Extra Type: Author Notes

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Shortly after my baby swap duet came out, I began getting inquiries about Rico, the brother of Cesar from The Consequence He Must Claim. Would he have his own story?

I wanted him to. Rico lurked around the back of my mind, waiting for the right heroine to show up. Also, even though he came from the same emotionally sterile family that made Cesar such a remote man, Rico didn’t have any unresolved anger that needed fifty thousand words and the love of his life to get over.

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Until I realized that he dutifully married and was betrayed. In fact, everyone thinks he suffered a terrible loss when what he’s actually doing is protecting a terrible secret. He’s trying to shake that bitterness when he discovers he has a daughter by a very brief affair with his mother’s former housemaid.

I hope you love Rico’s journey falling for Poppy. Look for the final Montero sibling, Pia, which should come out late 2019 or early 2020.

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My son, Sam, took a two-year computer programming class at British Columbia Institute of Technology. Essentially, they cram four years of learning into two. The course is widely known to be intensive and gruelling and generally the only thing a student does–eating and sleeping are luxuries. Calling home, even for money, hardly ever happened.

But on one of our rare calls, he mentioned a classmate, Luli. I fell in love with her name and said, “I might steal that for a heroine.” He said, “It’s actually Lucrecia.” I said, “Even better, but what kind of name is it?” He said her family was from Venezuela and I thought that was intriguing enough to keep it.

I later had the good fortune to meet real-life Luli. She’s lovely and no, they’re not dating. Strictly comrades in computer programming, but I have it on good authority–Sam–that she’s a really great coder.

I accidentally lifted Luli’s vocation of computer programming for my fictional Luli. I needed my Luli to develop a skill while she’s trapped for years with Gabriel’s rich, eccentric grandmother, something that would allow her to be a pain in Gabriel’s behind. Luli locks him out of his own software–which makes him mad, but secretly appeals to the nerd in him. He wants to unravel what she’s done.

I have no idea if my description of Luli’s hacking holds water. My son is generous with his time if I have research questions, but I’ll be honest. I don’t want to say, “I want this and this and this to happen” and hear him go, “Yeah, Mom, that can’t happen.” Ignorance is very much bliss! So if you happen to know something about computer programming and read this book and roll your eyes at the artistic license I’ve taken, that’s all on me. Sam and real-life Luli are innocent bystanders.

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At one point, I thought this story might be a cross-over between my Love in Montana series and Blue Spruce Lodge. I thought Petra and Flynn would wind up at Blue Spruce Lodge, meet Skye, and plan a ‘real’ wedding for Trigg and Wren, who had a courthouse marriage in In Too Deep. (This cross-over may yet happen!)

For a number of reasons, this turned into a much sweeter stand-alone Christmas story. My parents were actually staying with us when I took a call from my publisher and made the decision to change directions. Mom and Dad had come to us as a precaution one night in May. They’d been asked to leave their house in case the river breeched the dyke beside their house.

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The next morning, their house was under twelve feet of water. They wound up staying with us for two months until they were able to get back in. Mom helped me brainstorm titles for this book and cooked meals so I could get it written. Their being here imbued Wedding at Mistletoe Chalet with some extra family love. I hope you can feel it!

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We happened to be in the car with my daughter and her boyfriend while they were visiting us for Christmas 2017. I said to my daughter, “I need to brainstorm a duet idea. I was thinking of two heroes who are rivals for some reason and I want the heroines to be cousins, but that’s all I have.”

After further discussion, Delainey said, “What comes in twos? How about something with a pair of earrings?”

When it comes to brainstorming, I trust my gut and my gut immediately loved this idea! I knew the heirloom earrings had been separated somehow and the cousins are trying to reunite them. But why? And how did the heroes wind up fighting over them?

I decided fairly quickly that the earrings had belonged to the heroines’ grandmother. She sold one in Hungary to come to America and sold the other when she got to New York, to start her new life. Her granddaughters, Gisella and Rozalia, want to buy them back for her. They’ve been searching for years.

