A Deal to Mend their Marriage—behind the book

The first frisson of inspiration for Caro and Jack’s story came when I started playing around with the idea of writing a caper story. That spark might’ve ignited when a few writing friends of mine waxed lyrical about the movie To Catch a Thief when we were having lunch one day. It’s a movie I’ve never seen, but have always meant to watch.

I still haven’t seen it. But I will. Soon!

It also strikes me that, not long before this discussion of To Catch a Thief, I’d read Anne Stuart’s PRINCE OF SWORDS, which also happens to feature a cat burglar as a hero.

So…I’m guessing that between them, this is what influenced my book. :-)

To be fair, unlike Cary Grant, my hero isn’t a cat burglar, but a security specialist who has a certain…ahem, talent for retrieving lost items. My heroine, however, just like Grace Kelly, is an heiress. And rather than missing jewels we have a missing antique snuffbox. Just to make things more interesting I made them husband and wife…who've been estranged for the past five years. I find it hard to resist a reunion story, don't you?

That’s perhaps why this became my theme song for A DEAL TO MEND THEIR MARRIAGE….




Gorgeous, isn’t it?

And just for fun, here’s an except: Caro and Jack’s first meeting after five years apart…

Despite the loss of the snuffbox and all the morning’s kerfuffle, it was Jack’s face that rose in her mind and memories of the past that invaded Caro, chasing her other concerns aside, as she trudged across Westminster Bridge.
  So when she first saw his face in the midst of the crowd moving towards her on the bridge Caro dismissed it as a flight of fancy, a figment of her imagination. Until she realised that blinking hadn’t made the image fade. It had only made the features of that face clearer—a face that was burned onto her soul.
  She stopped dead. Jack was in London?
  The crowd surged around her, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was stare.
  Jack! Jack! Jack!
  His name pounded at her as waves of first cold and then heat washed over her. The ache to run to him nearly undid her. And then his gaze landed on her and he stopped dead too.
  She couldn’t see the extraordinary cobalt blue of his eyes at this distance, but she recognised the way they narrowed, noted the way his nostrils flared. She’d always wondered what would happen if they should accidentally meet on the street. Walking past each other without so much as an acknowledgement obviously wasn’t an option, and she was fiercely glad about that.
  Hauling in a breath, she tilted her head to the left a fraction and started towards the railing of the bridge. She leaned against it, staring down at the brown water swirling in swift currents below. He came to stand beside her, but she kept her gaze on the water.
  ‘Hello, Jack.’
  ‘Caro.’
  She couldn’t look at him. Not yet. She stared at the Houses of Parliament and then at the façade of the aquarium on the other side of the river. ‘Have you been in London long?’
  ‘No.’
  Finally she turned to meet his gaze and her heart tried to grow bigger and smaller in the same moment. She read intent in his eyes and slowly straightened. ‘You’re here to see me?’
  His demeanour confirmed it, but he nodded anyway. ‘Yes.’
  ‘I see.’ She turned to stare back down at the river. ‘Actually…’ She frowned and sent him a sidelong glance. ‘I don’t see.’
  He folded his tall frame and leaned on the railing too. She dragged her gaze from his strong, hawk-like profile, afraid that if she didn’t she might reach across and kiss him.
  ‘I heard about your father.’
  She pursed her lips, her stomach churning like the currents below. ‘You didn’t send a card.’
  He didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘You send me a Christmas card every year…’
  He never sent her one.
  ‘Do you send all your ex-lovers Christmas cards?’
  She straightened. ‘Only the ones I marry.’

Can you tell I had a lot of fun writing A DEAL TO MEND THEIR MARRIAGE?

So tell me, are you a fan of a caper story? Do you like a little mystery mixed in with your romance? And do you love all of that delicious angsty history of a reunion story? Or maybe you prefer something altogether different—like a Cinderella rags-to-riches tale? Hmm…maybe I should write one of those next. ;-)