Dani Collins's Blog, page 51

#SampleSunday - The Russian's Acquisition (4)

May I ask a favor? Would you answer this short survey? It won't harvest your email. I'm just being nosy.

Dani's Reader Survey

Thanks!

On to business, or rather news, not that I have any.

Things are finally calming down around here, although I do have a few more guest blogs to write. They'll come out when The Russian's Acquisition officially launches and some have giveaways so be sure to scroll down after the excerpt for all the details on where you could win a signed copy.

Fact: The way to always keep your name in the hat is to join my newsletter! I'm prepping my next newsletter and I always draw from my subscriber list for a copy of my upcoming release. The next draw will happen Monday, Oct 27th, so subscribe now!

Last week I mentioned that I was considering a series of blog posts leading up to NaNoWriMo. As you might have noticed, I decided against. I'm trying really hard to regain some work-life balance so I chose not to create more work for myself.

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I mostly talk about the writing side of my life here, not personal stuff, and that's because I don't do anything else but write. I know that's an issue and I'm working on it :)

Okay, here's your:

SampleSunday

Here's what has happened so far:

Clair arrives at work to a new boss
Aleksy fires her
Clair fights for her job

Here Aleksy comes to kick her out of her home:

~ * ~

CHAPTER TWO:

ALEKSY TOLD HIMSELF he was only confirming that she’d actually left. He was not looking to run into her. Nevertheless, the part of him still prowling with a sense of anticlimax would leap on another chance to verbally tussle with her. Until she’d read the memo, paled, then walked out in stunned silence, Clair Daniels had been—

Forget her, he ordered himself again, but it wasn’t easy. Her type was usually fair game. He didn’t mess with marriageable women, just the types who enjoyed physical pleasure and material wealth over love. Clair had obviously fallen into that category, asking if he was offering a package. She’d been royally peeved when he turned her down, displaying the kind of passionate anger that suggested an equally passionate—

Stop it. He was here to take ownership of one more acquisition. That was all.

He keyed in the entry code to the firm’s penthouse and stepped into generic opulence. The plants looked very well tended. Unfortunately that was the only thing recommending the place. It was the height of modern convenience. No expense was spared in the white leather furniture or silk rugs over marble tiles, but it lacked…

Traces of her.

Absently stroking his thumb along the raised line on his chin, he strolled through a dining room that held no fresh flowers. The white duvet on the master bed was undented. The bathroom was not decorated with intriguing lingerie. In the kitchen, the pantry shelves were bare of all but the minimum staples. She’d vacated so completely, it was as if she’d never lived here at all.

How, then, would he find—

He caught the faint sound of a feminine voice through a wall and cocked his head, instantly alert. Moving past the refrigerator, he found an unlocked door to a laundry room. On the opposite side another door opened into a narrow kitchen, where the scent of toast lingered. Beyond, in a modest lounge peppered with colorful throws, unopened mail and abandoned shoes, Clair Daniels stood. She had her back to him as she finished a call. Her pert bottom and slim thighs were mouthwateringly silhouetted by clingy yoga pants.

The internal wolf that had been pacing restlessly inside him leapt to the fore, exploding his heart in his chest and slamming hot blood through his limbs. He was furious to find her here, but he smiled.

She hung up, turned and screamed.

*

Clair clapped a hand over her mouth as she recognized the Russian. As forbidding as he looked, as frightening as it was to have a man appear in her private space, she instantly knew she wasn’t in real danger. At a very deep level, she’d been expecting him. That unnerved her, but she ignored it.

Dropping her hand, she accused, “You scared the life out of me!”

“It wouldn’t have happened if you’d left as you were told.” He no longer wore the suit jacket and tie from earlier. His fog-gray shirt strained across his chest, barely containing his big shoulders and thick biceps. He’d turned up his sleeves, revealing strong flat wrists and a ruthlessly simple gold watch.

She had an urge to touch his arm to see if it was as hard as it looked, which was ridiculous. Men fell into two categories for her: Get lost and Friends is friendly enough. She’d never been silly over boys and had always found women who went hormonal a bit irritating. She was capable of noticing a man with nice abs or a handsome smile, but she didn’t get hot and weak-kneed. Ever. Especially over men who came on so strong. This quivery, oversensitized version of herself was not her.

And yet she watched with fascination as he moved with masculine grace, bending his arm and glancing at his exclusive watch, then flicking his gaze toward her bedroom door where her unpacked suitcase stood against the wall. “You’ve packed at least.”

“I haven’t unpacked from being away.” She shouldn’t take such pleasure in throwing defiance at him when she was falling into desperation, but it gave her ego a boost to let him know she wasn’t bowing and scraping under his every word. She didn’t like what he was doing to her and wanted to make it stop. Under no circumstances did she want him to know how much power he was wielding over her.

“Well, that saves time, doesn’t it?” he said with false pleasantry.

“Whose? Yours? Are you here to throw me out?” It wasn’t even five o’clock. She’d started calling hotels but had wasted precious hours trying to find a workable solution for the foundation first. She had survived starting with nothing before, but she couldn’t bear to let down people whose hopes she’d already raised. The trustees needed to run the home, not spend all their time scrambling for funding. She was stuck, but she didn’t want him to know how desperate she was. “Why didn’t you just send the clown who threw me out of my office?”

His arrogant head went back. “You can’t mean Lazlo?”

“The lowbrow who said, ‘I’m to assist you if you require it’? He might as well have grabbed me by the collar and thrown me into the street.”

Although she had to admit it had been less humiliating to stuff her few personal items into her laptop bag and make a quick exit than try to explain while saying goodbye to everyone. She’d been shaken by what she’d read in the memo and hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone while it sank in. Victor, the man she’d put so much stock and trust in, had put on far more fronts than having a young blond mistress.

“I’ll remind him to be more sensitive next time,” Aleksy said.

“Next time?” she repeated with a kick in her heart. “He’s here?”

“No, we’re alone.”

Her stomach quavered. She folded her arms over her middle, trying to project confidence when she felt gullible and stupid. “Well, I’d rather deal with him. At least he doesn’t sneak up on a person like a thief.”

Aleksy’s golden-brown eyes flashed a warning. “I bought the company fair and square and entered a flat I now own. You’re the one with no right to be here.”

“It’s a job perk!”

“It’s a love nest. One the firm will no longer support.”

~ * ~

The Russian's Acquisition is on Amazon here or scroll to the rest of the buy links on the bottom of this post.

Here are some blogs I've been visiting. I've had three books out this fall (keep scrolling) so these offer behind the scenes and excerpts from all of them:

Just Contemporary Romance
Melissa McClone (fellow Montana Born author)
Story Finds
Romance Junkies
Harlequin Junkies
Oct 27th: Romance Reviews Today
Oct 39th: Love Romance Passion


Giveaways

Shirley, Rebecca and Julie won the Goodreads giveaway for The Russian's Acquisition, but I've had so many giveaways happening lately that I waited to put this one up. It's a prize pack celebrating the launch of my Christmas book, Blame The Mistletoe.

Blame The Mistletoe Prize Package

If you can't wait for The Russian's Acquisition, or you're just ready to try something new from me and some amazing fellow authors, please check out our Homecoming series with Montana Born. Here are all the titles, authors, and release dates (so you can read them in order):

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed

The 'A Marietta Christmas' series are all stand-alone titles to be read in any order, but mine links to and follows my own book above, Hometown Hero.

Oct 13 - Blame The Mistletoe by Dani Collins
Oct 16 - Mistletoe Wedding by Melissa McClone
Oct 20 - Her Mistletoe Cowboy by Alissa Callen
Nov 7 - Cowboy It's Cold Outside by Katherine Garbera

The Russian's Acquisition will be in stores November 1st or you can buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

If you'd like to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc, Click here for Dani's Social Media links.

I'm not sure if I'll have a #TeaserTuesday this week. See above about work life balance, but I've also shared about as much as I can from my Montana Born books without giving away the whole book. (Which I did with Hometown Hero about a week ago. Sign up for my newsletter to be notified of special promotions.)

