Today I’m delighted to feature author Lizzie Lamb who writes romantic, feel good novels largely set in her beloved homeland of Scotland.

Over to Lizzie:

Hi, I’m Lizzie and I like writing about the ‘moment’ when the hero and the heroine fall in love. That, and trying to track down the all-elusive hero-in-a-kilt, is what gets me in front of the computer each morning. Since 2012 I’ve published seven novels with my latest, the Dark Highland Skies having just been published and I’ve loved writing it.

I organise the Leicester Chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and present workshops on indie publishing to new writers. My feel good/uplit novels would be very happy to sit alongside Jilly Cooper, Jenny Colgan, Jill Mansell and Carole Matthews on your bookshelf.

I love writing because it’s given me the chance to celebrate everything I love about my homeland – Scotland, and to share those feelings with my readers. When I’m not writing, I spend summer with my husband touring Scotland in our caravan researching my next novel and avoiding the midges.

Slainte Mhath.

Which five pieces of music/songs would you include in the soundtrack to your life and why?

One of my favourite songs, Runrig’s Sgubhan Arbhair – or/sheaves of corn,  laments the passing of the old gaelic ways. I’m transported to the Scottish Highlands whenever I listen to it on Spotify. I stop whatever I’m doing to listen to it, dream and gain inspiration for my next novel.

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Next, I would choose Joan Baez singing Diamond and Rust for this phrase alone: ‘speaking strictly for me we both could have died then and there.’ Of course, no one wants to die for love but we’ve all experienced the intensity which being in love engenders. Trying to recapture those feelings is what keeps me writing romance.

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On a lighter note – Friday I’m in Love by The Cure is another favourite. I first heard it on the radio one Monday when I was driving to school and the weekend seemed far away. It brightened up my day and brought Friday closer. Not a bad thing, I’d say.  

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Ship to Shore by Chris de Burgh always gets me dancing no matter what I’m doing and lifts my spirits. I first bought it on Vinyl and then CD. I don’t play it often these days but it still has the power to transport me to another place when it comes up on Spotify and reminds me of the time when I started to consider writing as a career.

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Finally, Someone Like You by Adele. I watched the BBC documentary featuring her at the Albert Hall and the first time I heard it blew me away. What a voice. What a sentiment. What depth of feeling. If I want to write about the agony of unrequited love this song does it every time. Thanks Adele.

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What five things (apart from family and friends) would you find it hard to live without.

Chocolate (!)

My study where my writing takes place (I never refer to it my writing cave).

Unromantically, my blue tooth hearing aids through which I hear my music and take phone calls.

Our caravan which gives me the freedom to explore Scotland in the summer with my husband.

My MacBook Air which I take with me on holiday so I can keep writing.

Give five pieces of advice to your younger self?

Kick the chocolate habit.

Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.

Live in the moment and stop worrying about things over you have no control.

Don’t become a teacher and go for bigger and bigger promotions; it’ll leave you little time for writing!

Don’t wait until you retire to start writing, submit the novels you wrote in the eighties which gained you an agent and push ahead.  

Tell us five things that most people don’t know about you

I am obsessively tidy and like everything in its place.

It might not sound like it but I was born in Scotland and lived there until I was twelve years old before moving to Leicester.

I have no desire to learn a foreign language but would quite like to master Scots Gaelic.

I was a member of the Sealed Knot – the English Civil War re-enactment society and ‘fought’ in battles up and down the county.

I almost settled on writing Hist Fic but preferred writing romance.

Tell us five things you’d still like to do or achieve.

I’ve written and published seven novels. I would like to write three more and then stop. Ten seems a good number given the time and effort I put into what started off as a ‘hobby’ after retiring from teaching.

Stay healthy and well and enjoy life and every moment with my husband, Dave.

(PS – I wouldn’t mind being a #1 Times Best Seller, either)

Many thanks for joining me Lizzie and you brought some fantastic music choices. I saw both Runrig and Chris de Burgh back in the day and I love both Joan Baez and Adele, they have amazing voices. Welcome along to the chocolate club too, there are a lot of us here. If only we had heeded advice not to eat it, I think I’m definitely a lost cause now on that front! Living in the moment is a very apt piece of advice at any age, I still need to remind myself at times. I hope you reach the magical ten regarding your books, that’s some achievement for a hobby. Hope that if/when you stop you get to enjoy more travelling with the caravan. Fingers crossed for that #1 bestseller in the meantime.

Lizzie’s Books

(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)

Lizzies Scottish Romancec

Dark Highland Skies

Astrophysicist Halley Dunbar has spent her career searching for the one-in-a-billion exoplanet outside our solar system capable of sustaining life. Required to travel to Lochaber, Scotland to arrange her great-uncle’s funeral, she leaves the world she knows behind and encounters people who make her realise there’s more to life than searching for something that might not exist.

Laird’s son, Tor Strachan rocks up, and she discovers the one man capable of making her happy. However, there are obstacles in the way, and it becomes clear that Afghan veteran Tor must confront his demons before he can be the man Halley deserves. As for Halley, she has secrets of her own; ones she can’t share with anyone – not even Tor.

A good man is hard to find.

