Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the series where I share snippets from new and past releases, and works-in-progress, and sometimes twist the arms of author buddies to do the same.
You may have noticed that Teaser Tuesday was absent last week. That’s because it was Elsa’s Stand’s release week and you scored the traditional Secret Things post on Monday instead of a Teaser Tuesday. Did you also catch Friday’s post, Sexy Songs From Elsa’s Stand? When you’ve finished here, go visit, hit ‘play’ on the video and crank the sound up. You’ll have a ball I promise.
As of last Thursday, with the release of Fiona McArthur’s Holly’s Heart, all the books in our brilliant Outback Brides continuity are out. You know what you can do now? You can binge read the whole series, in ebook or print. Rah!
But this is a Teaser Tuesday, and that means we need a juicy snippet to tempt you with. We’ve already had excerpts from Kelly Hunter’s Maggie’s Run and Victoria Purman’s Belle’s Secret, and multiple excerpts from Elsa’s Stand, so naturally today’s teaser can only be from Holly’s Heart.
Here’s Fiona to tell you more. Make sure you read to the end because there could be a GIVEAWAY!
Introducing HOLLY’S HEART, released 12th July, and the last of the 4 Outback Brides. The series is set in Wirralong, our fabulous Aussie town created from four Aussie authors who have very vivid imaginations, namely Kelly Hunter, Victoria Purman, Cathryn Hein – yay Cathryn – and me.
The name Wirralong had something to do with a label on a wine bottle.
As you can imagine, we had the best time creating the townspeople, and the Wedding Venue, and some reappearing quirky characters.
I’ve so loved being a part of the Outback Brides world but, being me, I did feel it needed a doctor just in case somebody felt sick. 🙂 So I gave this book two doctors. This would be because I love medical drama and heroic medical heroes. And we just had twins in our family.
I hope you love the stories as much as we loved writing them. Warmest wishes for a fun four days of reading with our 4 OUTBACK BRIDES books.
Dr Ben Brierly twirled his wide-brimmed Akubra on one finger as he surveyed the empty consulting rooms. Wirralong Family Doctors Surgery. His!
Finally.
It felt fantastic to be home. He’d never thought the town would grow enough to sustain a general practice, but here he stood about to open his own business.
Today, his temporary and outrageously expensive secretary-cum-office-manager Mrs Burrows, hired from Melbourne with vast experience of opening general practice establishments, had completed his new world. During the organisation she’d been worth her weight in pharmacological shares, even loading the computers with the software for patient files. She’d assembled and installed all the furnishings and additional software a small practice needed, outfitting the reception area with waiting room chairs and a water cooler. She’d even hung his medical degree and his nameplate with surgical precision.
Her registered nurse helpers had set up his consulting room and the procedure room, plus the smaller nurse’s consult room, created and signed off the emergency drug kit with the pharmacist in the main street, and they’d put the rest of his equipment and paraphernalia in the silent, non-existent, partner’s room.
Thus, his appointment book would be accessible for the next week before he officially opened his doors for four days a week … keeping Wednesdays free to sort his grandmother’s rundown property with the new farm manager.
He shouldn’t have stayed away so long.
Mrs Burrows’s final task would be to interview applicants for her replacement, and the practice nurse, then the whole relocation exercise would have happened without any physical effort on his part. Mostly because he currently had more money than time.
Which was lucky. He couldn’t believe the mess Brierly Park had been in. Or the guilt that rode him like a snowy mountain brumby for leaving Gran to deal with an incompetent manager on her own after Gramps had died. But he hadn’t known, and—seriously? There were reasons he hadn’t wanted to come back here, and his grandmother was … a little difficult if he suggested she needed help. Which was why he chose to reside in town and not butt heads over the small stuff.
She’d wanted him to commute from the Park, but having a flat here in Wirralong made much more sense. Thankfully the premises came with upstairs quarters. Mrs Burrows had found Gran a saint for a housekeeper and that would help everyone.
Remembering Brierly Park and the sunset-dusted hills little more than an hour ago, when he’d turned his horse for home, made him breathe deep and let his shoulders drop.
The air had been filled with the scent of gums, the spaces so open, and the excitement of the muster had lifted his spirits higher than they’d been for months. Even bending his back with the fencing contractors on the new cattle yards earlier today had felt good.
He glanced at the hat in his hand and twirled it again. The cowboy doctor, eh? He blew a breath out between pursed lips and jammed the hat on his head. Home.
Ben turned out the office light and the door he remembered as clunky, swung silently to lock with a gentle click. Mrs Burrows had hired a handyman for the week and it was ‘the little things’ she professed to be proud of. Darn right she should be proud.
Ben slapped the rail in approval and vaulted up the stairs three at a time until he reached the landing and unlocked the door to the spacious two-bedroom apartment and tossed his hat, which obligingly landed on the hall stand hook, and surveyed his private domain with pleasure.
Freshly painted, the room’s age and character melded and his stuff didn’t look out of place, considering he was above street level of a country town, and it felt … homely. Which he wasn’t quite sure his Melbourne flat had ever been.
When he’d dropped in here on Thursday the entry had been filled with boxes. Now, the dark leather furniture from his inner-city pad lay tastefully arranged, his paintings positioned, and … he strode across to the bedroom and slid open the wardrobe door. Yep, his clothes were hung, and his drawers filled. The woman was a marvel.
After a quick shower, he stepped out onto his tiny verandah, the one perched over his office entry below, and gazed down the main street of a town he’d worked his way back to since he’d left. Since someone else’s dream had somehow become his dream and she hadn’t returned to fulfil it. Wirralong.
Shame it had taken a personal tragedy to make him see the time had come to return home.
He shook his head at the loss of Tobias. One of his group from med school, Tobias had been a senior registrar with a brilliant mind and a determination to be the perfect doctor. That was the problem with perfection. A fatal medication error during a frantic resuscitation had devastated Tobias into shock, even though he hadn’t drawn the drug up. When the miscalculation had been realised too late and the patient died, his friend had tried to self-medicate himself out of his spiralling depression and, to all their horror, a week later he’d overdosed.
That incident had been the final straw for Ben, spurring him to leave the fast lane of major hospitals and make his life where he really wanted it. Home to be the support when needed for his independent-but-ageing grandmother and home to be the rural GP in a community he planned to be an intricate part of.
Of course, absolutely, he’d let go of any disappointments about Wirralong.
I’m reading Holly’s Heart at the moment and loving it. Satisfy your want too by ordering your own copy in either ebook or print. A swipe, tap or click will do it. Try:
Amazon.com | Amazon.au | Amazon.uk
iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Barnes & Noble
Personally signed print copies are also available for order direct from Fiona. Contact her via the contact page on her website for details.
GIVEAWAY!
Who doesn’t love a wedding? For your chance to win a signed print copy of Holly’s Heart, Fiona would love to hear your favourite wedding anecdote, story, golden moment, or mishap. She also says you can exaggerate.
This ought to be fun! Weddings tend to be full of adventures, from pets and children running amok, to friends and relatives misbehaving badly. They can also be incredibly romantic and moving. Get typing and share your favourite wedding story in the comments and we’ll pop you into the draw for a copy of Holly’s Heart.
Please note: Giveaway closes midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time, Friday 20th July 2018. Australian postal addresses only.
If you’d like to learn more about Fiona and her books, please visit her website. You can also connect via Facebook.
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