Cirrus@Austlit

'Lord Evan Anastas has lived as a recluse most of his life...with good reason. He shares the same surname as the country's worst traitors. But the king has decided it's time for him to stop hiding. It's time for him to step into his royal duties and that means getting up close and personal with the press.

'But the king probably didn't mean this up close and personal.

'On a diplomatic trip to Lemnos, Evan meets Brooklyn and unbeknownst to him, she is a member of the very press he has been avoiding.

'To be fair, Brooklyn doesn't know who he is at first.

'She is a struggling travel blogger from New Zealand and reluctantly agreed to do a job for her previous employer. She didn't know it would lead to her spending a month in a castle on an island she had never really heard of. Or that meeting the reclusive count would upend her life.' (Publication summary)

'AITA for turning up out of the blue and demanding that he marry me because of some teenage promise we made fourteen years ago?

'Emma St. James needed to get away. Her career, her impending marriage, her…mother. Birch was just…a convenient excuse, a soft place to land, a…very…bad…idea. Those pesky unrealised teenage fantasies were such a pain in the butt.

'Seeing Emma again was a dream come true for Birch Forest, although he knew the proposal was a sham. She was hiding something, and if he had to go along with the ridiculous wedding pact in order to find out her secrets, then he would. He wanted nothing more than to fix whatever was wrong.

'But living together and pretending to plan a wedding suddenly felt a little too real and neither one of them wanted the fantasy to end.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'After Scarlett Morgan—aka pop star Ruby—collapses on stage, she doubts whether she will ever be able to sing again. So she heads to the small town of Hope Springs—her safe place, the place where she found her voice all those years ago—in the hope of saving her career. Scarlett doesn't even know who she would be if she could no longer be Ruby.

'Archer Paterson recognised Scarlett the moment he saw her. He’d been following her career for years and he knew that behind the wig and the makeup was the same girl who’d won the Hope Springs talent quest all those years ago. But the last thing he expected was for her to pretend that she wasn’t the mega-popular recording star everyone knew as Ruby. He went along with it, because why not? She wanted to be incognito and he didn’t want the status quo of his small town to be disrupted by a horde of media.

'But then things got complicated.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Duchess Sophia Dellis, Archontissa of Kalon, needed a date for the upcoming Kabiero Royal Ball. The man she planned to take as her date just dropped her for someone with a higher social media profile. Not that Sophia was heartbroken. Nico was a sweet guy, or at least he was until he turned into a fame monster—something that wouldn’t have even happened if Sophia never gone out with him in the first place. Now she was left with six weeks to find someone to fill his place on her dance card and no prospects in sight…that was until she saw Ethan across a crowded club. He was completely unsuitable, but her best friend, Frankie, dared her to turn him into a Duke Incognito.

'Ethan Samuels was minding his own business, working behind the bar in the hottest new club on Kalopsia when two members of the new Kabiero Royal court approached him with an outrageous proposal. How could he turn down a duchess? Plus, he would get an adventure that a simple guy from Australia would never have even dreamed of; learn how to navigate the world of wealth and royalty, attend a royal ball on the arm of a beautiful woman, and get a foot in the door of a new career on a super yacht. It was a no-brainer as far as he was concerned.

'They both knew what the deal was. Sophia would teach Ethan everything he needed to pass as a duke, and Ethan would get the experience he needed to break into a new career. It was a business arrangement. No one was supposed to fall in love.' (Publication summary)

'No one ever got a second chance to make a great first impression. That was something Jack Daniels knew all too well. (Yes, that was his real name. No, he was not related to that Jack Daniels). Jack wouldn’t normally care what someone else thought of him, but when it impacted his job? That was another matter entirely. It wasn’t even his fault, not really. If anyone was to blame for Jack making an absolute fool of himself in front of his new neighbour it was his ‘friend’ Carter. But now Jack had to make things right…or he would miss out on the biggest coup of his career.

