Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, where I share snippets from new and past releases and works-in-progress and occasionally cajole an author buddy into doing the same.

Like today!

But first, news from the Hein House.

I missed my Serenity’s Song deadline. I hate that so much. Fortunately, the publisher has been very kind and given me an extension. Which means there’s nothing happening in the house except the sound of typing, usually accompanied with much moaning and muttering.

Chocolate crackle biscuits

And cooking. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking, especially baking because it’s something I love and it gives me a break from the computer. I’m also self-isolating due all the immune-suppressant drugs I’m on and there’s bugger-all else to do. Besides clean, which is no fun at all.

So far I’ve experimented with a new pizza dough technique (first was a bit of a dud, second not too bad – my biggest issue is not owning a proper pizza oven but I’m working on that), chocolate crackle biscuits from the April edition of Delicious magazine (total win!), sour cream banana cake (another winner), a new technique for

Plum and Hazelnut tart

getting super crackly crackling on roast pork, also from the latest Delicious mag (it worked!), a new stir-fry recipe using chilli jam (nothing to get excited about) and Neil Perry’s recipe for plum and hazelnut tart (very nice).

I hope you’re faring well and keeping safe and looking after your physical and mental wellbeing. It’s a stressful time and it’s important to be as kind to ourselves as we are to those around us.

Speaking of kind, today we’re being treated to another gorgeous guest. Please give a huuuuuge welcome back to Teaser Tuesday regular Anna Campbell!

Anna’s latest, The Highlander’s English Bride, released last week and looks and sounds fabulous. Luuuurve that kilty cover. Reviews so far have been glowing too. I already have a copy on my e-reader and am looking forward to getting stuck in.

It’s always a delight to host Anna on Teaser Tuesday. Her posts are such fun and often there’s a giveaway. Will there be one this week? You’ll have to read on to find out!

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Hi Cathryn!

Lovely to be back on Teaser Tuesday. Thank you for having me as your guest today.

One of my favorite tropes as writer and reader is the marriage of convenience. It works particularly well in a historical setting where divorce was so difficult that it was basically impossible. I’ve written a few MOC stories, and they’re always fun.

Sometimes, but not always, the marriage of convenience comes about because the couple are caught up in a scandal and a wedding is the only way to restore the heroine’s reputation. That’s the case with my new release, The Highlander’s English Bride, book six in my bestselling Lairds Most Likely series. Hamish Douglas and Emily Baylor are discovered in a compromising situation at a public event, and they have no choice but to walk up the aisle together.

The problem is that Hamish and Emily have always had a volatile relationship – in fact, they fight like cat and dog. What on earth will become of them, this incompatible pair locked together for a lifetime?

Well, if you’re an old hand with romances, I think you can guess. Snicker.

But of course, it’s the journey that makes a romance fun – and Hamish and Emily have a long way to go before they get their happy ending, including a setting shift from London to Hamish’s estate in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland. This scene below takes place when Emily pursues her husband to Glen Lyon to try and convince him that they need to become more to each other than wary strangers. Hamish answers the door naked except for a bedsheet – which starts this topsy-turvy reconciliation off in high style.

By the way, if you’ve got a yen to read some of my other MOC stories, check out Lord Garson’s Bride, What a Duke Dares, Captive of Sin and Her Christmas Earl.

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Glen Lyon, the Western Highlands of Scotland, September 1823

For a long moment, they stared at each other. Emily wondered how different things might have been if Hamish had stayed in London. She had an inkling that he was thinking exactly the same thing.

Eventually he straightened in his chair and sent her a direct look. “Just what are you doing here, Emily?“

She swallowed. The moment arrived, and she was nervous. Which made no sense at all. Her explanation should be easier, now she knew that Hamish had missed her and that he’d stayed faithful. But those revelations remained too astonishing for her to rely on them.

She swallowed again and cursed that her voice emerged reedy and unsteady. “I decided my place was with my husband.”

If she expected him to react to that announcement with any gratification, she was to be disappointed. The chiseled features remained unreadable as he said slowly, “Did you indeed?”

She rose, hoping it might make her feel less at a disadvantage. “I did.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she forced out the hardest bit. “I hoped…I thought if you were willing, we might try to find some common ground in this marriage.”

