Spotlight & Giveaway: Confessions of an Italian Marriage by Dani Collins

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Dani Collins to HJ!

Hi Dani and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Confessions of an Italian Marriage!

 
Hi Sara, hi Junkies!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Almost as soon as Freja was told that her husband was dead, she became convinced he was still alive. She decides to flush him out with a very public wedding, convinced he won’t allow her to commit bigamy.
Giovanni reveals himself and they’re reunited, but it reveals the cracks in their whirlwind marriage. For them to have a chance, they’re going to have to reveal all their secrets, including the fact he was a secret agent!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

First line:

“HELL HATH NO fury like a woman whose husband faked his own death.”

And a short while later, when Giovanni appears, Freja says:

“Go to hell.”
“Where do you think I’ve been?” he growled.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I got the idea for Giovanni to fake his death from Veronica Mars. In the last episode of the most recent season (spoiler alert) they killed off Logan. I have been rewriting it in my head that he actually faked his death to protect her and she solves the mystery. That led to Freja uncovering Giovanni’s fake death.
• I’ve already revealed Giovanni is a secret agent. He’s also in a wheelchair.
  Years ago, I saw a documentary called Murderball about wheelchair athletes. These were high octane men who happened to be paraplegic. I thought at the time “Someone should write a romance hero like these guys.” When I came to write Giovanni, I revisited that and I think he’s one of my sexiest heroes ever.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Weirdly, Freja had met Giovanni’s brother years before. It becomes a moment that’s both poignant for him, but also makes him suspicious.
For her part, she’s instantly fascinated by this vibrant man, but she’s inexperienced so not sure what she’s getting into.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

This is a bit of a spoiler, but she suffered a miscarriage while he was ‘dead.’ She’s furious with him for making her face that alone:

“I’m so sorry, Freja.”
“No, you’re not.” She bitterly tried to shake off his grip again. “I cry every day and you’ve never once—”
“I cry,” he said raggedly. He pressed the back of her hand to his wet cheek, so wrecked he didn’t know how to deal with it except to work out harder, lose himself in books about her as a healthy, curious child. He compiled reports and translated documents and stalked her online. Anything so he didn’t have to think about what they’d lost.

Readers should read this book….

If you’re looking for everything you love in a Presents like over the top fantasy and drama, but also a pair of characters you haven’t encountered before.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m very excited for my November release, Innocent in the Sheikh’s Palace. I hope you adore Hannah and Akin as much as I do. Then look for a Canadian heroine in What the Greek’s Wife Needs in January and a fun contribution to a multi-author trilogy next spring.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One signed copy of Confessions of an Italian Marriage open internationally.

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Excerpt from Confessions of an Italian Marriage:

“Am I making you shiver? I want to.” He stroked a light touch from her shoulder to her elbow and back, reigniting the prickling sensation she’d tried to erase. His touch firmed into a warm massage that was equally inciting. “Don’t hold back any of your reactions. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”
“Really?” Her experience with men was…not that. More like, Go farther, faster. Why aren’t you into this?
“I want to know you’re as excited as I am.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and played his fingertip along the whorls he exposed, caressing behind and into the hollow beneath her earlobe.
Why that made her nipples stand up, she didn’t know, but she felt them tighten and sting. She bit her lip and wanted to lift her hand to erase that sensation too, especially when his gaze dropped. She looked down and yes, her nipples were poking against the soft red knit of her pullover.
“I want it to be so good, you can’t bring yourself to leave my bed.” His voice grew husky and intimate, his concentration wholly on the vision he created as he slid his hand to her side. He pressed the knit of her turtleneck taut so her breast was blatantly outlined, nipple standing firmly against it. “No bra?”
“I don’t like them,” she confessed faintly.
“Neither do I. Not anymore.”
She had never experienced such a strange euphoria simply by being near someone, barely touching. His light caress through her clothing was feathery and wonderful. She liked being snuggled close to his solid warmth, able to discern his strength and take in his scent of wool and outdoors and faint aftershave and a more intimate, personal fragrance that was spicy and musky and all him.
His touch slid back to her shoulder, encouraging her to lean in as he did, closer and closer, gaze on his mouth. He didn’t kiss her, though. He touched light kisses along her jaw, then stole a very brief kiss. Started to come back for more.
She drew back slightly. “Shouldn’t we go to the bedroom?”
He frowned with insult. “I’ll have to turn in my Italian citizenship if I don’t seduce you.”
“But I already said yes.”
“You agreed to the sensual attack I promised you.” He grew serious. Maybe faintly suspicious. “Why the hurry?”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted with a sheepish wrinkle of her nose.
“Then we should take it slow.”
“But I feel…impatient.” Her low-grade blush increased until she was so hot, she probably glowed, fully embarrassed by how urgent she felt. “I want to be naked and feel all of you and know how it will be when we’re…together.”
He gathered her in his strong arms and his chest muscles flexed as he pulled her to sit fully in his lap, so they were nose to nose. His big hands moved over her lower back and hips, waking her up to swirling sensations that expanded into her inner thighs.
“This is how it will be,” he told her, opening his mouth against her throat and licking at her flesh. “Better and better with every minute that goes by.”
He really did attack her senses. She caught her breath at the onslaught of sensations, gasping when his hands hardened on her, holding her in place.
“I’m dying to have you naked and spread out on my bed, weak with need for the release I give you.” His hot breath wafted against her nape. “I’m going to take liberties that are liable to shock you. I’m as impatient as you are for all of that.”
“Are you?” He seemed in such complete control.
“Do *you* lack sensation below the waist? What do you think that is against your ass? A penknife?”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

He’s back to reclaim her…

But where has he been?

What do you do when your husband goes missing? Flush him out by pretending to marry again! Billionaire Giovanni’s dramatic return forces Freja to confront the deep hurt she felt at his desertion…and the sparks that continue to fly between them…

Giovanni had to go into hiding to protect his new bride, but he’s shocked by the consequences his mysterious past had on Freja. Now he’ll have to let her in closer than he’s allowed anyone before if he’s to save the whirlwind marriage he’s suddenly so compelled to fight for!
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

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, but her backlist of nearly sixty books also includes self-published erotic romance, romantic comedy, and even an epic medieval fantasy. When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing.
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