Dani Collins: His Blushing Bride - Free!

I've been in a small fluster lately. My parents moved in with us back around Mother's Day.

Coincidentally, that was my husband's birthday this year. That's pretty much what every fifty-something man asks for his birthday, isn't it? That is mother-in-law move in with him? Actually, Mom has been doing a lot of the cooking, so he's genuinely quite happy. (I do next to zero, so...)

And it's not a health issue that caused this, so we're all grateful for that.

No, it was flooding. My parents came to us one night as a precaution. My dad was angry with himself that he didn't 'stay and fight it,' but that turned out to be a good thing. Those who stayed were evacuated in the middle of the night, some of them sound asleep and unaware that their bedrooms had an inch of water on the floor until they stood up.

My parents' house was surrounded by water for about twelve days. No injuries, no fatalities in the entire area, so that's another win! But my parents have a few more steps before they're approved to go back in. It's proceeding, slow but sure. As disasters go, this has all been fairly manageable. We keep focusing on the bright side and today I have another one.

I get to offer you a free eBook!

His Blushing Bride is a sweet and sexy romance between a playboy nerd and a virgin school teacher.

Piper and Bastian think they can have a no strings affair and promptly trip into love. I have a lot of favourite scenes in this one, but one of them is when Piper tries to lock Bastian out of the bathroom. I adore when a confirmed bachelor realizes he's an idiot. Don't you?

His Blushing Bride is free on all platforms for a limited time. Here are all the quick links:

Amazon:

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His Blushing Bride is Book Four in my Love In Montana series. If you like to read in order, they go like this:

1) Hometown Hero

2) Blame the Mistletoe

3) The Bachelor's Baby

4) His Blushing Bride

4.5) Scorch*

5) His Christmas Miracle

*Scorch takes place in Glacier Creek, not Marietta, but Piper and Bastian come for a visit. 

Read more about this series here and enjoy!

Dani Collins is a USA Today Bestselling author of forty titles for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. She lives in Canada with her husband and parents. So much for empty-nesting, but she's making the most of it! 

Join her newsletter and you'll receive a link for Cruel Summer, a short ebook she wrote for you, Dear Reader. 

I know, I know! It's too early!

But shhh... Christmas is coming.

I know it's too early to think about that, but I'm excited. The book releases on Oct 27th and I've been waiting so patiently. It's a particular favourite of mine, partly because I was able to go back and visit Marietta, but also because the hero completely stole my heart.

You see, Quincy didn't know he had a son until the boy's mother passed away. Then he got a call from a lawyer that he had custody. He's kind of freaking out. So he hires Nicki and she's cute and funny and I just adore her. In fact, I loved the story so much, I had a book trailer made.

Watch Book Trailer Here

And, since the story revolves around an Advent calendar of activities, I even had a designer create a calendar you can print out and put together with your own little elves.

The one on the right is what I took to the designer and the one on the left is the almost-finalized mock-up. The kit includes the pages you print and colour, some recipes and some ideas for other activities and crafts. You'll find the link in the back of the book. 

So you see, Christmas is coming. And it's going to be a good one. Want to be sure you get this craft? Pre-order the book or join Dani's newsletter. (You'll also get a free download of my short ebook romance, Cruel Summer as a welcome gift.)

His Christmas Miracle, Montana Born Books, Oct 27, 2016

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And if you are thinking it's too early for Christmas, His Christmas Miracle will put you in the spirit. I promise.

On The Wagon

I have a cute cartoon by Rhymes With Orange that I cut out of the Sunday paper last year.

I found it again the other day and I taped it to my wall calendar over June. It shows a couple talking to the man next to them as they sit poolside. The man says, "I'm a workaholic, but I'm on the wagon."

I'm a workaholic, but not this month. I'm on the wagon!

As you can see, my son graduates from high school this month (which includes more than one party and a bunch of family in town.) The days that are crossed off are for a family reunion.

Also, my sister will be here all month from Australia so I'm making time to play with her and family. I am planning to do a lot of this, too:

I started today (the 6th) and it was incredible.

But wait. You see on the 14th, on the calendar, where it says 'Wildfire?' I have a new release to promote--which I'll do now, 'cause I'm not quitting cold turkey here.

The problem is, I have that tax instalment to pay on the 15th. That falls under the title of "Nice problem to have," so I won't complain about it, but it does require I do some work to earn the right to be taxed, so here goes.

SCORCH is part of the series we called 'Wildfire' while we were writing it. Now it's called 'Firefighters Of Montana.' It's about a crew of smokejumpers and all the stories are interconnected. Check out these gorgeous covers:

All of the smokejumpers are connected to Russ, the Captain who died the previous year. (Actually, Tracy's hero, Sam, replaces Russ as Captain.) My heroine, Jacqui, was married to Russ and Vin was Russ's best friend. 