Hamish stood up, hitched the sheet higher, and wheeled toward the steps.

Speechless, Emily watched him go. She felt as though she’d sliced out her heart and laid it at his feet, and all he did was run away. Again.

“Hamish?” she asked shakily. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said without turning back.

“So what do you say?”

At least she no longer sounded like a complete ninnyhammer. Shock receded under the more familiar urge to biff him with the nearest stick.

He didn’t look back as he started to descend the stairs. “I say that if this is what you’ve come all this way to talk about, I need to be wearing more than just a bedsheet.”

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You can read a longer excerpt and the blurb on my website.

or get instant satisfaction by purchasing The Highlander’s English Bride from any of these stores:

Amazon.com | Amazon.au | Amazon.uk

Apple Books | Kobo | Barnes & Noble

Thanks so much, Anna! This one gave me a lovely laugh. Not to mention a very pleasant mental image of Hamish in a bedsheet.

Now, my darlings, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Yes, we have a…

GIVEAWAY!

Here’s Anna to tell you what you need to do to play along.

So who would you like to see answering the door in only a bedsheet? If you read The Highlander’s English Bride and you picture Chris Hemsworth as Hamish, you won’t be far off the mark, so I’ll vote for CH. And if he’s otherwise occupied, I’ll take Jason Momoa. How about you?

I’ve got a download of The Highlander’s English Bride to give away to someone who leaves a comment on this post. No geographical restrictions.

Rah! We do love a good giveaway on Teaser Tuesday and this question is a beauty. I do find myself hard pressed to choose anyone beyond Mr Hemsworth because… HEMSWORTH!

Mr Momoa is rather delicious too. Funny you should bring him up. He gets a mention in Scarlett and the Model Man for his deliciousness too.

Hmm. I think I’d also be quite happy with a semi-naked Sydney Swans star Buddy Franklin. Actually, I’m not particular. Give me any Sydney Swans team member and I’d be a happy, happy girl. I love my boys. Sigh.

It’s over to you now, my darlings. Let us know in the comments who you’d like to answer the door in a bedsheet and we’ll pop you into the giveaway draw to win an ebook download of The Highlander’s English Bride.

Please note: Giveaway draw closes midnight Friday Australian Eastern Standard Time, 10^th April 2020. Open worldwide.

If you’d like to learn more about Anna and her wonderful novels, please visit her website. You can also connect via Facebook and Twitter using @AnnaCampbelloz.

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Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, where I share snippets from new and past releases and works-in-progress, and occasionally con author buddies into doing the same.

Which is what we have today, but more on our super guest after news from the Hein house.

Scarlett and the Model Man has now been out in the world for a week and it’s been going WONDERFULLY! The feedback and reviews have been terrific, and I’m chuffed to bits that people are loving Sam and Scarlett’s story. As I mentioned in my Six Secret Things About Scarlett and the Model Man release day post, this is the most personal book I’ve written for a while so this booklove awesomeness means a great deal.

Speaking of booklove, those marvellous folk at Kobo are sharing lots of it thanks to their special boxed set promo. For a short time, you can score 40% off selected boxed sets, including my very own First Levenham Love Story Omnibus.

The omnibus already means you’re getting three books at a heavy discount – Rocking Horse Hill, Summer and the Groomsman and Santa and the Saddler – but with the 40% off it becomes huuuuge.

This is for a short time only (until April 1^st), so go get ‘em while this promo is hot-diddy hot!

Now to our fabulous guest.

Let’s give a grand welcome back to medical romance writing queen, midwifery expert and fellow Outback Brides author Fiona McArthur. Rah!

Fiona is a regular on Teaser Tuesday and always shares a marvellous excerpt. She’s also a generous lady and you know what generous ladies do, don’t you? They have giveaways. And we luuuuurve a giveaway on Teaser Tuesday, oh yes we do, so make sure you read until the end so you don’t miss out.

Regular readers will remember Fiona’s December release, Midwife on the Orient Express. Well, she’s back with a new midwife story, this time set in Papua New Guinea, and appropriately titled Midwife in the Jungle.

