New from MaryAnn Clarke Scott, Award-winning author of The Art of Enchantment.
She welcomes any risk, as long as it doesn't involve her own carefully guarded heart.
Adrenaline junkie, Niki Ballantyne is a risk-taker at work and at play. Haunted by guilt over her brother's tragic death, she's devoted to saving others in trouble.
While on an adventure holiday in the south of France, she meets handsome and charming traveller Luc and his shy friend, the gentle giant Didier.
Helping the bullied blacksmith win the love of another woman is not a typical rescue project for Niki, but she's driven by compassion for her lonely new friend. Bittersweet memories of her brother's life compel Niki to stay and support the star-crossed giant.
Their forged affair is perfectly safe.
There's no risk of getting emotionally involved, but teaching him about intimacy comes with consequences, and lesson to be learned.
Particularly when it comes to Luc. On the cusp of a life-altering decision, Luc is drawn to daredevil Niki, though she upends his carefully laid plans for a perfect future. Despite instant chemistry and a powerful connection, Niki pushes him away.
But when a sudden emergency brings Luc to her rescue, the way he sees her vulnerability scares her more than anything. Now she has to decide if the last thing she ever wanted might be exactly what she needs.
Clarke, Maryann: - Always eager to fill blank pages and empty canvases with ideas swirling in her head, MaryAnn set out to write emotionally engaging stories that walk a tight rope between intelligent Women's Fiction and heart-warming Romance. A polymath who studied Fine Arts, Urbanism, Architecture and Gerontology at university on both coasts of Canada, she turned to her first love, writing stories, when she realized she could have more fun with fewer rules to follow as an author, than working in an office as an architect, or in a university as a researcher. When not writing, she meditates while hiking wooded mountain trails, does yoga and Pilates to fend off decrepitude, reads eclectically, contemplates wormholes, experiments with painting abstract expressionism, kills plants and tries not to burn dinner while solving her next plot problem. Now that her chick has flown the coop, Clarke lives on beautiful Vancouver Island, Canada with her husband and cats. Although she knows she lives in Paradise, she still loves traveling the world in search of romance, art, good food and new story ideas. MaryAnn Clarke is a Chatelaine Grand Prize winner for The Art of Enchantment, first in the Life is a Journey series about young women on journeys abroad who discover themselves and fall in love while getting embroiled in someone else's problems. Her Having it All series is about professional women struggling to balance the challenge and fulfillment of their careers with their search for identity, love, family and home.
