AUSTRALIA DAY 2014: Celebrating #OzRomance (Day 1)

Welcome to DAY ONE of my #OzRomance celebrations!

We all know that Australian fiction is alive and kicking and with Australia Day just around the corner (actually just a few days away now), it seemed a timely opportunity to showcase some of Australia’s most popular romance novels.

That said, enjoy today’s five books and call back each day until Friday for the next twenty in the showcase!

Outback Dreams
Rachael Johns

Faith and Monty are both looking for love…but are they looking in the wrong direction?

Faith Forrester is at a crossroads. Single, thirty and living on a farm in a small Western Australian town, she’s sick of being treated like a kitchen slave by her brother and father. Ten years ago, her mother died of breast cancer, and Faith has been treading water ever since. She wants to prove to herself that she’s done something worthwhile with her life. And she wants to find a man…

For as long as he can remember, Daniel ‘Monty’ Montgomery has been Faith’s best friend. When he was ten, his parents sold the family property and moved to Perth and ever since, Monty’s dreamed of having his own farm. So for the last ten years, he’s been back on the land, working odd jobs and saving every dollar to put toward his dream. Now he finally has the deposit. But there’s still something missing…

So when Faith embarks on a mission to raise money for a charity close to her heart, and Monty’s dream property comes on the market, things seem like they are falling into place for them both. Until a drunken night out ends with them sleeping together. Suddenly, the best friends are faced with a new load of challenges…

Monty and Faith are both ready to find a life partner and settle down, but they didn’t expect love to be so close by.

Amazon

Half Moon Bay
Helene Young

Photojournalist Ellie Wilding returns to Half Moon Bay two years after her sister, Nina, was killed on assignment in Afghanistan. The town is under threat from development and there’s talk that international money laundering and council corruption are behind it. 

Life in the bay is becoming dangerous, and Ellie teams up with enigmatic property developer Nicholas Lawson to keep her community safe.  She fights to ignore the attraction she feels for him in order to unravel the mystery of Nina’s death. Could she have been involved?

Working undercover, Nick expects to find low-level bribery and small-time drug dealing but he discovers a web of dangerous connections stretching halfway around the globe. When things turn brutal, he must tell Ellie the truth about her sister, even though it will shatter her world and the growing bond between them.

As they’re pursued from the sleepy mid-northern coast of New South Wales to Sydney Harbour, Ellie and Nick are all too aware of what’s at stake. Will all of this be worth it, or will one of them have to pay the shocking price of truth?

Amazon

Misplaced Princess
Lexxie Couper and Mari Carr

Annie Prince has impetuously flown halfway ’round the world to visit a sexy cowboy she met online–only to find herself stranded in Sydney. Seems she and Dylan crossed wires, and he’s on his way to New York. His twin, Hunter, saves the day and whisks her back to the family cattle station. Hunter’s as easy on the eyes as Dylan, and even easier to talk to. Annie might have flown to Oz to meet one brother, but soon sparks are flying with the other.

Hunter considered Dylan a dumb arse for jetting off to America for some stranger–until he met Annie. Turns out the New Yorker is a smart, funny, hard-working jillaroo…and hotter than the Aussie desert. Hunter’s not normally one to poach his brother’s women, but he can’t keep his hands, lips, tongue and other body parts off this sexy city girl.

When raging lust leads to emotional attachment, where does that leave Annie and Hunter when her vacation comes to an end–or when Dylan finds out?

Amazon

Sunset Ridge
Nicole Alexander

They went to war and fought for love …

Although Madeleine has grown up in the shadow of her grandfather, the renowned artist David Harrow, she knows little about him. For David died long before she was born, and his paintings sold off to save the family property, Sunset Ridge.

Now, decades on, with the possibility of a retrospective of David’s work, Madeleine races to unravel the remarkable life of her grandfather, a veteran of the Great War, unaware that his legacy extends far beyond the boundaries of the family property.

It’s 1916, and as Europe descends further into bloodshed, three Queensland brothers -Thaddeus, Luther and David Harrow – choose freedom over their restricted lives at Sunset Ridge. A ‘freedom’ that sees them bound for the hell of the trenches.

With the world on fire around them, the brothers bear witness to both remarkable courage and shocking carnage. But they also come to understand the healing power of love – love for their comrades, love for each other, and love for the young, highly spirited girl they left back home.

This is a story of bravery and misadventure, of intolerance and friendship, most of all it is the story of three young men who went to war and fought for love.

Amazon

Matilda’s Freedom
Tea Cooper

An unconventional woman clashes with colonial society in this spicy and sweet Australian-set historical romance.

His carefree bachelor days over, Christopher Matcham returns to Sydney to take responsibility for his mother, two stepsisters, and the family property. Fortune smiles on him when he is introduced to Matilda Sweet, a woman in need of work. Though unusual, Christopher senses that her fresh ideals and positive outlook can only benefit his sisters, so he hires her as a companion.

By the time they arrive at Christopher’s family home, the two are fast friends. But Matilda’s unorthodox ways and her convict heritage make her a second class citizen to the family. Christopher has responsibilities, and they include an advantageous match. A breeches-wearing, fish-pond-swimming, plain-talking convict’s daughter will never figure in. After all, romance is a luxury the upper classes cannot afford…

Amazon

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