Romance Book Paradise: Spotlight on Dani Collins, Marrying the Nanny

This week our Spotlight on Author: Dani Collins. She has a new book out, Marrying the Nanny.

Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author Dani Collins thrives on giving readers emotional, compelling, heart-soaring romance with laughter and heat thrown in, just like real life. While she is best known for writing contemporary romance for Harlequin Presents and Tule Publishing, she also writes historical and erotic romance. When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing. Dani lives in Southern BC, Canada with her high school sweetheart husband.

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What inspires you to write?

That question is always hard for me. I knew I wanted to write for a living so now I do. It’s my job so I have to write, but in terms of *what* I write? The ideas come from all over – things I’m watching or something I overheard somewhere.

In the case of this book, my aunt showed me pictures which inspired me to set the book in a fictional version of Denny Island called Raven’s Cove.

What is your favorite genre and why?

I’ll read just about any kind of romance and I’ve written a lot of different kinds. My favorite is whatever I’m working on right now, I guess. I love Harlequin Presents for its glamor and fantasy and I love small town for its realism and quiet moments. I love banter so I always try to work some humor into whatever I’m writing.

Share a little about your writing process.

I go straight to my desk and usually get to writing immediately.

Starting a new book involves pulling in a bunch of details like names and setting and very basic stuff so I often set aside a few days for that. I’ll often write a few opening pages while I do that to get a flavor of the characters.

Once I’m actually writing, I strive for 2000 words a day. That’s a good pace for me. I break midday for lunch. Afterward, I either go to the gym or do yoga. Then I write until dinner.

I often come back to my desk after dinner and finish word count if it’s been a difficult day, or work on admin tasks like blog posts (hi!) or emails or whatever else might need to be done.

When the book is finished, I send it to my editor, spend a day cleaning my office and catching up on life, then I start a new book.

When I get revisions, I usually stop my writing days and devote them to whatever that other title is until I can get it out the door, then I go back to my work in process.

I usually write between 6-8 books a year. 2024 is shaping up to be a mind-boggling amount, thanks to this trilogy!

Tell us about your book...

My aunt showed me pictures from her visit to the tiny village on the BC Coast where her son, my cousin Lorne, had worked for twenty years. I immediately knew it would be a wonderful place to set a book.

I had been noodling a Three Men and a Baby take-off, one where three half-brothers take custody of their infant half-sister. From there, it was a matter of finding them the appropriately complicated love interests.

Marrying the Nanny is the first in my Raven’s Cove trilogy. Look for Forgiving Her First Love in July. Book Three isn’t titled yet, but is scheduled for October.

These books are pure, delicious escape to the wilds of British Columbia’s central coast. You’ll see wildlife and go whale watching and witness three rugged, remote, untethered men fall head over heels for the women who bring them out of their shells while they also learn to become a family with their adorable baby sister.

When infant Storm is orphaned, nanny Emma Wright, on a work visa and still reeling from a painful divorce, yearns to adopt her but must relinquish Storm to her three adult half-brothers. They remind her of a pack of wolves–protective, but not prepared to care for a baby. Alpha male Reid is especially aloof and intimidating.

Like his younger brothers, Reid Fraser left the Westcoast village of Raven’s Cove at eighteen and never looked back. Now a successful corporate consultant who rescues failing businesses—which is what this fly-in fishing resort has become, Reid must rally his brothers to save Storm’s inheritance, but he and his estranged brothers barely get along. They can’t deal with an infant, too. They need the nanny.

As Emma coaches Reid through midnight feedings and teething, they try to ignore the sexual pull between them. Then they learn Storm may have family who could take her from them. Reid proposes a marriage of convenience, but will it be enough to keep this fractured family together?

Watch for:

Book 2: Forgiving Her First Love, Jul 16, 2024