Vin is feeling very protective of Jacqui while she is ready to move past the image of shattered widow. Sparks fly, love is kindled and sheets are set ablazin'. 

I loved writing this book and really hope you enjoy all the books in this series. If you're a Kindle user, the whole series is here. Here are the links for Scorch.

Amazon: US  |  CA  |  UK  |  Aus

Nook  |  Kobo  |  iBooks  |  GooglePlay 

I was going to promote my July Harlequin Presents, too. Bought By Her Italian Boss is starting to ship from Amazon in a few days, but sheesh! That would make me the opposite of the slacker I aspire to be this month. I'll be back in July to tell you about that one.

Dani is a USA Today Bestselling author who received the call in 2012 and recently turned in her thirtieth (30th) title. She writes for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself. 

Dani lives in rural BC Canada with her high school sweetheart and is staring down becoming an empty nester. She may have to take up hobbies like travel, otherwise she'll never leave her office.

Keep up with Dani's news by joining her newsletter. You'll get a free short story download when you sign up.

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Support Wildfire Evacuees in Fort McMurray

Many of you know I'm Canadian. Many of you may also have seen the latest news from Canada, that a massive wildfire forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray last week. It's a sizeable town of eighty thousand people and they only had an hour's notice to grab what they could and crawl out of town through thick smoke, raining embers, and gridlock.

That was last week and the disaster is far from over. Aside from first responders, no one has yet been allowed to return. It will be weeks. Entire neighbourhoods are gone and basic infrastructure like water and electricity must be restored.

The town serves the oil sands in Northern Alberta, which employs people from across Canada, so some people had family to go to in other parts of the country. Thousands, however, are stuck in emergency shelters with only those few possessions they were able to grab in the twenty minutes they had before making a harrowing escape. (See footage here.)

I desperately wanted to help and, as luck would have it, I happen to have a firefighter book in the works. Scorch comes out June 14th and it seems apropos to donate my author proceeds from pre-orders to the Red Cross Alberta Fire Appeal.

I hope you'll help by pre-ordering Scorch. The blurb and links are below. You can read the first two chapters in my last newsletter here.

I hope you'll help.

Scorch - Firefighters of Montana

Jacqui Edwards is back in Glacier Creek to wrap up loose ends after the death of her husband, Russ, captain of a group of daring, talented smokejumpers. She wants to stay and reboot her life, but faces an uphill battle shedding the role of the captain’s fragile, grieving widow. 

After growing up in foster care, Vin Kingston finally found a family when he joined the smokejumpers. Then, six months ago, his best friend and captain died in a freak jump accident right before his eyes. Vin is consumed with guilt and determined to watch over Russ’ widow. No easy task when the vibrant, beautiful Jacqui is busting out of her shell and challenging Vin’s vow to keep her off limits.



Pre-order here:

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BIO:
Canadian Dani Collins is a USA Today Bestselling author of over two dozen romances for Harlequin Presents, Tule's Montana Born, and herself.

She lives in rural British Columbia with her high school sweetheart and is trying to adjust to becoming an empty nester.

Find her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or join her newsletter to receive updates on all her news. Get a free ebook as a welcome gift!

Bundle Up!

We had our first snow the other day. I didn't take a photo. It was slushy and not very pretty and disappeared right away, but it was a reminder that winter is a-coming. When I went for my daily walk, I wore a proper jacket with a scarf and gloves and a toque. (In Canada we call these toques.)

This is my husband, who ran outside last winter to do a couple of quick chores and grabbed the first one that came to hand. Wouldn't you know that my sister and brother-in-law arrived at precisely that moment to catch him not only wearing the goofiest toque in Canada, but wearing it backwards.

Here I am wearing the one I usually wear for my walks, unless it's super cold. This photo is also from last winter, when my daughter was home from uni and we took a walk down to the beach.

It's not all cold days here in the Canadian winter.

In fact, I grew up near Vancouver, which is Pacific Northwest rain for most of the winter (year.) At least it was while I was growing up! All bets seem to be off, these days.

When we moved into the interior of BC, and had snow that accumulated all winter, I finally felt like a real Canadian. The truth is, however, our winters are very mild compared to the rest of the country. We're hideously spoiled. Shhh.

But we wouldn't appreciate fine weather without the blustery stuff, would we? So even though the last few days have been damp and gloomy (we needed the rain!) I'm embracing it. Besides, is there any better weather for curling up with a book?

Given that reading days are upon us, I wanted to let you know about these fabulous deals on boxed sets.  How better to stock up for the rain and snow and no-place-to-go season?

