Back Catalogue Books is my new regular Saturday feature, focusing on books that are not the latest releases. There is going to be a mix of Q&As and also reviews, depending on what I have the space for.
If you are an author wanting to take part in Back Catalogue Books then please do email on gilbster at gmail dot com and I'll whizz the questions over to you.
I hope everyone enjoys this weekly look back at some of the slightly older books that are about but still great, and that I eventually make a dent in my TBRs as a result of it!
I had the pleasure of meeting today's guest at a blogger/author meet up a couple of months ago, and realised instantly she would be perfect for this feature. So without further ado, lets meet....
I'm Fiona Harper and I've been an author for more than ten years now. In that time I've written twenty-five books and they've been published all over the world. I started by writing short romances for Mills & Boon, but now I'm writing commercial women's fiction for HQ.I write funny, touching stories with a healthy dollop of romance!
Please tell me about your first book, and what started you writing in the first place
My first book started with a blind date between a rich girl with a badly-behaved rock star dad and a boy from a council estate who'd determined he was going to make a success of himself. Not your traditional Mills & Boon story! However, they offered me a contract and it was published in December 2006.
How many books have you written and what are they?
I've written 25 books (I can list them all if you want, but there's a lot!)
Commercial Women's Fiction:
• The Other Us
• The Summer We Danced
• The Doris Day Vintage Film Club
• The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams
• Make My Wish Come True
• Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe
Series romance:
• Taming Her Italian Boss
• The Rebound Guy
• The Guy To Be Seen With
• Snowbound in the Earl's Castle
• Always the Best Man
• Swept Off Her Stilettos
• Three Weddings and a Baby
• Dancing with Danger
• The Bridesmaid's Secret
• Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After
• Invitation to the Boss's Ball
• Blind-Date Baby
• Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses
• Saying Yes to the Millionaire
• English Lord, Ordinary Lady
• Break Up to Make Up
• Her Parenthood Assignment
• Blind-Date Marriage
Novellas:
• New Beginnings at the Chatsfield
Which book are you most proud of writing?
Ooh, that's really hard to answer! I think it's my current book, because it was an idea I had more than ten years ago, and for the first time it's not a boy-meets-girl story. I'm excited that I finally managed to do something different and put a story with a Big Idea at the centre of it onto paper.
Which book was your favourite to write?
I think it might have been Swept Off Her Stilettos. My heroine was a vintage-fashion wearing sex kitten who liked red lipstick and wrapping men around her little finger. It was fun to write a character who did and said things I would never dare to!
Who are your favourite characters from your books and why?
As a pair I would say Damian and Zoe from Always The Best Man, because they were just so explosively different to each other! However, I have a great fondness for Pippa from The Summer We Danced too.
If you could go back and change anything from any of your books, what would it be, and why?
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so there are many things I'd change in every book, things I realise later that I could have done better. However, at some point you just have to let the book go. There's one glaring continuity error in The Summer We Danced I would like to fix: I rewrote the scene so many times and changes a load of the little details and neither my editor, the copy editor or I caught the fact my heroine was using a computer when the electricity had been cut off!
Which of your covers if your favourite and why?
I think Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe has to have been my favourite cover because it was the first time I didn't have a cover that was a stock photo and I was so chuffed a cover designer had used the details from my book for the jacket.
Have you ever thought about changing genres, if so what else would you like to write?
Funny you should ask that, because I do feel as if I've switched gears with my current book - The Other Us. It's not a total departure, but it's more women's fiction than romantic comedy. I love mysteries and thrillers, though, and I'd love to write one if I got a really gripping idea to start it off.
Looking forward can you let us know what you are working on next?
I'm just revising The Other Us at the moment, so it's almost finished but not quite! It's a story about a dissatisfied housewife who wishes her life had taken a different path, that she'd chosen 'the one that got away' rather than the man she married. And then one day she wakes up and she's twenty-one again and the day when both men are going to ask her to be theirs is looming. Will she choose differently this time? And if she does, will the grass be any greener on the other side of the fence? The story then follows her as she flips between two possible realities where both choices play out. I kind of think of it as a romantic Sliding Doors meets Quantum Leap!
I dare not ask for a favourite author, but is there any author’s back catalogue you admire and why?
I love Julie Cohen's books! And Kelly Hunter's and Liz Fielding's. Mind you, I wouldn't mind Paula Hawkins' back catalogue (The Girl on the Train) because if one of my books got made into a film and Emily Blunt played the lead, I could die happy!
Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your back catalogue of books?
Nothing, except I am fond of them all! Ebooks were in their infancy when I first got published and I'm really glad digital books have taken off in the last decade, because it means none of them have been lost or forgotten.
Thank you, Rachel, for asking me to come along and share! It's been a blast. :-)
You are very welcome Fiona. I have really enjoyed your books and The Other Us sounds really good too, will definitely keep my eyes open for its release.
