Today's Special - - Christina Brooke

It's a pleasure to welcome one of my favorite authors - and people - back to the Romance Dish.  I first "met" her at the Romance Bandits blog, fell in love with her writing through her books written as Christine Wells and now through the books she writes as Christina Brooke.  Her Ministry of Marriage trilogy sits on my keeper shelf soon to be joined by the stories of the Westruther men.  

Leaving the legal profession behind for a full-time writing career, Christina is the first Australian to win the prestigious Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart® award for unpublished manuscripts as well as being a two-time RITA® finalist for published books. She's a busy wife and mom who is already hard at work on her next book, a fact that makes loyal readers like me very, very happy!

Find out more about Christina at her website, visit with her at Romance Bandits and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.   

Welcome back, Christina!  Congratulations on today’s release of LONDON'S LAST TRUE SCOUNDREL.  It’s been getting great pre-publication buzz including a 4.5 star Top Pick from RT Book Reviews.  Please tell our readers what they can expect from this book.

PJ, it’s so wonderful to be back here with you and Andrea. We’ve been friends for a long time now, haven’t we? Thank you for the warm welcome and congratulations. I’m proud of the Top Pick at RT.  What can readers expect? Well, in a word, buttocks. There is much talk about my hero’s “spectacular hindquarters” in this book! Which is odd, really, as my heroine Hilary is struggling hard to overcome her crude and vulgar ancestry and really does *not* want to think about bottoms. She’s from the deVere family, which, as anyone who reads my books will know, is the ramshackle, unprincipled, no-good clan in my Ministry of Marriage series. Meanwhile, Jonathon, Earl of Davenport, is doing his best to ensure that Hilary and her good intentions part company as soon as possible!  This was such a fun book to write. I hope readers have as great a time with it as I did.

Well, I certainly had a great time!  Hilary and Jonathon are so much fun together.  The sparks between the two of them practically leap from the pages.  What would you like readers to understand about each of these characters?

Thank you! Hilary is the only one Jonathon can’t fool with his rakish insouciance. She sees through his ploys to get her into bed, but on closer acquaintance she sees the good in him, too. With Jonathon, Hilary can let down her guard and eventually, he grows to love and appreciate the imperfect woman behind the prim façade. Ultimately, this is a book about belonging and by the end, Hilary and Jonathon find home and family together.

There are so many great scenes in this book.  Without giving away spoilers, what’s the one scene you would never cut from the story?

Haha, PJ, you’ve probably guessed my favourite scene already. The one where the ceiling falls in on Davenport when he’s in bed and Hilary rushes in to find him standing naked amongst the rubble like some ancient statue amid the sacking of Rome. I remember reading that out to my crit partners, Anna Campbell and Denise Rossetti and we laughed so hard we were crying. It’s nice to get a reaction like that!

Love that scene!  Speaking of critique partners, you recently spent the weekend brainstorming with the two ladies mentioned above.  Discounting the wine, the fabulous meals and the awesome chocolate mousse that had me drooling all over my keyboard, what are the benefits of a critique group for a writer? 

Oh, the chocolate mousse was divine! You know, these days, Anna Campbell, Denise Rossetti and I are more there to support one another than anything else. Getting together to plot has become such a pleasure for us.  We’ve learned to do our brainstorming *before* wine and food, though. Otherwise things degenerate fast! It is getting harder to critique each other’s manuscripts these days as our deadlines so often clash but I read for Denise and Anna when I can and they read for me.  When you have a skilled crit partner you trust implicitly, critiquing is a wonderful thing.

Before this book begins, circumstances require Jonathon to disappear, letting everyone believe he has died.  Without taking it quite that far, if you could take a break from your everyday life for, say, a month, where would you go and what would you do?

Oh, what a great question, PJ! I think I’d go to England and do some in-depth research on stately homes. I know, it would be a busman’s holiday but I’d love it.

While we’re gearing up for lazy days reading by the pool, you’re heading into winter.  Where’s your favorite place to curl up with a good book on cold, winter days?  Have you read anything lately that you’d recommend?

Oh, I envy you the heat! I try to find a sunny spot on my deck and sit there soaking up the sunshine. Reading in bed with a cup of coffee is good, too. I know that makes me sound so lazy! As for recommendations, I do a lot of reading by audiobook at the moment. I loved THE ASHFORD AFFAIR by Lauren Willig and GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn. In romance, I can’t speak highly enough of my dear Anna Campbell’s DAYS OF RAKES AND ROSES. I’ve also been on a Kristan Higgins glom-fest so that was awesome, too. Love Julie Anne Long also and I recently caught up on one or two of her series I’d missed somehow.

I am so looking forward to reading Anna's "Days of Rakes and Roses."  It downloaded to my Kindle this morning and is waiting for me along with Julie Ann Long's new book, IT HAPPENED ONE MIDNIGHT.  I adore her Pennyroyal Green series! 

What’s next from the Ministry of Marriage?

Strictly speaking, the Ministry of Marriage series finished with Cecily’s story in A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER. I’m concentrating on the male Westruthers in this ‘spin-off’ series.  Next in line is the Earl of Beckenham’s story in THE GREATEST LOVER EVER (out in December). Seriously, Beckenham does *not* think of himself as some sort of Regency Casanova—you’ll have to read the book to see what the title is all about! But I have a deep and abiding love for Beckenham as an honorable, dependable (and also hot) alpha male. He is a little set in his ways, however, and needed a woman who would drive him crazy. I think I’ve achieved that with his former fiancée Georgie Black! There’s a teaser for this book at the back of LONDON’S LAST TRUE SCOUNDREL.

Ah yes, that teaser, as well as the amazing cover you recently unveiled, has me counting the days for THE GREATEST LOVER EVER!  

Thanks so much for visiting with us today, Christina.  Any final thoughts?  Would you like to ask our readers a question? 

Thank you a thousand times for having me, PJ, and for asking such great questions.

OK, dear dishy readers! I’m going to steal PJ’s great question above. What about you? If you could take a break from everyday life and money (and reality) were no object, what would you do? 

One lucky commenter will win a signed copy of LONDON’S LAST TRUE SCOUNDREL.