'Dianna Fletcher was just trying to live her best life. Yes, she suffered with chronic pain and no, it wasn’t all in her head. It made getting in to the office every day a bit of a challenge, but that was what the internet was for, right? Working from home was a legitimate way to do her job, even if some people didn’t agree. Besides, she was currently experiencing one of the highest points of her career as a game designer…the launch of a game she conceptualised and ran point on from design to production…and the biggest game to come out of Black Sheep Software and Gaming ever. She was living the dream and it should have been the best time of her life if not for the little snag of the grumpy DILF living next door.

'Dianna would have quite happily gone on ignoring Jack for the rest of eternity, but her boss had other ideas. Now Dianna and Jack had to work together in order to promote her game launch. Dianna would have been quite happy to work with anyone else at The Playbook, but that wasn’t an option. Jack—the grumpy DILF next door—was the guy who could take her game launch from good to great. Working with Jack would be a game changer…if only she didn’t hate him so much.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Newly divorced and relieved of her position as head pastry chef in the restaurant she had slaved over for the last seven years, Ella Templeton was headed to the Sunshine Coast to lick her wounds and decide what to do with the rest of her life.

'This wasn’t the dreamy Christmas holiday that it sounded like. Ella hated Christmas and she was only going to the Sunshine Coast because that was where her parents lived and they’d offered her a place to stay. Thirty-four year old women shouldn’t be going home to their mothers—especially not Ella’s mother—even if her parents lived in a multimillion dollar mansion right on the beach and Ella could probably avoid her mother all together.

'No one told her she would be expected to take part in a bake-off on her mother’s YouTube channel, nor did they tell her about her fellow competitor. Michelin starred chef, Jake Collins.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Sutton Sharp’s life was perfectly fine, thank you very much. Maybe the entire town of Hope Springs treated her like a kid, but was it really that bad if people looked out for her?

'Okay, so maybe she could do without walking in on her brother and his girlfriend doing it on every available surface in the house she shared with them, but apart from that inconvenience (and frankly disturbing image) her life was great.

'She certainly didn’t need her brother’s best friend riding in on a white horse to offer her a place to live where she wouldn’t be constantly confronted with her brother’s bare backside. She had her own plans…and she had a secret that would be impossible to keep if she moved into Daniel’s place.

'Daniel Forster had only ever thought of Sutton as Tony’s annoying little sister…okay, there was that one time at the B&S ball where he kissed her, but that was just to shut her up. She’d been arguing with him at them time and he couldn’t think of another way to make her be quiet. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

'Asking her to move in with him had come as a shock not only to her, but to him as well. Yes, he needed a new housemate to cover his mortgage payments, but Sutton was the last person he wanted to give an up close and personal look at his life…especially not after the incident in the warehouse behind the hardware store.

'Despite both of their aversions to living together, neither of them had any other choice. But it was only temporary and they both agreed they could do temporary. Neither one of them was prepared for what being ‘up close and personal’ would do to their relationship.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Trina Farrady is coming home, although she doesn’t know if the small town of Hope Springs is still home. After nine months on the other side of the world to heal her broken heart, the time has come to face her past and maybe, just maybe, she can finally get over the man who broke her heart. She even has a speech prepared for when she will inevitably run into him…she just wasn’t supposed to run into him before she’d even stepped out of the airport.

'Tony Sharp knew he’d see Trina again one day, but he hadn’t expected it to be this day. He wasn’t ready and despite trying to convince himself otherwise, he wasn’t over her either. Seeing her again proves just how not over her he is and maybe, just maybe, she’s not over him yet either.

'Is it time for the two of them to find closure? Or is this a sign that they should try again and maybe finally get their happily ever after?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Lucas Andino had been summoned by the king…the only problem? He needed a wife…or at least a fiancée, which wouldn’t have been a problem except…his girlfriend just broke up with him.

'In desperation, he turned to his best friend, Francesca—or Frankie as she was known to, well, everyone.

'Shiloh was living her best life. She had a career she loved, she lived in a penthouse apartment in one of Sydney’s most exclusive areas, and she was practically engaged to one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. She was living the fairy tale she’d always imagined.

