Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical Romance Novels

In England’s Green and Pleasant Land

Fiona Lowe

Hello, Everyone! Big wave!

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged here as when it was last my turn, I was on holidays in the UK. We enjoyed a few days in London, but the highlights were spending  an entire day with fellow medical romance author, Annie  Claydon, as she toured us around Hampton Court.

DSCF8842
Fiona Lowe and Annie Claydon

I was also able to attend the Association of Mills & Boon Authors luncheon and cocktail party where I got to meet LOTS of authors who, up until then, I had only met online. There’s medical romance author, Kate Hardy, front and centre in the red and holding the tickled pink banner.

M&BTickledPink.jpg

After all the excitement of party, party, party, it was time to work off the chocolate and champagne by cycling through the English countryside in the Cotswolds.  In case you didn’t know, the word, “wold” means hill and I can certainly testify to that! We rode up a LOT of very long and steep hills. It was a fabulous trip even if it did come with ALL the weather: blinding rain, headwinds so strong there was a point when I had to peddle DOWN a hill, sunshine and sunburn, oh and midgies….give me an Aussie fly any day than swarms of teeny-tiny midges that get in your eyes, ears, nose, down your bra; everywhere!

We saw some fabulous scenary and I sometimes thought I was back home in the western district of Victoria when I passed all the dry stone walls 🙂

IMG_2607

 

659F15A2-11BF-4F22-9C46-B62E641BE0A9

 

We cycled along minor roads with hedgerows dripping with blackberries, along bridal paths and canal tow paths and through so many picturesque villages, we started to get a bit blasé.

 

Time and time again, I felt like I was on the set of The Vicar of Dibley, The Holiday, Pride and Prejudice or Downton Abbey, and when we were in Lacock, we were where many of the Harry Potter movies were filmed. And, all those jokes about the Brits wearing green wellington boots and walking their dogs along country lanes? Well, it’s no joke, it happens! And they don’t ever have just one dog…minimum of three in the Cotswolds!

With the rise of the mobile/cell phone, the old red phone boxes are being put to good use as a central place for the village defibrillator! How cool is that? I also saw one as a community book exchange and in one village, a barista was working a coffee machine 🙂 57161DF7-5757-4AFC-9C54-CD75EA7DD778

Have you ever been somewhere real when you felt like you were on a film set?

In Book News, I am getting excited about my next big saga, HOME FIRES, which is out in Australia and New Zealand in February 2019. Instead of a family, this time I’ve tackled a community in crisis eighteen months after a bushfire. Sadly, due to climate change, more and more communities are dealing with wildfire (California as I speak and Canada has a long history too).

The silly season is about to gear up, so I want to take this time to wish you all a happy festive season and may 2019 bring you plenty of time for reading!  Fiona xx

IMG_5514-1

Published by Fiona Lowe

Fiona Lowe has been a midwife, a sexual health counsellor and a family support worker; an ideal career for an author who writes novels about family and relationships. She spent her early years in Papua New Guinea, where without television, reading was the entertainment and it set up a lifelong love of books. One of her first teenage rebellions was refusing to go on a hike with her parents because she was half way through GONE WITH THE WIND. As an adult, Fiona read her way around the world always trying to read a book that related to where she was at the time; the Brontes in Yorkshire, Jane Austen in Bath, The Godfather in Italy, Michener in Hawaii...and so the list goes on. Although she often re-wrote the endings of books in her head, it was the birth of her first child that prompted her to write her first novel. A recipient of the prestigious USA RITA® award and the Australian RuBY award, Fiona's books are set in small country towns and feature real people facing tough choices and explore how family ties impact on their decisions. When she's not writing stories, she's a distracted wife, mother of two 'ginger' sons, a volunteer in her community, guardian of 80 rose bushes, slave to a cat and is often found collapsed on the couch with wine. You can find her at fionalowe.com, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Goodreads or you can email her at fiona@fionalowe.com

8 thoughts on “In England’s Green and Pleasant Land”

  1. Hi Fiona

    What a wonderful trip you had and thank you so much for sharing the photos are gorgeous maybe one day I will get there. What fun meeting all of those authors at Mills & Boon that is something I would love to do one day.

    I have not travelled where I have thought I was on a filmset yet 🙂

    II am looking forward to your new book

    Have Fun

    Helen

    Reply

  3. Hampton Court was a lovely day, thank you for putting up with my rather haphazard tour guiding Fiona 🙂 It’s always wonderful to have the chance to share a few of the places that I’ve grown up with and see them through new eyes.

    And film sets – well actually the panoramic view from the Mills and Boon offices always makes me feel a bit as if I’m in that eagle eyed view you get in films, just to let you know that you’re in London 🙂 As did flying over Sydney Harbour for the first time. xx

    Reply

  4. So many wonderful films in London: Notting Hill, Love Actually, Finding Your Feet…. Flying over Sydney Harbour on a fine day is an absolute WOW moment. I’ve been lucky enough to fly over it in a helicopter. x

    Reply

Leave a comment