In Book One, Gisella learns the New York earring is going up for auction. She arrives to bid on it only to learn Kaine has bought the entire estate and all its contents in one fell swoop! After all these years, she’s been denied.

So has Viktor, the hero of Book Two. This is how the men become rivals. Kaine isn’t interested in picking a fight with Viktor, but he can’t let go of the earring he now possesses. It’s leverage against Gisella and he has a score to settle with her family.

Does he score with Gisella? I’ll let you read the book and find out.

Fun fact! Initially this was going to be titled A Virgin for the Billionaire’s Revenge, but has since been changed to A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire.

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You may want to read my notes on A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire for how the idea for this duet came about.

After writing Book One, where Gisella loses one earring to Kaine, I now had to conjure a story for Rozalia, the mousier cousin, who winds up in Hungary, confronting rich, titled, gorgeous Viktor Rohan–who thinks the earrings were stolen, not gifted to her grandmother as Rozalia has always believed.

In some ways, writing the second of a linked book is easier than the first. A lot of the world-building is done. I knew a lot about Rozi’s family and back story. I knew certain things had to happen right away. For example, in Book One, Gisella takes a call from Rozi that is quite dramatic. I don’t want to spoil it, but I knew all the things that had to happen leading up to her making that call, so the first half of the book wrote itself.

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Then. It. Stalled.

Fortunately, I was able to lean on my other child, Sam. He happened to call when I was groaning about my story hitting a rough patch. I said, “They’re in a mountain cabin, there’s a village in the distance. I’m not sure if they should go on a date or what. Usually dates are glamorous affairs.”

He said, “What if there’s a wedding or celebration in the village. There are lights in the trees and music playing and they go dancing.”

My hero! I wrote the scene and, sadly, several rewrites later, deleted it, but it got me writing when I was stuck. Rozi soon has more to worry about than whether she’ll take an earring home. She might be carrying the next Rohan heir!

As for who possesses the earrings in the end? I’ll let you read the books to find out.

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We happened to be in the car with my daughter and her boyfriend while they were visiting us for Christmas 2017. I said to my daughter, “I need to brainstorm a duet idea. I was thinking of two heroes who are rivals for some reason and I want the heroines to be cousins, but that’s all I have.”

After further discussion, Delainey said, “What comes in twos? How about something with a pair of earrings?”

When it comes to brainstorming, I trust my gut and my gut immediately loved this idea! I knew the heirloom earrings had been separated somehow and the cousins are trying to reunite them. But why? And how did the heroes wind up fighting over them?

I decided fairly quickly that the earrings had belonged to the heroines’ grandmother. She sold one in Hungary to come to America and sold the other when she got to New York, to start her new life. Her granddaughters, Gisella and Rozalia, want to buy them back for her. They’ve been searching for years.

In Book One, Gisella learns the New York earring is going up for auction. She arrives to bid on it only to learn Kaine has bought the entire estate and all its contents in one fell swoop! After all these years, she’s been denied.

So has Viktor, the hero of Book Two. This is how the men become rivals. Kaine isn’t interested in picking a fight with Viktor, but he can’t let go of the earring he now possesses. It’s leverage against Gisella and he has a score to settle with her family.

Does he score with Gisella? I’ll let you read the book and find out.

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When I was writing From The Top, I had Trigg confide in Nate that he’d had a teen pregnancy scare.

Wait a minute, I thought almost immediately. What if that scare had actually turned into a baby? One who turns up to throw the extremely confident and very confirmed bachelor, Trigg, into a tailspin?

Writing In Too Deep was almost too fun. Trigg seriously doesn’t know how to be a father of a child of any age, let alone a girl hitting adolescence. Sky is a handful at the best of times and here comes pre-teen drama in spades!

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What I didn’t know until I’d written the ending of From The Top was what kind of heroine Trigg was getting. All I knew was that the girl who’d been pregnant had had a father who forced her to go through with the pregnancy.

