What's Inside

Business-deal Bride is out on Harlequin.com, some special news about Afternoon Delight, What I'm Watching and all the rest of my usual nonsense. Read on...

Business-deal Bride

Get a jump on my latest duet--Business Proposals--right now. Book One is available on Harlequin.com and Mills & Boon UK today!

Business-deal Bride kicks off with Axel learning that he's been tricked! In exchange for taking ownership of the company he's made his lifeblood, all he has to do is marry the owner's daughter. He thought that was Mira. They've been engaged for the last two years.

In a last-minute twist, Mira's father reveals he is not Mira's father. Axel must find Otto's real daughter and marry her if he wants the company. Axel really wants the company...

A marriage contract signed…

and passionately sealed!

Tycoon Axel will claim ownership of the company he built—if he must marry his enemy’s secret daughter, then so be it. He just needs to persuade her to accept his strictly-business proposal!

Left destitute by her ex, dancer Joy has been working in a strip club to provide for her family. A year married to a stranger—even one as ruthless as Axel—seems a small price to pay for their financial security. Until they share a devastatingly fiery kiss, and Joy realises striking a deal with the devil means she’s going to get burned…

​Harlequin.com | Mills & Boon UK​

​More Links​

Afternoon Delight - Special Announcement

You guys... Wild stuff happens when you follow your intuition. The long story follows, but you can scroll down for the TL;DR version.

Last summer, before I gave up social media, wine, and potato chips, I was sitting on the deck indulging in all three. I saw a post on Threads for the Canada, Eh? book signing in Edmonton.

I hadn't done a book signing in years and they were always in conjunction with a conference. I had never really had to do much work except show up, but one of my goals last year was to do more in-person events so I could network with other authors, build my indie career, and get more involved in the Canadian romance scene. I filled out the interest form and forgot about it.

A few months later, the organizers kindly invited me to attend. I had to learn how to make pre-order forms and do point-of-sale and figure out which books to bring and how to arrange them on a table. I was too far in to back out when my hairdresser, who goes to Edmonton all the time, said, "You can't drive that in one shot, Dani. Not in October. You'll need to stop overnight along the way."

If you know anything about hand-selling books, my chances of breaking even on this event plummeted considerably once I factored in three nights in a hotel.

As it turns out, it was worth every penny. I made some new friends and sold way more books than I expected. You may even recall that I mentally plotted my enemies to lovers Harlequin on that drive.

Everything about that trip was a win, in my opinion. If that's all that had happened, I would have called it a terrific HEA.

Now, you know how superstitious I am. It won't surprise you that I have been keeping one snippet of gossip to myself for fear of jinxing it.

While I was in Edmonton, I met a lovely editor, Genevieve Loughlin, from Pownal Street Press, a Canadian publisher in PEI. They are starting a romance imprint and inviting submissions. She kindly bought a copy of Afternoon Delight and I promised to send her a proposal.

Do you know how long I've waited for Canada to have its own romance publisher? Yes, of course we have Harlequin in Toronto, but they are also in London and New York and are very global without any particular focus on romances set in Canada with Canadian characters written by Canadian authors.

At the end of 2025, I pitched Genevieve a concept that we're both excited about. It's not a sequel to Afternoon Delight, but it has a similar vibe with a near-forty heroine, lots of messy family stuff, banter, heat, and tons of Can-con (Canadian Content.) It will likely come out sometime in the spring of 2027.

And wait! Don't guess yet! Pownal Street Press have also acquired Afternoon Delight and will reissue it this fall! In the meantime, it will disappear from the online retailers for a few months. Stay tuned. I'll let you know when it's available again.

TL;DR

Afternoon Delight will disappear from retailers for about six months while it is recovered and reissued by Pownal Street Press. I'll let you know as soon as it's available again.

What Was I Thinking

ICYMI: I covered my Baby Swap duet on WWIT along with Beached Wedding and On The Edge. If you want to listen, you can can find all episodes here.

Psst. I've even loaded the Feb 3 episode for Business-deal Bride. Shhh. You're getting it early because you're special.

​Listen Now​

Hello Reader,

I always think I have so much to tell you, then I start to write it and it either seems supremely boring, or I chicken out because I don't want to jinx my good luck. See above about working with the Canadian publisher. I've been sitting on that since last October, terrified it wouldn't pan out the way I'd hoped.

Doug and I did just have a very quick overnight getaway. It was only a night in Kelowna, which is a lovely town in the summer, not so much in the dead of winter, but we still had fun despite it being very cold. My sister is currently reading this and huffing. While we were sobbing over -9C she was staring at -38 with windchill to -51 (almost -60F)

Anyway, Doug and I are both entering a busy time for a bunch of reasons--nothing serious, but I have a heavy writing schedule and a couple of weekend trips in the first half of this year. He has family commitments so we just don't see a big holiday in the cards this year, which is fine. It wouldn't kill me to stay home and give my garden some love.

What I'm (re)Watching

We finally watched The Brutalist. Doug liked it. I thought it was fine.

I watched Boots on Netflix. I really enjoyed it, but there are painful moments of discrimination.

We happened upon Left-handed Girl, an absolute gem of a movie about a little girl who believes her left hand is cursed. It's a Chinese film and dubbed to English.

His & Hers is a murder-mystery drama that is fine. The acting is very good and the setup is intriguing, but by the end we were both lukewarm on it.

Dying for Sex is excellent. Doug found it too painful--it's loosely based on a woman with terminal cancer so I don't think it's a spoiler to say it follows her into her last moments, but it is very well acted and funny while reflecting the brutality of all she's going through. I loved it and will eventually rewatch it. Jenny Slate is in it as Michelle Williams' best friend and she was excellent.

We then happened upon The Sunlit Night, also starring Jenny Slate. In this one, she's a painter who goes to Norway. It's a quiet little film, but has some funny moments. I really enjoyed it.

Inhabited is a documentary that visits all of Canada's UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites. I thought it would be a grand-scale travelogue view of the sites, but it's more quiet and intimate than that. I liked it.

I'm almost done with the second season of Palm Royale. I like it, but honestly, sometimes I have to turn it off for a while because it gets so stressful!

Finally, we watched Paradise on Disney, I think. I had seen it listed with a bunch of other shows I liked so I'm giving it to you that way as well, so you can go into it without knowing much about it.

What's Next

As mentioned, I have a heavy writing schedule for the next few months.

I'm trying to get this Canadian manuscript finished by the end of March. Again, it is not a sequel to Afternoon Delight. I feel like I can't stress that enough, but I love these characters who express themselves through exasperation and loving sarcasm. I hope you'll love them, too.

I *just* received revisions for my enemies to lovers for Harlequin, so I'm switching gears to work on those. Then I have one other iron in a fire that I'm excited about. It's something different for me and absolutely nothing is settled so bleh. I am being mysterious again. As usual. Please, just wish me luck.

If I find time in amongst all of that, I have an indie project that I happen to think is hilarious, so I really want to finish it, but we'll see.

On the release front, it's quiet for the first half of the year--you get Business-deal Bride this month and the other half of the duet in May called Italian's Diamond Deception.

Happy Endings

I'm very happy with the warmer weather and the days getting longer. (Ground hog day tomorrow!) I'm thrilled that my revisions are fairly light and I had a tuna melt on sourdough today that was fantastic.

Hugs,

Dani