Dani Collins's Blog, page 68

#SampleSunday – Hustled To The Altar, p.25+

I recently uploaded this book to Smashwords, where it is now available along with Amazon. It wasn’t show available yet at Kobo, iBooks, etc., when I prepared this post, but please keep checking.

Meanwhile, here’s a sampler and please sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of the page. You could win a Kindle or a signed copy of Hustled To The Altar.

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“You’ll notice his car is a two-seater, so you’ll be left behind.” She waved from Jacob’s flat tires to Con’s Spitfire.

“Renatta Jane O’Laughlin! What are you suggesting? Just because we would be arrested for what we’ve done in that car doesn’t mean I plan to do it again. Unless you want to, of course. You were pretty enthusiastic the first time.”

Renny closed her eyes in a wince. When she opened them, Con had moved to his own car and opened the door. Grinning, he invited her into it with a wave.

Jacob lifted his brows indignantly.

“Ignore him,” Renny urged. “Everything is a game to Con. He doesn’t want me. He wants to win.”

“If there’s still something between you—”

“There’s not.”

“We might be rushing things.”

“I want to marry you, Jacob.” She curled her fists around the lapels of his jacket and kissed his lips.

He didn’t usually care for public displays of affection—was kind of reserved in private, for that matter—but he was a good kisser. He had warm lips, not too wet. Maybe he didn’t haul her into his arms the way Con would have, but having her butt grabbed during a quick embrace was not the respectable image she sought to attain. She liked that Jacob’s conservative personality curbed her impulsive nature.

“Do you suppose there’s a superstition about sending your bride off with her ex-boyfriend the day before the wedding?” Jacob asked.

“I’m waiting for you, so it doesn’t matter.”

“These tires will take time to fix. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“You can’t let him get away with this nonsense.”

“Renny, the quickest way to stop this nonsense is for you to prove you’re not affected. You’re the most reliable woman I know. I trust you completely.”

Reliable? That had to be the dreariest adjective ever applied to her. It shouldn’t bother her when she had struggled so hard to become an upstanding citizen, but she liked to think she still had a splash of color. On the other hand, she wanted to avoid the opposite extreme that Con brought out in her. Maybe Jacob was right. This was the ultimate test. Besides, she was curious to know what Con was trying to accomplish by separating her from Jacob. She and Con could clear the air while she cleared her conscience, all before lunch.

“I won’t disappoint you,” she promised.

“I know you won’t. Where should we meet?”

“Same place we stayed with Gran. I’ll leave a message with the bell desk.”

“All right.” He walked her to the Spitfire.

“So glad you decided to join me,” Con said.

“Don’t get smug or I’ll insist on driving.” She slid into the topless roadster and he slammed the door, rounded the car and climbed over the driver’s door to drop behind the wheel. Gunning the engine, he pulled away.

After waving at Jacob, she straightened in her seat. Con picked up speed and the wind gathered around her feet, billowing her skirt. She pushed it down her thighs.

“Why did you ditch Jacob?” she asked.

“Huh?” He looked from the road to her legs, to the road, back to her legs and, finally, to her face. “Oh. It’s an intervention. He’s not right for you, cookie. When you said ‘average,’ I didn’t realize you meant dull, complacent and a fathead.”

“He is not!”

“What’s he like in the sack?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, realizing as she spoke that it was absolutely the wrong thing to say.

Gravel sprayed as Con pulled over and jammed on the brakes. He stared at her.

“We want to wait until we’re married.”

He raised his brows.

“It’s romantic!”

He pulled back onto the road without saying a word.

Renny slouched in her seat, thoughts ominous. Gradually the beauty of the approaching Bitterroots lightened her mood. She loved this part of the country. It was the first place she had felt settled.

And she was leaving it.

Her mood dipped toward sour again.

“So . . . ” He leaned his forearm on the back of her seat and toyed with her blowing hair. Tingles raced down her nape. “Six months without sex?”

“Did I say I’ve been without sex for six months?”

“You’re awfully snippy. Haven’t seen you this uptight since you first came to live with Gran.”

She shifted away. “So you dragged me away from Jacob to tell me you don’t like him. Fine. Opinion noted. I’m still getting married tomorrow. You didn’t have to go to this extreme to make your point.”