So I'll see whether I have anything to say mid-week and see you then if I do. Otherwise, have a great week,

#TeaserTuesday - Sneak Peek

I finished all the #TeaserTuesdays for Blame The Mistletoe last week, but will give you a very little sneak peek at my next Montana Born book below.

The next one, featuring Blake's sister, Meg, won't come out until next Spring. In fact, after The Russian's Acquisition comes out in November, I won't have a new book until March 2015! ( Join my newsletter if you want to be notified when it does.)

And don't worry, I'll be writing like a mad woman behind the scenes. I'm just warning you that you'll probably only see posts on Sundays for a while, telling you how boring my life is. In fact, I plan to do a NaNoWriMo challenge in November, which will keep me writing fast and hard. I had thought I would post some preparation blogs here, even designed a logo for it, but I've really been burning myself out lately and decided to just chill on over-committing. Doing the challenge is enough.

But I will have at least three more excerpts in the #SampleSunday for The Russian's Acquisition series before I go on hiatus.

And if you missed the #SampleSunday for Hometown Hero or the #TeaserTuesday series for Blame The Mistletoe, the links are here:

#SampleSunday for Hometown Hero (links to all the previous posts.)
#TeaserTuesday for Blame The Mistletoe (links to all the previous posts.)


TeaserTuesday

I don't want to say too much about this story, especially because it's not finished yet. The title hasn't even been finalized. But here's their first meet. Meg pegs him as the new guy in town as Linc helps her get her brother's truck back on the road.

~ * ~

She left the engine running and climbed out to thank him while he unhooked.

“Just being neighborly,” he dismissed. “Chicago, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“In town long?”

“Just a few days, cleaning out my old bedroom for my new niece.”

He nodded, sweeping a slower look over her that was very male and approving. It was like stepping off a plane into the tropics, surrounding her in sultry warmth. She swallowed.

“Why?” she asked, hearing a faint huskiness of receptiveness in her voice. Ask me out.

His mouth, which she was starting to think was definitely sexy, pursed in a rueful hint of vacillation. He decided to go for it, saying, “I was going to suggest, if you had time before you left, that you might like to drop by and see the place. If you’re interested.”

Bam. Chemistry. Right there in the steady green stare of sexual attraction he leveled into her eyes.

Global warming struck like a meteor because even though they were surrounded by snow and ice, she melted under a wash of incredible heat. Completely incinerated under his gaze, breath evaporating and face warming.

Oh yes, her hormones were interested. Very interested.

They held the silent connection for a long time, long enough for her heart to begin to flutter with nervous excitement and her brain to throw a panic party. Was she seriously thinking of sleeping with a stranger?

She was so discomfited by her own reaction, she fell back a step, mostly amused, but a little bit stung by how slick he was. That wasn’t an invitation to dinner he’d just issued. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t had her share of smooth lines from fast operators in the city, but she expected better from the men around here, she really did.

“Even though I’m only in town for a few days. Or because I am?” she challenged, still trying to decide if she was insulted or flattered.

“I’m not a man for complications.”

~ * ~

It will be part of a new series with Montana Born that I'll talk about more when all the pieces are in place. Meanwhile, I'll remind you that Hometown Hero is part of the Montana Born Homecoming Series. These are loosely linked stories, not actual sequels, but if you like to read in order, here are all the authors and their release dates:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed

And this is the 'A Marietta Christmas' series, which are not linked to each other, but all revolve around the fictional town of Marietta and my Blame The Mistletoe follows Hometown Hero. What I'm saying is, you can read these in any order:

Oct 13 - Blame The Mistletoe by Dani Collins
Oct 16 - Mistletoe Wedding by Melissa McClone
Oct 20 - Her Mistletoe Cowboy by Alissa Callen
Nov 7 - Cowboy It's Cold Outside by Katherine Garbera


Giveaways

The winner for the $500 Visa Gift Card will be announced shortly.

If you're on Goodreads, you have two more days to enter this one:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Then watch for this giveaway, which starts Oct 25th. I've been saving it, because I had so many other giveaways going on:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And please plan to drop by Nov 18th for my Facebook party, which is just a pre-Christmas goodies thing where I'll still be promoting The Russian's Acquisition, but will celebrate all my fall titles with lots of giveaways.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

If you'd like to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc, Click here for Dani's Social Media links.

Have a great week,

Dani

#SampleSunday - The Russian's Acquisition (3)

Quick! Today (Saturday, Oct 18th) is your last chance to grab Hometown Hero FREE on Amazon.

It's been a typical busy week here in Dani's Attic Production Facility For Romance Novels. I have a small blog tour happening for all my fall books. I'll post the links below the excerpt, but so far all the giveaways have been the free download of Hometown Hero.

Actually, now that I think about it, the reason I felt so busy in this office was because I spent so much time out of it. I had appointments ever day this week. Yesterday was snow tires--which I had to buy new this year. Then it turned out that the tires didn't come in. They tell me next week. Such is life.

I'm also contemplating NaNoWriMo. Well, I'm pretty serious, actually. I have a Harlequin Presents I'd like to write in November. So I'm thinking--not written in stone, mind you--but thinking about running a series of blog posts on prepping for NaNo. If I go through with it, they'll start, gosh, Monday. I have to make up my mind!

For now, let's focus on:

SampleSunday

We'll have six of these excerpts. Here's what has happened so far:

Clair arrived at work to a new boss
Aleksy fires her

Here Clair fights for her job:

~ * ~

Aleksy Dmitriev released her hand and insultingly wiped his own on his tailored pants, as if her touch had soiled his palm.

Clair jerked her hand into her middle, closing her fist over the sensation of calluses and heat. He was hot. In every way. All that masculine energy and muscle was a bombardment. She didn’t want to react, especially to someone who wanted to fire her.

She dragged at her cloak of indifference, the one she’d sewn together in a school full of spoiled rich kids. “What gives you the right, Mr. Dmitriev, to take away my job?”

“Your ‘job’ is dead.” His curled lip told her what he thought her job was.

“I’m a PA,” she said tightly. “Working under the president. If you’ve taken ownership, I assume you’re moving into that position?”

“On top of you? A predictable invitation, but I have no use for his leavings.”

“Don’t be crass!” she snapped. She never lost her temper. Poise was part of her defense.

He smirked, seeming to enjoy her flush of affront. It intensified her anger.

“I do real work,” she insisted. “Not whatever you’re suggesting.”

His broken eyebrow went up. They both knew what he was suggesting.

“I manage special projects—” She cut herself off at his snort, heart plummeting, suddenly worried about her own very special project. The foundation was a few weeks from being properly launched. After last week, she knew the building she’d grown up in was badly showing its age. The home needed a reliable income more than ever. And the people…

“Clair, are you okay? You’re more quiet than usual,” Mrs. Downings had said last week, catching her at the top of the stairs where she’d been painting. They’d sat on the landing and Clair hadn’t been able to keep it all in. Mrs. Downings had put her arm around her, and for once Clair had allowed the familiarity, deeply craving the sense that someone cared she was hurting.

She’d come away more fired up than ever to get the foundation off the ground. She had to keep people like Mrs. Downings, with her understanding and compassion, available to children with the same aching, empty hearts that she had.

“Are you shutting down the whole firm?” Clair asked Aleksy with subdued panic.

He turned stony. “That’s confidential.”

She shook her head. “You can’t let everyone go. Not immediately. Not without paying buckets of severance,” she guessed, but it was an educated one. There were hundreds of clients with investments managed here.

“I can dismiss you,” he said with quiet assurance.

Another jolt of anger pulsed through her, unfamiliar but invigorating. “On what grounds?”

“Not turning up for work last week.”

“I had the time booked months ago. I couldn’t have known then that my employer would pass away right before I left.” And she would have stayed if Victor’s family hadn’t been so cutting. If someone, anyone, had said she was needed here.

“You obviously cared more about enjoying your holiday than whether your job would be here when you returned.”

