Spotlight & Giveaway: Wedding at Mistletoe Chalet 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, Wedding at Mistletoe Chalet!

 
Hi Harlequin Junkies! Thanks for having me here today.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

This is a very wholesome reunion romance between childhood sweethearts Finn and Kristen. They grew up next door to one another, but Finn has been at medical school while Kristen has been establishing herself in hotel management.
Kristen takes the job because she’s ready to try a more personal approach. Finn thinks she’s alone for the holidays and drops in on her. He quickly gets caught up in the holiday secrets Kristen is keeping on behalf of the family that owns Mistletoe Chalet.
This one is low-drama, brimming with holiday cheer, a messy sheepdog, a matchmaking tween and (#spoiler) a wedding!
 

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

“Now I’m picturing a moose trying to drive a car,” Kristen said.
“If I could draw, I’d make a whole book of moose doing normal human stuff like roasting weenies.” He nodded toward the fireplace. “Skiing… Snow boarding would be even funnier, especially if they were in some slouchy pants with suspenders. A moose with suspenders hooked on their antlers is all I need in my life.”
“What about hip waders?” she suggested. “While they’re fly-fishing? They’d get the line all tangled in their antlers.”
“See? It never gets old.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I was going to write this as a cross-over book. I was going to have Petra and Flynn, teenagers from my Marietta books, come to Blue Spruce Lodge. There were a bunch of reasons that didn’t work out, but I still hope to write a crossover eventually.
• My parents were living with us when I wrote this one. They live in the next town over and there was a massive spring flood. They were pushed out of their house for two months. Mom helped me brainstorm titles and cooked a lot of dinners and generally made this book possible! (Thanks mom! xo)

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

Aside from seeing each other briefly at a wedding, they haven’t seen each other in about eight years. They were always good friends and realize very quickly how much special history they share. Kristen didn’t expect Finn to become a doctor–he initially went to college on a football scholarship, so she’s really amazed at what he’s accomplished as he finishes his residency.
Finn has always loved Kristen’s sense of humour and admires her independence.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

The first time they see each other after all those years is cute:

It was her name. She even recognized the voice. But as she stopped and turned and stared through the falling snow, it didn’t compute that she was seeing who she was seeing.
He wore a puffy blue ski jacket, but it didn’t soften broad shoulders that still looked wide enough to carry the world. His brown hair had been recently trimmed. It was ruffled and growing speckled with snow. She knew that crooked grin as well as she knew her own in the mirror, but it still seemed impossible that she was seeing him.
“Finn.” He pointed at himself and frowned with disbelief, adding, “Garrett. I know it’s been a long time, but—”
She laughed. It came out a little dry, given the mixed feelings that had tumbled out of their dusty old boxes lately, but it wasn’t like she’d been nursing heartbreak all these years. She had gone on with her life and refused to hold a grudge over their juvenile relationship and inevitable breakup.
“I know who you are! I’m stunned speechless. What are you doing here?” She leaned her scraper-brush tool against the side of her car and met him midway as he walked toward her.
He didn’t answer. His gaze was sweeping over her features in a way that almost seemed greedy for the sight of her.
“You look great,” he said, making her cheeks grow warm and her heart stumble.
“You, too,” she said. Then, because she would have done it with any other old friend from home, she stepped in to offer a hug.
The way his arms closed around her was both sweet and alarming. He was her brother’s best friend and their parents were lifetime neighbors and couple-friends and workmates. His oldest sister, Sheryl, had babysat Kristen when she was little and she had known all the Garrett children her entire life. Whenever she was home, she asked after all of them, keeping tabs as closely as she did with her extended blood relatives.
This should have been a hug of familial affection. It was cushioned by their heavy jackets and gloves and neither of them hung on awkwardly long, so it wasn’t weird or sexual. It was familiar and warm.
But memories flooded through her, showering their brief embrace in a sparkle of prickling awareness. She tingled as they broke apart. She smiled, but it felt a little forced.
His grin was having a hard time sticking, too. He searched her gaze again, but she didn’t know what answers he sought.

