Who Is The Real Lilac Mills?

I am loving this series of posts from fellow authors telling me about the real person behind their books. Today I’m featuring Lilac Mills, the author of the Tanglewood series for Canelo. Enjoy her story …

Thank you so much for inviting on to your blog, Morton; it’s an honour to be here.

Some readers may already know that Lilac Mills is really Liz Davies (that’s me!) and that I also write feelgood contemporary romances under my real name, as well as novellas under the name Etti Summers.

Whilst Lilac may be a pen name, I am incredibly fond of her. My Lilac journey began when I lost my gorgeous little dog, Millie. I felt the need to commemorate her, but I also wanted to celebrate the joy she had brought into my life, so I found myself writing an uplifting romance, with Millie as the cornerstone of the story. Although the book is fundamentally a romance, there is so much of her in it that I found it very cathartic.

Lilac was (and still is) my go-to persona when I need to escape from the realities of life. Her stories are pure escapism, which are set in locations such as Barcelona and Tenerife, or, more usually, little villages in Wales that have community and friendship at their heart. My bestselling series, Tanglewood, is one such place, based loosely on a small market town on the Welsh-English border. Set in a green valley with a river running through it and mountains on either side, it’s where I would love to live.

Maybe one day…

But until then the next best thing to the expense and upheaval of moving is to revisit it, which has led to me writing a fourth book in the series, which is due out on 12^th September, and I’m so excited about that because readers have been asking me for some time whether there will be a another Tanglewood story.

It might be a strange thing to say, but through Lilac I’ve become a calmer person. She has taught me to enjoy the little things and encouraged me to slow down and take a step back. I’ve always loved the countryside, and Lilac has deepened that love as I write about growing vegetables, taking long walks up mountains and having picnics by rivers. Lilac is the me I wish I could be all the time, especially when I’m cleaning the oven or doing my accounts. She is the me I aspire to be, someone I look up to. And the longer I spend in her company, the more like her I become, as I find myself converting a piece of my garden into a vegetable patch or trying my hand at baking – not too successfully, I might add! Lilac’s stories take me out of myself and make me forget my worries, and I hope they do the same for my readers. I want to leave people with a cosy, contented feeling at the end of the book, and I sincerely hope I achieve that.

She was born out of a wish to keep my work life and my writing life separate. However, that is no longer an issue since I became a full-time author, which is why I have started publishing under my real name, too. That, and the fact that I write more books in a year than Canelo, who publishes my Lilac Mills’ novels, can handle.

About Lilac Mills

Lilac lives on a Welsh hillside with her very patient husband and incredibly sweet dog, where she grows veggies (if the slugs don’t get them), bakes (badly) and loves making things out of glitter and glue (a mess, usually).

She’s been an avid reader ever since she got her hands on a copy of Noddy Goes to Toytown when she was five, and she once tried to read everything in her local library starting with A and working her way through the alphabet.

She loves long hot summer days in the garden, and cold winter ones snuggled in front of the fire, but whatever the weather she’s usually writing, or thinking about writing, with heartwarming romance and happy-ever-afters always on her mind.

Social media links:

Website: https://www.lilacmills.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LilacMills

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilacmillsauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lilacmills

About The Tanglewood Bookshop

A rural book shop. A chance to start over. But can she make her dream a reality?

Kazz used to love the excitement of her London life, but lately her passion for expensive city living has begun to wane. So when she’s given the opportunity to open a bookshop in picturesque Tanglewood, she jumps at the chance.

But village life is much quieter than she anticipated – is she actually suited for rural living? Resigned to a boring and uneventful Christmas, when she meets gorgeous Saul she is more than ready to have some fun and enjoy the festivities. If only Saul didn’t have a reputation for being a player…

Will Kazz become the heroine in her own Christmas romance, or will he love her and leave her under the mistletoe?

Pre-order link: https://geni.us/TheTanglewoodBookshop

It will be published in both ebook and paperback and can be read as a standalone story, but if you don’t want to wait for this and would like to immerse yourself in the picturesque village of Tanglewood, here is the link to read the first in the series

https://books2read.com/TanglewoodTeaShop