The annual blitz of cleaning and repair at the home was the furthest thing from a holiday, not that he wanted to know. “I offered to stay,” she asserted, not wanting to reveal how torn she’d felt. With her world crashing around her here, she’d been quite anxious to escape to the one stable influence in her life.

“The VP granted my leave,” she continued, scraping her composure together by folding her arms. With her eyes narrowed in suspicion, she asked, “Would I still be employed if I’d stayed?”

“No.” Not a shred of an excuse.

What a truly hateful man! His dislike of her was strangely hurtful too. She tried hard to make herself likable, knowing she wasn’t naturally warm and spontaneous. Failing without being given a chance smarted.

“Mr. Turner assured me before I left that another position would be found for me. I’ve been here almost three years.” She managed to hang on to a civil tone, searching for enough dignity to disguise her fear.

“Mr. Turner doesn’t own the company. I decide who stays.”

“It’s wrongful dismissal. Unless you’re offering a package?” She hated that she tensed in hope. She knew exactly how marketable her skill set was: barely adequate. Going back to low-end jobs, scraping by on a hand-to-mouth existence made her insides gel with dread. This job had been her first step into genuine security.

The Russian tilted his head to a patronizing angle. “We both know you’ve enjoyed the full package long enough, Miss Daniels. If you haven’t set aside something for this eventuality, that’s not my concern.”

“Stop talking like I was—”

“What?” he demanded, baring his teeth. “Victor Van Eych’s mistress? Stop acting like you weren’t,” he snarled with surprising bite. In a few long strides he was at his desk, flipping open a file, waving a single sheet of paper. “Your qualifications are limited to typing and filing, but you’re occupying an executive office.” Another sheet flapped in the air. “You’re paid more than his personal secretary, but he still needed one because you were dedicated to ‘special projects.’” He cracked out a laugh as he snatched up the next record. “You live in the company flat—”

“In the housekeeper’s wing because it’s one of my duties to water the plants,” she defended, hearing how weak it sounded even though Victor had made it sound so logical.

“The janitors who dust the place can water the plants. You’re a parasite, Miss Daniels. One who’s being pried off the host. Take the day to pack your things.”

A parasite. She was doing everything in her power to pay back the system! This job had been a golden egg, but she’d tried not to take advantage of Victor’s generosity. Now she was finally on the brink of being able to help others instead of focusing on her own struggles—something she wanted not for the recognition, but to support children like what she’d once been—and he was calling her a parasite?

“You reprehensible, conscienceless…” Her voice dried up, which was probably best. She was shaking and liable to get personal. Mention that scar, for instance.

“Conscienceless,” he repeated through lips that peeled back in a snarl. He closed her file and took up a memo of some kind. “Do you even know what you’ve been sleeping with? Read that, then tell me who is conscienceless and reprehensible.”

~ * ~

You can pre-order The Russian's Acquisition on Amazon here or scroll to the rest of the buy links on the bottom of this post.

Here are the blogs I've visited had so far:

Just Contemporary Romance
Melissa McClone (fellow Montana Born author)
Story Finds


Giveaways

As said, so far the blog tour giveaway has been Hometown Hero and if you're quick, you might still get a copy for yourself.

If you'd like a chance to win a signed print copy of The Russian's Acquisition, join my newsletter! I'm prepping my next newsletter and I always draw from my subscriber list for a copy of my upcoming release. The next draw will happen around Oct 27th.

There's also this Goodreads Giveaway open 'til Oct 23rd:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Or you could preorder The Russian's Acquisition from Amazon now. It will be in stores November 1st or you can also buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

And you can still enter this:

$500 Visa Gift Card Giveaway

Tule Publishing has partnered with a number of their authors to bring you this chance to win a $500 Visa Gift Card. Closes Oct 20th

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Next week I'll have a giveaway special for Blame The Mistletoe. I've had so many other things going on, I decided to drag my feet on this one, but it's coming.

And I do like to plug my fellow authors' books in this awesome Homecoming series. Here are all the titles, authors, and release dates:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed

The Russian's Acquisition will be in stores November 1st or you can buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

If you'd like to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc, Click here for Dani's Social Media links.

Please check back for #TeaserTuesday. Have a great weekend,

#TeaserTuesday - Blame The Mistletoe (4)

Big News! To celebrate the launch of Blame The Mistletoe, my publishers, Montana Born, are making Hometown Hero FREE this week (on Amazon Oct 14-18, 2014.) I'll wait here while you get your copy.

Back now? Have you entered the A Fall Love Affair - $500 Visa Gift Card Giveaway? Make sure you scroll past the excerpt for the Rafflecopter entry form, then be sure to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for my November book while you're there.

Now that the announcements are out of the way...

This is my last excerpt from Blame The Mistletoe. The pre-order response has been amazing and the reviews on the advance copies very favorable. I'm so thrilled!

I'm currently writing my next Montana Born story, featuring Blake's sister, Meg. It's killing me that it won't come out until next Spring. (Not ever, if I don't write the darned thing, so I'll keep the chatting short here!)

But if you enjoy free excerpts, please check out on my #SampleSunday for The Russian's Acquisition series.

And if you love free books, please join my newsletter. My next draw from my subscriber list for a signed copy of The Russians Acquisition will be around Oct 27th.

TeaserTuesday

How far have we come with Liz and Blake?

Liz meets Blake at a cocktail party (hosted by Skye and Chase from Hometown Hero) and realize they know each other.
Liz wonders if she knows more about Blake than he does.
Blake definitely wants to get to know Liz better.

Here they start to get to know one another more:

~ * ~

Crossing a room was hardly a date, but Blake’s light hand on her felt surprisingly significant. Which told her she was desperately in need of male attention, if she was turning to feminine pudding just because this cowboy had dominance traits.

And maybe she was being uber-sensitive, but she thought she intercepted a look from one of the men standing near the food table that silently asked Blake, How the hell did that happen?

“Has everyone met Liz Bloom?” Blake asked, introducing her around once she had a drink in her hand.

“Flowers,” she corrected. “I kept my married name so it matches my daughter’s.”

“Ah. Well, everyone will remember that I was once married to a Flower?” Blake said to the group. “Liz and I are collaborating on a country and western song about our dealings with them.”

She threw back her head in a laugh, loving the idea. “Can you imagine how tragic that song would be? It would go platinum immediately!” Their gazes caught again, both of them brimming with amused solidarity.

Oh I wish, she thought, but didn’t let herself finish the thought. Right now, this was enough. It was perfect.

A lot of names and faces flew by and everyone was very easy to talk to, thanks to Blake. He seemed very well liked, bantering easily, keeping her up to speed if the conversation started to close her out as names were brought up that she didn’t know. And he fed her, reaching across to bring a plate of cream cheese pinwheels and little crackers with pepper jelly and roasted garlic and pine nuts on them.

The evening turned out far more fun than she’d dared to anticipate, considering it had begun with such painful shyness on her part. She laughed so much her cheeks ached and a poignant feeling accosted her as the hour grew late, making her almost wish this were her life. She had friends and a home and everything she needed back in California, but she could see—for once—that maybe the Flowers were onto something. Marietta was a really wonderful place to live.

As she readied to leave, she went searching for the plastic tub she’d used to bring up her bruschetta and found Skye stocking it with Ziploc bags filled with leftovers.

“I’ll never eat all that,” Liz protested.

“Neither will we. We’re heading to Texas for a few days next week, so I can’t keep all of this. One of Chase’s friends is turning thirty and having party. He wants to go,” Skye said with a shrug and a shake of her head. “I still feel so pretentious flying halfway across the country for what amounts to one evening.”

Skye’s fiancé was a local who was now a ballplayer in the majors, but from what Liz had seen, he remained down to earth. “Have you set a date for the wedding?”

“Not until after next season. We only started seeing each other a couple of months ago.” Skye expertly packaged egg rolls with a flick and a fold. “He’s giving me time to get used to this back and forth whirlwind life of his, but we both wanted to be committed enough to give it a serious try, so—” She gave her wrist a twist, making the gorgeous stone in her ring flash as she showed it off. “This feels surreal.”

But she was happy. Glowing with joy.

