Nell Dixon: The Cinderella Substitute
Welcome writer Nell Dixon to the blog today! Take it away, Nell:
The Cinderella Substitute was the first book I ever sold. Originally it was out with Moonlit Romance another specialist sweet romance publisher. It sold well, garnered great reviews and made the shortlist for several awards. Then my publisher folded.
Audiolark produced it as an audiobook and I waited for the right time and the right publisher to come along, polish it up and re-introduce my firstborn back to the e book world. I’m thrilled to say Astraea Press loved The Cinderella Substitute and now it’s out once more in the big wide world.
Here’s the blurb! In the two years since the tragic car crash that killed his fiancée, Nathanial (Nate) Mayer has successfully avoided another relationship. His family and especially his twin sister Nathalie are worried. Jennifer (Jenni) Blake is Nate’s personal assistant. Hired after the accident, she has her own problems to deal with, including the deaths of her adoptive parents and the debts incurred by their nursing care. But those difficulties pale into insignificance when Jenni finally traces her birth mother…
Nate jabbed the buzzer on his desk for the third time. Where
on earth was Jenni? He paced up and down the room, glaring at the
closed office door.
What could be keeping her? Today of all days he needed to get
going, finish up the job in hand, and escape. Away from the
sympathetic glances of his employees and the murmured
conversations which stopped abruptly whenever he came within
earshot.
He opened the door to her office and saw her in her usual
seat behind the curved ash desk. So why hasn’t she answered the
buzzer? He crossed the pale green carpet in a couple of paces. As he
got closer to her, he knew something was wrong. Her back was
towards him and her shoulders quivered.
“Jenni?”
He moved round the desk to take a better look. A pile of
post lay unopened in front of her, one envelope still secured in her
slim fingers.
“What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
Nate couldn’t imagine why his super-efficient personal
secretary appeared to be having some kind of breakdown. Jenni
never broke down. She had insisted on returning to work after only
a few days’ leave after her adoptive mother died.
She shook her head and he caught a glimpse of tears on her
pale face. For a split second he wondered if Jenni had developed
some kind of sympathy scenario for him based on the office
rumour mill. He dismissed that idea as quickly as it had arisen.
One of his main reasons for employing Jenni had been her complete
lack of interest in gossip and speculation.
“I’m all right.” She wiped the tears away from under her
glasses with shaking fingers.
Nate sighed. “Well you don’t look it,” he remarked. In fact,
now he came to think of it, Jenni looked positively unwell.
“You’re not doing one of those faddy diets?” He hoped he’d
hit on the right answer. It had to be something like that.
She blinked with astonishment and glared at him. “No!”
Nate settled back onto the edge of her desk and folded his
arms. He’d have to think again now his first theory had been shot
out of the water.
© Nell Dixon 2012
Nate is very much a tormented hero with a dark secret but Jenni has secrets of her own and for all her shyness and drab exterior she is quite a feisty, independent girl.
Available as audiobook from Audiolark or from all good etailers, it’s a Christmas story with a difference. I hope you’ll love this story as much as I do.
You can read about the rest of the Mayer family and their love lives in Be My Hero and Dangerous to Know also available from good etailers!
Posted on November 6, 2012, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.
Lisa L Greer 
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