“Actually, I had another reason. See, I’ve been giving this situation with Felix some thought.” He scraped the backs of his fingernails under his chin.

“No, you haven’t.”

“Hear me out. I’m thinking of a sting.”

Dormant parts of her sat up and rubbed gleeful hands. A bubble of excited laughter rose to the back of her throat and she fought it back with a cough. She had considered the same thing as soon as Gran had told her what had happened, but she had fought the urge. Walking away from her shameful past had been a rough road, most of it uphill. Any backsliding she’d done had been with the man next to her and, even though he’d found her an exciting companion for a few harmless forays into role playing, he hadn’t been prepared to make that kind of woman his life partner. And he didn’t even know what she’d done! She couldn’t run a sting with Con. It would raise questions about why she was so good at confidence games. Besides, lying to people was a step backward and it would mean lying to Jacob, too. She couldn’t hurt him. She shook her head.

“No,” she said firmly.

“So you’ll think about it,” Con said.

She groaned in frustration.

He grinned. She had hesitated too long before answering him. Part of her wanted to do it. Good, because he really wanted to put the screws to this jackass who had messed with his grandmother.

“I got in this car because I understood all I had to do was point out Felix Newman to the police,” Renny said.

“My way would be more fun.”

“You’ve told me a thousand times you don’t do games with partners.” She had her nose in the air, as if that particular preference of his bothered her.

It bothered him to realize he had automatically unrolled this as a partners game when, as she had pointed out, he usually went on the assumption that there could be only one winner in any game and he was it.

“There’s a difference between partners and allies,” he pointed out, pleased it occurred to him.

She raised her brow, unimpressed.

“Come on, cookie. You liked pretending you were a hooker at the Games Convention.” He had worried she was bored last year when she had moved through the exhibition a lot faster than he had. When he had caught up to her, he had propositioned her loudly enough to raise eyebrows.

“That was just goofing around. Sexual fantasy, in your case.” She lowered her lashes.

He knew she was remembering exactly what kind of sexual fantasies they had explored. He could have dwelt on the memory for the next half hour, but he had to stay focused on the task at hand: persuading her to con a conman without letting on he knew she could do it.

He had never told her he knew where she had come from. All his staff underwent security checks. Renny’s had been more rigorous than most because she had been hired to work with Gran. Digging into her “sealed” record hadn’t been strictly legal, so he hadn’t bothered mentioning it. She appeared to have rehabilitated herself and Gran liked her, so Con had hired her. As for the actual crime, he had pulled some wild stunts in his adolescence, so he didn’t judge.

Even so, he’d given her plenty of opportunities to talk about it. She never had. He wondered if he should bring it up now. No. He couldn’t be sure how she would react. Better to let her believe he simply admired her ability to play a role.

“What about when we pretended to be deckhands on my boat and chartered it to those tourists?”

“It was a nice day and they were nice people.”

“That woman almost pushed me overboard when you told her I was a smuggler!” Their role-playing games always seemed to evolve into a competition over who could be more outrageous.

She stifled a grin.

“See? You loved it.” Renny was always pretty, but when something grabbed her, really caught her attention, she sparkled. He loved seeing her catch fire like that.

She frowned and began chewing the side of her thumb.

He wondered what was making her so tense. Lack of sex, maybe.

“Those were just games,” she said. “It’s not hard to fool a few tourists and some nerdy convention goers.”

“I’m not a nerd.”

“You hide it better than most. The fact is, a professional criminal isn’t going to be as gullible.” She lifted her hands to pull her flying hair off her face.

The pine-scented air cooled as they gained elevation. They were approaching the outskirts of a town big enough to service the ski resort further up the hill.

“Besides, he would recognize me,” she added.

“So we’ll buy you some spray-on hair color and a pair of glasses.”

“With a fake nose and moustache, maybe? You’re dreaming. A superficial disguise isn’t going to fool anyone.”

“Sure it will, especially if you distract him with a bra that pushes your boobs up to here.” He cut his hand into his neck.

“You’re nuts.”

“We could try that, too, but it won’t have the same effect.”

She turned her face away.

“I know you’re laughing.”

“No, I’m not.” Her voice was strained.