My anthology, A Year Of Love In Marietta, is 99c until Nov 22. This is a bundle of my four Montana Born novellas (Hometown Hero, Blame The Mistletoe, The Bachelor's Baby & His Blushing Bride.) I wrote some bonus scenes just for this collection, so if you've read some (or all) of these, you'll definitely want to grab this while it's 99c!

The Montana Homecoming boxed set is also 99c through November. This is a fabulous collection of sweet and sexy stories about coming home. This was my first series with Montana Born so it really is a kind of homecoming for me to see it released. This was my first group of Tule author friends! Hi gals!

Finally, the Montana Born Christmas boxed set is 1.99 as I write this, but will be going up soon so act fast. You cannot go wrong with this USA Today Bestselling bundle!

You can find all of these on all the major digital platforms (Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, GooglePlay, Smashwords.) I guarantee they'll keep you warm this winter!

Christmas Spirit Sampler

Shhh. I know it's a bit early to talk about Christmas, but look. This is the most amazing deal!

I'll admit I have started thinking about Christmas. Usually I put it off until after Halloween at the very least. Heck, I'll procrastinate as long as possible, but my daughter lives away now. We had to start thinking about what it would look like so she could ask for time off work.

Not that we're planning anything exciting. I love the idea of spending Christmas somewhere tropical, but we usually stay home and do low-key things like play games and go for walks. I grabbed these photos from last year:

You could be forgiven for thinking this is Monopoly, but it's actually a game called The Gambler. As far as I recall, you don't have to know when to hold 'em or when to fold 'em.

My daughter loves Family Game Night and forces it upon us whenever we're together. We always have fun, which is why we succumb to the pressure. Pictionary is a big favourite, but sometimes we mix it up with something like Boggle, or, in this case, something we don't even remember how to play.

I'm a big walker, so that's always my choice if given the option. This is about a five minute drive from our house:

Yeah, we pretty much live in paradise.

Then, of course, there is turkey dinner. But on that topic... last winter I was organizing some paperwork with Canadian Customs so I could bring swag in from the US and avoid the duty. I went to visit their office, which is about five minutes beyond this gorgeous view, and when I came out of the building, these creatures rushed me.

I'm not afraid of birds, especially not dumb ones like wild turkeys, but when they all came running at me, it was fairly startling. I realized after the fact that someone must be feeding them, but for one second I had that panicked thought that I wouldn't make it to my car before they 'got' me. Of course, my second thought was, "Free. But looks like tough eating." Ha! As if I could pluck a bird myself, let alone 'get' one.

What does your typical Christmas look like? Are you ready to start thinking about the holidays? If you need a dose of spirit, I highly recommend this collection. Pre-order now and it will automagically deliver to your reader on the 20th. (Four short days away!) You'll be able to read one a week all the way into December. Preorder here:

Amazon: US | CA | UK | Aus 
Nook | Kobo | iBooks | GooglePlay 
Smashwords

Season Change

I grew up in a suburb of Vancouver, BC, where the seasons were usually rain, more rain, less rain, warmer rain, colder rain... You get the idea.

When we moved into the interior of British Columbia, we started to feel like real Canadians. We're in the mountains, but we're also in a bit of a dry belt and far enough south to be more temperate than the rest of the country. We get rain in the fall and spring, snow in the winter and hot, hot, hot sun in the summer. (Think wine country.) The seasons are really well defined. It's perfect, in my opinion.

I'll admit that this year's drought means this photo of leaves is actually from last year, but a typical fall brings these gorgeous colours to my neighbourhood. It sometimes also brings guys like this one. He did show up this year. This is my front yard before my husband picked all the fruit and gave him no reason to return.

Spring is my favourite season for its promise, but I love fall for its productivity. I love the sense of getting back to routine. For me, September is a time of making lists and planning the rest of my year. With my daughter having moved into her own place this summer, I'm even becoming the mom who wonders what Christmas will look like. Will she be home? Will we go to her?

Given that we now have winters that include shovelling and cold snaps that can keep us indoors for a week, I always look forward to the heat of summer. But today, as the final days of summer dwindle, I find myself looking forward to the hibernation of winter. The crock pot meals and the blanket on my lap as I snuggle on the couch with a book, dark coming early and snow falling silently beyond the windows.

Are you in that mind frame yet? Which season is your favourite? Comment below and I'll draw one lucky winner to receive a signed copy from my backlist.

Dani's VOWS OF REVENGE is in stores through September! Roman was convinced that Melodie had been sent by his enemy and planned to punish her--but wound up seducing her! Once he learns she's innocent, however, his plans change again. He wants more than the one passionate interlude they had.

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ORDER NOW!

A Montana Born Christmas releases October 20th, but you can preorder now! This boxed set includes eight sweet and sexy holiday stories by eight award winning and best-selling authors. Available for a limited time! Grab yours now!

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