Are you signed up to Natalie’s newsletter?
Get in quick–there’s a secret special coming up next month that you won’t want to miss!
The ebook of REVEALING HER NINE-MONTH SECRET is on sale in the US only ’til the end of September!
If you haven’t read this high-drama, super passionate story,
I’ve joined up with a bunch of other authors and whether you read sweet or hot, we have a huge collection of great books for you!
Win 60 ebooks worth $200 by following authors on Bookbub. Discover new books and authors to read across all romance genres
Click here to enter: https://coverandpage.com/june-2022-bookbub-follow-giveaway/
Enter by JUNE 19, 2022 to be in with a chance!
Good luck everyone!
Ooops baby!!! One enduringly popular trope in contemporary category romance is the accidental pregnancy. So much drama ensues, causing huge emotional upheaval for the hero and heroine. I love writing them because there are SO many variables to play with…
…do the hero and heroine already have a relationship (in which case, how does this then change things?) or is this a ‘one night oh baby!’ situation?
Either way how does the contraception fail?!? How and when do the hero and heroine each find out about the pregnancy? How do they initially react? Do they debate all the things—about keeping the baby, about their own relationship (or lack of). Is the hero going to go all protective and demand a shot-gun wedding? Or do they play this in a ‘cool’ business-like fashion… at least until those pesky ‘feelings’ get in the way…
Putting a couple into a complete emotional crunch is a main goal when writing category romance and Harlequin Presents / Mills & Boon Modern in particular promises drama and emotional intensity. And there is incredible intensity in this situation—it is pure protectiveness and vulnerability and strength.
Cryptic Pregnancies…
“…are estimated to occur in around one in 2500 cases, suggesting around 320 cases in the UK annually, or a potential headline story almost every day.”
How shocking—and surely scary—it must be for a person to suddenly find themselves with severe abdominal pain and then within the next few minutes (or maybe a little more)—baby! You’d be so completely unprepared, in shock and quite possibly in some physical peril. Imagine the gamut of emotions, not to mention hormones, and all the things that would be going on inside! How could I resist putting my poor heroine into such a position?
I admit I did twist things up a little more to make it trickier in other ways for her but you’ll have to read the book to see what that is… I hope you enjoy it!
“Many in the medical community used to refer to “denied pregnancies” under the belief that surprise births stemmed largely from mothers who didn’t acknowledge that they were carrying for psychological reasons. But the term “cryptic pregnancy” has caught on in recent years as people point to cases where women seemingly had no bodily tipoffs… [it is] is a more neutral phrase that doesn’t prejudge a woman’s experience…
Doctors do have some ideas about what makes a pregnancy harder to notice. A placenta positioned in a particular way could keep the mother from feeling a baby’s movements… An irregular menstrual cycle – as well the fact that some women experience bleeding during pregnancy – could mean no telltale halt in periods. And it is not impossible to get pregnant while taking birth control.”
Their night was explosive. Their reunion couldn’t be more shocking!
USA TODAY bestselling author Natalie Anderson thrills with this secret baby romance!
After their one magical evening ended in disaster, Carrie Barrett assumed she’d never see superrich Massimo Donati-Wells again. So a glimpse of him nine months later sends her into labor—with the secret she didn’t even know she was carrying!
Massimo will be there for his child, unlike his own father. On his private Fijian island, he’ll offer Carrie an arrangement that’s convenient for them both. Only, she’s had enough of being everyone’s second choice! Can Massimo allow Carrie to break through his walls for a chance at something truly real?
One of the promises in a Harlequin Presents/ Mills and Boon Modern (or Sexy in Australia/NZ) is they’re often set in ‘exotic destinations’. Of course, what’s an exotic location to one person might be a very different destination to another given we all live in the far flung corners of the world.
I live in New Zealand which is pretty much one of the furtherest away countries from most others. So for me almost everywhere counts as ‘exotic’—from Europe to the Americas, Africa or Asia, the Middle East to Scandinavia… they are all very far away from where I am. So choosing an exciting exotic destination is quite difficult—I want them all!!! Especially in this time when we’ve really not been able to travel (and still aren’t contemplating it much to be honest).