Liz sighed inwardly, envious and trying not to be.

But Chase was such a gentleman, fetching her coat and holding it for her while Skye opened the door to let Blake back in from warming up his truck. Of course, Blake was quite a catch himself, stepping into the foyer so tall with snow dusting the shoulders of his worn sheepskin coat, wearing a cowboy hat now. His gaze clashed into hers like he’d been looking for her before the door had opened.

Such a lovely, fanciful thought.

“Uh oh, Liz. You have a decision to make,” Skye said, pointing above Liz’s head.

Liz looked up. Mistletoe.

“The girls made me hang it,” Chase said from behind her, referring to Skye’s nieces who’d been running around with the rest of the children this evening.

Her gaze caught Blake’s on the way down from the little sprig and her heart skipped at the light in his eyes. Her brain grasped for a smart remark, but nothing came.

Blake stepped into her space. “I think we owe it to ourselves,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Swaying, she set her hands on the cold, brushed texture of his coat, feeling ridiculously small and girlish all of a sudden. “Because of our mutual experience with the Flowers?” she asked.

“Actually . . . ” His gaze narrowed as he stared at her mouth and started to lower his head. “Let’s not think of them at all.”

His mouth touched hers and wiped her brain clean. All she knew was the brush of cold lips that warmed against hers, pressing firmly enough to open her lips so the kiss was not nearly so chaste as it should or could have been. He lingered, waiting until temptation got the better of her and she kissed him back, letting her mouth cling to his, then he slowly drew back. Something satisfied flickered in his eyes.

That had been bad. Good in a way that was very, very bad. Liz could barely breathe or muster a smile.

Skye and Chase smirked at each other. Someone from the lounge whistled. Liz rolled her eyes, feeling herself blush.

And Blake didn’t bother to hide the male smugness in his gaze as he took the leftovers from Skye and opened the door for Liz.

“You need better boots,” he told her, gripping her elbow as she tiptoed across the drive to the battered truck that was swept of snow and sending out a cloud of white exhaust. “You never would have made it home in those.”

They weren’t going to talk about that kiss then? Good.

~ * ~

I won't spoil what happens next, but Liz continues to enjoy the Christmas season, thanks to Blake. Buy Blame The Mistletoe now.

Did you know that Hometown Hero is part of the Montana Born Homecoming Series? They're very loosely linked stories, not actual sequels, but if you like to read in order, here are all the authors and their release dates:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed


Giveaways

Please keep checking back over the next few weeks. I have lots going on for all my fall books. This one is a multi-author promotion with our publisher, Tule, and their Montana Born imprint:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Are you on Goodreads? This one runs to Oct 23rd:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Want to preorder The Russian's Acquisition from Amazon now? It will be in stores November 1st or you can also buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

If you'd like to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc, Click here for Dani's Social Media links.

I feel out of sorts. Yesterday was Thanksgiving so MrC was home. Now I keep thinking today is Monday. Must get myself back up to speed.

Have a great week,

Dani

#SampleSunday - The Russian's Acquisition (2)

Congratulations Kimberly in Virginia! She's the latest winner of a signed copy of The Russian's Acquisition. I'm prepping my next newsletter and I always draw from my subscriber list for a copy of my upcoming release. Join my newsletter if you'd like to be entered in the next draw (which will happen around Oct 27th.)

This is a very busy fall for me. Hometown Hero released on Amazon Sept 29th. This Monday (Thanksgiving here in Canada) Blame The Mistletoe will launch on Amazon as well. (Pre-order Blame The Mistletoe here and it will deliver automatically as soon as it's live.)

You can read more about both of these titles below the #SampleSunday, but I wanted to mention: Someone asked over at Goodreads when Hometown Hero will release on Nook. I checked with my publisher and it will eventually be available on all platforms, but probably not for six months to a year.

If you want to know more about how these sorts of decisions are made, I talk about publishing choices in this blog post. Basically it comes down to what Amazon offers when you publish exclusively with them and in this case we want to exploit those opportunities before branching to the other formats.

Do you have a question for me? Please send me an email off my contact page here on my website or ask it through Goodreads or on my Facebook page. I love hearing from readers!

In other news, I finished revisions on Seduced Into The Greek's World. Whew! I sent it to London and it has already come back for a final bit of fine-tuning. Nothing heavy, thank goodness, and I hope to have it done and dusted by the end of the weekend. So you can look for Book Four in the Makricosta Dynasty in June of 2015.

There's lots of Giveaway info below the #SampleSunday so please keep reading after the excerpt. And keep checking here and on my Facebook page (and GooglePlus). I have lots of giveaways and Facebook parties (with giveaways) coming up. I try to post the info in as many places as I can, but you can usually find the most current info in these blog posts.

SampleSunday

Last week, Clair arrived at work after a week away. The owner, her friend and mentor, had died. The new owner was a tough looking Russian with a jagged scar down his face. Here we get into that Russian's head and hear what he thinks about his first glimpse of Clair and his intentions here at the firm:

~ * ~

Aleksy Dmitriev set the waste bin next to his feet, reached for the first plaque on the wall and tossed it in, taking less satisfaction in the loud clunk of an industry award hitting the trash than he’d anticipated. This coup had been too easy. Clunk. The bastard wasn’t alive to see his world collapse. Clunk. Van Eych had succumbed to the lifestyle he’d enjoyed at the expense of men like Aleksy’s father rather than face the revenge Aleksy had intended to wreak. Clunk.

The blonde in the foyer was that filthy dog’s mistress. Smash!

A delicate crystal globe shattered in the bottom of the can, leaving a silver heart exposed and dented.

“What on earth,” a clear female voice demanded, “do you think you’re doing?”

Aleksy lifted his head and was struck by the same kick of sexual hunger he’d experienced fifteen minutes ago. The part of his anatomy he couldn’t control suffered another tight, near-painful pull.

At first sight he’d judged her snowflake perfect, delicate and cool with creamy, unblemished skin, white-gold hair and ice-blue eyes. As potent as chilled vodka with a kick of heat that spread from the inside. He’d demanded her name and details.

Now the dull raincoat was gone, revealing warmer colors. Her peach knit top clung to slender arms and hugged smallish but high breasts, while her hips flared just enough to confirm she was all woman.

He smothered reckless desire with angry disgust. How could she have given all that to an old man, especially that old man?

Under his stare, her lashes flickered with uncertainty. She turned one boot in before setting her feet firmly. Her fists knotted at her sides, and her shoulders went back. Her chin came up in the same challenge she’d issued when they first came face-to-face.

“Those might have sentimental value to Mr. Van Eych’s family,” she said.

Aleksy narrowed his eyes. The heat of finding the fight he’d been anticipating singed through his muscles. She was an extension of Victor Van Eych, and that allowed him to hate her, genuinely hate her. His sneer pulled at his scar. He knew it made him look feral and dangerous. He was that and more. “Close the door.”

She hesitated—and it irritated him. When he spoke, people moved. Having a slip of a woman take a moment to think it over, look him over, wasn’t acceptable.

“As you leave,” he commanded with quiet menace. “I’m throwing out all of Van Eych’s trophies, Miss Daniels. That includes you.”

She flinched but remained tall and proud. Her icy blue eyes searched his, confirming he was serious.

As the heart attack that killed your meal ticket, he conveyed with contempt.

She turned away, and loss unexpectedly clawed at him.

He didn’t have time to examine it before she pressed the door closed, remaining inside. Inexplicable satisfaction roared through him. He told himself it was because he would get the fight he craved, but what else could he expect from a woman of her nature? She didn’t live the way she did by walking away from what she wanted.

Keeping her hand on the doorknob, she tossed her hair back and asked with stiff authority, “Who are you?”

Unwillingly, he admired her haughtiness. At least she made a decent adversary. He wiped the taint of dust from his fingertips before extending his hand in a dare. “Aleksy Dmitriev.”

Another brief hesitation; then, with head high, she crossed to tentatively set her hand in his. It was chilly, but slender and soft. He immediately fantasized guiding her light touch down his abdomen and feeling her cool fingers wrap around his hot shaft.

