Find Some Sunshine! - Christina Hollis

I hope it’s not too late to wish you a happy, healthy and productive New Year! Going back to work after a break is always difficult, especially after the long midwinter holiday season. Here in the UK, dark cold mornings make it feel so much worse. It will be a week or two yet before the days get noticeably longer, although the birds are already looking forward to St Valentine’s day. Tradition says that’s when they choose their mates, but an optimistic dunnock is already staking his claim to a bramble patch in our garden. He tunes up each morning, which starts off the local robin, too. This has already been a hard winter - we were snowed in for the best part of three weeks, and the weathermen say there is more cold weather to come. That’s why I was so glad that January sees the US release of my latest Harlequin Presents Extra, The Master of Bella Terra. I love Italy, and this book brings back a lot of happy memories. The setting is loosely based in an old villa where I spent a wonderful holiday. The perfume of citrus flowers was intoxicating, the sky was absolutely cloudless and it was the clear, intense blue of plumbago flowers. All the experts say ‘write about what you know’ and the olive groves and sweet chestnut woods of that ancient estate were just made for romance.

Kira, the heroine of The Master of Bella Terra, loves the magical Italian valley she has made her home. Then billionaire Stefano buys the beautiful villa which overlooks her little cottage and they’re set on a collision course...

“The landscape was poised, waiting for something to happen. Then Kira felt a vibration.Faint at first, it rose from the ground at her feet like an earthquake. She started forward as a roe deer bounced through the trees behind her.With one bound it crossed the track and was gone. Still the shuddering increased, rising up through Kira’s ribcage until she looked around for somewhere to run. Instinctively, she headed out into the summer-rich pasture.The trees surrounding it had been still in the oppressive heat. Now they swayed and bucked like a wild green sea. It wasn’t an earthquake, but something even more alarming. A helicopter was sweeping in from above, and tearing Kira’s valley apart.”

Copyright, Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd. 2011

Stefano has come to inspect a grand estate that is for sale. He likes what he sees - including Kira - but she isn’t going to make life easy for him. Stefano is threatening her whole way of life, but she isn’t the only one who is going to have to make some changes!

I loved writing The Master of Bella Terra, and hope you’ll enjoy its sun drenched countryside and torrid romance. What’s your idea of the perfect romantic location?

Christina Hollis write Modern Romance for Harlequin Mills and Boon, which appear as Harlequin Presents Extra in the US.You can catch up with her at  http://www.christinahollis.com, on Twitter, http://www.twitter.com/@christinabooks and on http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com