Reflection and Resilience

I have a new book out this month, but I'll bury that news because today, as I write this, Notre Dame Cathedral is burning.

It's six or eight or nine hundred years old. (Every time I read a headline, it gets older.) I visited it some thirty-five years ago. The fact that I have this photo of this landmark in my weathered old photograph album, with snapshots taken on a film camera, has forced me to take a moment to consider how the loss of such an ancient building in our modern world makes me feel.

I'm not particularly religious, but I feel the magnitude of this event. I feel connected to the millions of people who have glimpsed this touchstone through the centuries. Perhaps you have sat inside its walls for prayer or reflection yourself?

Remember when we had time for such things? When we didn't fill our heads with the next item in the news feed? When we had to wait for our film to be developed to show people what we had seen and done? When we returned from vacation and waited weeks before we turned in our rolls of film to the one-hour developer?

The world has become such a busy, fractured place, yet I found myself talking about this with a lot of different people today. For the first time in a long time the world seems to have all glanced the same direction, paused in a moment of unnatural quiet, and agreed that this is a terrible shame.

It is upsetting, but according to this article on CBC website:

It was ransacked by rioting Protestant Huguenots in the 16th century, pillaged again during the French Revolution of the 1790s, and left in a state of semi-neglect. Hugo's 1831 work led to revived interest in the cathedral and a major "partly botched" restoration that began in 1844.

and,

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to rebuild fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral and says he is seeking international help to restore the Paris landmark.

That's heartening, isn't it? Despite the fact the entire world seems to be burning down on a daily basis (according to my social media feeds) this devastated cathedral continues to symbolize a tremendous resilience. I have no doubt that it will be restored and that the restoration will bring people together in its own way. Believing that brings me a lot of comfort.

How are you feeling about this loss?

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. Her latest Harlequin Presents, Innocent's Nine-Month Scandal, is on shelves now.

Watch for a related story, Innocent's Pregnancy Revelation, to appear as a free, serialized short story on Harlequin.com starting April 22, 2019.

Housekeeping and Other Dirty Words - Dani Collins

I'm on deadline as I write this. Sort of.

I'm taking some time off this month and want to send my WIP to my editor before I go. I reached The End last night after a marathon writing sprint. It needs polishing before it's fit for submission, but it felt good to finish. The downside is that my house is a pig sty, mostly because I'm trying to get a book in early. Also because the unending wildfire smoke has left a fine layer of soot on every surface, especially since it cooled off enough to open some windows.

Naturally, with all of that hanging over me, I spent the day on making travel arrangements for December, catching up on emails, pre-writing blog posts and going for a walk in the sun...

It's been a day of mental housekeeping and, for me, it's as necessary as the real kind. When I'm pushing for those final eight or ten thousand words, it's very common for me to go on complete strike where being human is concerned. Cooking? Forget it. Shower? Meh.

Last night, as I was pounding out a terrible epilogue just so I could go to bed after writing those final, magical two words, my husband came into my office. He was on the phone to his mother. And he kept coming back. I near about lost it. "No. YOU text our daughter and get her postal code for your mother. What makes you think you can come in here? Read the room."

I have arrived back at the station of 'rational' now, but my post-sprint brain demands I catch a breath and look after everything I ignored while I was making that final push. Bills. Crumpled notes that read, "I never fit. Knew why she left. Broken."(Your guess is as good as mine.)

Tomorrow I'll do my edits and get the manuscript off before I leave.

And this blog post will come out while I'm away, hopefully enjoying some nice pub food with my sister and her husband or maybe taking a selfie with a Viking statue in Gimli, Manitoba. Yes, these are the glamorous rewards for the hard labor of finishing a book--early, no less.

The truth is, I have no use for housekeeping until I need it to distract me from other things. Like writing. So I will go attend to some actual, physical housekeeping, but before I go, I'll take care of one more task here...

Watch for 
His Mistress With Two Secrets 
to go to 99c Sep 18-23.

His Mistress With Two Secrets is Book Two in my Sauveterre Siblings quartet about two sets of identical twins. This one has, you guessed it, another set of twins on the way!

Pregnant with the billionaire’s babies! 

After the painfully public demise of her intense fling with renowned tycoon Henri Sauveterre, Cinnia Whitley discovers she’s pregnant…with twins!

Cinnia burns with the memory of his touch, but bearing a new generation of the Sauveterre dynasty will bind her to Henri forever—unless she keeps it a secret…

Henri is infuriated when he discovers Cinnia’s deception. His little sister’s abduction ended all his intentions of having a family—but any Sauveterre deserves his full protection. Henri must make Cinnia his wife, and he’ll show her just how pleasurable their reunion can be! Buy Links are here.

