Stephanie Cage - Writer

Continuing my series of posts about the inspirations behind 'Perfect Partners', I'd like to introduce you - if you haven't already come across it - to the story of one of the most unlikely celebrities to emerge from the hothouse of talent that is Strictly Come Dancing.  ' Better Late than Never' is the life story of Len Goodman, head judge of the UK series.  Witty, surprising and occasionally heartfelt, Len's book gives an insight into the life of a ballroom dancer before and after fame and fortune - just what I needed when creating the story of Lisa and Redmond, who were taking the dance world by storm as juniors but found their partnership derailed when Red left for a summer on the cruise ships, only returning eight years later to ask Lisa to partner him in a dance competition with a twist: the dancers must be partners in life as well as in the studio.  Len's story of his dancing marriage with first wife Cherry helped give me a taste of some of the...

Wow!  I absolutely love the cover that Crimson Romance have put together for my dancing novel, 'Perfect Partners'.  Lisa and Redmond look glamorous and romantic, and I could just see them on Strictly Come Dancing or Dancing with the Stars , or indeed Couples , the 'dance meets romance' show I created especially for this book.  And if you look closely, you'll see that the hot pink title text is studded with sequins... just in case my hero and heroine weren't sparkly enough already!  There's more about the story on Crimson Romance's website here , and I'm so excited to see my book lined up alongside all their other fantastic new releases .  Roll on February 25th, when the ebook hits the virtual shelves. Coming soon to a Kindle near you...

Thanks to Maureen Wood , I just discovered squidoo's Reading Meme.  A chance to chat about books and reading?  How could I resist?  There are some really interesting questions for bloggers and others to answer.  If you'd like to play, just visit the site here and grab a copy. What have you just read? Carol Marinelli's 'Banished to the Harem', one of Mills and Boon's more dramatic sheik stories, as the heroine nearly becomes part of the hero's harem!  Although it's loaded with stereotypes, I was fascinated by the interplay of the two cultures.  What are you reading now? I've just started P.D.James' 'Death Comes to Pemberley'.  I love the concept of bringing together crime and high romance, and since I enjoyed 'Pride and Prejudice with Zombies', I think I'll have fun with this one too. Do you have any idea what you'll read when you're done with that? I have a fairly extensive to-read pile, both physical and on...

So, we're a week into January and pretty much every mailing list, group and magazine I subscribe to has asked me about my goals for 2013.  Up to now I've largely avoided the question, partly because I was still pondering the answer, and partly because I tend to resist sharing goals/resolutions in January in case anyone tries to hold me to them later in the year! I can just about cope with concentrating on a goal for one month at a time - NaNoWriMo , for example - but any longer seems to be a struggle.  So, this time, instead of setting goals for the whole year which I'll probably have forgotten by March, I've decided to focus on some areas of my life, like writing, fitness, work and clutter-clearing, and setting smaller goals that I might have a chance of reaching before they've totally faded from my mind! So far, in the name of my January 'goals', I have collected together a to-read pile which was previously scattered all over the house (you can see par...

It's coming to the end of the year now, and time to start summing up the best and most memorable of the year's reads.  This time I'm focusing on the books I've read and loved on my Kindle since the start of 2012, with a round-up of a dozen favourites from now until Christmas.  Today's is (unless I change my mind, which I reserve the right to do), the only non-fiction title on the list.  I've been reading some good biographies, business books and mind, body, spirit titles on Kindle, but this is something else entirely.  It's the only writers' reference book on my Kindle, and it's one I turn to constantly: Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance .  Liz Fielding speaks with the wisdom of experience, and her book is a gentle yet hugely informative guide to what to do - and what not to do - when writing.  I wish I'd had it when I wrote ' Desperate Bid ', as I'm sure it would have saved me a vast amount of experimentation to a...

