We are absolutely delighted to be publishing Jane Holland’s debut Mills & Boon romance, Her Convenient Vow To The Billionaire. We spoke to Jane about following in her mother’s footsteps, who just so happens to be the legendary Charlotte Lamb! We also get an insight into Jane’s characters, Rafael and Sabrina and their glamorous, yet intensely emotional marriage of convenience.

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I grew up in a family of writers, so perhaps it was only natural when I became a writer myself, though it still took me several decades to get published. My late mother was Charlotte Lamb, a prolific and much-loved Mills and Boon author back in the day. From age nine, I foraged for the latest romances on her crowded shelves and read her book proofs as soon as she’d finished checking them. (My younger brother and sister, twin toddlers, would then scribble all over them with crayons!) My father was a Fleet Street journalist and biographer, and my older sister Sarah Holland also wrote for Mills and Boon, so writing was very much a family business.

In my twenties, stuck home with two young children myself, I wrote half a dozen romances of my own, only to have them all rejected by Mills and Boon as ‘not quite there yet’. Disheartened, I turned to poetry instead, later returning to fiction via a different route, and now have fifty-odd historical novels, thrillers and romcoms published under numerous pen-names. But I never gave up on that early ambition to follow in my mother’s footsteps. My mum loved category romance with a passion, it was her lifeblood, and she was a workaholic, utterly consumed by every new story, even after penning over one hundred and fifty novels. It’s been a dream come true to hold my own Mills and Boon romance in my hands and know my mother would have been so proud to see this moment.

My mother’s romances were famously intense, with ruthless heroes and strong-willed heroines determined to resist them at all costs! Naturally then, I gravitated towards the same heightened pitch of intensity for my first Mills and Boon, though my own modern hero is perhaps more driven than ‘ruthless’. My hero and heroine both suffered horrific trauma when young; growing up to become friends in the same Greek island orphanage, only Rafael and Sabrina can truly understand each other’s pain. Now adults, moving in wealthy, glamorous circles, they refuse to show that pain to the world, yet can’t hide it from each other. As a deeply emotional person myself – according to my husband! – I’m drawn to the idea of shared trauma; it’s a fierce internal bond that binds people together, regardless of external circumstances.

I also adore marriage of convenience romances; it’s so much fun to watch two people determined to stick to the rules and stay aloof while battling wild physical attraction. In Rafael and Sabrina’s case, they were friends long before they became lovers, so that complicates everything. To add to this, Rafael has discovered a powerful secret about Sabrina’s past that she doesn’t know about, and when he tells her, it blows her carefully controlled world apart. In the emotional maelstrom that follows, Rafael is the one fixed point in her life that can keep her from falling apart. Yet his reputation as a playboy makes it impossible for Sabrina to trust him.

All this makes for a dramatic and fiery marriage of convenience. Their heated exchanges, and the passionate push and pull between two hearts resolved to stay apart… Well, let’s just say I think my mother would have approved of Her Convenient Vow To The Billionaire.

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Her Convenient Vow To The Billionaire by Jane Holland

When Rafael offers to hand over the orphanage if Sabrina becomes his convenient bride, she scoffs! She’s still healing from the heartbreak of their last passionate encounter, and marrying him will test her every limit. But as long-buried secrets are unveiled Sabrina has no choice but to trust him…

Read now in eBook or paperback which also includes Their Diamond Ring Ruse by Bella Mason.

By Lauren Gardiner