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 nearly fifty titles includes self-published erotic romance, romantic comedy, and even an epic medieval fantasy.

When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing. She lives in Christina Lake, BC with her high school sweetheart husband who occasionally enters her attic office uninvited.

Xenakis's Convenient Bride by Dani Collins

The Secret Billionaires - Book Two

On the 16th of May, June, and July, look for interviews with the authors of each book in this fun trilogy about tycoons who go undercover to win a bet and lose their hearts along the way...

How does your hero go under cover?

Stavros Xenakis is sent back to the Greek island of his youth. He arrives to a pair of swim trunks and the realization that he is about to become a pool boy.

What does he think when he finds out exactly what the bet entails? (Share a couple of lines if you like)

Stavros is a good sport about the new job, but he has to face guilt over his father's death when he arrives at his childhood home. He soon sees Calli, the gorgeous housekeeper, but presumes she's the new owner's mistress. 

As he’d followed the map, he had recognized the dip and roll of the road through the hills, eighteen years of changes notwithstanding. His heart had grown heavier with each mile, his lungs tighter.

Then, when he discovers Calli asleep on a floatie in the pool...

Sex with that woman right there would certainly take the sting out of today’s situation. The next fourteen days, in fact.

  

Who is your heroine? What does she think of Stavros when she first meets him?

When Calli meets Stavros, she instinctively knows he's more than what he appears. She had her heart broken by a tourist in the past, though, which makes her wary of the effect he has on her. She tries to take him down a peg. It doesn't go well. (Hint: punishingly tender kiss)

What situations or challenges does Stavros face that risk exposing him?

When Stavros cuts his leg, she has to take him to the clinic, where his name almost gives him away. Then her employer shows up and he can tell something is off with Stavros, but Calli is crushing hard by then and defends him.

What does Calli think when she realizes who he really is?

She's stunned that he has returned when he seemingly rejected her at the end of his 'job.' Now he's proposing? Stavros's grandfather wants him to marry. He knows Calli wants to go to New York and offers to take her there if she'll marry him long enough for him to take control of the family business. He doesn't know she wants to look for the son who was stolen by the baby's father when he was only a few weeks old. Calli sees no need to reveal that, but it's an offer she can't refuse. So even though she doesn't quite trust him, she goes along with the deal.  

Share a few lines of her reaction?

“Calli will be coming to New York with me. As my wife.” 

“What?!” Calli didn’t realize she’d been holding a champagne flute until it hit the tiles and smashed, leaving a wet stain spreading on the fancy new tiles Stavros had laid and now possessed. She swore under her breath and shot an abashed look around

Xenakis's Convenient Bride is on shelves now or you can buy it at your favourite online retailer. 

Amazon: UK | US | iBooks | Kobo | Nook 

USA Today Bestselling author Dani Collins has penned over thirty titles for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. 

She lives in an empty nest in rural BC, Canada with her high school sweetheart. 

Join Dani's newsletter group and you'll receive a link to download Cruel Summer as a welcome gift.

Join Now

Happy Easter!

Have you been waiting for signs of spring? I have! Ours has been very slow to show up, I must say. But I also must say, despite the unpredictable weather, I love spring. Feeling the sun warm on my face. Seeing the blossoms and greening up of trees and lawn. And chocolate, I'll be honest. I love an excuse to eat chocolate.

Of course, mixing green with chocolate? I bought this bar for my husband the other day. I'm a dark chocolate girl whereas he likes white chocolate. This one was a Green Tea white chocolate which sounded like it might be interesting.

That's probably the kindest thing we can call it. "Interesting." It had a real vegetable underbelly to it. Yeah. No. I'm trying to stay away from the treats anyway, so this was easy to resist.

You can have treats, though. I've lined up a couple for you in this post, but you'll have to go hunting for them.

In keeping with Spring's abundance, I have four Harlequin titles coming out kind of back-to-back (March, two in April, and June.)

The first two are the first two books in my Sauveterre Siblings quartet. I talked about my March book last month. Book Two, His Mistress With Two Secrets, released April 1st.

His Mistress With Two Secrets

The eldest twin, Henri, discovers his former mistress, Cinnia, is pregnant with his offspring--the latest pair of Sauveterrre Twins.

Henri never intended to marry or procreate; his little sister was kidnapped when they were young and he refuses to be vulnerable to such a thing by having a wife and children.

Best laid plans, chere Henri! He insists Cinnia marry him and move into the protected world the Sauveterres have created for themselves.

