Alexa Bourne: FRACTURED PARADISE RELEASES TODAY!

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE! Break open the champagne and chocolate! My Sunderland story officially releases today!

I have to share this with you. As I mentioned yesterday, I first worked on this story several years ago. I submitted it to a lovely Harlequin editor who was kind enough to give me a long rejection (which is a good thing!). She pointed out what she liked, what needed work and offered to read something else. I also submitted the opening to a wonderful agent (who is no longer an agent) who traded emails with me, pointed out what worked and what needed work. She also gave me GREAT encouragement. Without these two women, this story never would've gotten published.

NOW....

Technical analyst Rachel Grant arrives in Sunderland intent on tidying up her grandmother’s cottage, but the disaster she discovers requires more than a gentle sweep of a dust rag. Determined to please the most important person in her life, she trades her computer keyboard for a hammer and nails to make the repairs. She doesn’t count on the chilly reception from the locals who want to claim Nan’s home as their own.

Tour guide Aidan Camden wants to buy the cottage. He’s determined to acquire the property no matter how attractive he finds the current occupant. However, when tragedy strikes, throwing them both into a tailspin, he discovers he wants more than the house. He longs for the sexy American as well. Can Aidan put his own ghosts to rest in time to save the woman who’s claimed his heart?

Excerpt:

Chapter One
In a perfect world, Rachel Grant would be sitting on the back porch of her grandmother’s English cottage sipping a pint of lager while watching the boats ferry tourists across the North Sea.

But this wasn’t a perfect world.

The small cottage she’d been sent to "tidy-up" stared at her with broken windows, exterior walls missing wooden slats and stone, and a thousand years of neglect. Uncontrolled grasses choked the once vibrant and sweet-smelling gardens. Her sanctuary, Nan had called it? Maybe sometime in the last century.

She dropped her suitcases and flexed her fingers. She’d come to do a little dusting, a little washing, and poof, she would have the cottage ready for her grandmother’s return. But this eyesore required extensive renovations. As a technical analyst for the International Protective Network, Rachel worked with computers and digital research. Manual labor was way out of her comfort zone.

Thunder crackled above, and she squinted up to the sky. An impending storm prepared to drench her at any moment—not that it would make much difference. When she’d rowed out to this isolated, pathetic piece of dirt, she’d soaked herself through. She shivered against the cursed wind, ran her fingers through her hair, and blew out a slow breath. Now what?

She’d given up her seat in front of a flat screen and a keyboard back in Edinburgh to execute her nana’s fanciful ideas of returning to Sunderland. Rachel had agreed only because it was for Nan, but….

"This, I did not sign up for." Tears pricked at the corners of her wind-burned eyes, threatening to rip her resolve to shreds. Getting here had been hard enough. It wasn’t fair that her island of paradise looked like the summer cottage from a teenage horror movie.

She took a cleansing breath. No panicking allowed. Solving problems was her specialty, after all. "Well, computer problems, anyway," she mumbled.

"A bit of a disappointment, I expect." A rich, deep voice with a twinge of an English accent drifted from behind her.She whirled around. Her hair whipped against her cheeks and made her wish for the hundredth time she hadn’t packed all her hair clips.

"Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you."

The stranger paused beside the edge of the clearing, and her heart stuttered. Although no one would mistake him for a Hollywood leading man, the guy could command attention by stepping into a room. Or onto an island.