He didn’t usually respond to women like this, rarely let sex thrust to the forefront of his mind so blatantly, especially with a woman he regarded with such derision, but attraction clamored in him as he closed his hand over hers. It took all his will not to use his grip to drag her near enough to take complete ownership, hook his arm across her lower back and mash her narrow body into his.

Especially when she quivered at his touch. She made a coy play at pretending it disconcerted her, but she’d been sleeping with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Acting sexually excited was her stock in trade. It made him sick, yet he still responded to it. He wanted to crowd her into the wall and kindle her reaction until she was helpless to her own need and he could sate his.

Disappointment seared a blistering path through his center. He wanted her, but she’d already let his enemy have her.

~ * ~

Hint: She didn't! And when he finds that out, he can't wait to make her his.

Giveaways

Like what you've read so far? You can enter to win a signed copy of The Russian's Acquistion here (Open 'til Oct 23rd):

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Or you could preorder The Russian's Acquisition from Amazon now. It will be in stores November 1st or you can also buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

$500 Visa Gift Card Giveaway

Christmas is coming and Tule publishing knows it. They've partnered with a number of their authors to bring you this chance to win a $500 Visa Gift Card. Closes Oct 20th

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I said above that I'd have more info about Hometown Hero and Blame The Mistletoe.

First, if you like to read books in order, here are the Homecoming series titles, authors, and release dates:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed

I just finished a series of #SampleSundays from from Hometown Hero. Read Hometown Hero excerpts here. And I've been running a series of #TeaserTuesdays for Blame The Mistletoe here. The last #TeaserTuesday will be this week. If you've read this far, congratulations! I will tell you on the sly that there will be a very special offer in Tuesday's blog post so be sure to check back for it.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

Want to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc? Click here for Dani's Social Media links and take your pick.

Whew! That's a lot to digest, isn't it? Like I said above, Fall is very busy for me. By December things will cool right off and January will be positively boring. Maybe. I always have plans for something. Stay tuned here or join my newsletter to get all the juicy details.

Have a fabulous weekend,

Remembering Danielle

Today I'm remembering a fairy who became an angel without the chance to become a woman in between.

Danielle was smart, funny, a bit of a bookworm and very pretty. She had wavy dark blond hair with a curly-cue at her hairline. Her laugh was one that made you smile, wanting in on the joke. When she wasn't sure about something, she quirked one eyebrow.

You're missed, Danielle.

Hugs to the rest of our Peanuts gang.

Photo credit: Melodi2 from morguefile.com

#TeaserTuesday - Blame The Mistletoe (3)

Have you entered the A Fall Love Affair - $500 Visa Gift Card Giveaway? Scroll past the excerpt for the Rafflecopter entry form.

Note: If you feel strongly about reading books in order, you'll want to read Hometown Hero (available now on Amazon) before you read these excerpts. Want to try before you buy? You can read the #SampleSundays from Hometown Hero here. And please keep scrolling after the excerpt for a list of all the (multi-authored) books in the Homecoming series.

If you enjoy free excerpts, please also check out on my #SampleSunday for The Russian's Acquisition series, which started this week.

If you like free books, please join my newsletter. I'll be drawing this week from my subscriber list for a signed copy of The Russians Acquisition.

TeaserTuesday

Let's see, where are we with Liz and Blake?

In the first excerpt, Liz meets Blake at a cocktail party hosted by Skye and Chase from Hometown Hero) and they realize they used to be in-laws.
Then Liz wonders if she knows more about Blake than he does.

~ * ~

Blake watched a pensive look come over her face and wondered if he’d over-shared. He was sorry if he had. Her laugh had been charming. Clear and warm and natural. And she was nice. Nicer than he’d realized the first time he’d met her and way nicer than she ought to be.

Way too nice for the kinds of thoughts he was thinking, but he could barely take his eyes off her.

From the second she’d walked in, he’d been captivated, not even realizing at first that he knew her. Fresh faces in small towns caught any man’s attention. Liz had a polished, expensive look that he normally veered from out of self-preservation. But even though her make-up was stylish as a movie star’s, and her dark brunette hair was glossy and cut in sculpted waves around her face, she had a softness about her. Vulnerability, maybe?

Not weak. She had smiled and joked with their hostess as she entered, moving to set out her dish with great care. Her trim figure filled her dark jeans and snug top in a way that had had him trying out a few rusty lines in his head. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman and even longer since he’d felt such a strong pull toward a specific one. His kid was out of the house for a while . . .

Then, he’d been struck by déjà vu. Fate was something he filed with Crystal’s New Age crack-pottery, so he dismissed soul mate bullshit, but he’d felt like he knew her. Not just that she was familiar, but he knew her.

When she’d glanced around the room, bit the corner of her lip and heaved a small sigh, he’d remembered. Suddenly, he’d been back at the head table as Crystal’s brother had given a speech. The guy’s wife had looked, well, like it was a struggle to hold up her spirits.

As someone who’d had his share of wondering how the hell he could carry on, he’d felt an odd mixture of empathy and an uncharacteristic sense of premonition. When the Flower Family Grapevine had revealed Liz and Dean were having marital troubles a year later, Blake hadn’t been surprised. In fact, when his own marriage began to crumble, he hadn’t been terribly surprised by that either and tended to trace it back to that moment. Like he’d seen the potential for disaster in Liz’s weariness with her marriage.

Not that he’d thought of Liz personally at the time. He’d just recollected that glimpse of happily ever afters that weren’t.

“How did you wind up here tonight?” he asked, wondering if there was something in the stars after all, because he’d dithered over whether to make the drive. Free food had won over cooking for himself, but he was nursing a single beer and planning to leave before he finished it.

“Skye came by. Introduced herself.” Her irises were an enigmatic dark blue in this light, her skin tinted just enough to tell him she lived with a hint of winter sun. As she talked, he found himself staring at her lips. Not a wide mouth. Kind of set in a permanent almost-invitation to kiss. She had a dot of a birthmark on her bottom lip, slightly off center. “I thought it would be good for me—Do I have something on my mouth? Sometimes people think I do, but it’s just a freckle . . . ”

“What? No, you’re fine,” he rushed to assure her, wits dulled by a sucker-punch of thinking about running his tongue over that little dot. Which was okay. They weren’t related. It was just maybe unwise and yeah, possibly fueled by irony and a desire to mow down the Flowers.

And desire for Liz. She was classy and pretty and intriguing. He would love to tear up the sheets with her.

Which would start to show if he wasn’t careful. He made himself catch up to the conversation. “What do you mean that coming here is good for you?”

“You know. I thought I should mingle with the natives.”

“You’re eating your social vegetables?”

“Kind of,” she agreed, flashing straight white teeth. “Yes, I suppose that’s exactly what I’m doing. Chewing community kale to stave off a bad case of isolation rickets.”

He nodded, liking that she could be playful.

“And you said you brought Petra? Dean didn’t bring her?”

“He and the woman he’s marrying already have twin sons. His van was pretty full and I wanted to visit Stella before they all left. That’s when his mother pounced.”

“Of course she did. Are you sure you weren’t coerced, Liz? Do you need a sling for that arm that was obviously twisted?”

“I’ll admit I’m not great at sticking up for myself. I’m a middle child who grew up following Major Bloom’s orders so I tend to—”

“What now? Major . . . ?” he interrupted.

“Bloom. My dad. He was in the military so he was a major. And yes, my maiden name is Bloom and my married name is Flower. Ha ha. Yes, it’s hysterical.”

He laughed. Openly and with great enjoyment. Major Bloom. “Poor bastard never lived that one down, did he?”

“He really didn’t. It’s probably why he’s a grouch to this day.”

Their laughing gazes tangled and he knew he was grinning like a fool, but he was enjoying getting to know her. As his marriage had deteriorated, he’d distanced himself more and more from anything to do with Crystal’s family. Auntie Liz had just become a name on a card to Ethan at Christmas and his birthday.

But she was so much more than that.

“Tell me about your salons. Why can you walk away from running them this time of year?” he asked.

