Giveaway ending soon, The Golden Age of English Food & Festival of Romance

Goodreads Giveaway

There are only a few hours left to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of A Bright Particular Star.  Just click on the widget below to enter before the deadline :0)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Bright Particular Star

by Elizabeth Hanbury

Giveaway ends November 20, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

BBC Four Calf's Head and Coffee: The Golden Age of English Food

If you are you in the UK, you might like to watch Calf's Head and Coffee: The Golden Age of English Food on BBC 4 at 9pm this evening.  Food writer Stefan Gates delves into the past to discover the origins of British cuisine, focusing on an often overlooked golden age, some 300 years ago.  He re-creates a host of recipes in his kitchen, although I'm not sure all of them will catch on in the modern domestic kitchen.  Calf's Head surprise, anyone?!

In this clip, Stefan and food historian Ivan Day discuss puddings and why they are such an English thing (see also my earlier post about British Pudding Day).

Clip from BBC Four's Calf's Head and Coffee - why are puddings an English thing?

There are several recipes here, all taken from their original texts, including this one for Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream!

Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream

(taken from The Complete Confectioner by Frederic Nutt published in 1807)

Take six eggs, half a pint of syrup, and a pint of cream ; put them into a stewpan and boil them until it begins to thicken ; then rasp three ounces of Parmasan cheese, mix and pass them through a sieve, and freeze it.

Festival of Romance

The Festival of Romance was held during 16-18th November in Bedford.  It was a fabulous event and although I only managed to attend on Saturday, I had a great time.  My author friend and fellow Coffee Crew member Phillipa Ashley won best e-book award for Miranda's Mount - very well deserved as it's a great read!    

You can view the official photo stream for the event, but here is my shot of the lovely Dan and Sarah from Tread the Boards Theatre Group, who played the perfect Regency gentleman and lady ;0)

Interview on FlyHigh

You can read an interview with me right now over on Maria's fabulous blog, FlyHigh.

Simply follow this link and leave a comment to have a chance of winning copies of the Brief Encounters short story anthology!

An early Christmas present and a sneak peek at 2012...

The paperback edition of Brief Encounters is now available from Amazon and other on-line retailers.  Full details are still appearing on Amazon as I type, but check out this gorgeous new cover (which will feature on the e-book too)!

Nell, Phillipa and I hope you'll enjoy these six short, sweet, sexy tales - described by Christina Jones as 'a fabulous literary box of chocolates, with something for everyone to enjoy'.

This will probably be my last blog post before the festive season commences in earnest and I have to run around like a crazy person getting everything sorted, so I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and happy and healthy 2012!

And for a sneak peek at what's coming next year, look out for two new releases from me - Unexpected Pleasure and A Bright Particular Star...  More details to follow ;0)

Brief Encounters Review

Angie at Bookishly Attentive has reviewed Brief Encounters - she loved it and said:

"Brief Encounters is a must read, and its size makes it the perfect evening getaway.  Be sure to download this as quickly as you can! "

To read the full review, click here.


Many thanks to Angie & the Bookishly Attentive team for reviewing!

Some exciting news

Sharing is always fun so I'm delighted to share the exciting news that my Regency romance The Paradise Will is to appear as an ebook in September.  Yaaaay!!

The Paradise Will was first published in 2008, but it has been out for print for some time due to heavy demand.  An ebook edition is therefore good news for all those who have contacted me about getting hold of a copy, and for everyone else who enjoys a great story!  You don't even need a Kindle or any other reader - ebooks can be downloaded to your PC.  :0)  More details as I get them, but mark the date in your diary now and in the meantime, here's a little reminder.....

When spirited Alyssa Paradise unexpectedly inherits her uncle’s property in Dorset, she is determined to   meet the challenge of running a grand estate. However, there is a surprising condition: every week for six months she must dine tête-à-tête with the enigmatic Sir Giles Maxton, who owns the adjoining land. Alyssa wonders how she will endure this arrangement – Sir Giles cuts a dashing figure but he is positively insufferable.

 *Finalist in the RNA Joan Hessayon New Writers Award*
 *Finalist in the RedRosesforAuthors Christmas Awards 2008*

And there's more good news... Brief Encounters - a sparkling new anthology of six romantic short stories - is currently available for just £1.39!   Sweet and sexy, contemporary and historical, the collection has something for everyone and is perfect if you need a quick fix of romantic fiction during your coffee or lunch break, or to wind down with in the evening.