Cinnia, however, is hurt that he didn't want her before she was pregnant, so refuses to marry him. Fireworks ensue!

Easter Egg #1 

Here's your first Easter treat. Take a peek at all four books in the Sauveterre quartet by downloading the sneak peek.

Download the Sauveterre Sneak Peek here 

InstaFreebie will ask you to sign up for my newsletter, but you can unsubscribe anytime.

When you get your confirmation email, you'll also get a link to download Cruel Summer, another freebie, this one a complete short story romance that I wrote exclusively for my newsletter members.

The Secret Billionaires

Last year, when I was in the throes of writing my Sauveterres, I was offered a delightful opportunity. Did I want to participate in a trilogy with the wonderful Rachael Thomas and Jennifer Hayward?

Of course I said, Yes please! And by the way, the premise of our trilogy is So. Fun.

The Secret Billionaires are bored tycoons who are challenged by their friend, Sebastien, to go two weeks without their fortunes and their family names.

They go undercover into 'regular' jobs. Rachael's hero masquerades as a mechanic, Jen's hero is a sexy stableboy, and my hero is... wait for it... a pool boy!

We had a riot with these books. You'll see a post about these three books on the 16th of May, June and July, right here on Tote Bags 'n' Blogs.

But here's another treat for you that's linked to them. After we'd put our heroes to bed with their respective heroines (*wink*) I said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we saw Sebastien's romance?" He was the ring leader for this bet, after all.

Easter Egg #2

I wrote a prequel called  which should show up as a free online read at Harlequin.com on April 17th. (That's tomorrow, if you're reading this today.)

Read The Secret Billionaire's Mistress -April 17

Have a wonderful Easter filled with family, treats, and the wonderful promise that comes with this time of year.

Dani Collins is the USA Today Bestselling author of more than thirty books for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. 

Dani lives in Canada with her high school sweetheart. They're empty nesters so, when she's not writing, they're traveling. 

Feeling Lucky?

St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, which I know very little about aside from you're supposed to wear green and if you find a four-leaf clover, you're lucky.

Frankly, after what has felt like a very long winter, I would feel insanely lucky if I saw any clover of any variety. Our lawn is still white, white, white.

But even in the height of summer when I was a kid with nothing but time on my hands, I never found a four-leaf clover.

My grandmother often did. She was an avid gardener and would leave them to dry in a dish on her kitchen table. It always seemed so magical to me that she could just be weeding away and--oh, there's one! Lucky.

My husband has found them. He would say it's because he's one-quarter Irish, but I know it's because he has infinite patience. (That's also why we're still married.)

Our daughter seems to have inherited the ability from both sides. She finds them quite easily. It's very annoying for someone like me, who is, apparently, four-leaf-clover blind.

Have you ever found one? Comment below with your story. I'll check back in on March 24th and draw one lucky winner. The prize is a print copy of my March book, Pursued By The Desert Prince.

Draped in the Desert Prince’s diamonds…

To ensure his sister’s successful marriage, Kasim, Crown Prince of Zhamair, must stop Angelique Sauveterre’s alleged affair with his future brother-in-law. But when Angelique denies any involvement, Kasim can’t resist the chance to make the feisty beauty his!

Angelique is tempted by Kasim’s offer of a fling—always compared to her twin sister, she’s never allowed to just be herself. They couldn’t be from two more different worlds, yet Angelique blossoms under Kasim’s touch, and surrenders to the desert Prince. But can he give her more than passion and precious jewels?

Dani Collins is the USA Today Bestselling Author of thirty books for Harlequin Presents, Montana Born and herself. 

Join Dani's newsletter and receive a link to download Cruel Summer, a short ebook romance, as a welcome gift. 

Dani Collins: All About Siblings

I swear it's no reflection on my parents, but my sisters and I ran pretty far afield the moment we were old enough. I left to live in a ski resort for a year, then my middle sister married and emigrated to New Zealand for several years.

She and her husband came back to Canada and she's now remarried, living in Winnipeg. My youngest  left for Vancouver Island until she married an Aussie and now she lives in Brisbane.

Despite all that, we're very close. Here we are together with my kids last summer. I'm on the far left. Do you see any family resemblance at all? It looks like we can barely stand each other, doesn't it?

My kids also fled the nest soon as they could. It's called 'school,' but it feels like payback. My daughter, however, will cop to being homesick. Thus, when her brother was leaving for school, she and her boyfriend made a point of moving to be closer to where my son is taking his classes. I have to admit, it's really nice to call one of them and discover they're hanging out.

