SPOTLIGHT & Giveaway: Lilian Darcy

Sara, thanks so much for having me on HarlequinJunkie.

Lilian Darcy

 It's great to be a guest here on Harlequin Junkie. I've been writing for Harlequin for a long time - for so long, in fact, that when I first started, any author who proposed getting herself out there to interact with readers or share her interests or talk about the inspiration behind a book would have been frowned at, gently led back into her closet and given an expensive lunch. But times changed. Electric typewriters were invented. And horseless carriages. We blinked, and along came the internet and now I'm here, miraculously still only thirty-six years old. (My husband tells me this very firmly every time I ask, so it must be true.)

The biggest miracle, apart from my eternal youth, is probably the fact that I still love what I do, after more than eighty books. I love telling a story that for many people is the most important story of their lives, not just because of that wonderful, giddy feeling of new love but because finding the right person to share your life with really matters. Kingdoms have risen or fallen on the strength of it. Children have suffered or bloomed. I hate that this story is so often treated as trivial by the wider media. I love a romance story, and if you're reading this blog, I know that you do, too.

This year is a busy one for me, as I have three books out in Harlequin Special Edition, all part of the McKinley Medics trilogy. If readers respond to them, my editor is hoping for more in the series, featuring a different branch of the family. I loved writing each of these books for different reasons.

In Daddy on Her Doorstep, I really enjoyed torturing heroine Claudia a little bit, when parenthood didn't turn out to be the efficient and organized process she was expecting. Hero Andy seemed to find the whole thing somewhat amusing, too.

In A Doctor in His House I loved that the physical attraction and connection had come first for this couple, years earlier, when neither of them knew how to turn it into something more. We'd probably all like a second chance at something in our lives, and Scarlett and Daniel are lucky enough to get their wish.

Coming in July is the final book, A Marriage Worth Fighting For, which has to count as my favorite of the three, even though I love all of them. Alicia married eldest McKinley sibling MJ for his money and secure position. She had good reasons for doing it, but all the same it's not been a healthy bargain between them and it's not surprising that everything has come crashing down. I hope readers won't hate my Alicia, because I love both her and MJ very much!

As well as the trilogy, I'm also releasing Saving Gerda this month, in ebook, self-publishing it through my own company.

Why didn't I go with Harlequin on this one? Because it's too different. There's a marketing pressure that Harlequin is under to keep their branding consistent, and it makes sense for their business plan but not always for mine. I wanted to tell some more complex stories, still with the same level of emotion, the strong characters and the complex family relationships that I love to explore, and still with a major element of romance, but still... just different. For a start, Saving Gerda is set in Germany in the 1930s, while all my other books have been contemporary in setting. 

Still, I hope that any reader who enjoys my books in Harlequin Special Edition will give Saving Gerda a try, as well as my other ebook releases, Cafe du Jour and All Dressed Up.

Readers, to celebrate the Special Edition trilogy and the release of Saving Gerda, I'm giving away the eBook ' Saving Gerda' ~ Lilian

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