Here’s Fiona to tell you more and to share a snippet.

Hello again as I wave from Cathryn’s lovely Teaser Tuesday to celebrate the arrival of my latest author published book. Out today! MIDWIFE IN THE JUNGLE. I’m having such fun rewriting, recovering and bringing up to date earlier books I loved, as my own publisher, but I still write for PRH, HM&B, and TULE publishers and will shout out when those books pop up as well.

MIDWIFE IN THE JUNGLE starts in Sydney but is mostly set in the wild highlands of Papua New Guinea. Now I haven’t been back to New Guinea since I was the only girl (and 5 boys) on an 18 day school excursion, (without my parents and each kid billeted with a different family in every town ), and I have never forgotten the heat. BTW I was too busy to be homesick.

The point is, PNG captured me all those years ago and remains one of those instances where you can remember the scents, the sounds, the brightness and the sights of something incredibly different for a girl of ten to see and experience.

So I share that with you here and for those who have read MOTHER’S DAY, Jacinta McLeod reappears years later as a determined doctor following her jungle doc into the vegetation.

The excerpt comes from where Jacinta’s stepping off the plane in Port Moresby.

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The Port Moresby humidity hit Jacinta’s face like a hot damp towel as soon as she poked her head out of the air-conditioned plane, but February was the end of summer so maybe it would get cooler.

The heat and bombardment of aromas were overwhelming. The scent of bougainvillea, the heavy sweetness of what she later found out to be the betel-nut chewed by the locals, the overlying cloying smell of rotting vegetation and good old-fashioned sweat all vied for her attention.

Strangely it was the brightness of the light and the vivid reds in the clothes of the native Papuans that caught her imagination.

Bright green vegetation around the airport made everything else look ordinary, even the aircraft, as she stepped down onto the steaming tarmac.

When she entered the terminal, huge rotating ceiling fans circulated the crowded bouquet of pungent aromas and she could feel the excitement in her blood almost fizzing and the smile on her face stretched.

‘Dr McCloud?’

Jacinta nodded at a grinning porter dressed in white. He waved the sign with her name on it. ‘I’m Jimmy Puk Puk from the mission. I’ll take you cross to the MAF plane.’ He had the brightest set of white teeth she’d ever seen, and Jacinta grinned back.

MAF Plane? Ah, Missionary Air Fellowship plane. Jointly owned by all the missions.

Dressed in shorts and shirt, Jimmy’s feet were dustily bare and he held out his left hand to take her bag. Her eyes were drawn to the healed stump where his right hand should have been.

He caught her glance and grinned again. “That’s why they call me Jimmy Puk Puk. Puk Puk mean croc, ‘cos I took more than his hand when I caught up with that puk puk.’

Jimmy directed her off to a side aisle and broke into a melodic Pidgin English discussion with the customs officer until they were waved through to another gateway and back onto the tarmac.

Hope you enjoy the story. xx Fi

I’m sure we will, Fiona!

Midwife in the Jungle releases today. Grab your copy from:

Amazon.com | Amazon.au | Amazon.uk

Kobo | Apple Books | Nook

Now, as we mentioned in the intro, we’re lucky enough to have a special…

GIVEAWAY!

For your chance to win a copy of Midwife in the Jungle – paperback or ebook for Australian addresses, ebook only for international – share with us your hottest experience.

Yes, you may take that definition any way you want!!!

Mine? I have to say it was when we were living in western Sydney and the temperature hit close to 48°C. It was horrendous. The heat was almost tactile – the proverbial walking into a wall. It felt graspable it was so thick. Even breathing was hard. Fortunately we were in a modern, well-insulated house and could hide from the worst of it. Others weren’t so lucky, poor things.

What about you? What’s your hot experience? Don’t be shy now! Share away, we’re all friends here, and doing so could score you a copy of Fiona’s Midwife in the Jungle.

Please note: Giveaway closes midnight Friday AEST, 3^rd April 2020. Australian addresses can choose from a print or ebook version of Midwife in the Jungle. Ebook only for international addresses.

If you’d like to learn more about Fiona and her books, please visit her website. You can also connect on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using @FiCatchesBabies.

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