Somehow Wren appeared as that girl’s sister. She’s mousy and way too young to be raising a twelve-year-old, but so resilient and determined to do right by her sister’s kid. Trigg is a handful in his own way and she needed to be tough enough to stand up to him, which she does. And he falls for her. Hard. And Sky is not happy.

In some ways, this is a love triangle with all three of them figuring out their role in this family they’re forming. I hope you enjoy it!

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After Bought By Her Italian Boss came out, many readers asked me if Gwyn’s brother, Travis, would have his own story.

Yes! When I wrote Bought By Her Italian Boss, I didn’t know what Travis’s back story would be, or what kind of heroine he would wind up with, but Imogen appeared and she is nothing but surprises. For starters, she’s his secret ex-wife. How did that even happen?

Fun fact: In my first draft, the story took place in the summer. My editor came back to me asking if I’d like to turn it into a Christmas story, which was perfect because Imogen had the worst childhood. She deserves a lovely Christmas memory and Travis gives her one.

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Claiming His Christmas Wife is a stand-alone romance, but Vito and Gwyn make an appearance here and it’s part of a number of books that link through the Donatelli bank I introduced in my very first Harlequin Presents, Proof of Their Sin.

If you want to read all the connected stories, start here:
Proof of Their Sin
A Debt Paid in Passion
Bought by Her Italian Boss
Consequence of His Revenge

When I began writing On The Edge, I realized that as much as Rolf might have opinions on the way his new ski hill should look and run, he would have to have a project manager, someone with a technical mind and a willingness to wade through the building permits and other details that would put Rolf over the edge.

Nathaniel showed up about the time that Glory was flown out to see Blue Spruce Lodge for the first time. Glory eyeballs him as a potential hero, then realizes he thinks she’s hitting on her. Oops. But I started thinking of him as a potential hero, too. One whom I gave an adorably soft side to when I decided he had a three-year-old son, Aiden.

Later in that first book, Ilke showed up as ‘the other woman.’ I try to avoid cliche characters and started thinking about how she had come to Blue Spruce Lodge and why. It wasn’t because she has designs on Rolf. In fact, she doesn’t look to any man to advance her interests. She’s independent to a fault.

Which makes her pretty conflicted when she gets pregnant and is forced to quit skiing. As for Nate, he holds himself to ridiculous standards and getting a woman pregnant is a pretty big misstep. Both of these two were at the top of their game and now they’re tumbling into an abyss. I loved helping them find their way out of it.

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Coincidentally, I had just begun a proposal with a sheikh hero and a queen in hiding when my editor emailed to ask if I would like to collaborate with Tara Pammi, Maya Blake and Caitlin Crews on a sheikh quartet. Having enjoyed working with all of these authors on other projects, I was like, “Um, yes please.”

At the time the series was called “Kings of Khalia” and my title was tentatively “Sheikh’s Runaway Princess.” The quartet hinges on my heroine’s mother, the Queen of Khalia, having an affair with my hero’s father, King Jamil of Zyria. They’re both dead when, in Book One, Sheikh’s Baby of Revenge, Tara’s hero Adir is revealed to be the secret baby of this affair.

The news topples the current King of Khalia, thrusting Maya’s hero, Zufar, onto the throne in Book Two, Sheikh’s Pregnant Cinderella. His bride gets kidnapped by Adir, so he marries the maid–who later turns out to have a secret past of her own.

Book Three, Sheikh’s Princess of Convenience, opens at the wedding where my heroine, Galila, starts revealing all of these shocking details to a stranger. He turns out to be Jamil’s son, Karim, and he will do anything to keep his father’s long-ago affair a secret–including compromising Galila so she is forced to marry him!

I don’t want to reveal too many spoilers, but in the final book, Caitlin’s Sheikh’s Secret Love Child, Galila’s other brother, Malak, the black sheep of the family, is forced to wear a crown.

I didn’t mind shelving my queen to work on such a fun project. Besides, it’s wonderful knowing I have something to fall back on if I’m searching for inspiration down the road.