QUEEN OF THE DESERT by Marie Laval

I am so happy to announce that my historical romance QUEEN OF THE DESERT will be released by Choc Lit UK on 15th February and I just can't stop admiring my cover. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here is a taste of the story...

Sometimes the most precious treasures exist in the most barren and inhospitable of places …
Harriet Montague is definitely too much of a gentlewoman to be frequenting the backstreet taverns of Algiers. But her father has been kidnapped whilst on an expedition to the tomb of an ancient desert queen, and she’s on a mission to find the only person who could save him.
It’s just unfortunate that Lucas Saintclair, the man Harriet hopes will rescue her father from scoundrels, is the biggest scoundrel of the lot. With a bribe in the form of a legendary pirate treasure map, securing his services is the easiest part – now Harriet must endure a treacherous journey through the desert accompanied by Saintclair’s band of ruffians.
But on the long, hot Saharan nights, is it any wonder that her heart begins to thaw towards her guide – especially when she realises Lucas’s roguish façade conceals something she could never have expected?

QUEEN OF THE DESERT is available as ebook from Amazon and Kobo

 

Writing Romantic Suspense by Evonne Wareham

 I am delighted to welcome Evonne Wareham to the blog today to talk about her latest novel, A VILLA IN PORTOFINO, which was recently released by Choc Lit UK, and why she loves writing romantic suspense. I must say that I have to agree with her about the appeal of the genre. I love reading and writing romantic suspense novels and I cannot wait to read A VILLA IN PORTOFINO. And look at that gorgeous cover!

Many thanks to Marie for inviting me on to her blog today as part of the blog tour for the third in my romantic suspense series set on the Riviera – A Villa in Portofino.

It took me a long time and a lot of experimenting before I discovered that romantic suspense was the genre I wanted to write. It ‘s a genre that can get complicated though, as Marie will probably agree, because as well as a full scale love story, with proper emotional development, you also have to have a satisfying crime narrative. And the two have to dovetail together. It’s romance, but romance with an edge. And quite possibly a few dead bodies. It’s the genre where I feel most at home, although I’m never quite sure what admitting to like writing mayhem and murder says about me. I like to think I’m redeemed from my criminal tendencies by insisting on a happy ending for my love story.

I always say that when I write I plot the crime element and let the love story take care of itself, which is sort of true. The characters do kind of take over when you let them loose. We all know where this thing is going, so let’s just get on with it. The love story has to stand up on its own though, not just be an add-on, so all the stages of attraction and discovery have to be there and the course of true love rarely runs smooth. What would be the fun in that?

The crime element ramps up the tension and the genre can cover a wide spectrum – spies and law enforcement, serial killers and witness protection, historical settings, protagonists with paranormal talent, even plots that border on horror – anything that comes under the heading of crime writing and which can sustain a love story as part of the action.

My current Riviera series is at the lighter end of the spectrum, sunshine, food, art, glamour. The first book, Summer in San Remo, has only a smidgeon of crime, but the subsequent two are a bit darker - and things definitely go up a few notches in the scary action stakes in both in the last couple of chapters. 

When I was writing A Villa in Portofino I wanted to explore the mysteries and secrets within a family, not all of them intentional. My heroine, Megan, inherits the villa from a great-great aunt of whom she knows next to nothing. Deciding that she will make the villa her home she begins to unravel the secrets of her aunt’s life, but what she doesn’t know is that someone else is watching her, with their own agenda.  On the surface everything is fine, but disturbing events from the past begin to break thorough – are they sinister or not? The reader sees what my villainess is doing to manipulate the situation without Megan being aware of it, to the point where the plots cross and Megan’s growing attraction to hero Gideon is in jeopardy. I was looking for a sense of mounting threat and menace, where the reader knows more than my protagonists.  I hope it has worked. I’ll have to wait for readers to tell me.

Bio

Evonne is an award winning Welsh author of romantic suspense - more crime and dead bodies than your average romance. She likes to set her book in her native Wales, or for a touch of glamorous escapism, in favourite holiday destinations in Europe. She is a Doctor of Philosophy and an historian, and a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association.

