Spotlight & Giveaway: Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night by Melanie Milburne

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Melanie Milburne to HJ!

Hi Melanie Milburne and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night (Weddings Worth Billions Book 3)!

 
Hello!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

An idealistic virgin with a specific checklist for her future Mr Right asks an emotionally locked down cynical playboy to stand in as her ‘date’ at her high school reunion in the Scottish Highlands.
 

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

His eyes didn’t leave hers and she fought against the desire to squirm in her seat. He had his lawyer face on, the stillness of his features revealing nothing of the razor-sharp inner workings of his mind.
‘Because you’re afraid to love someone in case they hurt you?’ she ventured.
HIs fingers stopped drumming against his leg and there was a sudden movement in the back of his gaze- a movement as quick as a camera shutter click. But then his lips twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘People can hurt you whether you love them or not.’

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

This is book three of my Weddings Worth Billions trilogy, so it was fun to tie up the series with Aerin and Drake, whilst featuring cameo appearances from the other characters. But I have to be honest and say that this book was particularly difficult to write. Drake’s backstory is painful to even think about much less write about in intimate detail.

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

Aerin and Drake have known each other for years but it is only when she asks him to be her stand-in date that she notices things about him she hasn’t before. He has always noticed her but has kept his distance due to his background.

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

I mentioned above, this book was difficult to write due to the emotional hardship and tragedy Drake had faced in his past.

“How could anyone recover from such dreadful grief? Could you ever recover?
But then something did take hold in her brain as she recalled his statement: ‘My mother and sister didn’t die in a car crash.’ What about his father? Nothing was making sense. Everything she had been told about his family over the years—the little she had been told—was not true.
‘I’m sorry,’ Drake said after a long moment, his voice rough and heavy with regret, perhaps, she thought, even a little self-loathing. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
Aerin swept her tongue over her parchment-dry lips, her hands not quite steady in her lap. ‘What about your father? You said your mother and sister were…murdered…’ Even saying the word was horrifying to her. Of course one read about murders in the news every day but when you actually met someone who had lost someone they loved in such a despicable way, it made one realise the tragic enormity of such a loss.
‘Please,’ Drake said. ‘Forget I said anything. It’s not something I want to talk about. Ever. With anyone.’
‘Does Tom know?’
‘No.’
Another beat or two of silence passed. Aerin imagined she could hear her own heartbeat thumping in her chest like a drum. She could certainly feel the pulse of her blood hammering in her veins.
‘Why not? I mean, why didn’t you tell Tom? You’ve been friends for years.’
‘Because I chose not to tell anyone about what happened that day.’
And yet he had told her. Not all of it but enough for her to ache to know more.
Aerin ran one of her hands through her hair, part of her up-do tumbling from its restraining clip. It was only as she put her hand back in her lap that she saw it was shaking. ‘Oh, Drake, I don’t know what to say. I want you to tell me everything, but I understand how awfully painful that must be for you. I can’t get my head around what you’ve told me so far. I don’t know how you’ve managed to cope with such a terrible situation. God, you were only fifteen…”

Readers should read this book….

If they want an emotionally punchy read with a heart-warming happy ending.

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

I am between books (just finished book 96) so keen to get to 100. I am in the lovely stage of dreaming up characters and plots but I’ve yet to decide on what to write. My next release is One Night in My Rival’s Bed, a first person Presents that I absolutely loved writing.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A signed copy of FORBIDDEN UNTIL THEIR SNOWBOUND NIGHT.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Aerin is looking for her Mr Perfect soulmate and has a checklist on what she wants in a partner. If you had a checklist, what would be your number one box to tick?

