This week our Intro on Author: Dani Collins. She has a new book out, Maid to Marry.
Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author Dani Collins thrives on giving readers emotional, compelling, heart-soaring romance with some laughter and heat thrown in, just like real life. Mostly she writes contemporary romance for Harlequin Presents and Tule’s Montana Born, but her backlist of ninety books also includes self-published erotic romance, romantic comedy, and even an epic medieval fantasy. When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing. Look for Dani’s latest Presents, Maid to Marry, out now!
Dani Collins on the web:
Join Dani’s VIP list and receive her Starter Library for FREE: https://danicollins.com/vip/
Intro- I'm the author of...
Maid to Marry
My life:
feels a lot less exciting than the characters I write about, but that is not a complaint! I married my high school sweetheart, we had a girl and a boy who are grown now and paired up with spectacular partners. We live in a rural mountain community where I see a lot of wildlife. My husband saw a lynx while he was driving to work a few weeks ago! We travel when we can, but mostly work and putter at life. I’m living the dream of writing romance full-time and genuinely feel like I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.
Influences:
I think anything and everything influences my writing so I actively seek diverse influences, trying to avoid falling back on what I think I know. Often, if I hear about a Canadian writer, I make a point of reading their book even if it’s a genre I don’t usually read. Eg. My Fighting Family is a memoir by Canadian journalist Morgan Campbell. It doesn’t directly influence my writing, but it reminds me that families are complicated and that helps me when I assemble a character’s backstory. Those complexities help make a character seem more real.
How I write:
At a standing desk! Sometimes it’s fast, other times I work all day and cut more than I write. It’s a process and I’ve learned to be forgiving about a slow day. A book takes as long as it takes.
Having said that, I usually create an artificial deadline ahead of the actual deadline, which builds in at least a month of grace so if I am struggling with a book, I’m not turning it in late. ☺
Motivation- Why I write:
I had twenty-five years of rejections before I published. During that time, I learned that I would write even if I never published because I love to write. Nowadays, I’m also motivated by contracts and deadlines. This is my job so I have to show up for it, but I love exploring human relationships, particularly romantic ones. I don’t really have a motivation, it’s just something I like to do.
EXCERPT: Atlas has rushed Stella out of Zermatt and over to a new chalet in Cervinia to escape paparazzi. They were photographed earlier and now his pseudo-engagement has fallen apart because it looks as though Atlas has been having an affair with Stella—which he’s very open to if she wants it!
“What…um…?” She had to clear her throat again. “What gave you the impression I want to have an affair with you?” She tried to look condescending.
“You don’t?” He angled to face her again, swinging his crooked knee outward so he subtly caged her. “Be careful, Stella. I have a very highly developed gauge for lies.”
She tried to hold his unblinking stare, but challenging him put tension in her stomach and a quiver in her chest. Her face went so hot, she was probably as red as one of the tomato halves left on her plate.
“You want the truth?” She picked up her mostly empty plate and walked it around to the sink. “I wish I didn’t hear offers like that as often as I do. I have friends who enjoy the perks of being someone’s holiday fling, but I’m not one of them. If that’s what you’re after, try one of the apps.” She held out her hand to take his plate.
Something was flashing in his gaze that she couldn’t interpret. Not anger, but something very male and aggressive.
He slowly handed across his plate, but hung on to it until she locked eyes with him.
“I also recognize when deflection is being used to avoid an outright lie. Speak clearly, Stella. You don’t have to say yes to an affair, but if it’s a no, a hard no, then say that. I’ll drop it from this discussion and never bring it up again.”
A million ants invaded her chest, scrambling around. She believed him. He was holding her gaze too steadily to be bluffing. He wasn’t touching her, but he was gripping her in a way that demanded she be honest to the point of nakedness.
They were both still holding the plate and it seemed to conduct energy from him into her. The current traveled up her arm and into her lungs. Her throat became too tight to release the tiny word he had demanded. Her lips refused to form it.
Because it would be a lie.
Yearning had haunted her for years. What-ifs. She had buried them under anger and scorn, but they’d always been there in wayward dreams and hidden moments of reliving the most exciting kiss of her life.
That painful truth rose to make her skin feel too small for her body. Heat suffused her. Culpable heat. A distressing desire that only seemed oriented to him. It pulled dampness into her eyes.
“All right, then,” he said quietly, and released the plate.
She set it in the sink with her own, clumsily, so the dishes clattered and jangled discordantly. Then she stood there, shaken.
“It’s going to be okay, Stella.”
“No, it won’t,” she choked. “This is going to ruin my life, isn’t it?”
That was hitting her along with the harder truth that she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t attracted to him. He had all the advantage and it frightened her.
“You can go back to your life,” she accused. “You’re rich and untouchable. If people ask you uncomfortable questions, you can get in a helicopter and go somewhere else. I’m never going to have that luxury. I’m always going to be the woman in the photos, the one who broke up your relationship. That is unfair, Atlas. I shouldn’t be paying for one stupid kiss this many years later!”
She wasn’t just talking about a kiss and a photo, though. She was talking about this other thing. This connection. Was it an obsession? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to examine it for fear of giving it even more life.
“It’s deeply unfair,” he agreed, coming around to her side of the island. “That’s why I brought you with me. I’m going to protect you, Stella.”
“For the low, low cost of an affair?” Her voice hit a strident note.
“No. I want that. Don’t doubt it. But it’s not a condition for my helping you.”
How to avoid scandal?
Marry the Greek!
An illicit kiss with Atlas Voudouris got chalet maid Stella Sutter fired. When she bumps into him five years later, she’s still furious! Except as she accuses him of ruining her life, long-dormant desires come alive…
Atlas is about to announce the convenient wedding that will secure his inheritance. However, once paparazzi photos of his and Stella’s heated encounter go public, Atlas is left short a bride. The only answer? Make Stella his wife! But are his diamond and their dangerous passion enough to bridge the gap between their very different worlds?
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