The other Brief Encounters tales are by fellow members of the Coffee Crew, Nell Dixon, who writes warm-hearted contemporary romances, and Phillipa Ashley, who writes lively, sexy and fun romantic fiction.  Nell and Phillipa have had exciting news too.

Nell has just sold two romantic comedy novels to Myrmidon.  In the first Renovation, Renovation, Renovation, Kate would like an engagement ring from Steve but instead he's lumbered them with a thirteenth renovation project, and doing up Myrtle Cottage disturbs a ghost from the English Civil War who has romance troubles of her own.

Phillipa's brand new US release Wish You Were Here is riding high in the Amazon charts, as is Dating Mr. December which is absolutely free for one week in the USA and Canada.  As I type this, DMD is #1 in the Top 100 free Kindle books and WYWH is #20 in the Top 100 paid Kindle books.  

Congratulations to Phillipa and Nell!

 
 

Hurry, your last chance to win....

...free downloads of Brief Encounters!

Don't forget there are three free downloads of Brief Encounters to be won over at the Brief Encounters blog.  All you have to do post a comment about a brief encounter that you may have had. It might be with someone famous, a funny incident, something sad, something romantic - anything goes as long as it's memorable!  Just post before midnight GMT on 22nd May to have a chance to win :0)

Brief Encounters available now

It's here!

Brief Encounters - a sparkling new anthology of six romantic short stories - is available now.   Sweet and sexy, contemporary and historical, the collection has something for everyone.

The emphasis with these short stories is very much on FUN :0)  They were fun to develop (over coffee and cake - see below), fun to write (cue many hilarious email exchanges between the three authors!) and fun to watch come together with the help of an on-line poll to choose the cover.

My first story, Miss Pattingham Requests, opens with Gyles Beaufort receiving a request to visit Kensington, something the broodingly handsome Gyles has no desire to do because he's in the middle of a desperate search ....

In The Virtuous Courtesan, we pay another visit to that magical place for romance, Rookery End.  A prequel to the original Midsummer Eve collection, The Virtuous Courtesan is the story of just how Lord and Lady Allingham met ;0)  I got the original idea after chatting with a friend, a conversation which took place in that most beautiful of Regency settings, the Pump Room at Bath.  Very appropriate!

The other four Brief Encounters tales are by my friends, Nell Dixon, who writes warm-hearted contemporary romances, and Phillipa Ashley, who writes lively, sexy and fun romantic fiction. Together we call ourselves the Coffee Crew and we meet regularly to drink coffee, eat cakes and talk about writing.

Brief Encounters is perfect if you need a quick fix of romantic fiction during your coffee or lunch break, or to wind down with in the evening - either way, we hope you’ll love them!!

You can buy the ebook of Brief Encounters from Amazon UK or Amazon US.  Other formats and paperback coming soon.   Visit the Brief Encounters blog to find out more and for the chance to win a free copy :0)

Brief Encounters - Judge the Cover Poll

Vote! by Gil Elvgren

As mentioned in my previous post, a collection of short stories by me, Phillipa Ashley and Nell Dixon will be coming out later this spring.  The stories (published by E-scape Press and entitled Brief Encounters) are a fantastic mix of contemporary and historical shorts which we hope our readers will love!

At the Brief Encounters blog we are running a poll on potential covers and we'd like our readers to comment and vote for their favourite image.  The poll will be open until midnight on Saturday (GMT) and as an extra bonus, Nell will choose a random commentor to receive a PDF copy of her latest release, Making Waves. 

Please pop over to the blog and vote - we want to hear what you think! :0)

Happy Valentine's Day and Launch of Brief Encounters

Here's some very exciting news for Valentine's Day – a brand new short story collection called Brief Encounters will be published by E-scape Press this spring.

It’s a collection of six fun, romantic stories written by the members of the Coffee Crew – Nell Dixon, Phillipa Ashley and me. I hope you're going to love them.  You can read all about the new collection on the new Brief Encounters blog here - do pop over and leave a comment!

Writers Lunch

I had a fabulous day yesterday in the company of fellow scribes Phillipa Ashley and Nell Dixon. We met in Lichfield, a city steeped in history with a beautiful cathedral and Georgian architecture, and oh-so-tempting shops. We indulged in plenty of coffee, writerly chat and scoffed calorie-laden cake in a tea shop straight out of a Miss Marple story!

We didn't have time to visit Samuel Johnson's house (too busy shopping and chatting) but it's on my 'to do' list as 2009 - 18th September, to be exact - is the 300th anniversary of the great man's birth.