Champagne with a Celebrity

Mills & Boon Modern Heat

Oct 2010

ISBN: 9780263877472

Harlequin Presents Extra

tbc

ISBN: tbc

Blurb to follow

Also released as:

Australian paperback (date tbc, ISBN: tbc).

Behind the Book

The South of France. Sensuality, sunshine, perfume and red wine...

So I'd already told Xav's story in Red Wine and Her Sexy Ex. That meant it was Guy's turn.

I loved doing the research on this. Y'see, I like perfume. I'm a bit set in my ways, as I tend to go for one of Dior's florientals. But then I discovered there was a 'design your own perfume' course. All of fourteen miles away from my front door. Now, if you're going to write about perfume, you're going to have to know how it's made, aren't you? And so I went on the course, made my own perfume (and yes, it did turn out to be a clone of Dior Addict - even though I consciously set out NOT to do that), and grilled Dale Evans mercilessly. She was brilliant and answered lots of my questions.

And then my ed said, 'I hope this is going to be one of your celeb books...' The first version didn't quite work, when my heroine was trying to hide who she was. The second version (cue lots of rewriting and black circles under my eyes), she became a bit larger than life. And that worked.

Guy Lefèvre is a parfumier who used to be married to a supermodel. What's the worst person he could fall for? An It Girl who looks like his ex... Meanwhile, Amber thinks she has the perfect life - but she's not admitting to what she really wants.

This book is all about irresistible attraction. There's a tango scene (yes, of course I watched Antonio Banderas's tango a lot for inspiration). Oh, and Amber loves amazing shoes. (Just as I decided this, I was meeting my friends Jo and Sarah for my birthday lunch - and Sarah had these amazing shoes. I had to pinch them for Amber.)

The book's recipe - Amber, like me, reads menus backwards. And she eats pudding for breakfast. This roulade is lovely (but it does need to be eaten soon after making it!).

The book's soundtrack

Book 1 in the duo has a lot of Def Leppard in it. Guy listens to classic rock. Loudly. (In the original version, he played lead guitar in a band as a student. But I cut that in version 2.) So my Joe Elliot phase continued quite happily...

Def Leppard - Scar (this is the big song of the book - it's all about healing the scars people leave behind - and I LOVE the guitar on it)
Def Leppard - Armageddon it (has to be one of the sexiest Lepps tracks ever)
Mary Wells - My Guy (Amber's ringtone for Guy - Gerry bought me a new phone for Christmas and I discovered you could use songs as ringtones. Mine are pertinent. Amber does the same)
Eva Cassidy - Time after Time (connecting it with Book 1, as this is the first dance at the wedding - and it makes Amber all wistful)
Por Una Cabeza (aka the tango music from 'Scent of A Woman' - Guy and Amber dance to this and it gets just a little bit steamy!)

Read a Bit

CHAPTER ONE

Excerpt to follow.

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