Showing posts with label Self publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self publishing. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Jessica Hart Vintage Collection - available now!

Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013

Ta DA!  Resurrecting this blog to announce the launch of the Jessica Hart Vintage Collection, now exclusively available on Amazon!

I wrote these five books in the early Nineties, and the collection includes my very first three books: A Sweeter Prejudice, The Trouble with Love and Woman at Willagong CreekRereading the proofs, I've been struck by what period pieces they all are.  The Nineties don't seem that long ago to me, but the books belong to a different world, one in which few people had a PC or a mobile phone, and whole plots could turn on whether or not a letter had been received.  (How on earth did we ever make arrangements to meet without texts?)

The collection will have an official 'launch' on 23rd May, with Woman at Willagong Creek available to download absolutely free, but we'll be rolling out to other e-readers later in the summer so keep in touch!  

If you'd like to sign up for my newsletter with details of upcoming offers and news, do drop me an email: jessica@jessicahart.co.uk.  Otherwise, you can always find me on Facebook or Twittering erratically as @JessicaHartXX - I'd love to hear from you any old how!  


Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013
Image of couple copyright Yuri Arcurs 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com

A Sweeter Prejudice
Sweet, old fashioned Abby is horrified when movie star Nick comes roaring into the calm

Cotswolds village of Stynch Magna. Nick is ridiculously handsome, irresistibly charming …
and American … everything Abby has learnt through hard experience to distrust. But he’s
also not a man who gives up easily, and he’s not about to be beaten by Abby’s prejudice. Can
she resist the overwhelming excitement and passion he brings to her peaceful existence?





Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman
Image of couple copyright Yuri Arcurs 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com

The Trouble with Love
Scatty photographer Poppy joins Dr Keir Traherne’s expedition saving the West African rain
forest. He thinks she’ll be nothing but a distraction, and pretty soon she’s proving him right -
her luggage goes missing at the airport and things go downhill from there. But Poppy is warm
and funny, as well as accident-prone, and soon she’s distracting Keir and stirring his
emotions in more ways than one ...





Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013
Image of couple copyright MJTH 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com
Woman at Willagong Creek
Cool, chic, city girl Olivia flies out to Australia to bring her best friend’s orphaned son,
David, home to London. Cattle rancher Guy, who’s been looking after David, wants to keep
the little boy with him at Willagong Creek - no place for a woman like Olivia. The only way
she can stay and care for David is a marriage of convenience to Guy. Against the wildness
and heat of the outback, Olivia’s feelings grow for her strong, masterful husband - but Guy
won’t lay a finger on her … until she asks. Will Olivia dare to seduce her own husband?





Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013
Image of couple copyright Yuri Arcurs 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com

Defiant Love

Gussie cares passionately about the Northumberland countryside and clashes with developer
Hunter Scott over his construction plans. When Hunter offers her a job as an environmental
consultant on the project, Gussie is thrown. Can she make a difference working on the inside
of the development? What will it be like working side by side with Hunter? And can her
principles stand up to an even more powerful emotion - her growing feelings for Hunter?






Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013
Image of couple copyright solominviktor 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com

Legally Binding
Ten years ago, Jane was far too sensible to run away with local rebel Lyall. But now he’s
back, and the bad boy is all grown up. Lyall is a successful businessman who holds the keys
to the future of her family business and this time he’s going to make sure he specifies the
terms … but has he really changed? And will Jane risk her heart again?






Thursday, 9 August 2012

To update or not to update? That is the question.


Always one to wait until a bandwagon has trundled past and I’m left coughing and spluttering in the dust before I start to run after it, I am about to venture into self-publishing. 

Copyright ©1992 by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd

Rather to my own surprise, I have recovered the rights to five of my earliest books, including my very first, A Sweeter Prejudice and one that remains a favourite after all these years, Woman at Willagong Creek.  As you have no doubt gathered, this was before I discovered that books sold better with Wedding or Baby or Billionaire in the title.


The technological challenge of the whole business has me daunted, but fortunately that’s being taken care of for me, so all I really need to do now is to decide how much editing I need to do before we publish these books again.  Opinion seems to be divided about whether you should update the stories so that the characters use cell phones and the internet, or whether you leave them as ‘vintage’ pieces. 

I’m inclining towards the latter, mainly because I’m afraid that if I start playing around with books written so long ago, I’ll end up feeling that I have to rewrite the entire book, which would defeat the whole object.

There’s no way stories twenty years old aren’t going to seem dated.  You can tell that even reading re-releases of early books by successful authors like Mary Balogh, Tess Gerritsen or Harlan Coben.  It seems to me that it’s not so much the details as the writing itself that is dated.

What do you think?  Do you like your contemporary romances bristling with up-to-date references, or are you prepared to make allowances for a vintage story?