Readers should read this book….

if you want an angst free Christmas story with a ton of love of and holiday cheer. Finn and Kristen are meant for each other, they just need a little time to realize it.

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

I’m working on a Harlequin Presents with a secret heir that I think will be called The Maid’s Spanish Secret. The heroine is, you guessed it, a house maid. The hero, Rico, is actually the brother of Cesar from The Consequence He Must Claim. That one comes out next year.
Also look for my passionate and very angsty Christmas romance, Claiming His Christmas Wife, a December Harlequin Presents. Travis and Imogen were secretly married a few years ago and now they have to pretend they’re still married as they get through the holidays.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One digital copy of His Christmas Miracle anywhere in the world.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Kristen works in hotels and Finn is a doctor – both are professions that sometimes require you to work Christmas. What do you think about working that day? Have you ever celebrated on a different day?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from Wedding at Mistletoe Chalet:

She cupped her mug in two hands, using it as a small shield as she asked, “What did you want to talk about?”
“I just…” He hesitated, turned his palm up where his hand rested on the table. “Mom said you were alone this year. That she had invited you to join us and…” He shrugged. “I was worried you refused because of me.”
“I’ve worked through Christmas before. It had nothing to do with you and I survived every time.”
His mouth tightened and he looked out the window, nodded, expression distant. “I hear now how conceited it sounds. When I talked to Mom…”
“I sounded more pitiful?” she supplied.
“No,” he said firmly, flashing her a glance that scolded. “Nothing like that. But half of us are staying in your house. Obviously, you’re welcome there with us. I wanted to be sure you knew that.”
“Thank you,” she said, trying to accept his gesture at face value and be gracious not stung. “But this job is actually an opportunity I wanted.”
“Yeah?” His fingers loosely bracketed his own mug where he left it on the table. “You’re happy with where you’ve ended up?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason, but…how would I know either way? I haven’t heard from you in all this time.”
“Same,” she pointed out.
“Guilty.” He made a face and looked away. “This has been a grueling bunch of years. Even so, when I did see you at Carson’s wedding…”
“Finn,” she forestalled. “It’s not like we were engaged. We should have made a clean break at the end of summer. Everyone warned us the distance would break us. One of us was going to pull the pin eventually. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
The tension around his mouth remained. “I didn’t know how to ask you to come down a road I couldn’t even see. And you had plans of your own,” he reminded her. “You were in your first year of college. I couldn’t ask you to completely rewrite your plans just because I was rewriting mine. Would you have gone overseas if I had? No.”
“So you came here to ask me to forgive you for giving me the freedom to pursue my dreams? There’s nothing to forgive. It was a teenaged crush. I got over it.”
Something in the way his expression turned so stony made her wish she hadn’t been quite so cavalier. She had actually nursed her heartbreak a long time. She still didn’t date much, partly because she didn’t want to get hurt again.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Eager for a warm and cozy Christmas…

In the midst of a changing career, Kristen Benz leaps on the temporary job at Mistletoe Chalet. Soon she’s wrapping presents, trimming the tree, and helping her new boss’s tween daughter plan a Christmas Eve vow renewal for her parents. The holiday is imbued with a magical glow—especially when Kristen’s high school sweetheart appears on the doorstep.

After years of medical school, Finn Garrett has promised his parents he’ll be home for the holidays. His detour to see his first love is supposed to provide closure, not rekindle their long-ago romance.

Can a matchmaking tween and the magic of Mistletoe Chalet spark the happily ever after that eluded them in the past?
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 for Harlequin Presents and Tule’s Montana Born, but her backlist of nearly fifty 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. She lives in Christina Lake, BC with her high school sweetheart husband who occasionally coaxes her out of her attic office to visit their grown children.
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