We caught up with Modern author Abby Green to celebrate the release of her 50th book, The Maid’s Best Kept Secret. Read on to find out more about Abby’s journey as a published romance author.
*
Hi there and thank you lovely editors for asking me to blog about my 50th book – The Maid’s Best Kept Secret.
Wow! I can’t believe I’ve just written those words. It feels like yesterday that I was desperately polishing and revising a full manuscript in the hope that it might one day be accepted for publication.
Well, it was and now here I am, with 50 titles under my belt.
In the past 14 years since I got ‘the call’, and while writing those 50 books, I’ve since transitioned from a career working on film sets to writing full time. I’ve moved house twice, and I got a dog! So, to say that writing has changed my life is an understatement.
I get to call an amazing gang of fellow writers my good friends – Annie West, Heidi Rice, Sharon Kendrick, Scarlet Wilson, Lynne Graham (I know!), India Grey and Fiona Harper, to name a few.
I have been a fan of Mills and Boon romances ever since I picked one up in my grandmother’s bedroom when I was a teenager. I fell in love with the hero and I wanted to be the heroine. I fell in love with the intense emotion and the high stakes drama.
“How can these two people possibly ever be together when there is so much to tear them apart?” I would wail silently to myself as I feverishly devoured my umpteenth romance of the week.
But, inevitably, thankfully, they did overcome all of the emotional obstacles put in their way and I would inhale – after holding my breath for hours – sigh, and then pick up the next book.
Penny Jordan, Robyn Donald, Emma Darcy, Kate Walker, Sara Woods, Sally Wentworth, Kate Proctor, Susan Napier, Michelle Reid…these were the authors I devoured and aspired to be, once I started writing. And a book by Stacy Absalom – ‘Ishbel’s Party’, this is hands down, my very favourite of all time. The angst! The drama! The emotion! The romance…
Ah, the romance.
The idea for my 50th book, The Maid’s Best Kept Secret was born when I had an image in my head of a gorgeous, dissolute playboy appearing at the door of a grand Irish country house, late at night. Tuxedo dishevelled. Tie undone. Arrogant and louche. Oozing sex appeal. He became Nikos Marchetti, part owner of a vast luxury conglomerate. Bored, rebellious. Jaded.
Until he meets his housekeeper, Maggie Taggart, who goes toe to toe with him from the moment she opens the door, demanding to see proof that he is the owner of the house.
I wanted to see this arrogant playboy brought to his knees, felled by desire and humbled by love, for the first and last time in his life. And it had to be Maggie – a woman who has never trusted anyone and who has Nikos sized up and judged before he even sets foot in his own house. Sparks fly on that first encounter, leading to a night of scorching passion. But it’s in the aftermath when they have to deal with the real consequences of that night that they really discover who they are and what they want. And, if that can be together.
I hope you enjoy Nikos and Maggie’s romantic, fiery journey to their Happy Ever After – that’s not a spoiler is it?
And then it’s time for me to inhale, sigh for a minute, let Maggie and Nikos go, and get on with the next book J.
Happy reading everyone!
*
Pick up your own copy of The Maid’s Best Kept Secret by Abby Green here!