“I have two jobs, actually. I write corporate communications—withhold your awe, please. And yes, sadly, I can do that from anywhere, including Nola’s sofa. The other I do with my mother and sister. We have a dozen salons across California. So, I’m working long distance a lot of the time anyway, visiting each one a couple of times a year so . . . ” She shrugged. “That’s why the Flowers are drinking margaritas in the sun, while I’m waking up to prizes on the carpet left by a cranky little dog.” She pointed at an empty martini glass left on a table nearby. A miniature candy cane hung off the rim. “What do you suppose that is? It looks like it was yummy.”

“Eggnog martini. I had a sip of one when I got here. Lethal. If you’re driving, you might want to take one home and drink it when you get there.”

“No, I walked up, but—”

“Who’s giving you a lift home?” Amazing how that came out of him so fast. And with such a possessive need to know.

“It’s not far. Maybe half a mile? I’ll just walk back in a bit.”

“Oh, you city folk are so cute,” he said, fairly sure Chase would have caught her before she actually tried walking down in the dark, but still glad he was the one who could do it. “It’s snowing hard out there.” He pointed to the view through the glass wall where full dark had fallen. The deck was coated with a deep couple of inches that had accumulated since he’d arrived. The colored lights outside turned the floating flakes into a powdered rainbow, making it look deceptively pretty and safe, but he knew better. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically, wrinkling her nose at a scene she probably thought had been lifted off a Christmas card.

“The bears are hibernating, but the cougars and timber wolves aren’t. It’s really easy to get turned around in that, especially without streetlights. I’m not playing Prank the Tourist. Life and death is a fine line on a night like this.” He knew. His birth parents had died in conditions like this. “I’m not trying to scare the pretty lady into my car, either. I just want you to get home safe. I’ll take you,” he promised.

She swept her lashes down in the shy way a woman did when a man unexpectedly called her pretty and she liked it. The male interest stirring in him solidified into something far more serious.

“Come on. Let’s find you a drink,” he said, urging her along with a gentlemanly hand against her lower back. Yes, it was a bit of a branding iron. Don’t even think about it, stallions. He’d cut this one from the herd for himself.

~ * ~

You can pre-order Blame The Mistletoe here.

As I said above, if you like to read in order, you'll want to read Hometown Hero first. If you want to read the Homecoming series in order, here are all the authors and their release dates (I'm third):

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero by Dani Collins
Oct 02 - Long Way Home by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 06 - Home For Good by Terri Reed


Giveaways

Please keep checking back over the next few weeks. I have lots going on for all my fall books:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Open 'til Oct 23rd:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Want to preorder The Russian's Acquisition from Amazon now? It will be in stores November 1st or you can also buy now from Mills & Boon UK.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

All my titles are on Amazon:

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

And these fine retailers carry most of my titles too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

Want to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc? Click here for Dani's Social Media links and take your pick.

Have a great week,

#SampleSunday - The Russian's Acquisition

Welcome to a new #SampleSunday series. The Russian's Acquisition will be in stores November 1st, but you can buy it now from Mills & Boon UK.

I'm putting the finishing touches on Seduced Into The Greek's World, and have a ton of things to do around the house today so I'll try to keep this brief.

Before I get to #SampleSunday, however, I wanted to remind you that Hometown Hero is available on Amazon along with the second book in this new series, Blame The Mistletoe, which you can pre-order here.

These are rancher novellas in the fictional town of Marietta. Hometown Hero is a collaboration with five other authors. The fifth story launches Monday:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home, by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home, by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero, by Dani Collins
Oct 2 - Long Way Home, by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 6 - Home For Good, by Terri Reed

You can tell I'm running around breathless, can't you? This house is upside down, I tell you, which is why I want to be sure this is posted so I don't forget later.

SampleSunday

This is a new series, so you're getting the opening pages. I'll likely run this one into November since I usually do six for my Harlequin Presents.

I'll also have a blog tour with this one with giveaways on my guest posts and other ones here so please keep checking back (or join my newsletter) and don't forget to keep scrolling down for Givewaways happening now.

Here goes:

~ * ~

I miss waking up with you.

THE NOTE STRUCK a pang of wistfulness in Clair Daniels’s chest. She wondered if anyone would ever write something so romantic to her. Then she recalled the waves of emotional highs and lows Abby had been riding for months, all under the influence of that elusive emotion called “love.” Being independent was more secure and less hurtful, she reminded herself. And the roller coaster she’d been through in the last two weeks, after losing a man who was merely a friend and mentor, was brutal enough.

Still, she had to hide envy as she handed the note back to Abby and said with a composed smile, “That’s very sweet. The wedding is this weekend?”

Abby, the firm’s receptionist, nodded with excitement as she placed the card back in the extravagant bouquet Clair had admired. “I was just saying to everyone—” She waved at the ladies gathered with their morning coffee. “I texted him that after Saturday, we can wake up together forev…” She trailed off as it struck her who she was talking to.

The horseshoe of women dropped their gazes.

Clair’s throat closed over a helpless I wasn’t waking up with him. She’d never slept with anyone but couldn’t say so. Her confidentiality clause with Victor Van Eych had made such confessions impossible.

Still, she knew everyone had thought her relationship to the boss went deeper than merely being his PA. The gossip had eaten her up, but she’d let it happen out of kindness for a man whose self-assurance had been dented by age. Other people’s opinions of her shouldn’t matter, she’d told herself. Victor was nice to her. He had encouraged her to start the foundation she’d always dreamed of. Letting a white lie prevail in return had seemed harmless.

Then his family had refused to let her into his mansion to so much as share condolences, turning their backs and pushing her to the fringes like a pariah.

She wasn’t someone who wore her heart on her sleeve, but the one person she had begun to count on had died. Shock and sorrow had overwhelmed her. Thankfully she’d had a place to bolt to for a week and absorb her loss. Ironic that it had been the orphanage, but what a timely reminder how important the home and foundation were, not just to her, but to children as alone as she was.

Now she was feeling more alone than ever, trying not to squirm under the scrutiny of her colleagues, not wanting to reveal that her chest had gone tight and her throat felt swollen. It wasn’t just Victor’s unexpected death getting to her, but a kind of despair. Would anyone ever stick? Or was she meant to walk through life in isolation forever?

Into the suffocating moment, the elevator pinged and the doors whispered open. Clair glanced over her shoulder to escape her anxiety, and what she saw made her catch a startled breath.

A hunting party of suits invaded the top floor. It was the only way to describe the tribe of alert, stony-faced men. The last off the elevator, the tallest, was obviously their leader. He was a warrior whose swarthy face wore a blaze of genuine battle injury. At first that was all Clair saw: the slash of a pale scar that began where his dark hair was combed back from his hairline. It bisected his left eyebrow, angled from his cheekbone toward the corner of his mouth, then dropped off his clean-shaven jaw.

He seemed indifferent to it, his energy completely focused on the new territory he was conquering. His armor-gray suit clung with perfect tailoring to his powerful build. With one sweep of his golden-brown eyes, he disbursed the clique of women in a subtle hiss of indrawn breaths and muted clicks of retreating heels.

Clair couldn’t move. His marauding air incited panic, but her feet stayed glued to the floor. She lifted her chin, refusing to let him see he intimidated her.

Male interest sparked to life as he held her stare. His gaze drifted like a caress to her mouth, lowered to her open collar and mentally stripped her neatly belted raincoat and low-heeled ankle boots.

Clair set her teeth, hating these moments of objectification as much as any woman, but something strange happened. Her paralysis continued. She wasn’t able to turn away in rejection. Heat came to life in her abdomen like a cooling ember blown into a brighter glow. Warmth radiated into her chest and bathed her throat.

His attention came back to her face, decision stamped in his eyes. She was something he would want.

She blushed, still unable to look away. A writhing sensation knotted in her stomach, clenching like a fist when he spoke in a voice like dark chocolate, melting and rich, yet carrying a biting edge.

She didn’t understand him.