“Hey!” he said with a zing of discovery as he spotted a Walmart. He slowed to turn into the parking lot. “This’ll have everything we need.”

“Con—”

“Quit telling me why it won’t work. We won’t know unless we give it a shot.” He parked and climbed from the car. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t want to.” She stayed in the car, her brow crinkled in distress.

He pushed the door shut and waited.

She didn’t say anything.

Despite knowing she was tough enough to handle anything, he felt a little compassion. She was more sensitive than he was and usually wound up doing some hand-wringing over the innocent bystanders in their escapades. When she had wanted to come clean to the tourists on his boat, he had distracted her with a quickie in the galley. Sex wasn’t an option this time and railroading her didn’t seem to be working.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

“Jacob—”

“Doesn’t have to know. It’ll be our secret.”

“Con, you don’t get the concept of marriage at all, do you? Married people don’t keep secrets from each other. A woman doesn’t conspire with one man the day before her wedding to another.”

“So tell him what you’re going to do.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not exactly . . . it’s kind of . . . regular people don’t—”

“I have a feeling you’re trying not to insult me. Look, I already know Jake lacks imagination. What’s his idea of a good time? Dinner and a movie?”

“Believe it or not, the ability to arrange an afternoon in a shark cage is not the top item on my list of qualities I need in a man.”

“You told me you liked it. Geez, you try to show a woman a good time . . . . ”

“Con, you have a wonderful imagination, but not everyone is capable of living on that same plane of existence. I enjoy visiting, but Jacob wouldn’t understand. His mother heads the women’s group at her church and his father is a professor of ethics at the university. These people are ultra-conservative, ultra-ordinary, ultra-respectable.”

Ultra-anal-retentive. “And that’s what you see in him? His parents?” He leaned down so his forearms rested on the top of his door.

She looked at her hands and tested the edge of her thumbnail. The cuticle was a mess but the nail was perfect. “I’m just saying he wouldn’t understand.”

What she didn’t say, but what he thought she meant, was that she wouldn’t measure up to their expectations.

He had felt that way once. He understood the longing, the desire to stifle your true self to gain a glimmer of acceptance. He had learned to walk his own path, though, to quit living his life based on other people’s opinion of him. He wouldn’t hold onto a multi-million dollar company just because people expected him to and he wouldn’t succumb to marriage because the prevailing attitude said it was the next step in a relationship.

“You can only be who you are, Renny.”

She flicked her hair back and lifted her chin. “Then I’m a woman who does the right thing.”

“And what this guy did to Gran wasn’t right.”

The defiance in her eyes faded and she looked away.

He let her chew on that a minute, along with her thumb, before he straightened.

“I’m going shopping. If you don’t come with me, I’m likely to get you buck teeth and an ugly hat.” When she didn’t move, he added, “At least wear a disguise so when you spot Felix, he doesn’t recognize you.” He started walking.

Behind him, he heard the click of the car door opening. He slowed his step but didn’t turn. He was hiding his grin of satisfaction.

The post #SampleSunday – Hustled To The Altar, p.25+ appeared first on Dani Collins.

Thursday Thirteen – Things To Do Today

Good grief I’m a dope. Forgot to put ‘Promote My Contest’ on this list. Sign up for my newsletter and you could win a Kindle or other prizes.

Thursday Thirteen (why can I not find strikethrough? This one’s done, duh)
Prepare #SampleSunday post (Hustled To The Altar, p.62+)
Prepare my First Sale speech for GVC Valentine’s Brunch
Prepare handouts for Grand Forks Library and Seed Studio appearances
Banking (bleh)
Clear up email backlog (may require the weekend)
Introduce myself to CBG-Readers@yahoo.com
Catch up with Graeme, Rita and the gang from Champagne about our upcoming Chat on May 3.
Schedule blog posts on my blogger account.
Clean my office floor (I call it floor-ganized. It’s not.)
Take action on the myriad post-it notes on walls, screen, calendar and whiteboard. Crumple and dispose of them.
Go for lunch with husband (can’t do dinner, son has basketball)
Check horoscope (may move this to #2) (“The Moon is in Capricorn all day, favoring common sense and consistency.”) (Again, where is strikethrough when I need it?)