This closeness between siblings is something I love to reflect in my writing. I don't know if I could write about siblings who loathed each other. The closest I've ever come is in my February release, Only In His Sweetest Dreams.

It's Book Two in a duet about siblings who grew up on the wrong side of town and find love in the most unlikely places.

In Only In His Sweetest Dreams, Mercedes doesn't hate her sister, Porsha, but she is awfully frustrated with her. She even has to take steps against her, after Porsha abandons her children in favour of partying.

Mercedes can't get pregnant, so it's a doubly big decision to take custody of her sister's children. She doesn't even know how to be a mom, and taking them jeopardizes her job at a senior's complex.

Fortunately (I say that ironically) she has L.C. He's the new handyman. He took this job to fix the damage done by his son, who pulled a B&E on the place. Yes, stellar parenting on his part, but he and Mercedes are drawn to one another despite that. Too bad L.C. has a painful secret that she may not be able to forgive.

In keeping with my theme of siblings, I have just completed a quartet for Harlequin Presents called The Sauveterre Siblings. They're two sets of identical twins. The youngest, Trella, was kidnapped when she was nine.

All four siblings are extremely close, with unique relationships and personalities. In Book One, Pursued By The Desert Prince, (March 1st) Angelique is torn between protecting her sister and her feelings for Kasim while Kasim has sibling troubles of his own!

You can read more about Pursued By The Desert Prince on my website here, or it's available on Mills & Boon now.

Do you have brothers and sisters? Are you close? Geographically? Emotionally? Why do you think some siblings don't get along?

Dani Collins is a USA Today Bestselling author writing for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. 

Would you like a free sample of Dani's writing? Join her newsletter! You'll auto-magically get a link to download Cruel Summer, a short story romance she wrote exclusively for her subscribers. 

Join Dani's Newsletter

Dani Collins: New Year, New Books!

I'm delighted start the year with a new book! Not In Her Wildest Dreams, released yesterday, Jan 15th!

I'm equally delighted to tell you that the wonderful Lee of Author Sound Relations, who runs this blog, was my cover artist. Didn't she knock it out of the park?

These books are very much a project of passion for me. I wrote them before I sold, back when I was struggling and facing repeated rejections and growing quite sure no one would ever read my books.

When you take twenty-five years to sell, you get pretty disheartened. But after much soul searching and fist shaking and crying in the shower, I accepted that I am a romance writer, whether my books find eyes beyond my own or not. I kept submitting because I hoped to sell, but I wrote because I had to.

I actually had an agent when I wrote these books, but they weren't picked up and we parted ways. I set the stories aside when I placed in Harlequin Presents Instant Seduction contest. By that time, I had realized that one of the reasons I hadn't sold was that I kept writing something different every time I sat down. Glamor? Check. Small town? Got it. Erotic Romance. Shh. Medieval Fantasy? Why not? I didn't know where I wanted to be.

Actually, I had always, always wanted to be with Harlequin Presents, so I focused on that and six or eight manuscripts later, this happened-->
(It should be noted that Harlequin Presents are published as Mills & Boon Modern in the UK.) The career I had been waiting for had arrived!

But I had all these manuscripts on the hard drive. Some were out on submission (The Healer) and some I'd started to look at indie publishing (Hustled To The Altar.) I no sooner had those published and I found Montana Born. Those six books filled my time between Presents for the next three years!

Paige and Sterling and L.C. and Mercedes waited quietly in the wings. Well, Paige was miffed, but she's used to being taken for granted so she just rolled her eyes. Sterling is perfection personified so he was like, "I know you're waiting for the right moment. I can wait, too." Mercedes was so busy running after her niece and nephew, she didn't have time to notice, and L.C. couldn't give a f--- about anything. Although, now that he and Mercedes have found their HEA, he's more pussycat than badass. Getting laid has a way of settling him down.

If you're a fan of my Montana Born books, you'll love these. They take place in fictional Liebe Falls. Actually, L.C. leaves after book one and winds up in Arizona, at a senior's complex, of all places, but certain things are calling him back.

They're longer books, full of quirky secondary characters, angst and drama and laughs. They're different from my Presents, but I hope you try them and enjoy the heck of them anyway!

Not In Her Wildest Dreams is available now on all platforms:

Amazon Universal | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | GooglePlay | Smashwords

Only In His Sweetest Dreams releases Feb 1:

Amazon Universal | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | GooglePlay | Smashwords

Dani Collins is the USA Today Bestselling author of thirty romances for Harlequin Mills and Boon, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. She lives in rural BC, Canada with her high school sweetheart. 

