Christina Hollis—Spring Is On Its Way!

Snowdrops

In the UK, we still have to wait another two weeks until our clocks are switched to summertime. Luckily, nature doesn't know that. When the air is still and the sun is shining, my bees come out to investigate the spring flowers. The hens are laying again after their winter break, and the birds are singing before dawn.

It wasn't like that this time last year! We'd suffered an endless wet, dark winter, with major flooding. It was cold, too, and everyone was miserable. I was under pressure from a tight non-fiction deadline, and then...I got the call to submit ten pages of fiction for a workshop run by the Marcher Counties Chapter of the Romantic Novelists' Association.

My Current Release

The minute I hit that deadline, all I wanted to do was take a break, and collapse with plenty of tea and cake, so that's what I did—and used writing as my relaxation.  I turned up the central heating, and let my imagination drift away to the perfect holiday destination, all sun, sea and sand. Then I added a handsome hero with a secret, and a heroine who's tormented by career and personal disasters. The result was the opening pages of His Majesty's Secret Passion. The workshop loved it, and so did The Wild Rose Press. They published His Majesty's Secret Passion earlier this year, and it's being getting five star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. It's for sale in both ebook and paperback here, and to give you a taste of Leo and Sara's story, here's an extract...

The sea was so calm, Sara felt a wonderful sense of release. The Neroli swept across the surface like a swallow. She loved it. “You handle this boat like you were born to it, Leo.”

He seemed to find this funny. Seeing him look so happy made her heart do a little dance in her chest. The tousled man who kicked off his shoes and commanded his vessel barefoot and windblown was a world away from the sleek seducer of the night before...

Sara had a sudden crisis of conscience. She hadn’t texted her PA since the night before. Digging in her bag for her mobile, she switched it on. “Why do I get the funniest feeling I’m being watched?” she said without looking up from the keypad.

“Because you are. And there are two good reasons for that.”

 “You’re going to moan at me for checking mail when I should be taking a break.”

“That was one of the reasons.”

She guessed the other before he put it into words. “Blushing suits you, Sara.”

“It’ll look a whole lot better when my skin’s lost this pasty white colour.”

Leo clicked his tongue. “A woman like you should be sophisticated enough to accept compliments with better grace.”

“Sorry, but I don’t take orders from a guy who looks like a pirate.” She lolled back against the rail. It felt good to let the sun pour over her body. “Stop laughing, Leo.”

“If I’m a pirate, then the sea should be my only mistress. Is that what you want?”

That last-minute workshop project grew into my new Princes Of Kharova series. The next book, Her Royal Risk, is released in early April and is available for pre-order here.

How do you lift the winter gloom? There's a signed copy of His Majesty's Secret Passion for a comment picked at random after 23rd March.

Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women–when she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com. Her current release, His Majesty's Secret Passion, is published by Wild Rose Press, and available from them at http://bit.ly/1C0CxOU or in the UK, from Amazon at http://amzn.to/1DF99Dv.