The Revenge in Paradise Vibe - out on digital June 2024, in shops July 2024...
Including: a spot of speedboat piracy and lots of sexy times on a private island off the Amalfi Coast, in a forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers romance with a revenge twist! The second in my Devlin Sisters duo after Revealing His Best Kept Secret... Featuring Lacey's little sister, struggling artist Milly Devlin, and her brother-in-law Brandon Cade's bitter business rival, bad boy billionaire Roman Garner!
After a night in the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona we headed to a family gathering in a tiny little place called Regencos. As I'm currently writing a Presents book set in Barcelona and Catalonia - with my first ever Spanish hero (who is beyond gorgeous but with serious issues!) – I was of course doing a ton of research in between the swimming in beautiful beach coves, sunning myself by the pool (mostly in the shade because it was HAWT!), eating and drinking too much, watching the England football team torture us into the Final of Euro 24 and having some quality family time with my two gorgeous sisters and my magnificent mum, our husbands and all our fabulous kids. Hope you're all having a good summer too...
It was nice to have some sun for a change as the weather in the UK has been pants. But it's back to the grindstone now (luckily I have a ton of inspiration to channel into my book now!) #familytime#summervibes#writinginspiration#refillingthewell
Wow, it's been a while since I posted here... But just wanted to share my review of the first in Mira Lyn Kelly's Slayers Hockey Romance series. For anyone looking to heat up their summer (here in the UK the weather is currently pants), this series is for you!
View from my book! Poolside in Spain.
So I know absolutely NADA about ice hockey, I'm a Brit after all. But when I saw my old writing mate Mira Lyn Kelly had written a series of HAWT hockey romances I hit the insta-buy button because I know what a fabulous writer she is – and I had a week-long holiday in Spain with lots of lounging-around-a-pool time to fill. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed. Because this book hit all my sweet spots hot hero, smart savvy heroine, snappy dialogue and deep deep emotion wise.... (Although I still know nada about hockey I feel I can now talk quite knowledgeably about how hot ice hockey players are at least!)
Dirty Secret is the first of the Slayers Hockey team stories (although Greg and Julia feature in Dirty Player, in another series, which I will sooo be checking out after I finish this series). Anyway Dirty Secret features team captain Greg Baxter's arch rival Vaughn Vasser and Greg's little sister Natalie, who is absolutely OFF LIMITS to the rest of the team. But most of all to Vaughn, who recently threw a punch at the cap, is not much liked by the Chicago press, the Slayers fans or nearly all of his teammates either, and has his sights set on a trade back to Oregon ASAP...
But what Vaughn does not know is that the "Allie" he had an uber hot one-night stand with eight months ago in Vancouver, and who ran out on him without leaving a number and who he cannot forget is none other than the guy he hates little sis. Natalie is so busted when Vaughn turns up at her door, after discovering who she is... And that she knew who he was all along, and that's why she was using an assumed name. To say he's pissed is putting it mildly, but the truth is he is also hurt. WTF was she thinking, leaving him in the lurch like that after pretty much the best night of his life? Ofc, it's only a matter of time before pissed gives way to provocative, because these two really cannot keep their hands off each other, or any other crucial parts of their anatomy tbf. But while the secret sex scenes are the perfect blend of explosively intense and toe-curlingly spicy, the real secret in this book is that the hard-nosed (and hard everything else) Vaughn, is actually a really sweet guy. But only Natalie ever gets to see that side of him...
Not all that surprisingly, given their explosive chemistry, it doesn't take long before their under-the-radar romance is impossible to keep under the radar (or anything else for that matter).
Once Greg finds out that his rival is secretly dating his kid sister, all hell breaks loose, leaving Vaughn's career in the crosshairs and Natalie having to deal with her big brother's ego explosion. So how is Vaughn not gonna blow up his career and get over the girl he can't have but still wants all the damn time? How is Natalie gonna get her big bro to back the hell off and give her space to figure out that Vaughn is the guy for her? Which is a big ask for her, because she spent her whole life living in the shadow of Greg's career. And she does not want to risk living in the shadow of another man's career - however right he seems....
I'll leave the answers to those crucial questions for you to find out, but I was rooting for them both throughout the fallout, even when they made mistakes. I loved the underlying theme,too, that love is never easy, that chemistry can be dangerous as well as delicious but that ultimately it's the compromises you make and the secrets you are brave enough to share about who you really are, and what you really want that give you the greatest rewards.
What a terrific start to this series, I'm already three books in and I am TOTALLY ADDICTED which is good because I'm now back in a cold and rainy London, and some Slayers Hockey heat is the perfect antedote. So thank you Mira Lyn for giving me my summer back, I appreciate it.
