Burra Burra Lane Birthday Blitz Giveaway - meet guest #5!

My dear friend (and truly brilliant giver of feedback when one is writing the first draft of a story and needs such brilliance in order to keep going) is a journalist and freelance writer who discovered, after years of writing facts for a living, that writing romance is much more fun.

When Lily is not writing, she likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine).

Under the party bunting in Swallow’s Fall today is … romance author - Lily Malone!

And the band starts playing, the wine is already flowing (Lily is a connoisseur), so grab a seat quick because the Town Hall in the fictional setting of Swallow's Fall is filling up fast.

Lily's novel, His Brand of Beautiful is up for grabs in the Burra Burra Lane Birthday Blitz Giveaway which you can enter below.

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Let's go, with six snappy questions.

Who are the main characters in His Brand of Beautiful?

Tate Newell - a marketing & branding guru who has a lot of country under his city persona; and Christina Clay, go-get-em 35-year-old running her family’s wine company.

What is His Brand of Beautiful about?

When marketing strategist Tate Newell first meets wine executive Christina Clay, he has one goal in mind: tell Christina he won’t design the new brand for Clay Wines. Tell her thanks, but no thanks. So long, good night.

But Tate is a sucker for a damsel in distress and when a diary mix-up leaves Christina in his debt, Tate gets more than he bargained for.

What does a resourceful girl do when the best marketing brain in the business won’t play ball? She bluffs. She cheats. And she ups the ante. But when the stakes get too high, does anybody win?

Falling in love was never part of this branding brief.

What prompted you to write this story?

A love of wine!

A love of wine!

Please, please share a paragraph or two from this story.

This is from the section where Tate has ‘conned’ city-girl Christina into coming camping with him. So they’re at his family’s cattle station, camping out and Christina has been sent to the river to get some water.

The river wasn’t wide here—she could have kicked the rock to the other side if she’d tried—but the banks carved deep, hued in marble-cake layers of rich red-brown through which tree roots stroked the earth. No wind marred the water, only birds stirred the trees. Some branches dipped low, others skimmed the river’s surface. The highest canopies were painted gold by sun but the river and its banks were shaded, tree trunks yellow-white in the soft light.

It was like standing before a Heysen painting, only she smelled eucalyptus and ancient earth instead of red wine and blue cheese, and the hum in the air was that of insect wings, not air-conditioning in an art gallery.

Upriver, on the opposite bank, a grey mother kangaroo let her joey clamber from her pouch. Black-tipped ears flicked back and forth. Its pointed nose twitched. The joey crept a few metres from its mother in that awkward half-crawl, half-hop. At a pocket of grass near the base of a tree it hunched, nibbled; sat to scratch an itch.

The mother’s attention didn’t waver.

Christina’s hand floated to her abdomen.

Lily, what do you most like about the writer’s life?

The writer’s life? Um... I would honestly say it’s the lovely writing friends I’ve found both in person, and in cyberspace, and it’s the readers. The joy I feel when someone says they’ve liked my work makes all the painstaking hours of writing worthwhile.

Lily Malone

What are you like in ‘real’ life? (Be honest, we’re all friends here and don’t forget – I know you!)

I’m like a yo-yo. I’m up and down all the time, and I spin, both forwards and back. I’m also colourful like a yo-yo, especially when I’m wearing my beanie!

Thank you, Lily, for showering us with your fantastic books.

I love that pink beanie, Lily. I hope it continues to keep your brain warmed, ready for writing more of your special stories of romance. Don’t keep us waiting too long before the next release, now, will you? (By the way, do you have a matching pair of fingerless pink gloves for those colder days when you’re wandering the garden, wine glass in hand?)

Jennie x

Here's where to find more about Lily, and more of her excellent books:

Lily Malone’s webpage & blog

Lily Malone on Facebook

Lily Malone on Twitter

Enter the Burra Burra Lane Birthday Blitz Giveaway for a chance to win Lily's book and five other books from Escape Publishing authors. Giveaway ends June 27.

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