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Enter To Win A Kindle (& Other Stuff)

By ‘Other Stuff’ I mean I will be giving away a couple of copies of my books as secondary prizes when I draw for a Kindle electronic reader, but I also mean This Post Contains A Lot Of Stuff.

First, if you’d like to enter the draw, please scroll all the way to the bottom of this page where it says ‘Sign Up’ and ‘Enter’.

Full disclosure of contest details (in plain English): I am building my newsletter list with this contest so you will receive a copy of said newsletter March 4th, when I announce the winner(s). This also happens to be the day my fantasy romance, The Healer, will go live. Why yes, I am trying to promote it. You can unsubscribe at any time.

The draw will be held March 2, 2013 at the Seed Studio in Nelson, where I will be speaking on publishing, reading from The Healer, and signing books. Make sure your name is in before March 2nd to be included in the draw. And please come out for cookies and coffee if you’re in the neighbourhood.

Full prize list includes:

Winner: Basic Kindle ereader (or cash value approx $US 90.00) with a gift card for one electronic download of The Healer.
Second Prize: One signed print copy of Hustled To The Altar with a gift card for one electronic download of The Healer.
Third Prize: One gift card for one electronic download of The Healer.

Other appearances leading up to this event include:

Feb 17th, Valentine’s Brunch sponsored by the Greater Vancouver Chapter of RWA where I will be speaking on my First Sale
Feb 23rd, Romance & Chocolate sponsored by the Grand Forks Library where I will speak about publishing, read from The Healer, and sign books

More cool stuff:

I recently signed my second contract with Mills & Boon, for three books. The first, which had a working title called Married To A Stranger, is with my editor and is scheduled for this December.

The really cool part? No Longer Forbidden? will be released WITH it, here in North America, as a two-for-one promo.

The extra super cool part? Married To A Stranger is about Adara & Gideon. Adara is the sister of Nic, from No Longer Forbidden? I know! My favourite thing ever, a linked book where you get to check in with Nic & Rowan living happily ever after. (ahem – spoiler alert, they do.)

Also, sometime this week Hustled To The Altar will be going live on Smashwords and other platforms.

Now scroll down, down, down and subscribe to enter.

 

 

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Winners Of No Longer Forbidden?

The postman is still holding my author copies for ransom at an undisclosed location, but I managed to get my hands on some of my books.

Yesterday was a fun day (sincerely–I really enjoyed this) at two Post Offices where I mailed signed copies of my books. The post-mistress across the line has been an absolute sweetheart over the years as I sent contest entries and SASEs.  She’s the most patient person with us silly Canucks who keep her busy so we can avoid the extra postage and lost time of sending things from Canada. She knew I’d sold and had checked out my website. She was very congratulatory and awesome.

At my local post office, it was more of a Mommy-chat with a gal I know from when my kids were at the Elementary school. We talked love of arts and pursuing dreams and how her son of twelve has already put out his own CD. Yeah, at forty-six and my first book, I’m quite the late bloomer, but she still gave me an ‘atta girl’ which I appreciated.

So I sent some to friends and family (Mom, your mail is on the way–like she reads my blog.) Also to some fellow authors and twitter friends. I had three winners from my recent Goodreads Chat. I was very happy to make good on that promise. Two reviewers were on the list–my first daring dip into those waters and I’ll report on the reception later. (Or not.)

And finally, drum roll, a signed copy goes to Brooke, the winner of my photo contest for submitting the above.

My next contest will be a draw for a Kindle from all my newsletter subscribers. The draw will be held March 2, 2013 and the winner announced in the newsletter March 4th so please, scroll all the way to the bottom and Sign Up to Enter now.

 

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Remembering Danielle Today

I took a photo of Danielle once looking very much like this.  She sat back to back with my daughter on a round rock with a bower of mock orange arching above them.

They were two sprites caught by chance. I can still feel the warmth of the overcast day, humid from a light summer rain. I can smell the earthy scent of the garden. They were playing ‘faeries,’ completely lost in their world, voices soft, expressions serene as they gathered twigs and leaves and petals. They looked at the camera with magic still holding them spellbound. It was one of those moments when you only hear crickets. Time stands still and life is completely perfect.

