BEHIND THE SCENES OF A HARLEQUIN ROMANCE....

So FALLING FOR THE REBEL HEIR is out now in North America! (Check out the gorgeous cover in the sidebar.) So I now seemed a prime oppurtunity to give you guys glimpses into the behind the scenes story of the book. Every time you see this logo in the next month and a half, you'll be in the right place!

The setting of this book is a house named Claudel. Claudel is the beautiful old house our hero returns to after many years away from home. It was built by his Aunt Fay who I imagined to be a fabulous, exotic and slightly, well, fey woman who modelled her extensive home on the Hotel Biron in Paris which today - in real life - houses the majority of the artist Auguste Rodin's pieces. Rodin is my favourite sculptor and one of my favourite films is a French movie about his lover Camille Claudel, hence the name of the house. Phew! As you can see I have fun throwing in a little secert Ally flavour in my books!

So dear reader, meet Claudel...

Hud hitched his dilapidated rucksack higher onto his shoulder as he stood staring at the façade of Claudel, the grand old house before him.

Ivy trailed over masonry outer walls, the front marble steps were steeped in mould, the delicately framed picture windows layered in many years worth of storm-splattered mud, the multi-gabled grey roof was now missing tiles and the gutters were filled with rotting leaves.

But even the decade worth of invading shabbiness couldn’t stop the memories of sunny days spent with his Aunt in the big house from melting into one another; a dozen summers during which his parents took off on adventures to far flung lands to authenticate new discoveries about old civilisations, leaving him behind. He pictured himself lying in the cool grass at the side of the house reading Aunt Fay’s original editions of The Chronicles of Narnia wishing himself a faun, or a lion, or even better, one the four Pevensie brothers and sisters taking part in adventures. Together.

He sniffed in deep through his nose, then leaving the house and her deluge of memories for later he hooked a sharp left to head into Claudel’s colossal garden only to discover far sorrier disarray.

What had once been a perfect green lawn littered with croquet arches and bordered by a dramatic garden boasting random marble sculptures worthy of any gallery, was now overgrown weed-infested chaos. Once immaculately clipped conifers were now untamed, with patches torn apart by storms leaving raw-looking wounds. Chickweed, blackberries, and roses ran wild. Any patch of grass still visible through the shrub was littered with wild daises. Had Aunt Fay been alive to see how much he’d let the place go, she would have screamed bloody murder.

But after the initial shock wore off, Hud began to notice the air had been made pungent with a rich floral scent, and through the gaps in the brush bees and wattle dust floated on the hazy summer air. As a photographer for Voyager Enterprises, for both their documentary TV channel and magazine, he’d shot the gardens of queens, rainforests which by now had been demolished, and thick, viny, mystical swamps protected by rednecks with guns. But this place was so out of control, so uncontaminated and crazy beautiful, Hud’s throat clogged with some unexpected emotion.