Why not find out more about Evonne? Twitter and Facebook

Website  www.evonnewareham.com

Blog  www.evonneonwednesday.blogspot.com

A Villa in Portofino

Third in the ‘Riviera’ Series of romantic suspense: love and mayhem in the sunshine of the French and Italian Riviera

From chambermaid to “got it made” …
When hotel cleaning temp and poetry academic Megan Morrison finds out she’s inherited an Italian villa and small fortune from her estranged great-great aunt Olwen, she doesn’t quite know how to react. That is, until she travels to Portofino to see Il Giardino delle Rose for herself. Then she knows exactly what she has to do: live there!
Enchanted by the beauty of the house and gardens, fascinated by the history, and more than a little intrigued by handsome hired landscape gardener Gideon West, Megan can immediately see the villa’s potential as a dream home.
But having long-lost relatives sometimes means long-lost secrets – and it seems that Olwen had plenty of those. Could these secrets and a jealous obsession be powerful enough to drive Megan out of the house that she’s already fallen in love with?

Available as an e-book from

Amazon Kindle, Apple, Barnes and Noble /  Nook, Kobo,  Google playbooks

Goodreads Reviews

Her Nanny's Secret by Jan Baynham

I am delighted to welcome author Jan Baynham today to talk about her latest release. I was particularly interested in this story since it is partly set in France - in beautiful Normandy, to be more precise... Over to you, Jan.

Thank you for having me on your blog, Marie, to talk about my third novel, Her Nanny’s Secret, published this week by Ruby Fiction.  As with all my novels, it is set in both beautiful rural mid-Wales where I grew up and in a foreign location. In this case, the contrasting setting is Normandy in Northern France, first in 1943 when the area was occupied by the Nazis and then two decades later when my main character travels abroad for the first time.

           Although the town of Ville de Roi and the surrounding villages of Collinac and Sainte Marie-Hélène are fictional, I’ve based them on the area around southern Normandy I know well.France was always our holiday destination of choice when our children were small. Over the years, we have visited and hosted many children and adults from our twin French town, too, and as I was writing, it brought back many happy memories.

          The story opens in 1943; we meet Odile who lives with her parents helping them on the family farm to eke out a living during the German occupation. She leads a double life as an active member of the French Résistance, taking risks and showing bravery in the movement for which her elder brother has already lost his life. The farmhouse where they live used to be an old mill, hence its name Le Vieux Moulin.

In 1963, Annie travels to the same area and eventually the same old mill and I tried to imagine what it was like to visit France for the first time. Here are a few experiences that were new for Annie. She was amazed by the abundance of flowers in every town and the fact that even the smallest village that seemed to have a square and a town hall.

Pretty window boxes adorned the upstairs windows and scarlet summer geraniums and tumbling blue lobelia gave a blaze of colour. They hadn’t walked far when they reached a large, paved area in front of an ornate building. Red brick formed a pattern around the gable and rendered façade, and the word MAIRIE was spelled out using the same brick.

In the square of Ville de Roi, she was fascinated to watch groups of people playing a game she hadn’t seen before, the popular French pastime of pétanque, and observed how animated they became as the game progressed.

          The one thing Annie loved most was sitting outside the numerous cafes and bistros with the sun on her face and sampling foods that were new to her, amazed at the range of breads, pastries and gateaux on offer.

Studying the menu. Annie had never seen such a choice and couldn’t decide from the images between a savoury galette filled with ham and cheese, topped with a fried egg, or, to satisfy her sweet tooth, a crêpe, oozing with cooked local apples and whipped cream. Pancakes were only ever eaten on Shrove Tuesday at home and then always with sugar and lemon juice.

Perhaps her favourite outing was to the famous St Mont Michel lying out in the bay opposite Ville de Roi and linked to the mainland by a causeway. She enjoyed walking through the narrow streets and winding her way up to the Gothic abbey perched on top.

The view from the very top was spectacular and worth the effort. They wandered around the arched cloisters that edged formal gardens and then found a bench for Annie to read the guidebook she’d bought about the abbey.

Annie would never forget her first visit to France, the landscape she travelled through, the pretty villages, the language she heard spoken and the warmth of the people she met. When she arrived, she could never have dreamt that the secret she’d held for over twenty years would be resolved in the way it did. But I can’t give away any spoilers, can I?

