On Conversations: #bestselling #romance #author Melinda Curtis

Please join me in welcoming the award-winning contemporary romance author, Melinda Curtis to Conversations today! Melinda is here to talk about her sweet romance, The Christmas Promise, part of the fourteen author, Sweet Christmas Kisses collection. So be sure and check out the cover and blurb below! And be sure and check out her story behind the story of The Christmas Promise too!

Plus, Melinda has a special gift just for you, a FREE digital copy of her sweet, fun novella set within the Hollywood Rules world. All you have to do is sign up for Melinda’s book release email newsletter HERE.

Lisa ~
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SWEET CHRISTMAS KISSES:
Fourteen Sweet Christmas Romances

This holiday season, warm your heart with 14 Sweet Christmas Kisses, a bundle of PG-rated romance novels and novellas from USA Today, national bestselling, and award-winning authors.

Sweet Christmas Kisses takes you from small-town USA to England, Scotland, and even Ecuador; from the beach to snow-capped mountains, and to the wild--sometimes magical--west. The Sweet Christmas Kisses bundle will bring you laughter, tears, and always joy, for more than 1600 pages.


The Christmas Promise 

When a chocolate heiress bumps into a wounded warrior during Christmas, chaos ensues thanks in part to three fairy godmothers...er, a trio of meddlesome nuns. 


Join the authors of Sweet Christmas Kisses for a Facebook release party with prizes, freebies, and fun on 9/30.  Guest authors include RaeAnn Thayne, Brenda Novak, and Jayne Ann Krentz.  Join the party at: https://www.facebook.com/SweetRomanceReads

The Story Behind the Story of The Christmas Promise by Melinda Curtis

In June, I was asked to participate in a holiday anthology with 13 other sweet romance writers. Last year, I would have jumped up and down for joy. This year, I have 6 writing projects on the table and had deadlines that couldn’t be adjusted. Call me Crazy…I agreed. Only one problem besides squeezing it in the schedule: I needed an idea.

At the time, my friend, Kim, was in Ecuador researching a new cocoa product (translation: she wanted to create a new chocolate snack organically). Kim was in a very remote part of Ecuador and her weekly updates to friends fascinated me.  All the things we take for granted – a bug-free home, air conditioning, internet – she didn’t have any of that. One week, she reported the humongous size of bugs that landed on her, a snake sighting, and a trip from the cocoa fields uphill in the rain with a flat tire on her wheelbarrow.  For a romantic comedy writer, it was nirvana! A fish out of water story was born! Add a wounded warrior, three matchmaking nuns, and I had myself a story. It turned out kind of like a cross between Runaway Bride and Romancing the Stone.

Here’s part of the opening scene with my socialite heroine:

     It was raining.  Again.
     Tiffany Bonander tried humming a few bars of White Christmas.  It was, after all, December 23.  Cheer was called for.
     But the incessant beat of fat raindrops on the tangled foliage of the Ecuadorian rainforest and on her pink rain slicker, drowned out her cheer.
     Or maybe she was just drowning under the pressure of heavy responsibilities.
     Ankle-deep water rushed down the steep, muddy road toward Tiff and her precious cargo–thirty pounds of cocoa beans.  She couldn’t lose the beans.  They were the answer to all her troubles. 
     Thunder boomed.  And boomed again.  The downpour increased to a deluge.
     Tightening her grip on the wheelbarrow handles, Tiff tried to find purchase with her rain boots, tried to make it to the next rise before the road turned into a river.  Tried…and failed. Somewhere above her the river had risen high enough to crest a bank.  Water surged toward her.
     Tiff’s father claimed they’d abandoned this cocoa plantation years ago for drainage reasons.  He should have used the F-word: flood.
     Tiff stumbled to her knees, and water rushed into her boots–cute, pink-flowered plastic ones which quickly filled with water and felt as heavy as cement shoes.  If not for her grip on the wheelbarrow, she might have been swept downhill.  Just last week, she’d heard about a woman who’d been carried away by the cresting river and smashed into a tree.  Smashed as in: to pieces.  Dead.
     That would be worse than being broke and the laughing-stock of the civilized world.



Melinda Curtis writes the Harmony Valley series of sweet and emotional romances for the Harlequin Heartwarming line (book 4 coming 3/2015). Brenda Novak says: “Season of Change has found a place on my keeper shelf”.  Melinda also writes independently published, hotter romances as Mel Curtis. Jayne Ann Krentz says of Blue Rules: “Sharp, sassy, modern version of a screwball comedy from Hollywood's Golden Age except a lot hotter.”
 

This was karma, plain and simple.  She shouldn’t have jilted Chad at their engagement party or left Malcolm at the altar. 

Connect with Melinda: 
Website: www.MelindaCurtis.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelindaCurtisAuthor
Twitter: @MelCurtisAuthor
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/melcurtisauthor/
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