Favourite food and how I use it

This prompt from Long and Short Reviews was a tough one. I never cook and don't use recipes. However, I suddenly remembered one thing I do cook which involves one of my favourite foods - cottage pie, topped with mashed potato. My mother had a recipe for cottage pie which I still follow and it always turns out perfectly.

I won't bother with serving sizes as those always varied according to the dish we were using. :)

• Take one pack of beef mince and fry until brown. Put in the pie dish.
• Chop three red onions and four carrots. Add to the dish.
• Open a tin of beans and add those to the dish. We used to use flageolet beans but my husband prefers baked beans, which add a slight tomato flavour to the gravy.
• Make a cup of Bisto gravy flavoured with Bovril and add to the dish.
• Boil the potatoes and mash to your preferred consistency using milk and butter.
• Top the meat with the potatoes. Add butter to the top and ruffle the top with a fork so it will crisp in the oven.
• Heat the oven to 200C and cook for 25-30 minutes.

And now I want cottage pie.

So what are your favourite foods?

Favourite quotes from books

I’ll be honest, this prompt from Long and Short Reviews had me a bit stumped, as I don’t tend to remember quotes from books. However, there was one quote which I did find particularly inspirational, since it inspired my novel Photograph. In an essay in Isaac Asimov’s Gold, he describes how he felt when Robert Heinlein got a story published in the Saturday Evening Post.

“We all dreamed of publishing in the SEP (I, also) but that was like dreaming of taking out Marilyn Monroe on a date. You knew it was just a dream and you had no intention of even trying to make it come true. And now Bob had done it. He hadn’t just tried, he had done it.”

The feeling of someone else stealing your impossible dream was a major factor in Photograph. 

My heroine Tara has had a crush on celebrity theme park owner Liam Wilder all her life, but considered it a harmless indulgence since he was always going to be outside of her world. So when her twin sister Azure meets him after winning a radio competition, falls in love at first sight and marries him, to Tara this is an unforgivable betrayal.

So what are your favourite quotes?

Fictional worlds I'd love to visit

This prompt from Long and Short Reviews was a tricky one, because a lot of what I read is either historical or dystopian, neither of which are places I want to go. I spent a long time trying to come up with a story set in a beach resort and couldn't. I did, however, manage to come up with a few possibilities.

Uglies. An unusual choice possibly as this is a dystopia, but it was one I honestly had no problems with. At the age of sixteen you get to have extreme plastic surgery to make you beautiful and then go and live in New Pretty Town for the next twenty-odd years partying constantly - what's not to like?

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I dreamed of going to live with Gene Wilder in the factory as a child. Nothing but chocolate waterfalls and sweets as far as the eye can see.

Jurassic World. Okay, so it all went wrong in the end. However, assuming they could keep control of it - which they obviously did until they introduced the Indominus Rex - I would love to visit a place where I could see dinosaurs. It would be a dream come true.

So where would you like to visit?

Favourite authors in the historical genre

You might think that because I write erotic romance, I would choose erotic romance authors for this prompt. However, in my spare time I love historicals, although I do have a fairly broad umbrella for the genre.

Philippa Gregory – I am well aware that Gregory has been frequently attacked for her grasp of history, particularly of Anne Boleyn. However, I can’t deny that her books are page-turners. I especially enjoyed her portrayal of the sociopathic Jane Parker.

Anne O’Brien – O’Brien deals primarily with strong women in history and has covered a lot of women I previously knew nothing about, like Alice Perrers, so I will read anything of hers.

Agatha Christie – This one might be more of a stretch, but I do find when reading Christie that I’m aware of how dramatically society has changed since she wrote her books. Casual references to the Chelsea coffee shop set and so forth leave me wide-eyed in wonder.

And because I love Christie I had to include Sophie Hannah, who has written two Poirot continuation novels and done an amazing job at capturing the style.

So who are your favourite authors?

Humorous book titles

This prompt from Long and Short Reviews made me smile, because as an erotic romance writer I know we can get away with some comic titles. I can still remember the freebie I did for Totally Bound called “I Can’t Believe You Used My Butter”. And then there are three that I bought and read based solely on the name...

In Appreciation of their Cox. A classic Janine Ashbless novel about the female cox of an all-male rowing team, with plenty of heat in the sex.

Hot Buttered Strumpet. I reviewed this one for Totally Bound – a historical short with two brothers sharing a prostitute. I loved every minute of this one.

Stacy’s Dad Has Got It Going On. Well, with a title like that, I had to see what it was about. I was a little disappointed in the ending, but going from the description, I would also have slipped into Stacy’s dad’s bedroom and probably been kicked out of my roommate arrangement.

So what are your favourite humorous titles?

Favourite things to do in the summer

I write this prompt for Long and Short Reviews while looking out of the window at driving rain. Good old British weather. For this reason, top of my list of favourite things to do in the summer is:

Watching the rain with a cocktail. More likely a can of cider when I’m at home, but I have had many holidays in which walks in the sun have unexpectedly turned into afternoons with cocktails as we watch the hammering rain from inside a bar.

Visiting the seaside, or areas of beauty. Okay, Scarborough may not be the most beautiful place in the world – for natural beauty I’m more likely to go to the Lakes or the Peak District. But there is something about walking down the seafront with an icecream watching the galleon go past.

Barbecues. Now that we’ve moved into a new house we’re planning to invite family over for a barbecue or two. My husband is looking forward to rolling his sleeves up and trying not to burn the sausages.

So what do you like to do in summer?

Favourite book covers and why

This prompt by Long and Short Reviews made me think, because it’s been a long time since I’ve really noticed a book cover. O had to go back over my collection and refresh my memory. However, there were a couple I found that definitely stuck out.

Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver. This was the first Lauren Oliver book I read and really drew my attention the first time I saw it. For me it perfectly captures the dreamy teenage beauty of the novel.

Nemesis – Isaac Asimov. The blurb on this was terrible, talking about a red dwarf “as red as the colour of blood”, but the image of the churning star terrified me as a child.

And I couldn’t resist using one of my own. Ready For Him is about a tattooed, pierced, Mohawk-wearing martial artist who meets a dominant billionaire in Las Vegas, and the image Totally Bound used to represent her is stunning.

So what are your favourite covers?