O.M.G! Just got my NA cover for The CEO's Impossible Heir... This is a sequel to The Billionaire's Proposition in Paris (out in Harlequin's November line-up if anyone's interested!!). It's the second book in my Secrets of Billionaire Siblings duo – and features brooding British billionaire Ross De Courtney, fiery Irish artist Carmel O'Riordan, the discovery of his secret baby (actually now a four-year-old boy) at his sister Katie's wedding to Carmel's brother Conall in Connemara, one steamy week in Ross's penthouse in Tribeca and one agonising week in his luxury Long Island estate as Ross tries to decide if he can ever be a father and Carmel tries to figure out if the lone-wolf billionaire can ever let down his guard long enough to love anyone...
Ross and Carmel's story is out in February 2022, and I think the Harlequin cover fairies have outdone themselves with my hero... I actually had him modelled on Aaron Taylor Johnson but now I'm thinking he looks more like Patrick Dempsey. What do you think? McHottie or McDreamy? I've created a clever little graphic to help you decide...
Then again I'm wondering if it really matters who my guy looks like... Given that come hither smirk is so right, and yet so wrong - for Carmel that is, who has her child and her carefully planned future to consider when Ross crashes back into her life, while crashing his sister's wedding, to cause all sorts of delicious problems!
Just wanted to introduce you all to my latest addiction... Making Canva Teaser Trailers! LOL..
And more importantly my new duet with the fabulous Abby Green author!
Hot Summer Nights with a Billionaire is about 2 BFFs, 2 Seriously Gorgeous Billionaires and lots of Hot Summer Nights in San Francisco, London, a private island off the coast of Oregon and a lavish country estate in the British Countryside...
It's also my first duet with Mills and Boon Queen Abby Green – but hopefully it won't be our last – because Abby also happens to be my very best writing mate...
Even though Abby is from Dublin and I'm from London we actually met for the first time in San Francisco (glamorous or what?), when I got nominated for a RITA award (aka: a very prestigious romance writing award given by the Romance Writers of America) for my second book The Mile High Club back in 2008 and I decided to head off to the RWA conference alone. I have to admit when I got to SF I was a bit lost, the conference was actually HUGE and as I couldn't afford to stay at the big conference hotel I was in a tiny pod hotel across the street... And I knew NO ONE! Until Abby made it her mission to befriend me and introduce me around to all the other Harlequin/Mills and Boon authors there. It wasn't long before we were spending far too much time in the bar together, bonding over writing gossip and margaritas (and basically going to virtually no workshops!). I had an absolute ball – even though I didn't win the RITA (did I mentioned I finalled already?!) I won something much better, an amazing friend to help we through the slings and arrows of my writing life. Whenever I have a panic attack about my latest book, Abby's there at the end of the phone to listen to my moaning and brainstorm my plot, characters, etc until I can unstick myself. And I'm happy to do the same for her when she's freaking out about her word count. We've been on writing retreats together in Ireland and Wales and a road trip to Austin Texas (where she somehow managed to direct us into a military airbase! Fabulous friend, great writer, but can’t read a map as it turns out)... Not to mention shared a room together at a host of other RWA conferences. So when our editors suggested us writing a duet together we just had to do it... Abby came up with the initial idea, two best mates from very different backgrounds - one the daughter of an Irish housekeeper and the other the daughter of a callous British aristocrat. Our girls had bonded as teenagers and always had each other's backs, even though they have become very different women. My heroine, the Brit, Cassandra James, is now a focussed career woman with a top-flight job as the assistant to taciturn British billionaire Zachary Temple and, Abby's girl, Ashling Doyle, is a free-spirited Irish yoga teacher. Add in bad boy US tech billionaire Luke Broussard who Cassie is gonna have to spy on at a society wedding in Frisco for her boss Temple, and you've got the basic idea for the duet - with our girls swapping their ideal hero for the guy they SO shouldn't be matched with... We had a lot of fun – and some angst (hey, that’s our process!) – writing these books, and I discovered it really helps to have a friend you can be straight with when it comes to writing a shared prologue! Especially when you decide the shared prologue was a really stupid idea and you scrap it... I love Abby to bits, and I love these two books... And I can't wait to see what readers make of this duet. I’d even love to do another duet with her, but FYI, next time I'm coming up with the far too vague premise we then have to spend hours on the phone during a pandemic trying to turn into something resembling an actual plot. #justsayin'
So here are the two teaser trailers I've done for our books! Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them...
Just wanted to let you all know I'm taking part in an epic category romance giveaway with 12 other fabulous authors... If you want to know more about the stories on offer, watch my trailer (yes, my Canva addiction continues) or just enter here to be in with a chance of becoming one of our 40 winners! Yup, 40 winners!!!