I think Danielle was four in that photo and today she would be eighteen. She’d be thinking about flying from her own nest, not building them for mythical creatures.

We miss you, Danielle. I wish life could always be completely perfect.

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Cover Reveal – The Healer

I’m taking a break from: Ask An Author, Win A Book – Goodreads Chat Jan 10-12, 2013 to reveal the cover for my medieval fantasy, The Healer, coming March 4, 2013.

I’m really thrilled. The heroine is perfect, the hero plenty rugged and sexy enough. The colours and rays of hope and warrior off to battle…  They managed to convey a lot that rings true to the story in this deceptively subtle cover. I’m delighted.

More details coming soon, but right now–and I mean Right Now–I’m over at Goodreads. Please join us for freeebies and giveaways:

Ask An Author, Win A Book – Goodreads Jan 10-12, 2013

 

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Share, please. Photos of my book could win a signed copy.

As you can imagine, after waiting twenty-five years for a publishing contract, holding my first book is A Big Deal for me.  Sadly, that magic moment hasn’t happened yet.

I don’t know if the postman lost it, the courier is stuck in the snow, or Santa put me on his naughty list…  Whatever happened, it’s not in my hands.  Literally.  I’ve sent emails.  I’m told the wheels are in motion, but since I live five miles past the end of the earth, I despair of seeing anything before next Christmas.

I knew ahead of time this book wouldn’t be available in North America, but that means I can’t even go to our local grocery store to visit it.  I could order a used one off of Amazon, but… meh.  That’s not *my* copy.

I was working myself into quite a pout about this.  I mean, other authors wax poetic about the ecstatic moment when the box arrived and their world tilted on its axis.  They post photos of pouring copies of their first book onto their living room floor and rolling around in them…

Not me.  Poor me.

Then I thought, forget that.  I have friends.  They have friends.  Someone knows someone out there in the UK, Australia, or NZ who will take two minutes while browsing a book store to Tweet me a photo of my book in real life.  That’s where I really want my books anyway, in bookstores where people can buy and read them.

Will you share this post with your overseas friends, please?  And ask them to send me a photo?  My covers look like this and will be in major bookstores and probably chemists and grocery stores too.  Wherever romance books are sold:

Please send photos to any of these places and I’ll put together a blog post of them:

@DaniCollinsBook on Twitter
DaniCollinsAuthor on Facebook
Dani Collins on Google Plus
Contact Page on www.danicollins.com
dani@danicollins.com

I’ll even put all the Senders’ names in a draw for a signed copy, to be mailed whenever the darned things show up.

Thank You!

The post Share, please. Photos of my book could win a signed copy. appeared first on Dani Collins.

Cheers!

A fun post for New Year’s Eve:

Canadian Whiskey Makes A Comeback from CBC’s Radio West.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Rye Whiskey.

And here’s a great song about Rye Whiskey from A Good Canadian Boy, Corb Lund.

Have a safe and happy night.

The post Cheers! appeared first on Dani Collins.

The Kiss That Changed Everything

If you’re visiting from the iHeartPresents site, welcome!

I wrote this prologue for the release of my debut Mills & Boon Modern No Longer Forbidden? The scene is not included in the book, but is a pivotal point between Nic and Rowan so it makes a nice bonus for those of you who have read the book and is a bit of a teaser for those who haven’t. I hope you enjoy it:

Why was it, Rowan wondered, that being drunk made you want to dance and yet it made dancing so dangerous? She had a fuzzy memory of trying it once when a schoolmate had snuck a bottle of gin into the dorm. One torn tendon later, she’d sworn off dancing when drunk.

Therefore, even though she had an urge to twirl and run and leap, she only swayed to an internal rumba as she drained the last of the champagne from its bottle.

And went in search of Nic.

Way in the back of her mind a small voice said, Bad idea, but an inner fire burned along the pathways of her blood. It had nothing to do with the alcohol in it. This afternoon, he had walked out of the weight room as she had walked in. Sweaty and sullen, he shouldn’t have been so sexy, but a pulse of excitement rose to beat in her throat just thinking about how masculine and fresh-from-the-fight he’d looked.