So for me it’s really lovely to get to ‘escape’ somewhere exotic between the pages of the book. I’m not gonna lie, not gonna apologise, right now I’m super happy to write in an ever-so-slightly parallel universe in which there’s no pandemic, no warring… my focus is tight on my emotionally charged couple, with the power plays, passion and sheer rollercoaster that is their relationship.
But for REVEALING HER NINE-MONTH SECRET I did get to choose a particularly ‘jet-set’ location as part of this month’s series… I wanted warm. I wanted romantic. I wanted isolated and beautiful… because I wanted my hero to whisk my heroine away to a very private place in which they could work out their problems (quite large problems as it turns out—see here for more on that).
For me the Pacific Islands are simply paradise. First up there’s the weather—warmth, massive blue skies, sunshine. Then there’s the ocean—so blue and with wonderously beautiful sealife and corals. And then, honestly, there’s the fact that its not a twenty-four hours (or more) flight to get to them.
And, in a cute behind the scene fact for you, Fiji is where my husband and I went on our own honeymoon, so it holds a special place in my heart. It’s also the last place we travelled to before Covid stopped us from heading overseas.
Over twenty years ago we stayed on an adults-only island resort, Matamanoa. It was gorgeous. We flew into Nadi and then went by boat to the island. We had a private beach front bure which had sliding doors that opened straight onto gorgeous sand. It was stunning. We dined on fresh fruit, salad, my hubby had fresh fish (I’m veggo and made the most of the pineapple) and it was wonderful… But it wasn’t romance novel perfect. As only can happen to my hubby and I, he got sunburned on day one while I got stung by sealice—right across my torso—not fun!!! Needless to say neither of these things made it into the book.
Just shy of twenty years later (only a couple months before Covid) hubby and I returned to Fiji. But this time we went to a family resort—with our four teenagers in tow. This was one of those places with buffet breakfasts—omelettes, pancakes, pineapple, pastries… all the things for those hungry kids!
There was a swim-up bar and a massive pool as well as a beautiful beach and wonderful staff who worked so hard to make everything lovely. We saw turtles, sea snakes and my son went scuba diving while we relaxed and read.
It was fabulous.
But my hero and heroine don’t go to either an adults-only or a family-friendly resort. They go to a completely private resort on a tiny island that my hero has purchased specificially for the purpose and yes I admit that one was complete fantasy-fulfilment for me 😉 Who wouldn’t want their own resort?!?!? And that’s something only a Presents hero can deliver, right? Taking over an entire resort to keep his heroine safe in the place he knows she loves…
If you could go anywhere in the world for your honeymoon, second honeymoon or dream romance destination—would it be a tropical island paradise, a snowy mountain range, a city with vibrant arts, culture and nightlife, a remote desert with tents beneath the stars? There are so many wonderful options.
Check out this month’s Harlequin Presents / Mills & Boon Modern series to find a delicious assortment of places to escape to… and with utterly gorgeous heroes as a bonus! 😉
Their night was explosive. Their reunion couldn’t be more shocking!
USA TODAY bestselling author Natalie Anderson thrills with this secret baby romance!
After their one magical evening ended in disaster, Carrie Barrett assumed she’d never see superrich Massimo Donati-Wells again. So a glimpse of him nine months later sends her into labor—with the secret she didn’t even know she was carrying!
Massimo will be there for his child, unlike his own father. On his private Fijian island, he’ll offer Carrie an arrangement that’s convenient for them both. Only, she’s had enough of being everyone’s second choice! Can Massimo allow Carrie to break through his walls for a chance at something truly real?
Okay, so for all your romance needs from accidental pregnancies to amnesia stories, cinderellas, princes and convenient marriages, I have the books for you. For my Australian and New Zealand readers there’s a massive sale of my Mills & Boon romances until the end of March! A whopping thirteen (!!!) of my books are on sale at Mills and Boon Australia for only au$1.99 each—you can find them all here.
Plus CLAIMING HIS CONVENIENT FIANCEE is an Amazon Kindle Monthly special, also onsale for au$1.99!
Click and enjoy!
~Natalie
email: natalie@natalie-anderson
Natalie’s newsletter has books, banter & access to bonus short stories, scenes and epilogues to read online or download.
If your email confirmation doesn’t arrive quickly, check your junk/spam folder :)