Thank you so much for this, Jan. Your new story sounds wonderful. I have always wanted to visit beautiful Mont Saint Michel and I hope I can one day...

*****

Buying Links for Her Nanny’s Secret:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Her-Nannys-Secret-compelling-self-discovery-ebook/dp/B09BNP3S1P/

 https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/search?query=Her+Nanny%27s+Secret+Jan+baynham

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/her-nannys-secret-jan-baynham/1139955323?ean=2940162201946

Author Links:

Twitter: @JanBaynhamhttps://twitter.com/JanBaynham

Facebook: Jan Baynham Writer https://www.facebook.com/JanBayLit

Blog: Jan’s Journey into Writing https://janbaynham.blogspot.com

How a story is born... Inspiration for HAPPY DREAMS A MERMAID COVE

Happy Dreams at Mermaid Cove is the third of my novels set in the Scottish Highlands... and it definitely won’t be the last. I have always felt a very special attraction for Scotland and its wild, romantic and magnificent landscapes. 

Coral Beach on Skye Curtesy of Pixabay

I have only been there twice but my dream would be to travel all around the Highlands, then stay in a cottage near the sea for a few weeks, perhaps even on the Isle of Skye where my story is set - although not in the Arrandale Peninsula, since I made it up!  

Isle of Skye Curtesy of Pixabay

Getting the setting just right was essential for my story and I spent a long time reading about different Hebridean islands, including Muck and Rum. One of my favourite books was the fascinating A Drop in the Ocean by Polly Pullar and Lawrence MacEwen – the laird of Muck - about his family, his work and his life on Muck. In the end I had to choose an island big enough and with enough people living there to have a mobile library service and I decided on Skye. However, having never visited the area I didn’t want to get anything wrong, so I invented Arrandale and its Gaelic name of Fearann nan Aislingean Sona- the Land of Happy Dreams.

My inspiration for Happy Dreams at Mermaid Cove was the photo of a yellow mobile library on a deserted Scottish road that author friend Melinda Hammond posted on Facebook at the beginning of 2020. It captured my imagination so much that I started writing a story about it straight away. 

Highlands Mobile Library Curtesy of a friend!

I knew a little about mobile libraries because a very long time ago, I actually worked in one in the Wigan area for a few weeks, and what fun it was. Of course Wigan and its surroundings are very flat, unlike Arrandale, and there were no Highland cows crossing the road or fierce storms battering the countryside... and no mermaids.

Blurb

From the big city to a little yellow mobile library on the Isle of Skye ... When Jenna Palmer agrees to the new position of mobile librarian on the tiny Arrandale peninsular of the Isle of Skye, she knows she’s signing up for difficult working conditions and mediocre wages. But Jenna needs to get away, and a little yellow mobile library called Buttercup could be her escape to happier dreams ...
However, whilst Jenna can get to grips with foggy island roads, local mermaid legends and even big purple monsters, she never expected to have to contend with a boss as grumpy as Daniel McGregor, or a young book lover as enthusiastic as his niece, Katrina.
Arrandale might represent Jenna’s safe port in a storm, but could she and Buttercup also become a beacon of hope to Daniel, Katrina and the entire island community?

HAPPY DREAMS AT MERMAID COVE is available as an ebook, audiobook and paperback on Amazon and as an ebook from Kobo.

Cover Reveal for HAPPY DREAMS AT MERMAID COVE

I am delighted to show my cover for my new contemporary romance which will be released on June 22^nd by Choc Lit UK. It is so happy and cheerful it never fails to lift my spirits when I look at the little yellow mobile library and the gorgeous cottage and landscape behind it.

Here is the blurb:

From the big city to a little yellow mobile library on the Isle of Skye ...
When Jenna Palmer agrees to the new position of mobile librarian on the tiny Arrandale peninsular of the Isle of Skye, she knows she’s signing up for difficult working conditions and mediocre wages. But Jenna needs to get away, and a little yellow mobile library called Buttercup could be her escape to happier dreams ...

However, whilst Jenna can get to grips with foggy island roads, local mermaid legends and even big purple monsters, she never expected to have to contend with a boss as grumpy as Daniel McGregor, or a young book lover as enthusiastic as his niece, Katrina.

