Tag Archives: contemporary romance

It’s been 84 years …

The Joy of Not Blogging or Do I have an Excuse.

It wasn’t until I decided to write a blog post that I realised it was over two years since I last blogged. Ironically it was for my last Escape Publishing release A Matter of Trust. In between I’ve published three other rural romances for another publisher and several historical novellas in anthologies. (See my Books in the Wild page). Also life happened.

Book cover for A Matter of Trust. Image of red headed man embracing a young woman against a rural Australian background. Beside it is the quote "Twelve Years is a long time to keep a secret ... or two. 4th July 2021 from Escape Publishing.
Remember this? A Matter of Trust. It even won a Koru Award of Excellence. Escape Publishing Release 4th July 2021.

So here I am, finally, with book two in the Redemption Creek series.

A Chance to Believe is the story of Shayne Smith and Cassie Long. Two strangers who found a connection and left it behind for reasons of their own.

It will release on the 1st February, 2024.

About the Book

Can a fling turn into a family?

After a chance meeting in Brisbane, Shayne Smith and Cassie Long had a perfect fortnight together. But when Shayne returned to his historic sheep property, they both assumed there was no future in a relationship between a city girl and a grazier.

Six months later, Cassie arrives at Maiden’s Landing to let Shayne know they made more than memories in their brief idyll. She has no expectations, only a duty to let him know.

Shayne’s life is already complicated with a property to run and a sixteen-year-old daughter growing up fast. He never expected the woman he can’t forget to turn up on his doorstep bringing news that is all too familiar.

Fiercely independent Cassie isn’t asking anything of him, but he persuades her to stay at his homestead until the babies are born. Cassie’s difficult pregnancy means that any possibility of romance must be put on hold – despite the intense attraction they feel for each other. How long can they resist? And will each of them overcome their own baggage so they can build a future together?

Isn’t this pretty? A historical homestead. Two people destined for a HEA, eventually, and sheep. Also jet trails in the sky. One of my favourite things. Unless you count forearms.

Pre-orders are available now. Click on the image to go to the Harpercollins home page or choose your preferred seller below.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sMNoU2

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3sMtVTn

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3EABE9W

Google Play: https://bit.ly/468GlmO

Jane Austen: Contemporary Romance Author

I can’t believe I’m blogging again. And no, no-one I know has died. At least, no-one I know well enough to blog about.

Unless you count Jane Austen. She has been dead a while though, so it’s hardly news.

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This urge to talk comes about because someone on social media commented that they don’t read Jane Austen for the romance. It was phrased in such a way to imply the “romance” was the lesser part of the story, almost incidental to the greater good of the books.

Now I know when Austen was writing, romance was a term for any tale that was not true. Even rather fanciful. It has only been in the last few decades that the Romance Genre has been strictly defined. I totally blame pulp fiction, but that’s an argument for another day.

What I find interesting is that we tend to think of Jane Austen as a historical author. Not surprising when you consider the number of costume dramas filmed in the last century based on her books. But of course she was a contemporary writer. She was writing about her peers. Not dukes and peers of the realm, but society as she knew it. Bobbing about just under that class of people but definitely above the general masses.

It made me wonder what she might have written if she lived in our contemporary society. Would she be writing about a Bridget Jones and her Mr Darcy or might she be tempted to get a little raunchy after reading some Jilly Cooper or Jackie Collins.

With better health care might she have lived to be a wicked old lady being interviewed by James Corden and doing a little car Karaoke. I wonder who her favourite modern music artist would be.

God forbid, maybe she would have been picked up by Harlequin Mills & Boon and be writing Presents romances about billionaires and feisty heroines adding a touch of snark about the hangers on. Imagine if she’d been the scriptwriter for Pretty Woman.

But no. Jane would have been above all that. She would have written some deeply meaningful snark about society published by Simon & Schuster and no-one would have wanted to film it.

Or would they? Would she have hidden the snark behind a romance between a stuffy politician and a eco-warrior who spends her time protecting an obscure bird that only nests in a swamp outside Meryton from the incursions of an army of messy campers including a charming rogue who tells a sad tale of meeting injustice from the politician.

Nah. Not likely.

All I do know is that two hundred years later, Jane Austen is still being read and filmed and no-one I know has watched Pride and Prejudice sixteen times for the social commentary. At least, not solely for the social commentary.