Blame The Mistletoe - Free! Merry Christmas

Finding topics for blog posts can be a challenge. You would think words pour from an author's imaginative brain through her fingertips at a moment's notice, but when you do that all day, you wind up with very little Real Life to write about. Fun fact: I'm boring. (Not that fun a fact, even.)

Fortunately, I have a book that is free right now! And it's a Christmas book! Being able to tell you about it is pretty much a gift to both of us.

Blame The Mistletoe is Book Two in my Love in Montana series. It's a sexy, fun story about the awkward family dynamics that can rear their heads over the  holidays, especially when exes and blended families get involved.

Liz is a bit of a scoffer when it comes to celebrating the season, but Blake converts her to a total Christmas lover. If you like yummy year-end food, walks in the snow to get a tree, and tender moments in front of the fire, snap this one up. It's your jam!

Another fun fact: Liz and Blake make an appearance in my new book, His Christmas Miracle.

In His Christmas Miracle, Quincy has just discovered he has a four-year-old son. He never expected to be a dad and is struggling to find his feet as a parent. He hires Nicki to get them through the holidays and she sees right away they need to bond.

Nicki creates an Advent calendar of activities to throw them together, and winds up falling for Quincy and Atlas herself. Here's what one reviewer said about it:

"This one had me in tears, both the sad, the wishful and the happy tears that only a really good story that touches the heart can produce. I absolutely loved this couple and their romance. It’s a story that I know I’ll be re-reading for many Christmas seasons to come." 

Blame The Mistletoe will be free for about another week. Double check the price before you one-click.

Finally, here's a message I recorded for my reader group. It's not fancy, but we had snow that day so I ran outside to say, "Merry Christmas." If nothing else, it's worth posting it so you can chuckle at the expression on my face in this thumbnail. I look like a pirate with the play button over my eye like that.

Would you like to join my newsletter? Use this link and you'll get a free download of Cruel Summer as a welcome gift.

Have a wonderful holiday season!
Dani

All Work, No Play?

We ran away from home on Sunday.

Both my husband and I worked non stop last week. I was trying to catch up in my Fortress Of Literature. That's what my son calls my attic office. My husband worked a bunch of overtime.

Sunday was his only day off and he still has some winterizing to do, wrapping taps and tying trees. It's been a remarkably warm November. Normally we have snow by now, so that outside work really, really needs to be done. He's playing chicken with the weather, he really is.

Me, I'm always on deadline and I have about a million emails I have to answer so I couldn't really afford a day off.

He did have Monday booked off, but that was because he had to drive three hours for a specialist appointment. Small town is wonderful until you really need something, like carpal tunnel surgery. Then you're feeling the distance to civilization.

You also feel it when you want to see a new, big screen movie. Everyone was raving about The Arrival and our little theatre is usually a few weeks behind.

So there we were, drinking coffee Sunday morning, talking about all the things we had to get done, and somehow decided to play hooky from all of it. (We did manage to take out the garbage, since it was garbage day.) Then we left a day early for his appointment, got a hotel, saw the movie (which was wonderful and thought provoking and poignantly beautiful), then saw his doctor and drove home in the sunshine, rejuvenated and not feeling the least bit guilty.

Now I'm back at my desk and my eyes are crossing at my To Do list, but sometimes you have to make hay while the sun shines, right? Also, it's been my goal for a long while to find a better work/life balance. Having fun with loved ones keeps your relationships strong.

Face-time (the real kind) is also how you build a relationship, which is what Nicki does when she helps Quincy connect with his son, Atlas, in His Christmas Miracle. She designs an Advent calendar of activities they all do together. One reviewer on Netgalley said:

"His Christmas Miracle is such a loving, family romance. Sound strange? Not really. This isn’t about a man and a woman falling in love. This story is all about falling in love with a family. Father and son. Man and woman. Woman and child. Family love."

I hope you'll check it out. There's even a link to download your own Advent calendar included in the back of the book.

ON SALE!

Also look for Blame The Mistletoe, Book Two in my Love In Montana series, on sale for a few more days at 99c. (All of my books can be read as stand-alones, but you'll visit with Liz from Blame The Mistletoe in His Christmas Miracle.)

How do you like to spend time with friends and family? Have you had any fun, impulsive getaways lately? Even for an hour?



Bio:

Dani Collins is the USA Today Bestselling author of thirty romances for Harlequin Presents, Montana Born and herself. She lives in Canada with her high school sweetheart. Join Dani's newsletter list and receive Cruel Summer, a short ebook romance, as a welcome gift. Sign up here.