Welcome to my blog, Evonne, and huge congratulations on your new release, A Wedding on the Riviera. Please tell us a little more about it:
Hello – thanks for inviting me onto the blog.It’s nice to pay visits to other members of the Choc-lit/Ruby family.
Where shall I start? Well, I write romantic suspense for Choc-lit. The romantic suspense genre, for those who have not met the term before, combines a thriller element and a fully fledged love story – more dead bodies than your average romance. As you can guess from the title, this one is at the lighter end of the spectrum, although I do write grittier ones as well. This is the second in what I hope will be a ‘Riviera’ Series. The first was Summer in San Remoand it had an enemies to lovers plot, with a mystery to solve, and of course my hero and heroine ended up in San Remo, on the Italian Riviera.
What prompted you to write this story?
When I finished writing the first book I’d enjoyed it so much that I knew I wanted to do it again. Jake, the hero of that book, has just taken over a detective agency in Bath, and it was a good starting point for more stories. I’m planning that each book will be self contained, with a new heroine and hero, but also with the chance to catch up on characters from previous novels. Once I’d decided that, it was a matter of finding a story. I’d read a couple of ‘runaway bride’ books and started to think about turning that around, and making it a runaway groom. I thought it would be fun to make him a villain – I have to confess, I do like writing villains. That gave me the idea that he should be a con man, making off with the wedding expenses. I then needed a hero who could identify him, which led me to someone who would attend a lot of weddings, which gave me a professional escort – my hero, Ryan – who would, of course, be at this particular wedding with his favourite client, my heroine Nadine. The detective agency came in by way of a sting to try and catch the thief, and we were off and running.
I love the setting, what made you decide upon this location? (And I hope you got to visit for research.)
As it was going to be a Riviera book, that came with the package. I have a bit of a weakness for glamorous settings and I do like to write about places where the sun shines – I hate the cold – so I had no trouble with that. The plot of A Wedding on the Riviera is a little darker than Summer in San Remo, but still with plenty of glitz and glamour, this time in the South of France. I had a lot of fun planning the wedding to end all weddings at a villa outside Nice, which was the bait to lure the con man. I did have a holiday on the Riviera booked in May when I was going to soak up atmosphere and take lots of pictures to use for blogs and location tours… but of course, that didn’t happen. I’m hoping to make it next year.
Without giving too much away, who is your favourite character and why?
It is difficult to choose. I have a new hero and heroine, but we also see quite a bit of Cassie and Jake, the central couple from Summer in San Remo, and I did enjoy showing the reader how their lives had moved on. For a favourite, it’s hard to decide between Ryan and Nadine. I like writing male characters, as it is challenge to get into the hero’s head. One of the big plusses for writing for Choc-lit is that they expect authors to write both points of view, and I find developing the story from both sides fits me perfectly. I have a lot of respect for Nadine as a character, as she had to take on running her husband’s family business when he died unexpectedly, and she is quite brave being in the forefront of taking on the con man who, I am glad to say, is a very unpleasant individual, under a smooth exterior.
What can we expect from you next?
I have a box full of partial manuscripts, a lot of them of the darker kind, which I do want to get back to, but for the moment I’m staying on the Riviera. The next one will be set on the Italian side of the border, in Portofino, which is a very glitzy location indeed. I’m building a villa and creating a garden for that one. I’m also researching Riviera Four. For some reason the hero is an Egyptologist – yes, I know – so I have to find out about Egyptology. I’m trying to talk him into being an art historian instead, but I’m not having much luck so far. His heroine works for the detective agency, and has a cameo part in A Wedding on the Riviera, so it will be interesting to see her take centre stage and get her man, even if he is being stubborn at the moment. I have a feeling that there may be a significant character trait emerging here…
About the book:
A return to the Riviera on the trail of a runaway groom …
When out-of-work actor Ryan Calder attends a wedding as the plus-one of successful businesswoman, Nadine Wells, he doesn’t expect to get in a scuffle with the groom.
But Ryan has a good reason. He recognises the groom from another wedding where the same man made a quick getaway, taking the wedding money and leaving a heartbroken bride in his wake. It seems he’s struck again, and Nadine’s poor friend is the target.
Ryan and Nadine decide they can’t let it happen to another woman, so with a group of friends they hatch a plan that will take them to the French Riviera, hot on the heels of the crooked groom. But could their scheme to bring him to justice also succeed in bringing them closer together?
Links to buy: Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | Barnes and Noble
About the author:
Evonne is an award winning Welsh author of romantic suspense – more crime and dead bodies than your average romance. She likes to set her book in her native Wales, or for a touch of glamorous escapism, in favourite holiday destinations in Europe. She is a Doctor of Philosophy and an historian, and a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association.
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