Today I’m thrilled to have fellow traveler and xenophile author MaryAnn Clarke visiting my blog today to share her latest romantic women’s fiction release, A FORGED AFFAIR. This book is set in France, so if you enjoyed my SWEET LIFE NOVELS, also set in European locales, you might enjoy MaryAnn’s books, too. She’s been kind enough to provide us 3 reasons why you should read A FORGED AFFAIR, so take it away, MaryAnn…..
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Happy Spring Equinox… almost.
All right armchair travellers, have I got a book for you! Below is a blurb and excerpt for A FORGED AFFAIR. This book is releasing on June 14th, June 7th if you prefer to order a print copy. The ebook is available for the special launch price of $2.99.
Buy either before June 14th to get the free bonus download of a colouring booklet drawn by the author, showing scenes from the novel. See below for instructions.
If the cover alone hasn’t pulled you in, take a look at this blurb and MaryAnn’s three reasons…
She welcomes any risk, as long as it doesn’t involve her own carefully guarded heart.
Adrenaline junkie Niki Ballantyne is a risk-taker at work and at play. Haunted by guilt over her brother’s tragic death, she’s devoted to saving others in trouble.
While on an adventure holiday in the south of France, she meets handsome and charming traveller Luc and his shy friend, the gentle giant Didier.
Helping the bullied blacksmith win the love of another woman is not a typical rescue project for Niki, but she’s driven by compassion for her lonely new friend. Bittersweet memories of her brother’s life compel Niki to stay and support the star-crossed giant.
Their forged affair is perfectly safe.
There’s no risk of getting emotionally involved, but teaching him about intimacy comes with consequences, and lesson to be learned.
Particularly when it comes to Luc. On the cusp of a life-altering decision, Luc is drawn to daredevil Niki, though she upends his carefully laid plans for a perfect future. Despite instant chemistry and a powerful connection, Niki pushes him away.
But when a sudden emergency brings Luc to her rescue, the way he sees her vulnerability scares her more than anything. Now she has to decide if the last thing she ever wanted might be exactly what she needs.
3 Reasons Why You Should Read A Forged Affair…
#1 One early reviewer has this to say:
“Reading A Forged Affair feels like a vacation; MA Clarke Scott’s lyrical prose engages the senses so well that one easily becomes immersed in the world of her story. A Forged Affair reads like a fairy tale for adults; complete with jugglers, tumblers, a crone and a giant. In her skilled hands, all these characters, including the hero and heroine, become magically alive and relatable.” Historical Author Natasha Powers
The primary location of the story, a “bastide” village in Aquitaine in the south of France, is modeled after a real village that the author visited ten years ago. Their stay coincided with a Medieval Festival that transformed the already charming village into a fairy tale setting that stimulated the author’s storytelling juices. Naturally, she had to create unusual characters, believable in a contemporary age, who enriched this magical place.
#2 A Forged Affair features a very different kind of heroine than you usually see in romantic women’s fiction.
Niki is a woman who lives life in the fast lane – her highly skilled job in rope access (learn more about this real-life thrilling career: https://www.womeninropeaccess.com/) – and her passion for search and rescue are only the beginning. She’s an exceptional athlete who spends most of her time engaged in fast-paced, high-risk adventure sports, such as parkour, zip-lining, and mountain biking to name a few. If it’s exciting, she’s game, and more than capable. But what’s she running from? Are their demons nipping at her heels? Or perhaps ghosts? What will she encounter in the village of Petit Bergeron to settle her restless heart?
#3 Tortured giant Didier LeGrand triggers a change in her.
Niki is driven to intercede when she sees how the heartsick blacksmith’s body image affects his sense of self- esteem and confidence, and how he’s tormented by local bullies. It’s too painful a reminder of her younger brother’s anguished and too-short life. How Niki ultimately chooses to support Didier is controversial. Will you sympathize and support her, or be shocked and disapprove?
In the end, it’s Niki’s comfort in her own skin that helps her get close to both Didier, and good guy Luc, and from each of them heal her own wounds, both emotional and physical. Didier might be charming and sympathetic, but don’t overlook romantic hero Luc. He’s not a typical alpha-hero who swoops in to rescue the damsel in distress. In fact, his heroism is the quiet and measured manner of a teacher. But Luc has a lesson to learn as well. He might have to give up some of his romantic notions about life, love, and happily ever after, to make room for the rough-and-tumble of reality.
