Spotlight & Giveaway: Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride by Melanie Milburne

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

Hi Melanie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride!

 
Thank you for having me here!
 

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride is my 80 title. It is a story about a man with a lot of money who is desperate to shake off the stain of family shame, and a penniless and virginal aristocrat who needs money to save her ancestral home.
 

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

This is at the end of the book when Gabriel finally expresses his love for Frankie.

His eyes shone with moisture. ‘ I can live with the shame of my family’s name. I can with the shame of having half my family locked away in prison. But I can’t live without you.’

What inspired this book?

I recently read a memoir where the author had experienced a lot of shame from abuse she had suffered. It got me thinking about how shame can come in lots of guises- from things that happen to us, but also from the things other people that we are associated with do. Family, siblings, friends, institutions we used to trust and still belong to.

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

Getting to know my characters is a process I undertake as soon as I decide on their names. It is a gradual unfolding as I write… a fairly organic process but that’s not to say I don’t deliberately craft a certain type of character as I certainly do. My characters always surprise me! Frankie was a bit of a surprise package in this book, as she was a little more daring than I’d originally planned.

What was your favorite scene to write?

I love writing the final scenes as it’s where love conquers all. I particularly enjoyed writing Gabriel’s confession of love ( see favourite line answer above) as it shows his emotional growth.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

Some days, every scene is difficult to write! Sometimes the scene leading up to a major turning point can be tricky.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

This book is very much my style but Gabriel is a bit of a softer hero than I’ve written in my back list. I am so conscious these days to write an alpha hero who isn’t so arrogant and unappealing that leaves the reader wondering who would ever fall in love with this jerk?

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

I would like readers to reflect on the shame they carry that doesn’t belong to them and hope they can find a way to move past it like Gabriel did.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I have just finished a manuscript and I’m in the process of editing. I have another release later this year- Cinderella’s Scandalous Secret, which interestingly is another book dealing with the issue of shame, but it’s my heroine this time who has a dark secret in her past.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Two signed copies of Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride by Melanie Milburne.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Has shame about yourself or someone close to you had an impact on your life?

 
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Excerpt from Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride:

FRANKIE HAD COME back one last time to her ancestral home at Lake Como to say goodbye in private. The grand estate with its beautifully manicured gardens would be someone else’s home now. Someone else’s heritage. Someone else’s sanctuary.
She stood at the base of the grand scissor staircase in front of Villa Mancini. The shocking blood-red slash of the SOLD banner across the ‘For Sale’ sign made something in her stomach grip tight, as if her intestines were caught up in a strangling knot of fishing line. Would the new owner change the villa’s name? Turn it into a hotel or a casino? It had been in Frankie’s family for four hundred years. Four hundred years of family—generation after generation.
So many relatives.
So many memories.
How could it be possible to lose four hundred years of family history in a game of Blackjack?
Frankie drew in a breath and slowly released it. You have to survive this. Now was not the time for a panic attack. Now was not the time for tears and tantrums, because nothing was going to change the fact it was too late to save herself from this shame. It would soon become public. Excruciatingly, humiliatingly public. So far, the press knew very little of her desperate financial situation. She had let it be known she was selling the villa only because she would be moving back to London after two months of nursing her father during his terminal illness. She had called in every favour she could to keep the press away from the truth. But how long could she hope to keep her father’s dirty little secret?
She pictured tomorrow’s headlines—Aristocrat heiress Francesca Mancini left penniless by late father’s secret gambling debts.
Frankie had drained her own bank account trying to keep her father’s problem a secret for as long as she could. There was nothing left in her trust fund. All the money left to her from her late mother was gone. She had sold her London apartment. How could she let her father’s memory be tainted by a gambling addiction he had only acquired in the last few months of his life? His aggressive treatment for brain cancer had changed him. Made him desperate and reckless. She’d foolishly, naively thought her savings would be enough to cover his indiscretions. But her income as a special needs teacher was hardly going to cover debts that ran into the millions.
It was hopeless.
Utterly, heartbreakingly hopeless.
Frankie walked up the left side of the staircase to the front door. She still had her key—the real estate agent hadn’t requested it because the new owner would not be moving in until the final paperwork was completed. She unlocked the door and stepped inside the marble foyer but something about the atmosphere told her she wasn’t alone. There was a different energy in the air, the villa was no longer cold and empty but alive and breathing.
It had a pulse.
The door to the library on the ground floor was slightly ajar, and from inside she could hear the rustling of papers and the sound of a frustrated male sigh. For a moment, she thought she must have dreamed her father’s death and funeral and the debt debacle. A short blissful tide of relief rushed through her, but then she heard footsteps crossing the floor. Strong, purposeful footsteps. She would have recognised that stride even if she were blindfolded. Possibly even if she was deaf.
Gabriel Salvetti opened the library door wide and looked down at her from his superior height advantage. Why hadn’t she put on a pair of heels? Ballet flats didn’t quite cut it when she was in the company of the suave and sophisticated Gabriel Salvetti. Not that she ever sought his company—she actively avoided it if she could. Six foot four to her four foot six, he made her feel like My Little Pony facing off a thoroughbred stallion.
His were-they-black-or-were-they-brown? eyes met hers. ‘Francesca.’ He inclined his head in a brief nod that was somehow both polite and patronising at the same time.
‘What are you doing here?’ Frankie couldn’t read his expression. She’d always thought he’d make a good spy or undercover agent. Not that his criminal father, brothers and cousins would appreciate that. Gabriel was known as the white sheep in the super-wealthy Salvetti family. The only good apple in a rotten orchard. An orchard so big with deep roots and long limbs and twisted and craggy branches reaching into places no decent person would ever want to go.
But why was he in her house? He hadn’t even come to her father’s funeral, even though he had done business with him in the past and her father had considered him a friend.
But then she noticed the sheaf of papers in Gabriel’s hand and her gut clenched and her heart slipped from its moorings. No. No. No. The words were hammer blows in her head. Surely, he wasn’t the new owner? How could she bear it? To have the man whose advances she’d spurned four years ago take up residence in her family’s home?
Gabriel held the library door open. ‘Come in. We need to talk.’

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Sicilian billionaire Gabriel Salvetti offers a simple exchange- for her hand in marriage, he’ll save Francesca Mancini’s ancestral home. Penniless Frankie has the aristocratic name Gabriel needs to redeem his family’s notorious reputation. And their blatant physical attraction can only sweeten the deal. But when he discovers his convenient bride is a secret virgin, one taste is enough to make Gabriel crave his wife- forever!

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 80 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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