 
If you’re a writer, then there’s a question that you get asked all the time. You know the one. The ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ question.
This is what everyone seems to want to know and it’s really such a very hard question to answer. I usually fudge my answer by saying ‘well I have a very vivid imagination.’ Or ‘ Where do I get my ideas from? From life.’ And it’s true, ideas are all around you if you just know where to look. They’re in the newspapers, the magazines, on TV. In conversations overheard in coffee shops . . . I once told my accountant that really life was a ‘viable expense’ that I could claim for because everything was ‘research’ for an author but he wasn’t having that.
The truth about where ideas come from is that you only really need a tiny ‘seed’ that sparks off all sorts of questions and ideas and then I start asking the question ‘Why. . .?’ and I end up with a story.
And that’s how it was with The Kostantos Marriage Demand. A long time ago, in my ideas notebook, I wrote down ‘family feud – Eastenders’. I was watching the UK ‘soap’ Eastenders at the time and there was a storyline running through the episode about a feud between two established families. I just noted the idea and never used it. Then last year on one of my courses I was teaching about conflict – and illustrating external conflict with the story of Romeo and Juliet. And there was that word again ‘feud’. The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.
And that started me thinking . . . I really wanted to write a story that had a feud between the hero’s family and the heroine’s at the heart of the story. But I need to answer some questions for myself first. How could a feud come about in the 21st century? What would drive two families to hate each other? What effect would it have on my hero and heroine . . .
So that’s how the book that turned into The Konstantos Marriage Demand got stated. I loved working in the ‘feud’ part of the story – it gave an added edge to the whole plot. And when I thought out a reason why the feud had really become so bad as to tear Nikos and Sadie apart when they were originally so madly in love and going to be married, I felt I had a something that gave it all the emotional punch I had been looking for - and more!. And it seems that the Romantic Times reviewer agreed when she wrote : Misunderstandings and family betrayals propel this terrifically well-paced and fiery romance to its very rewarding conclusion.
Even better than that, Romantic Times gave this book 4.5 stars and has chosen it as one of their Top Picks for March. I’m so thrilled by that. So obviously the RT reviewer loved The Konstantos Marriage Demand and I hope you do too when you read it. I know I loved writing it.
Kate Walker
 Santorini. Even the name itself is beautiful. I was lucky enough to visit Santorini a couple of years back and the moment I set foot on this idyllic Greek island, I knew it would make the perfect setting for a Presents novel. Dramatic and beautiful, dangerous and evocative, this ancient caldera basks under the Aegean sun, its clifftops adorned with buildings so white that from a distance they look like icing on a cake.
And thus His Mistress for a Million was born.
And who could possibly be the hero of this story? Naturally enough Andreas Xenides turned out to be every bit as dramatic and beautiful, as dangerous and evocative as the island of his birth. He belongs in Santorini. Unlike Cleo Taylor. Played for a fool by her internet boyfriend, Cleo is left penniless in London and forced to clean floors to earn her fare home to Australia. Until Andreas makes her a different kind of offer - one million dollars for a month's work on an Aegean island paradise. All she has to do is pretend to be his mistress. What could be simpler?
I hope you enjoy Mistress for a Million. I really want to thank all those readers who have already purchased it and made it a Borders Group Bestseller, debuting at #5! Thank you!
Trish Morey
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