And she was so tired of him looking at her like she was the biggest nuisance on the planet! Men came onto her all the time, if he didn’t know. Why didn’t he seem to notice she had all the right equipment?

She’d ask him, she decided, as she sauntered down the path from the pool area to the beach.

A warning flitted through her again as her heels sank into the sand, but it was blown away by the wind off the water and the sheer power in Nic’s profile as she spotted his solitary figure in the moonlight.

So enigmatic. She wished this feeling she had to be near him was simple lust, but it was so much more. When she was away at school, or he was away collecting facts on foreign strife, she thought about him. When she knew she was coming home to Rosedale, she started conniving ways to cajole his father, Olief, to invite Nic to join them here.

This time the excuse had been her twentieth birthday. Nic hated crowds and her friends found Rosedale too quiet so this evening had turned into a simple gathering of their disjointed, unofficial family.

She pondered how grossly they fell short of what she’d once imagined they could be. If Olief had relatives back in Sweden or Norway where he’d been born, Rowan didn’t know about them. His relationship to Nic’s mother was another mystery, but the woman must have been Greek. Her son carried the contrasting moniker Nicodemus Marcussen.

For reasons she didn’t know, Nic and Olief had been estranged until six or seven years ago, just before Olief had started seeing Rowan’s mother, Cassandra. Rowan had been the one to coax Olief to invite his son to the island the first time, eager to make for herself the nuclear family she’d always craved.

No one had embraced the idea. Her mother had never had a maternal moment in her life so hardly warmed to Olief’s grown son. Olief and Nic remained taciturn around each other, and Nic seemed to think Rowan and her mother were temporary fixtures no matter how many times Rowan tried to make him see the deeper connection between their parents.

The sad truth was, she hadn’t been able to grasp the idea of Nic as a brother either, not once she’d laid eyes on him. Her feelings for that remote man standing with his shirt rippled by the wind were the furthest thing from sisterly.

Kicking off her shoes, she sashayed toward him, unable to keep from laying on the sass and cheeky confidence that were her best cover for moments of insecurity.

“That raging party of mine getting to be too much for you?”

Nic’s head barely moved in acknowledgment of her arrival, but everything about his demeanor hardened. The slant of his mouth pulled into a dismayed line.

“It’s past your bedtime, isn’t it?”

She hated when he was dismissive and patronizing like that. Her sensitive core took the kick, but a tougher part of her deflected the sting, stood taller, and demanded he see her as a woman.

“Maybe,” she purred, sliding her hand along his forearm where his sleeve had been rolled back to his elbow. “If I had company.”

She had his attention. He didn’t move and she couldn’t really see his face, backlit as it was by the moon. She only sensed his gaze honing in on her while his arm became hot marble beneath her touch.

“Go back to the house, Ro. You’re drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk,” she argued.

Before she knew what was happening, that he could even move so fast, he had her crushed to his chest and locked in his arms.

His mouth opened wide over hers in a hard kiss that was nothing like the sweet, tender, tentative kisses boys had offered her in the past. It was nothing like the passionate, leading ones men tried on her.

This was possession and taking and punishment. His fist pulled in her hair, holding her still for the thorough plundering of her mouth as he thrust his tongue in. His stubble scraped her skin and his pinning arms made it hard to breathe.

Even as her heart swelled with joy at being so close to him, she realized he was being mean on purpose. It scared her enough to struggle.

For a terrifying second, he continued the kiss, refusing to release her. Her heart stopped and she wondered exactly what kind of monster she’d come up against. Real fear made her desperate enough to try lifting her knee between his legs.

He shoved her away from him so abruptly she barely stayed on her feet.

The back of her wrist came up to her bruised lips, pressing away the tenderness he’d left there with his rough kiss. No blood. He wasn’t a brute, but he’d been making a nasty point.

“That’s what happens to girls who get drunk and put themselves at the mercy of men,” he rasped. “You should know better, Ro.”

“Oh, I asked for that, did I?”

“You wanted a reaction out of me, didn’t you? Or are you going to say you really want to go to bed with me? Sorry, but I’m not into children who don’t think beyond getting drunk and throwing themselves at the only man available. Grow up, show some self control, and maybe I’d be interested. Now be a good girl and toddle off to bed.”