 
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Excerpt from Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night (Weddings Worth Billions Book 3):

AERIN SAW HIM before he saw her. Drake Cawthorn was standing on the corner of the street opposite her, checking something on his phone while he waited for the ‘walk’ signal at the busy London intersection near his office. She took a moment to study him in secret and a little frisson danced down her spine. Drake was head and shoulders over everyone else in the crowd, with hair as black and sleek as a raven’s wing and a strong nose that looked like it might once have been broken. He was wearing a dark blue suit teamed with a crisp white business shirt that emphasised his olive-toned skin. His tie was a checked blue, but it was loosened at his neck, as if he had tugged at it impatiently at one point during the day and not bothered to readjust it. He would have ticked number one on her soulmate checklist for ‘tall, dark and handsome’ perfectly if it weren’t for his bent nose and the jagged scar that interrupted his left eyebrow.
The pedestrian signal beeped and Drake lifted his head from his phone and his eyes met Aerin’s. Even though she was several metres away, as soon as that bottomless dark brown gaze meshed with hers it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning.
Every. Single. Time.
Which was why she didn’t cross paths with him unless there was absolutely no choice. He was the celebrity lawyer who specialised in iron-clad prenuptial agreements she and her wedding business partners recommended to clients from time to time. But Aerin wasn’t standing outside his suite of rooms hoping to see him about a business matter—she preferred to email or send a text to inform him of a client’s wish to see him. This visit was personal. Embarrassingly, skin-crawlingly personal. Aerin hadn’t seen him face to face in months, and normally, she liked it that way. She had turned keeping her distance from him into quite a consummate skill. She found his arrant masculinity a little too…unsettling. His hardwired cynicism too jarring to a hopeless romantic as herself. And his sardonic smile and those dark chocolate eyes a little too mocking.
Drake strode across the intersection in long easy strides, carving his way through the bustle of people until he came to her side of the street. Her feet were suddenly glued to the footpath, her heart doing a complicated gymnastics routine in her chest and her cheeks feeling hot enough to buckle the bitumen.
“Hi there, Goldilocks. Were you on your way to see me?’ His tone was as gently teasing as his smile.
Aerin could hardly deny it was him she had come to see when she was standing outside his office building, but she would have dearly liked to. She had done a walk-by or two to summon up the courage to see him, oscillating whether she should go ahead or melt back in the crowd before she made a complete and utter fool of herself. But she only had five days to find a stand-in date for her high school reunion. If she didn’t find a date to accompany her she would have to suffer the embarrassment of being the last of her school friends to find a partner.
Every year that passed, she was becoming more and more of a pariah to her friends. The only singleton. The only virgin. The pitying looks from her school friends were worse each year, she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. The covert whispers, the speculation about her single status, the pointed questions and glances at her ringless left hand, when each of her friends had such gorgeous sparklers winking on their ring fingers you could practically see them from outer space. It was making her wonder if her dream of finding her own Mr Perfect was a little…well, out of touch with reality. It was quite hard to meet people these days and she wasn’t going to download the social media app unless things got desperate. Well, even more desperate than they already were with her nearly thirty and never been kissed.
But she believed in true love.
It was her goal, her lifelong hope.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Things are heating up in this sizzling snowbound romance by USA TODAY bestselling author Melanie Milburne!

His forbidden touch…
…is what the innocent wants!

Drake Cawthorn is speechless when Aerin Drysdale begs him to accompany her to a glamorous event in Scotland. Aerin is his best friend’s sister and looking for the type of love Drake doesn’t believe exists, so she’s strictly off-limits! But he doesn’t want anybody else coming to her rescue!

Aerin knows cynical playboy Drake can’t be her Mr. Right. But she can’t ignore how he sets her pulse racing. And when a snowstorm leaves them stranded, the balance is finally tipped. Aerin’s next request? A sexual awakening for as long as the snow lasts…

From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.

Read all the Weddings Worth Billions books:
Book 1: Cinderella’s Invitation to Greece
Book 2: Nine Months After That Night
Book 3: Forbidden Until Their Snowbound Night
Book Links:  Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Melanie Milburne writes modern romance stories for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Her love affair with romance novels began when she read her first romance at the age of seventeen and it inspired a dream to one day become a romance author. With over 95 books in print and several industry awards and nominations for her work, Melanie enjoys crafting contemporary romance stories from her home in Hobart in beautiful Tasmania, where she lives with her husband and fur family of two dogs and two cats.
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