Invitation to a royal wedding

Commoner married prince … is this story sounding familiar at all?  For those of you who have just jetted in from Mars (or perhaps don't live in the UK), Prince William is marrying Kate Middleton in London next week. As luck in the script would have it, I have just received my UK copies of Ordinary Girl in a Tiara, in which a commoner marries - you guessed it - a prince.  I wrote this book long before William and Kate announced their engagement, so now like to think of myself as prescient, although I gather from seasoned royal watchers had been expecting it for ages.

I was delighted when I heard they would be getting married this summer, thinking it would make a great tie-in with my book, but they selfishly decided to get married in April rather than in June  when Ordinary Girl in a Tiara is out.  They never even thought to ask me – can you believe it?  Everyone will be sick of royal weddings by June. Grumble, grumble.

Never mind. I hope Kate and William will be as happy as Caro and Philippe are definitely going to be.  Philippe is prince of a fictional country, Montluce, which I’ve imagined as wedged somewhere between France and Switzerland and Germany, and Caro is, well, an ordinary girl like Kate, except that Caro isn’t thin or particularly pretty, and she certainly doesn’t have Kate’s dress sense.  In fact, her predilection for vintage clothes, not all of which hit the mark, is a source of some tension between her and Philippe.

Of course, Ordinary Girl in a Tiara ends with a royal wedding too, and I will be watching next Friday to see just how closely William and Kate’s wedding matches Caro and Philippe’s fictional one.  (Will Kate’s dress be a patch on Caro’s, I wonder?)  I’m going up to have coffee with a member of the my plotting team near Northallerton and we’ll watch it together, chiefly so we can comment on the frocks, which is no fun on your own.

As a special royal wedding tie-in (!), I’ve got three copies of Ordinary Girl in a Tiara to give away, so if you’d like to read it before it hits the shelves, just tell me where you’ll be on 29th April and if you’ll be watching the (real) royal wedding or not.

I finished my book on Sunday night – hooray! – and am off to Scotland for a few days, but will be back next week to pick three winners,  so don’t forget to check back then and see if you’ve won, because I’ll need you to email me your postal address.

Happy Easter to you all, and may the sun shine wherever you are, and whether you’re marrying a prince or not.