The Spotlight is on Lily Malone this week and we’re showcasing
So Far Into You

Lily Malone might have been a painter, except her year-old son put a golf club through her canvas, so she wrote her first book His Brand of Beautiful instead.

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Lily writes realistic contemporary romance about places she knows. She loves her wine and many of her romances are set in the vineyards and wine regions of Australia, particularly in the tourism towns of Margaret River in West Australia (where she now lives) and in the Adelaide Hills near Hahndorf where she spent most of the 2000s.

Lily has worked as a journalist and editor of wine industry magazines, but discovered after years of writing facts for a living, writing romance was much more fun. When she isn’t writing, Lily likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine).

She is the mother of two handsome young boys who take after their father and she’s doing her best to convert both her South Australian-born heroes into the fan club of the West Coast Eagles AFL team. Not with great success…

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Lily Malone – Contemporary romance with an Australian flavour.

A new Australian rural romance about a millionaire wine tycoon, the woman he betrayed and the second chance neither was looking for…

When she cut her viticulture degree short and moved home, Remy wasn’t thinking about anything more than making the next dollar for her pocket. Working two jobs to keep food on the table and a loan shark from the door, Remy and her mother slowly build a new life together. Then a freak storm tears through the Margaret River Wine Festival — and Seth Lasrey tears through Remy’s life.

Seth is old money. She is no money. He’s the boss. She’s his employee. He is society connections and expectations. She is threats and bad decisions and lost dreams. They seem to be so wrong they can only be right — until a costly mistake and a timely deception drives them apart. Remy picks up the pieces of her life and begins anew. The last thing she expects is Seth to show up in her small town in South Australia, bringing with him memories that she can’t escape and a damaged heart that she’s not sure she can resist.

 

Excerpt from So Far Into You by Lily Malone

This scene is from Chapter 1, when Seth and Remy first meet at the Vintage Festival.

“Remy glanced down. Seth Lasrey’s long fingers curved gently around her waist. There were no rings on those fingers, just a silver watch on a wrist covered with dark hairs. A diver’s watch, she thought. At least he could keep time if they got drowned in the brewing storm.

You could have knocked Remy over with a feather when Seth volunteered to be in Blake’s hastily-convened plank-walk team. The two Lasrey brothers looked similar: olive skin from their Mediterranean heritage, tall, well built, and each had eyes dark as midnight. Apart from that, they were chalk and cheese. Blake was all sunshine. Seth was the cloud.

Seth hadn’t been around the winery much since Remy started work at Lasrey Estate, but she’d had enough time to know that when the CEO was in the building, the atmosphere was different. Everything moved on fast-forward. Seth brought that intensity. The only thing his younger brother Blake got intense about was having fun.

Blake lined them up in the park with six other plank-race teams at the start of a fifty-metre grass expanse, bisected by a long barrier of rectangular bales of hay.

‘Hey, Blake? What are we supposed to do about those bales? Go over? Go round?’ Remy called against the wind.

‘We’ll worry about that when we get there,’ Blake said.

‘That’s my brother for you,’ Seth muttered behind her.

Her laughter escaped before she could rein it in. Seth laughed too, and Remy thought that she hadn’t had this much fun in months. Not since she’d cut her viticulture degree short six months ago and moved home to get a job and help her mother. There hadn’t been much to laugh about.

The starter fired his gun and Blake shouted: ‘Left foot. Left!’ Remy lifted her foot against the elastic strap binding her foot to the six-foot plank, felt Blake’s muscles bunch where she held tight to his waist.

‘Left foot, Rina!’ Blake yelled.

‘I’m try-ing,’ Rina yelled back.

It took precious seconds to gain any momentum, then the four of them found a rhythm.

Remy stole a look left, they were half a plank from the lead; and to the right there wasn’t a soul beside them. They had almost reached the hay bales when the storm tore the park apart.

Thick raindrops of ice-cold water slapped Remy’s face, borne by a wind gust that overturned plastic chairs and tumbled tables across the grass. All around, the plank race spluttered and died. Later, Remy remembered it like an old-time war movie, with the director shooting in slow motion as soldiers fell on every side. Only in this movie there was no wash of red blood and the roar was the wind, not a machine gun spraying bullets.

The crowd flinched as the storm hit. Then everyone broke and ran for the safety of the marquee, jamming hard against those at the entrance who were watching and wouldn’t budge.

Remy was drenched in seconds, cotton skirt tangling at her legs, hair plastered across her face. She could hardly see a thing.

In front of her, Blake slipped. He slipped again and there was a half-second where Remy was left holding his t-shirt as it wrenched free of his shorts. Her feet stuck fast in the bands on the plank and she swayed, hands outstretched. Then she let go of Blake’s shirt and he hit the grass on hands and knees, pushing off, almost colliding with Rina. The pair lurched for a copse of gum trees on a small rise.

‘Come on,’ a male voice urged. Seth stood a few metres away facing the trees, hunched against the wind with his torso half-twisted toward her.

‘I can’t,’ she said, and she laughed.

‘What?’

He averted his face to keep the water out of his eyes and she thought he must think her mad because she couldn’t stop laughing. ‘My foot’s stuck.’

Her ankle had pushed straight through the elastic binding. Short of sitting and pulling her foot free, she was trapped.

Seth swore in the direction of her toes, but started back against the wind.

‘Leave me. Save yourself.’ Remy swiped the back of her hand over her eyes.

‘Goose,’ Seth said. ‘Think what it would do for staff morale if I left you behind.’

She stopped laughing because he hadn’t been acting like the boss for the last five minutes but the comment about staff morale reminded her of who he was. She was suddenly terribly conscious of the clinging pink dress and her drowned-rat hair, and wasn’t so sure being stuck in a rainstorm with her CEO was that funny after all. Then the first hailstone scratched a trail of blood from her arm.

‘Shit. Hold on.’ Seth reached her, wrapped himself around her, and stood with his body sheltering her from the storm’s full force. Remy ducked her head into the depth of his chest and concentrated on not being scared, and on making herself a tiny target.

Two things happened. For the first time in a very long time, she felt safe. Someone else was taking responsibility for her. Someone else was being strong. She’d been the protector for so long she’d forgotten what it was like to feel cared for. Then gradually, as wet skin and cold clothes met and merged, warmth flickered along all those points where their bodies touched.

Remy had time to think: ooh, nice.

As quick as it hit, the hail lessened and Remy risked a peek over Seth’s shoulder. The group of plank walkers who had reached the trees made a second break for the marquee. Blake led the way.

‘Ready to run for it?’ Seth asked.

Not quite. Remy closed her eyes and pretended she hadn’t heard.

 

So Far Into You is available in eBook format from all good retailers.
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Read more about Lily and her books, including the upcoming release, The Goodbye Ride, on
MEET LILY MALONE

 

 

Visit Lily on her website LilyMalone.wordpress.com
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