Busy months ahead

There’s still a few days to join in with the giveaway for a paperback copy of Head Over Wheels! (This has closed now and winners have been notified, although if I don’t hear from them, I might still come back to others).

April means I have a new book coming out this month! An Italian Island Love Story is the third in a series of interconnected standalones about destination wedding planners and this one’s set on the Tuscan island of Elba. It’s full of nature - water, soil, rock, sunshine - and is the romance between two people who both thought they were too broken to find love again.

Turtles play a big part in this story, with a nest requiring a change of plans for the beach wedding in the book. Elba is a nesting site for the Loggerhead sea turtle and every years the local volunteers ensure the nests aren’t disturbed. Foraging and wildflowers also play a part in the story - the love interest is a florist.

The first two books in the series have also had a huge revamp! I love the new titles and the colours! The first book in the series, now called Falling for the Italian Dream, is currently free to download for readers who are members of Amazon Prime. It’s an epic second chance romance about wedding planner Sophie and the mountain guide who turned down her proposal eight years earlier - and they now have to work together on a wedding at Lake Garda.

Snowed In at the Wedding Chalet is an opposites attract romance between the tough and closed off mountain guide Kira, who’s been unwillingly roped into wedding duties, and the sensitive opera singer Mattia who drags her out of her shell.

Do you prefer the new titles?

Book four in the series will be ready for pre-order very shortly! I’m excited about this one, because I’ve been preparing Ginny’s story since book one and it was so much fun to write - also because it features Sophie and Andreas’s autumn wedding.

I’m cooking up quite a few new things at the moment, all of them top secret and very exciting. In my writing world, I’m simultaneously in London, the south of France and the mountainous border between Italy and Austria. They’re three very different books and I’m really enjoying both leaning into my existing brand of books and trying something a little exciting and different.

In real life, I spent two days hiking over Easter. Sometimes I think I could just stick a few technical shirts and trousers in a backpack and wander off and I’d be quite happy just putting one foot in front of the other. We had to stay at low altitude because there’s still too much snow in the Alps, but this smaller mountain range offered some decent elevation. You’ll see the weather was a little questionable, but it wasn’t too bad.

I love these piles of stones that people make at the top of mountains and other special places. They’re called Steinmännchen (little stone men) in German and in some places you can see lots of them, many that have been there for a long time and sometimes larger, sturdier piles. It feels fundamentally human to want to make a pile of stones!

I’ve had a little time to read as well, in between the many books I’m juggling at the moment. I was extremely lucky to have an early copy of The Love Stunt by Lulu Morris and I’m also reading Sink or Swim by Kirstie Pelling. I hope you all had some reading time, if you had days off, as well as some time to spend with the people you love.

As ever, thanks for coming on the journey with me and until next time, much love

Leonie x