Harper’s Highland Fling

After a gruelling academic year, head teacher Harper MacDonald is looking forward to a summer holiday trekking in Nepal.

However, her plans are scuppered when wayward niece, Ariel, leaves a note announcing that she’s running away with a boy called Pen. The only clue to their whereabouts is a footnote: I’ll be in Scotland.

Cue a case of mistaken identity when Harper confronts the boy’s father – Rocco Penhaligon, and accuses him of cradle snatching her niece and ruining her future. At loggerheads, Harper and Rocco set off in hot pursuit of the teenagers, but the canny youngsters are always one step ahead. And, in a neat twist, it is the adults who end up in trouble, not the savvy teenagers.

Fasten your seatbelt for the road trip of your life! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!

Girl in the Castle

Her academic career in tatters, Dr Henriette Bruar needs somewhere to lay low, plan her comeback and restore her tarnished reputation. Fate takes her to a remote Scottish castle to auction the contents of an ancient library to pay the laird’s mounting debts. The family are in deep mourning over a tragedy which happened years before, resulting in a toxic relationship between the laird and his son, Keir MacKenzie. Cue a phantom piper, a lost Jacobite treasure, and a cast of characters who – with Henri’s help, encourage the MacKenzies to confront the past and move on. However – will the Girl in the Castle be able to return to university once her task is completed, and leave gorgeous, sexy Keir MacKenzie behind?

Scotch on the Rocks

Family secrets threaten the future of Brodie and Ishabel. ISHABEL STUART is at the crossroads of her life. Her wealthy industrialist father has died unexpectedly, leaving her a half-share in a ruined whisky distillery and the task of scattering his ashes on a Munro. After discovering her fiancé playing away from home, she cancels their lavish Christmas wedding at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh and heads for the only place she feels safe – Eilean na Sgairbh, a windswept island on Scotland’s west coast – where the cormorants outnumber the inhabitants, ten to one. When she arrives at her family home – now a bed and breakfast managed by her left-wing, firebrand Aunt Esme, she finds a guest in situ – BRODIE. Issy longs for peace and the chance to lick her wounds, but gorgeous, sexy American, Brodie, turns her world upside down. In spite of her vow to steer clear of men, she grows to rely on Brodie. However, she suspects him of having an ulterior motive for staying at her aunt’s Bed and Breakfast on remote Cormorant Island. Having been let down by the men in her life, will it be third time lucky for Issy? Is she wise to trust a man she knows nothing about – a man who presents her with more questions than answers? As for Aunt Esme, she has secrets of her own . . .

Tall, Dark and Kilted

Fliss Bagshawe longs for a passport out of Pimlico where she works as a holistic therapist. After attending a party in Notting Hill she loses her job and with it her dream of becoming her own boss. When she’s offered the chance to take over a failing therapy centre, she grabs it with both hands. But there’s a catch – the centre lies five hundred miles away – in Wester Ross, Scotland. Fliss’s romantic view of the highlands populated by hunky Men in Kilts is shattered when she has an upclose and very personal encounter with the Laird of Kinloch Mara, Ruairi Urquhart. He’s determined to pull the plug on the business, bring his eccentric family to heel and eject undesirables from his estate – starting with Fliss. Faced with the dole queue once more, Fliss resolves to make sexy, infuriating Ruairi revise his unflattering opinion of her, turn the therapy centre around and sort out the dysfunctional Urquharts. Will Fliss tame the Monarch of the Glen and find the happiness she deserves? 

Lizzie’s Contemporary Romances

Take Me , I’m Yours (Book 1)

India Buchanan plans to set up an English-Style bed and breakfast establishment in her great-aunt’s home, MacFarlane’s Landing, Wisconsin. But she’s reckoned without opposition from Logan MacFarlane whose family once owned her aunt’s house and now want it back. MacFarlane is in no mood to be denied. His grandfather’s living on borrowed time and Logan has vowed to ensure the old man sees out his days in their former home. India’s great-aunt has other ideas and has threatened to burn the house to the ground before she lets a MacFarlane set foot in it. There’s a story here. One the family elders aren’t prepared to share. When India finds herself in Logan’s debt, her feelings towards him change. However, the past casts a long shadow and events conspire to deny them the love and happiness they both deserve. Can India and Logan’s love overcome all odds? Or is history about to repeat itself?

Boot Camp Bride (Book 2)

Take an up-for-anything reporter. Add a world-weary photo-journalist. Put them together . . . light the blue touch paper and stand well back! Posing as a bride-to-be, Charlee Montague goes undercover at a boot camp for brides in order to photograph supermodel Anastasia Markova. At Charlee’s side and posing as her fiancé, is Rafael Ffinch award winning photographer and survivor of a kidnap attempt in Columbia. He’s in no mood to cut inexperienced Charlee any slack and has made it plain that once the investigation is over, their partnership – and fake engagement – will be terminated, too. Soon Charlee has more questions than answers. What’s the real reason behind Ffinch’s interest in the boot camp? How is it connected to his kidnap in Columbia? In setting out to uncover the truth, Charlee puts herself in danger … As the investigation draws to a close, she wonders if she’ll be able to hand back the engagement ring and walk away from Rafa without a backward glance.

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