LIZ FIELDING

LORDS OF THE DESERT - SPECIAL OFFER!

I've just received my author copies -- a meagre two which, because it's a reissue, is all I'm entitled to -- of this gorgeous book.  The cover, needless to say, has blown me away.

There are three Lords of the Desert volumes, each containing three books and here's the deal.  If you go to the Mills and Boon website, click on the "Lords of the Desert" icon on the right hand side, you can buy all three for the price of two.  (You can, of course, by them separately, but golly, who would want to!) 

My title is THE SHEIKH'S GUARDED HEART, which is the first of the Ramal Hamrah books -- Lucy and Hanif's story.  (You may have come across them in The Sheikh's Unsuitable Wife and Her Desert Dream and wondered about their story.)

It's at the emotional end of my personal writing scale.

Lucy Forrester has just discovered that the man she trusted has run up huge debts on her credit cards, fraudulently borrowed large sums of money against the house she’s inherited and that far from having an exciting new life with him, he’s disappeared leaving her broke.

And then it gets really bad...

Because it's a reissue there is no "read inside" feature, but here's an excerpt...
 
THE room was cool, quiet, the light filtering softly through rich, coloured glass; lapis blue and emerald, with tiny pieces of jewel bright red that gave Lucy the impression of lying in some undersea grotto. A grotto in which the bed was soft and enfolding.Lucy drifted away, back into the dark and the next time she woke the light was brighter, but the colours were still there and although she found it difficult to open her eyes more than a crack, she could see that it was streaming through an intricately pieced stained glass window, throwing spangles of colour over the white sheets.

If the tiny explosions of pain from every part of her body were not sufficiently convincing, the hand at her shoulder, a low voice that was becoming a familiar backdrop to these moments of consciousness assured her that she was awake.


'Be still, Lucy Forrester. You're safe.'


Safe? What had happened? Where was she? Lucy struggled to look up at the tall figure leaning over her. A surgical collar restricted her movement and one eye still refused to open more than a crack, but she did not need two good eyes to know who he was.
Knife in his hand, he'd told her to be still before. She swallowed. Her throat, mouth were as dry as dust.


'You remember?' he asked. 'The accident?'


'I remember you,' she said. Even without the keffiyeh wound about his face she knew the dark fierce eyes, chiselled cheekbones, the hawkish, autocratic nose that had figured so vividly in her dreams.


Now she could see that his hair was long, thick, tied back at the nape with a dark cord, that only his voice was soft. But the savage she'd glimpsed before she'd passed out appeared to be under control.


But she knew, with every part of her that was female, vulnerable, that the man who'd washed her as she lay bloody and dusty on a hospital couch, was far more dangerous.


'You are Hanif al-Khatib,' she said. 'You saved my life...'