Clair blinked in surprise, but he didn’t switch to English. His command had been for one of his companions, yet she had the impression he’d been talking about her if not to her. He swung away, moving into the interior offices as if he owned the place. One of the men flanking him murmured in a similar language.

“Was that Russian?” Clair asked on a breathless gasp as the last pin-striped back disappeared. She felt as if a tank had just flattened her.

“They’ve been coming in all week. That tall one is new.” Abby dragged her gaze away from the hall and became conspiratorial as she leaned over her keyboard. “No one knows what’s going on. I was hoping you could enlighten us.”
“I wasn’t here,” Clair reminded her. She hadn’t even been in London. “But Mr. Turner told me before I left that everything would carry on as usual, that the family were keeping things status quo until they’d had time to settle his private affairs. Are they lawyers?” She glanced toward the hall but was certain that man wasn’t anything as straitlaced as a lawyer. He struck her as someone who made his own rules rather than living by any imposed on him. Her skin still tingled under the brand of ownership he’d imprinted on her.

“Some are, I think,” Abby answered. “Ours have been meeting them every day.”

“Our—? Oh, right.” Clair forced herself back to the conversation. Lawyers. Not just her friend deceased but the boss and owner, leaving the place on tiptoes of tension. She’d noticed the mood the second she returned. Having strangers prowl like bargain hunters at a fire sale didn’t help. Clair decided she didn’t like that trespasser of a man.

Abby glanced around before hunching even closer. “Clair? I’m really sorry for what I said. I know losing Mr. Van Eych must be hard for y—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Clair dismissed with a light smile. She stepped back to freeze out the empathy. Putting up walls was a protective reflex, an automatic reaction that probably accounted for why no one ever sent her flowers or love notes. She wasn’t good at being close to people. That was why she’d let herself fall into a fake romance with Victor. He’d offered companionship without the demands of physical or emotional intimacy, protecting her from anyone else trying to make a similar claim. No risk, she’d thought. No chance of pain.

Ha.

That Russian would make incredible demands, she thought, and her stomach dipped even as she wondered where her speculation had come from. No way would she let someone like that into her private life. He was a one-way ticket to a broken heart. Forget him.

Nevertheless, trepidation weakened her knees as she looked toward her office, the direction he’d taken. Silly to be afraid. He would already have forgotten her.

“I’ll check in with Mr. Turner,” Clair said, holding the smile of confident warmth she’d perfected as Victor’s PA. “If I’m able to tell you anything, I will.”

“Thank you.” Abby’s worried brow relaxed.

Clair walked away, determined to push the Russian from her mind, but she’d barely hung her coat and bent to tuck her purse into her desk drawer before Mr. Turner appeared in the doorway. Waxen paleness underpinned the flags of red in his sagging cheeks.

Clair stood to attention, heart sinking with intuitive fear. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re to report to—” He ran a hand over his thinning hair. “The new owner.”

~ * ~

I will have another #TeaserTuesday from Blame The Mistletoe on Tuesday and it looks like I'll have to rewrite the one from last week. That will be Monday's job, I'm afraid. Here's the first one if you missed it:

Read the first pages of Blame The Mistletoe here.

Giveaways

Please keep checking back. I have lots of these over the next few weeks:

Ends Today Hometown Hero Prize Package.

Hometown Hero Giveaway

Also:

My Goodreads Giveaway for The Russian's Acquisition runs until October 23rd. (scroll down)
In October, there will be a special promotion with Tule/Montana Born and their authors for a $500 Visa Gift Card. It runs October 6th-20th. I'll post the links here and on my Facebook Page.
In late October, I'll have a Blame The Mistletoe Package (similar to Hometown Hero one) which will likely run for about a week.
Finally, sometime in November, I'll have a Facebook party with lots of giveaways from my author friends so you can hopefully win some romances to help keep you warm through those long winter months.

Here's the Goodreads Giveaway:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I'm sure there's more to say, but I'll end here.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

Prefer Amazon?

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

These other fine retailers have my books too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

Want to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc? Click here for Dani's Social Media links and take your pick.

Have a great weekend,

Dani

Mercury Retrograde - *Why*

I wasn't going to do a #ThursdayThirteen post. I have to get my revisions done today.

But a glitch with the upgrade on my blogging platform deleted this week's #TeaserTuesday post. So I wanted to post a quick acknowledgment of that.

I will rewrite it if it can't be recovered from back up. I'm as distressed as you are, Dear Reader. I'm blaming the onset of Mercury retrograde, which actually begins on Saturday, but as you can see, has far-reaching affects when it comes to computers.

The truth is, Merc Retro is great for things like revising and rewriting. Anything prefaced by 're' is a great pasttime during these annoying weeks when it plays heck with ground transport and other stuff. Therefore I'm okay with re-writing a blog post, finishing my re-visions and starting our re-novations. (But I will cross my fingers and hope that the back up is there. I mean, time, right?)

Anyway, very sorry and I will monitor the situation closely. Expect a new #SampleSunday series. I'll be starting excerpts from my November Harlequin Presents The Russian's Acquisition.

I will return next week with a new #TeaserTuesday (and this week's!) for Blame The Mistletoe.

This week, my Homecoming book launched! It's actually a prequel to Blame The Mistletoe so you might want tobuy Hometown Hero here and read it first, or read the #SampleSunday posts for Hometown Hero here.

That's it! Short and sweet. Back to work.

Have a great day,

#TeaserTuesday - Blame The Mistletoe (2)

Quick! Before you scroll down for #TeaserTuesday, grab the prequel, Hometown Hero, for 99cents TODAY ONLY (Sept 30).

Hometown Hero released at a special introductory price of 99 cents, but goes up to $2.99 October 1st. If you'd like to try before you buy, check out this series of #SampleSundays with excerpts from Hometown Hero.

The above post also talks about all the giveaways I'll be running or participating in over the next couple of months. You'll find entry forms below for the ones that are live right now.

For those of you who have emailed me a request for a signed bookmark - I'm told they've shipped. Hopefully they arrive in the next few days and are as cute as I envision. If you haven't requested a signed bookmark but would like one, email me your snail address. I'll get it out as soon as they arrive.

I'm trying to keep this short. I usually turn revisions around very quickly, but this darned Demitri is such a problem child. I'll be unplugging for some long stretches this week to deal with him.

Ready for #TeaserTuesday?

Last week, Liz arrived at a Christmas cocktail party in full swing. She was a bit intimidated, especially because a sexy cowboy was staring at her. Turns out, they know each other, it's just been a really long time.

WARNING: If you feel strongly about reading a series in order, Hometown Hero (99cents today, Sept 30th only, just saying) comes before this story. Hometown hero features Skye and Chase, the hosts of this cocktail party that Liz is attending.

~ * ~

“Have you two introduced yourselves?” Skye asked, appearing next to Blake with a hostess’s eye for matchmaking. “Liz, this is Blake Canon. His ranch is next to my family’s place out on Timberline. Blake, Liz is house-sitting for the Flowers at the bottom of the road—”

“Seriously?” He sent her a look that Liz ducked by switching her attention to Skye.

“We actually know each other.” His judgment shouldn’t matter, but she didn’t like him thinking she’d let the Flowers turn her into a doormat. She had, for years, but that was in the past. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. “Blake’s ex-wife and my ex-husband are brother and sister,” she explained to Skye, something she might have expanded on when first chatting to Skye, but it hadn’t seemed important then.

Or maybe she’d feared judgment from a stranger, too.

“Oh. When you said your last name was Flowers, I assumed you were a niece or something,” Skye said with a breezy smile, then reassessed them with speculative lift of her brows. “Well, you two have plenty to catch up on, I’m sure. I’ll leave you to it.” She walked away.

“I didn’t put it together that you lived here,” Liz said. “Or that I’d run into you. Or that you’d remember me,” she added with an echo of surprise. “Did we even see each other after your wedding? All I ever heard at the family gatherings was that you couldn’t leave the ranch.”

That’s why most of her ex-husband’s family had moved from California to Montana. Blake’s wife—ex-wife—had begged her parents and siblings to join her in Marietta, only to divorce Blake as soon as everyone settled here. Liz had been separating from Dean at that point and hadn’t even considered the move.