Arrandale might represent Jenna’s safe port in a storm, but could she and Buttercup also become a beacon of hope to Daniel, Katrina and the entire island community?

My inspiration for writing Happy Dreams at Mermaid’s Cove was the photo of a yellow mobile library on a deserted Scottish road that author friend Melinda Hammond posted on Facebook at the beginning of last year. It captured my imagination so much that I had to start writing a story about it straight away. Of course, being a very slow writer it took me over a year to complete.

I knew a little about mobile libraries already because a long time ago I actually worked in one in the Wigan area for a few weeks, and what fun it was! During that time, I met the man who was to be my love, my companion and my happy dream for the following thirty one years, and who was taken so abruptly from us several weeks ago... Robert was a librarian before he retired, and funnily enough our eldest son is almost coming to the end of his apprenticeship to be a librarian, and our daughter is a librarian at school too. It must run in the family.

I hope you will enjoy travelling in Buttercup with Jenna, and spending some time with her friends and the gorgeous Daniel McGregor in Arrandale, the land of happy dreams.

By the way, don’t try to find Arrandale on a map of the Isle of Skye because I made it up!  

HAPPY DREAMS AT MERMAID COVE is available for pre-order here.

ESCAPE TO THE LITTLE CHATEAU Finalist in the RNA Awards!

I am delighted to announce that my romantic suspense novel ESCAPE TO THE LITTLE CHATEAU, which was published last October by Choc Lit, is a finalist in the prestigious RNA Awards in the Jackie Collins Romantic Thriller category. 

It is a great honour and I am absolutely over the moon that the story has made it to the final five. The awards ceremony will be virtual this year and takes place on 8th March, and actor and radio presenter Larry Lamb will host the awards.

Blurb:

Will Amy’s dreams of a Provençal escape come true?
There are many reasons Amy Carter is determined to make Bellefontaine, her farmhouse hotel in the French countryside, a success. Of course, there’s the time and money she’s put in to making it beautiful, but she also has something to prove – particularly to people like Fabien Coste.
Fabien is the owner of the nearby château, and he might just be the most arrogant, patronising man Amy has ever met ... unfortunately, he’s also the most handsome.
But as rumours circulate in the local community and secrets about the old farmhouse begin to reveal themselves, Amy quickly sees the less idyllic side of life at Bellefontaine. Could Fabien be the man to help prevent her Provençal dream from turning into a nightmare?

Escape to the Little Chateau is available from Amazon and kobo

Release date for ANGEL OF THE LOST TREASURE

Only two weeks before my latest novel, ANGEL OF THE LOST TREASURE, is released by Choc Lit. 

ANGEL OF THE LOST TREASURE is a historical novel, and a new and completely revised edition of a novel previously published about six years ago. I loved writing that story, not only because I completely fell in love with the hero Hugo Saintclair, but because it is set in and around Lyon, the beautiful city where I grew up.

The novel is full of mystery and action, secret societies and political intrigue, and of course romance! 

Researching and writing the story was pure pleasure from beginning to end.

Here is the blurb for the novel:

When young widow, Marie-Ange Norton is invited to Beauregard in France by the mysterious Monsieur Malleval to collect an inheritance, she has no choice but to accept.
But when she embarks on the voyage with her fiery-tempered travelling companion Capitaine Hugo Saintclair, little does she know what waits for her across the sea in turbulent nineteenth-century France on the eve of Napoleon’s return from exile. When she arrives, she is taken aback by Malleval’s fascination with her family – seemingly inspired by his belief they are connected to a sacred relic he’s read about in coded manuscripts by the Knights Templar.
As it becomes clear that Malleval’s obsession has driven him to madness, Marie-Ange is horrified to realise she is more the man’s prisoner than his guest. Not only that, but Hugo is the only person who might be able to help her, and he could represent a different kind of danger ...

ANGEL OF THE LOST TREASURE will be released on 23^rd February and is available for pre-order https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angel-Lost-Treasure-Marie-Laval-ebook/dp/B08TX52MWK/ref and Kobo https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/angel-of-the-lost-treasure