'Until it all started to unravel.

'Brandt wasn’t the man she thought he was and their life wasn’t the fairy tale he’d led her to believe. How could her life go from idyllic to life threatening in almost an instant?

'Running was her only option. That and praying that Brandt would never find her because if he ever got his hands on her again…her life would be forfeit.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Manscaping — the fashion and style column on The Playbook online men’s magazine…and Mia’s new job. Well…internship. It was only for six weeks, just so she could get the credits she needed to graduate from university, but they were paying her, so…yeah, her new job.

'The only problem?

'It was summer in Oxley Crossing and Christmas was fast approaching. The very last thing Millie Campbell needed was a speeding ticket from the new sheriff–err sergeant–in town. Millie had never actually been given a ticket, speeding or otherwise, and it was a point of pride that she could talk her way out of anything…until she met Sergeant Roman Jamieson.

'Roman had heard all about Millie and her speedster ways and as the newest member of the local police force, it was his job to show his constables how it was done. He was confident in his ability to withstand her supposed charms…he’d faced down hardened criminals in the past and didn’t even blink…but he wasn’t as immune to Millie’s charms as he thought.

'Roman’s fifteen year old daughter signs him up to play the local Santa Claus in the Oxley Crossing Christmas festival and who should turn up to be his ever-helpful elf? The one woman who has taken an instant dislike of him, Millie Campbell.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Kit Alexander, better known as The Wizard of Oz, was an international football star. He may have hit a bad patch there for a while, but he was clawing his way back to the top, right up until an injury benched him. With three weeks to kill and an invitation to a wedding Down Under, Kit's plans were on hold. He needed to keep his head down and let his body heal before they'd let him back on the pitch and that's exactly what he intended to do.

'Being invited to the hottest wedding of the season was a dream come true for Charlotte Fox. She'd never left her small town of Oxley Crossing in the twenty-eight years she'd lived there--doctor's visits and hospital stays didn't count. Now that she was out on her own for the first time in her life, she was determined to store up enough experiences and memories to last another twenty-eight years.

'A chance meeting in a bar late one night brought the two of them together. Kit would be leaving to go back to the UK and his career, and Charlie was only in the city for the wedding and a brief holiday before she had to go back to her life in Oxley Crossing. It was only meant to be a flirtation, a holiday fling, nothing serious. But it's all fun and games until someone falls in love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Rivals.

'Neighbours.

'Jace was the last remaining single member of Court’n Jacks, an up and coming country music band…and he couldn’t be happier. He’d spent years as guardian of his two younger sisters, but now they were all grown up and they didn’t need him any longer. He welcomed bachelorhood…or he would just as soon as he could get Court’n Jacks latest album finished. Unfortunately, that seemed to be an impossibility as he searched—unsuccessfully—for the elusive ‘thing’ missing from their music. With the upcoming tour looming and the deadline for the album fast approaching, he had no other choice than to ask for help. He just didn’t think it would be from the hot guitarist he’d heard playing in the studio late one night.

'The last thing Maeve needed in her life was drama that came in the shape of a six-foot, grumpy musician with control issues. Unfortunately, she needed the job. She could suck it up for the next couple of weeks if it meant getting her car fixed and having the money to send her son to summer music camp. It was just too bad that six-foot, grumpy musicians were her catnip. So what if it had been a long time since she’d had any adult cuddling…she could keep her hands, and lips, and tongue, to herself, couldn’t she?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'McKenzie Allsop was desperate.

'No job. No home. No money.

'When she finally got a job under false pretences, she refused to walk away from the opportunity of a lifetime. Especially when the copy guy was so hot.

'James Baker Manning (JB to his friends) couldn’t get the woman—or the kiss—out of his mind. A chance meeting in a club and a kiss hotter than the surface of the sun and now she was plaguing his dreams…until she walked into his office and he realised he was her boss.

'How were they going to keep their hands off each other when they’re sent to a remote town to try and work out who was sabotaging their development? The simple answer? They couldn’t.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.