Maybe that had been closed-minded of her.

She could say with fresh eyes and emotional distance that Marietta wasn’t a bad place, but at the time she’d only seen that her own family was in California. If Dean had wanted to move to be with his, that was his business. Fortunately, he hadn’t and they’d had plenty of fuel for their fights without bringing geography into it. From what Liz had heard of Blake and Crystal’s break up, it had been even more contentious and bloody than hers.

Blake took a pull off his beer, eyelids lowered circumspectly, not saying anything about being tied to his ranch.

“That wasn’t meant to sound like I was taking their side,” Liz said. “I know ranching isn’t something you just take a week off from because you want to.” She bit into a tangy olive, enjoying the way it burst with flavor in her mouth. “For what it’s worth, Dean never understood the demands of the salons either. That’s one of the reasons he made me quit doing nails.” That and how it had looked when his wife gave manicures to the wives of his colleagues.

Blake’s dark eyes sharpened as they flashed to connect with hers. It almost looked like he took umbrage at Dean’s heavy-handed control—as she had. Maybe it was just another thing they had in common: letting the Flowers talk them into things they didn’t really want to do.

Then his gaze warmed with amusement. “Are you saying your clients demand attention every day? I just envisioned a herd of women with broken nails bawling in a meadow.”

She chuckled, realigning her vision of Blake from an overwhelmed young man wiping his brow as he spoke his vows to this mature, confident man with a wry sense of humor.

“They’re not much better this time of year,” she said ruefully, “Habitual nail-chewers suddenly stampede to look pretty for Christmas.”

“And yet you’re here rather than polishing.”

She heard the question in his tone and shrugged. “I’m in management now. I fill in sometimes if I have to. It’s flu season, so techs call in sick and the phones never stop, so I often man those, but . . . ” She shrugged, debating how much to tell him about why she was staying here. They were strangers really, having only met the once. But their kids had remained connected as cousins. She heard things. Their shared sister-in-law, Stella, was very talkative when she had a glass of wine in her. Blake might not be entirely comfortable with how much Liz knew of his personal business.

For the first time in nearly a week of being in Marietta, however, she felt like she had a friend. She nibbled the tip of a gherkin, edging around revealing her motives by asking, “What do you think of the big family wedding and tropical Christmas?”

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he said with a small flicker of surprise that she hadn’t really answered his question. He motioned for her to come into a corner with him as people crowded near the table, squeezing them out. “Ethan’s coming home early since it’s my year to have him. Is Petra staying the whole time?”

“She is.” A pinch near her heart made her face his lingering curiosity and the decision she’d made with all its cloudy facets. It was okay that it hurt, she reminded herself. Generosity was something that might sting when it was extended, but it had to be exercised or it would stiffen up and atrophy. “I was upset when they first started planning it, but it’s her Dad’s wedding. And she genuinely loves being around her cousins. I couldn’t fight it. It’s the sort of thing they’ll remember forever.”

“Which is why I said Ethan could go for two weeks, but not all of December.”

Liz still privately agonized at allowing Petra to be gone so long. She’d been furious and aggrieved, dreading the whole thing from the time it was proposed, and then she’d arrived here to a fresh pie in the face. She tried to smile past the tightness straining her expression.

“I’ve been bitter for a long time,” she confessed. “Always gearing up for a battle. I knew it wasn’t healthy and I’m sure it looks from the outside like I’m the biggest dupe in America. I mean, who gets suckered into watching their ex-mother-in-law’s chirpy little dog, alone through Christmas, while her ex-husband’s family has a month in the sun? Right? But it is Christmas. When I got here and they told me Nola’s dog sitter had fallen through and Nola just assumed I had nothing else to do and could take him . . . ” She shook her head, hating how the ball of mistreated energy had come to life with a vengeance, throbbing and pulsing and threatening to tear up her insides.

“I’m tired of giving them the power to make me unhappy,” she said. “I asked myself if I would do it for a neighbor in a pinch, or a client, and I would. The only reason I would refuse Nola was animosity and I’m tired of it. So, I decided to embrace the spirit of the season. I don’t care if Dean appreciates the gesture, or whether the Flowers think kindly of me, or even if karma repays me. I’m not trying to be bigger than them, I just don’t want to be angry anymore. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

Her mother and sister had certainly thought so when she’d called to tell them she was staying here while Petra was gone. Her sister had said it was a recipe for a fresh batch of resentment. But even though Liz was facing a lonely Christmas, even though this ‘favor’ was actually putting her out and taking her away from her family in California, she felt like she was doing the right thing. Christmas had always been a bit of a let down for her anyway. Her family wasn’t the warmest and half the time her father had missed it altogether. This way her expectations were rock bottom, so she couldn’t be disappointed.

“I say no to Crystal all the time,” Blake said reflectively, mouth going flat.

“Your situation is completely different from mine,” she assured him with an instinctive touch on his arm.

He glanced at her hand and she pulled it away, curling her fingers into her palm and licking her lips in a sudden attack of nerves that had nothing to do with social anxiety. That had felt—he had felt good. Muscly hard. Masculine. And there’d been a little zing of sexual something that she would completely ignore, because it was silly to even imagine it had been there.

She cleared her throat.

“I know what you’re up against with Crystal. If you give her an inch, you’ll never see your son again, so you’re better to stick hard and fast to your custody agreement. I wasn’t trying to sound pious or tell you what to do.”

He absorbed that with a cant of his head. “You are setting a precedent, though. They’ll expect things from you going forward,” he warned.

She shrugged, trying to be philosophical. “Maybe. I’ll deal with that as it comes, but I didn’t want to go home indignant that they’d had the nerve to ask. I didn’t want to carry guilt if I said no. Instead, I took control, decided I wanted to do this, and I feel okay about it.”

He stared at her.

He thinks I’m nuts, she thought.

“Are you still bitter?” she asked.

“As snake venom,” he replied conversationally, making a surprised laugh burst out of her.

He had a right to be, she supposed, thinking of what she knew about his marriage and divorce, then letting her lashes sweep down so he wouldn’t know she knew.

Did he even know?

~ * ~

You can pre-order Blame The Mistletoe now, but if you'd like to be notified when it (and all of my books) become available, please join my newsletter.

I send out my newsletter when I have a new release to announce and I always draw for a signed copy of my next print book from my subscriber list. You could win a copy of The Russian's Acquisition or The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction, or maybe even Seduced Into The Greek's World if I manage to finish these revisions.

I'll have two more #TeaserTuesdays for Blame The Mistletoe. This weekend, look for a fresh batch of #SampleSunday excerpts from The Russian's Acquisition.

By the way, Hometown Hero is one of five in a series set during Homecoming in Marietta, Montana. Here's the line-up of authors who collaborated on this series along with the release dates for their titles:

Sept 22 - Sing Me Back Home, by Eve Gaddy
Sept 25 - Finding Home, by Roxanne Snopek
Sept 29 - Hometown Hero , by Dani Collins
Oct 2 - Long Way Home, by Kathleen O’Brien
Oct 6 - Home For Good, by Terri Reed


Giveaways!

Like to win free books and other goodies? I put together this Hometown Hero Giveaway Package. Enter before Oct 5th.

Hometown Hero Giveaway

This Goodreads Giveaway runs until October 23rd:

.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_button4_hover.gif);
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}


Goodreads Book Giveaway








The Russian's Acquisition


by Dani Collins

Giveaway ends October 23, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I'll close with buy links and wish you a great week. Depending how revisions go, I may or may not have a #ThursdayThirteen. We'll both have to wait and see.

All my Harlequin titles are available on Mills & Boon UK, eHarlequin and Mills & Boon Aus.

Prefer Amazon?

US | Canada | UK | India | Germany | Brazil | Spain | Italy | Japan | Australia 

These other fine retailers have my books too:

Nook | Kobo | ARe | BooksaMillion | ChaptersIndigo | iBooks

Want to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...etc? Click here for Dani's Social Media links and take your pick.

Cheers,