BRONWYN JAMESON

My August book, THE BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR-WIFE, is part of an editor-conceived continuity for Silhouette Desire, Secret Lives of Society Wives. This means I was given the story idea or premise, the setting, the characters, their conflict and shared backstory, their place within the larger scope of the series, and a short synopsis of how my book should play out.

This may sound as though the author brings nothing to a continuity, but that is not the case. There are still a lot of holes to fill in the brief synopsis and there is scope for author input into how the story will be told. So, here is what I plucked from my idea boutique for THE BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR WIFE...

The Secret Lives of Society Wives series is set in an uber-posh Connecticut community and I must say it was a ton of fun researching my heroine's home and creating detail for the society wedding celebrated at the exclusive Eastwick Country Club. I also needed a temporary home for my hero and invented the Hotel Marabella, setting for several key scenes, and also the charity benefit polo match.

But the biggest ingredient I brought to this book was my hero. Although Tristan Thorpe was born in Connecticut, he grew up and has lived all his adult life in Australia. He has the accent, he has the attitude, and to top it all off nicely I gave him a background as a former professional footballer. We're talking Australian football, a sport populated by tall, well-built, rugged, athletic men in short shorts and sleeveless jumpers (see picture.) There is a lot to like about Australian football, including those biceps. *g*

Aesthetics aside, I fell in love with the idea of an adolescent American lad ripped from the homeland and transplanted into a new country and a strange school community at a time when he is most vulnerable. Tristan would not only have strived to fit in and tackle the locals at their own sport, he'd have vowed be learn the game, to train and practice until he was the best.

Through his success--I imagined headlines of the American-born Australian-football legend--he gained acceptance and an entree into the business world. In my book he returns to his birthplace of Eastwick, Connecticut, as a self-made man. He returns to the home where he lived the first twelve years of his life and to all the memories that engenders...especially when he is bowled over by an unexpected and forbidden attraction for his father's widow.

Read an excerpt from The Bought-And-Paid-For Wife at my website and visit my blog later this week for a chance to win a copy in my HAPPY BLOGDAY giveaways.

Bronwyn