop to help her? Even if it means putting your friends' lives
- & your own
- in terrible danger?

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Wrought iron has been used as a decorative element in architecture from the eleventh century to the twentieth. At first a device to strengthen & embellish doors wrought iron was soon adopted for free-standing screens & railings examples of which can still be seen in churches & cathedrals. At the end of the seventeenth century iron screens gates & railings became a fashionable element of country & town houses resulting in the most creative period of decorative ironwork. The cheaper technique of cast iron led to a subsequent decline in wrought iron although the latter underwent a revival at the end of the nineteenth century led by influential architects such as William Burges & Charles Rennie Mackintosh. ...

Village rectories the traditional family homes of church ministers have had a long association with writers in Britain. For many the Georgian rectory nestling against an historic church immediately evokes a scene from a Jane Austen novel for others it conjures up something much darker the parsonage at Haworth where the Bronte sisters were confined. In this engaging book Deborah Alun-Jones selects a range of authors from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first for whom the rectory was either the childhood home that nurtured their creative talent or the place they chose to live as an adult & from which they drew inspiration. Each chapter explores the life of a writer during the time they lived at a particular rectory/ parsonage or vicarage & the effect it had on them. The story is often heartwarming with amateur theatricals & games of tennis but in several cases it is a tale where the serene exterior belies the tensions within but it was those very tensions that yielded some of our greatest poetry & literature. ...