Apologies if this is not the most coherent post ever, but I'm excited!  Recently I sent my contemporary romance novel, 'Perfect Partners' to Crimson Romance (a clip of their website is below, but do go and look at the real thing - it's much prettier and has lots of good books on it) and they have accepted it for publication in 2013. Hooray!  My novel 'Perfect Partners' is set in the glamorous world of ballroom dancing, and was inspired partly by my experiences on the Oxford University Ballroom Dancing team, longer ago than I care to admit, and partly by my love of Strictly Come Dancing.  Which is on tonight - that's my plans for the evening sorted, then.  I'll be spending the evening in front of Strictly - possibly with a glass of bubbly to toast my success... though the bubbly is banned until I hit my wordcount for the day... better get writing!

Indeed it is the season for ghost stories, and if you like them, there's an interesting list of recommendations here . My perennial favourites - neither of which appears in the list - are Susan Hill's 'Woman in Black' (yes, the one that was recently filmed with Daniel Radcliffe) and 'Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad' by the superbly creepy M.R.James.  Also, if it counts, 'A Christmas Carol.' Any more recommendations?

So... a friend asked on facebook today for advice about how to write a book blurb.  Being a former marketer, amongst (many) other things, I thought I ought to have something to say, so I sat down to try and write a few pointers.  When the few pointers turned into something of an essay, I decided this was worth making more public than a private message in facebook.  So, for any writers who have ever struggled with the question of just how much to give away on the back cover, here are my thoughts... 1) Don't give too much away. You are not writing a blurb to give your reader every detail about your characters, world and back story.  They will find that out when they read the book, and too much detail in the short space of a blurb makes most of us dizzy!  You don't have to tell the reader everything now.  The blurb just needs to give the core facts which tell them whether this is a book they will want to buy.  In most cases that means the genre, the ge...

It's been an age since I posted my favourite writing resources, and as several more have entered the charts since then, it seems like a good time to revisit the collection and see what's changed.  Not surprisingly, there's still a core of old favourites which I've recommended before and probably will again.  These include: The Writer's Journey, by Christopher Vogler Story, by Robert McKee Kate Walker's Twelve Point Guide to Writing Romance Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maas.  Then there are the inspirational delights of: The Writer's Idea Book, by Jack Heffron Writing down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron The latest book to enter my writer's to-read pile, courtesy of a writer's group friend, is Memo from the Story Department, by Christopher Vogler (of Writer's Journey fame) and David McKenna.  Although somewhat piecemeal, I suspect that once I start putting what I've read into practice,...

I've posted several times about prizes, and in particular books, I've been lucky enough to win. The most recent book I mentioned winning was The Italian's Blushing Gardener by Christina Hollis - a fresh take on the whole Mills and Boon millionaire thing, with a lovely, reclusive landscape gardener for a heroine, a refreshingly rural setting and of course the requisite sexy hero with dark shadows in his past. Since, then I also got lucky in an online contest for a copy of Sky Purington's Heart of Vesuvius and a $10 ebook voucher - enough to buy several novellas I'd been drooling over for a while. Having reviewed several of the books I won, it struck me the other day that blog readers might be just as interested to know how the heck I do it. Just why do I keep getting lucky where books are concerned? And it generally is books, although in the past I have been lucky enough to win a pair of jeans... oh, and a holiday, in a writing competition. But mostly, I win bo...

Have you ever suddenly and unexpectedly found yourself reading a sequence of books on the same theme? I don't mean when you deliberately seek out books on a topic that interests you, but when you pick up a book to read and find yourself thinking, on page 3 or page 30, 'Well, hang on, haven't I been somewhere like this before?' The first time I can remember it happening was with a spate of books about book clubs a few years ago, and all three books had been published at around the same time. This time it was more unexpected, as not all the books are recent, although I suppose the topic is one of perennial interest. It started with Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People , which I picked up because the title intrigued me, echoing as it does Dale Carnegie's famous self-help book. I enjoyed the glamorous setting and ironic humour for a few chapters, but soon found myself losing sympathy with the main character (or with the author - it's hard to ...