She felt exactly as immature as he was implying. She couldn’t even admit she did want to sleep with him. He’d demoralize her further. Laugh at her.

Oh, she hated him. Genuinely, truly hated him.

And she very much feared she was going to cry. Like a silly little baby.

“You know where you can go, Nic?” she managed in a strained snap. “To hell.”

She stumbled away, made clumsy by anger, champagne, and the cold lumps of sand breaking under her feet. With her breath hissing furiously, she wasn’t sure if she actually heard what he said behind her.

It sounded like, “I have my own key.” His flat tone was depressed enough to make her falter, but she wasn’t going back to check on him. He’d made it abundantly clear he had no use for her.

She passed Olief on the way back to the house. Good luck getting two civilized words out of him, she thought with grim fuzziness, and went directly to her room to pack.

Paris. It was drizzly and lonely, but she’d take it over seeing Nic again.

But when she rose early to catch the ferry, head pounding and stomach tender, she didn’t have to avoid him. He was already gone.

For some stupid reason that disappointed her.

Grow up and get over him, she told herself. It was past time.

She would. This time she would forget about him completely. She wouldn’t ask about him, wouldn’t nag Olief to invite Nic to join them. With luck, she’d never have to speak to Nic Marcussen ever again.

Of course she does speak to Nic again. She inadvertently draws him to Rosedale where they wind up stuck there alone and Rowan finally learns what sort of demons he lives with. A little older and wiser, she’s also a lot harder for him to dismiss.

If you’ve read No Longer Forbidden? I hope you’ll look for Nic’s sister’s story, which I’ve almost completed. Adara and Gideon have their own demons, but their marriage is saved once they confront them.

I don’t know yet when it will be released, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and sign up for my newsletter, I’ll keep you in the loop. And please tell me what you’d like to see when I write about Nic’s younger brothers. I have some ideas, but would love your input.

Happy New Year!

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Writers’ Forum Magazine Interview

Writers’ Forum Cover

I was already having a great day yesterday.

My sister and brother-in-law had stayed the night as a mini-Christmas celebration and to toast for my new contract with Mills & Boon. (French Martinis – très magnifique). Despite moving a little slowly and the weather looking dicey, they ambitiously took my kids Christmas shopping for the day, leaving me with an empty house and pursuit of my new deadline.

The writing itself went very well, partly because the internet was acting up, i.e. no distractions. But I did chance Twitter at one point and this is what I saw from @MillsandBoonUK:

We loved your article in Writers’ Forum @DaniCollinsBook! “Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle” – beautiful! x

Given that I’d been stalking Writers’ Forum Magazine for weeks, trying to figure out when my interview would come out, and had convinced myself it wouldn’t be until the new year, I was thrilled. Eager to see it, I subscribed to the app.

At this point I met a few challenges. It looked easy enough to download the Writers’ Forum Magazine App–and a good investment frankly. Every writer is thrilled to have an excuse to geek up and invest in a How To Write resource.

However, I recently had a call from the efficient people at American Express who informed me my card had been compromised. This would be the card I use for all my online purchases, thus I had to update my account info before I could proceed with the app purchase.

Of course, the minute I opened my iTunes account to do that, it told me I was due for an update. Doesn’t everyone love dropping everything to read a license agreement? Agree, yes, please…you’re holding up a narcissist here.

Yay! New credit card number is in, app is downloaded and the first issue is included so just pick that one and… wait. Register a new account with new credentials–better store that in the password vault right now because I’ll never remember it otherwise–okay finally! Issue downloads.

And it looks great. I’m so thrilled that my longtime friend and fellow author, Kay Gregory, thought of me when speaking with her friend and magazine contributor, Glynis Scrivens. I wish I could post a link to the article itself, or even a screenshot, but I don’t have license to.

My photo is on the cover (Issue #135), however, down in the bottom on the left. (Thanks Sarah Wyatt Photography.)

After all this hoop jumping, I was pretty high and wanting to share with links and tweets and blog posts, but the internet fully died at that point which was fortuitous. It forced me back to Gideon and Adara (Nic’s sister from No Longer Forbidden?)

I can’t wait to share their story with you either, so I’ll stop here and get on with writing it. Have a safe and happy holiday season.

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