Aspiring romantic novelists can spend Valentine's Day afternoon with bestselling author Kate Walker who is running a fiction writing workshop covering techniques including dialogue, characters, tension, pacing and settings. While the focus is on romance novels, the workshop can also be enjoyed by anyone just wanting to come along and have fun, even those with no writing…

The perfect heroes for warming things up in the cold weather are lumberjacks, reports a trend watch blog at RT Book Reviews, the US's biggest romance magazine. "With their plaid shirt-covered brawny arms and luscious beards, it’s no wonder these men are icons of masculinity," RT Book Reviews…

UK romance fans are set to have an even wider choice of ebooks from their favourite US authors with the launch of a new line from Little, Brown one of the UK's major publishers. Piatkus Entice will launch on 14th February 2012 and will be publishing many already well known romance authors including Mariah…

In a blog published today by the Telegraph newspaper, Scottish author Allan Massie pays tribute to the "extraordinary talent" of the late romance author Penny Jordan who died recently. Penny Jordan wrote over 190 romance novels during her long career. Writing mostly for Mills and Boon, she was one of the world's best known romantic fiction…

Washington DC born actress Katherine Heigl plays Janet Evanovich's character Stephanie Plum in the film One For The Money which opens in the US this week. The star is known for her role as Dr Izzie Stevens in hit TV show Greys Anatomy as well as having acted a number of romantic comedy films including 27 Dresses. Stephanie Plum is a lingerie buyer who turns to bounty hunting to help make ends meet and the creation of bestselling author…

A survey of 1,400 Brits has revealed that Kindle ereaders top the list of unused Christmas presents. In the survey by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk nearly half said they had received a gift that they haven't used since opening it on Christmas Day. Over…

A US writer of science fiction and fantasy has launched a scathing attack on romance novels. Cale McCaskey, who describes himself on his blog profile as a "sexy, single, white male" claims that romance novels are "purposely meant to be a lessor work."  "If an author classifies their own story as romance, that tells me that even they don't think much of it," writes McCaskey in his blog, dated…

Titantic actress Kate Winslet is to star in a film adaptation by Kenneth Brannagh of…

Waterstones, the UK's biggest high street bookseller, has got a new logo, changing the font back to the Baskerville font used before the last redesign and also losing the apostrophe in the chain's name. While losing the apostrophe is technically ungrammatical, Waterstones justified the change as being more appropriate for the internet age. Managing director James Daunt said,…

Women's commercial fiction imprint Avon has acquired three rom coms by debut novelist Olivia Luck. The Wedding Diaries is first novel in the series, to be published in August 2012, and follows the lead character Kiki Carlow as she plans her wedding.

The second in the series is The Baby Diaries to be released in February 2013 and the third, The Home Maker Diaries, will be published in…

Improbable Research magazine reports that a doctor in the Netherlands has published the results of an investigation into medical realism in medical themed novels. Dr Cornelis H. (Kees) Langeveld studied a sample of six medical novels for his article Medical Mistakes in Doctors Novels,…

US based indie fiction publisher Entangled have announced they will be publishing shorter "category style" romances in a new ebook line with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lori Wilde as editorial director and former Harlequin editor Alethea Spiridon-Hopson as managing editor. The new line, Lori Wilde's Indulgence, will publish its first books on 14th February 2012 to coincide…

Tributes from those in the romantic fiction world have been pouring in for the much loved author Penny Jordan who died on New Year's Eve. Fans and readers from around the world have been expressing their shock and sadness at the news on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet. Echoing the sentiments of many who loved her books is author Portia Da Costa who wrote on Twitter yesterday, "Sad to hear the news about Penny Jordan. I've been reading her books as long as I've been…

Penny Jordan, the pen name of much loved British romantic fiction author Penny Halsall, passed away on 31st December 2011 at the age of 65.

Born in Preston, Lancashire in 1946 she began creating stories at the age of eight for her younger sister and credits a competition run by the Romantic Novelists Association, of helping her to garner her first publication deal.

After…