Bio
As a child, Fiona was constantly teased for two things: having her nose in a book and living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least she’s found a career that puts her runaway imagination to use! She loves reading, cooking and her new hobby is tap dancing – Ginger Rogers watch out!
Fiona has twenty-five books under her belt and they've been published in over twenty different languages around the world. She started career writing heartfelt but humorous romances for Mills & Boon, but now writes romantic comedies and feel-good women’s fiction for HQ.
Social Media links:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FionaHarperBooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FiHarper_Author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fionaharperauthor/?hl=en
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/fiharperauthor/
I had the pleasure of meeting today's guest at a blogger/author meet up a couple of months ago, and realised instantly she would be perfect for this feature. So without further ado, lets meet....
Please tell me about your first book, and what started you writing in the first place
My first book started with a blind date between a rich girl with a badly-behaved rock star dad and a boy from a council estate who'd determined he was going to make a success of himself. Not your traditional Mills & Boon story! However, they offered me a contract and it was published in December 2006.
How many books have you written and what are they?
I've written 25 books (I can list them all if you want, but there's a lot!)
• The Other Us
• The Summer We Danced
• The Doris Day Vintage Film Club
• The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams
• Make My Wish Come True
• Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe
Series romance:
• Taming Her Italian Boss
• The Rebound Guy
• The Guy To Be Seen With
• Snowbound in the Earl's Castle
• Always the Best Man
• Swept Off Her Stilettos
• Three Weddings and a Baby
• Dancing with Danger
• The Bridesmaid's Secret
• Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After
• Invitation to the Boss's Ball
• Blind-Date Baby
• Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses
• Saying Yes to the Millionaire
• English Lord, Ordinary Lady
• Break Up to Make Up
• Her Parenthood Assignment
• Blind-Date Marriage
Novellas:
• New Beginnings at the Chatsfield
Which book are you most proud of writing?
Ooh, that's really hard to answer! I think it's my current book, because it was an idea I had more than ten years ago, and for the first time it's not a boy-meets-girl story. I'm excited that I finally managed to do something different and put a story with a Big Idea at the centre of it onto paper.
Which book was your favourite to write?
I think it might have been Swept Off Her Stilettos. My heroine was a vintage-fashion wearing sex kitten who liked red lipstick and wrapping men around her little finger. It was fun to write a character who did and said things I would never dare to!
Who are your favourite characters from your books and why?
As a pair I would say Damian and Zoe from Always The Best Man, because they were just so explosively different to each other! However, I have a great fondness for Pippa from The Summer We Danced too.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so there are many things I'd change in every book, things I realise later that I could have done better. However, at some point you just have to let the book go. There's one glaring continuity error in The Summer We Danced I would like to fix: I rewrote the scene so many times and changes a load of the little details and neither my editor, the copy editor or I caught the fact my heroine was using a computer when the electricity had been cut off!
Which of your covers if your favourite and why?
I think Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe has to have been my favourite cover because it was the first time I didn't have a cover that was a stock photo and I was so chuffed a cover designer had used the details from my book for the jacket.
Have you ever thought about changing genres, if so what else would you like to write?
Funny you should ask that, because I do feel as if I've switched gears with my current book - The Other Us. It's not a total departure, but it's more women's fiction than romantic comedy. I love mysteries and thrillers, though, and I'd love to write one if I got a really gripping idea to start it off.
Looking forward can you let us know what you are working on next?
I'm just revising The Other Us at the moment, so it's almost finished but not quite! It's a story about a dissatisfied housewife who wishes her life had taken a different path, that she'd chosen 'the one that got away' rather than the man she married. And then one day she wakes up and she's twenty-one again and the day when both men are going to ask her to be theirs is looming. Will she choose differently this time? And if she does, will the grass be any greener on the other side of the fence? The story then follows her as she flips between two possible realities where both choices play out. I kind of think of it as a romantic Sliding Doors meets Quantum Leap!
I dare not ask for a favourite author, but is there any author’s back catalogue you admire and why?
I love Julie Cohen's books! And Kelly Hunter's and Liz Fielding's. Mind you, I wouldn't mind Paula Hawkins' back catalogue (The Girl on the Train) because if one of my books got made into a film and Emily Blunt played the lead, I could die happy!
Finally, is there anything else you would like to say about your back catalogue of books?
Nothing, except I am fond of them all! Ebooks were in their infancy when I first got published and I'm really glad digital books have taken off in the last decade, because it means none of them have been lost or forgotten.
Thank you, Rachel, for asking me to come along and share! It's been a blast. :-)
You are very welcome Fiona. I have really enjoyed your books and The Other Us sounds really good too, will definitely keep my eyes open for its release.
Bio
Fiona has twenty-five books under her belt and they've been published in over twenty different languages around the world. She started career writing heartfelt but humorous romances for Mills & Boon, but now writes romantic comedies and feel-good women’s fiction for HQ.
Social Media links:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FionaHarperBooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FiHarper_Author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fionaharperauthor/?hl=en
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/fiharperauthor/