Excerpt:
A few minutes later, she emerged into a large open square, surrounded by stone arcades at the ground floor of its framing buildings. The music grew louder, the aromas of delicious foods stronger. Her stomach growled as she anticipated choosing her evening meal from the wonderful choices laid out. Past the throng, in the centre of the square, stood a large roofed and pillared shelter. She’d seen one or two like it before, in other Plus Beaux Village, all of which they’d designated heritage resources, and popular tourist destinations. It was easy to see why. They were very picturesque.
She cast her gaze around the perimeter. This one though, had achieved a particular harmony in the balance of two and three-story buildings, in the elegant shapes of the arcades around the square. Painted wooden shutters, overflowing window boxes, and banners accented plainer buildings in just the right places.
Spilling out from under the open-sided roof, folding wooden chairs flanked rows of paper-covered folding tables. People young and old, costumed and not, sat at the tables eating, drinking and talking. It was difficult to navigate through the dense crowd with her bike, so she looked around for a place to tuck it safely away. Under the arcade, she found a railing surrounding a small ice cream shop with tables nestled under the stone vaults. She leaned her bike against it and locked it. Then she exchanged her stiff clip-on cycling shoes for the pair of pliable parkour sneakers she kept in her saddlebag.
Free to move, she plunged into the throng, smiling at the onslaught of stimuli. She still hadn’t located the source of the music she heard, but she passed jugglers, a fire-eater with a crowd around him, and a marching procession of Knights Templar in bright white and red tunics, carrying spears. It was a spectacle, spread out through the village.
More booths and tables ringed the square, selling food that people could buy and eat right there. Her nose filled with the scents of roasting meat and spices. She stopped to admire a gigantic forty inch diameter pan of paella, filled with chicken and seafood, the rice glowing vermillion with saffron, and salivated. Soon, she told her twisting belly, soon. There were local wine vendors, too, and people selling gorgeous glazed pastries and breads, soap, textiles, candles and sweets. She walked on, admiring the craftsmanship of wood carvers and silversmiths. The merchants were friendly, to tourists and locals alike.
Admiring a colourful display of melons, tomatoes, strawberries, grapes and other local produce, a gnarled hand darted out and tightly gripped her arm. A tiny old woman, a printed kerchief tied over her grey hair, her face wrinkled and brown like old cowhide, had a hold on her and was pressing an orange toward her face.
“Orange?” she croaked in a heavy accent and gravelly voice.
“Ouch!” Niki backed away, trying to escape the claw-like hand that pinched her. “Non, merci.” What was it with the oranges today?
Purchase Links:
Buy the book: mybook.to/Forged
Send proof of purchase to AForgedAffair@gmail.com to receive your bonus
Author Bio:
Always eager to fill blank pages and empty canvases with ideas swirling in her head, MaryAnn set out to write emotionally engaging stories that walk a tight rope between intelligent Women’s Fiction and heart-warming Romance.
A polymath who studied Fine Arts, Urbanism, Architecture and Gerontology at university on both coasts of Canada, she turned to her first love, writing stories, when she realized she could have more fun with fewer rules to follow as an author, than working in an office as an architect, or in a university as a researcher. When not writing, she meditates while hiking wooded mountain trails, does yoga and Pilates to fend off decrepitude, reads eclectically, contemplates wormholes, experiments with painting abstract expressionism, kills plants and tries not to burn dinner while solving her next plot problem. Now that her chick has flown the coop, Clarke lives on beautiful Vancouver Island, Canada with her husband and cats. Although she knows she lives in Paradise, she still loves traveling the world in search of romance, art, good food and new story ideas.
MaryAnn Clarke is a Chatelaine Grand Prize winner, and Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist for The Art of Enchantment, first in the Life is a Journey series about young women on journeys abroad who discover themselves and fall in love while getting embroiled in someone else’s problems. Her Having It All series focuses on professional women struggling to balance the challenge and fulfillment of their careers with their search for identity, love, family and home.
Find out more at the author’s website: https://www.maryannclarkescott.com
Join MaryAnn’s VIP Readers List and get the free novel Single Dad in Studio 7D. https://www.subscribepage.com/MAClarkeScottAuthor_copy2
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