Fabulous Book Fiend: Blog Tour: Extract from Aphrodite's Tears by Hannah Fielding

Tuesday 23 January 2018

Blog Tour: Extract from Aphrodite's Tears by Hannah Fielding

I am very lucky to be part of the blog tour for the new novel from Hanna Fielding Aphrodite's Tears. Aphrodite’s Tears is out in paperback on 25^th January for £7.99: Click here to order your copy! Here's what it's all about:

In ancient Greece, one of the twelve labours of Heracles was to bring back a golden apple from the Garden of Hesperides. To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams. Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Lekkas. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger’s arms, six summers ago. A very different man stands before her now, and Oriel senses that the sardonic Greek autocrat is hell-bent on playing a cat and mouse game with her. As they cross swords and passions mount, Oriel is aware that malevolent eyes watch her from the shadows. Dark rumours are whispered about the Lekkas family. What dangers lie in Helios, a bewitching land where ancient rituals are still enacted to appease the gods, young men risk their lives in the treacherous depths of the Ionian Sea, and the volatile earth can erupt at any moment? Will Oriel find the hidden treasures she seeks? Or will Damian’s tragic past catch up with them, threatening to engulf them both?

Hannah has very kindly written a post about one of the key characters from the novel so I can share it with you all today.

Damian Lekkas: quite the first impression

‘Urgently wanted: experienced archaeologist to supervise licenced subsea exploration around a small, private Ionian island. Candidates to show impeccable academic credentials and experience of underwater archaeology… Do not waste your time or ours if you are not qualified for this job.’

So opens my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears. This newspaper advert, read with interest by the heroine, Oriel, offers the very first glimpse of the male hero of the book, Damian Lekkas. The initial impression of the man behind these words is not appealing to her – she finds his final instruction arrogant, and his voice through the wording autocratic.

Still, the job is straight out of archaeologist Oriel’s dreams, and so she applies – and is appointed to the post. When she arrives on the island, though, she quickly starts to wonder about her new boss, Damian, whose name in Ancient Greek means master, tamer and conqueror.

‘Damian Lekkas – a man with a dead heart, who fought sharks, played with wolves, and whose brutal magnetism made women fall at his feet!’

That is the first impression of Damian that Oriel forms from the bald descriptions of his estate manager. This man, who heads the family that has long owned the island of Helios, seems to be like a ‘medieval overlord’. The locals call him the Drakon, she learns – the dragon. ‘Feared by everyone, he is himself fearless,’ the estate manager tells her. ‘He seems to have six heads, each with a pair of eyes. Nothing on the island escapes him.’

A picture emerges of a powerful man who is merciless when it comes to defending his property – the island – and by extension, its people. Add to that insinuations of his womanising nature, and Oriel wonders exactly what kind of man for whom she is working.

And then she meets the Drakon – and she is at once thrust back in time to another first impression. Then, six years ago, Damian had been a stranger to her – as she had expected him to be now. She had been on the island of Aegina, sitting one evening on the beach and furiously working through her emotions from having been jilted by her fiancé, when he emerged from the ocean like Poseidon rising from the waves. He had been commanding then, and breathtakingly handsome, and mesmerising in his sensuality. They had shared a night of passion, but in the morning, her Greek god was gone… Now, here he was once more, standing before her – her boss, of all things!

First impressions count, so goes the saying, and when it comes to Damian, Oriel has formed an impression not once, but twice. Put the two together, and she can easily decide that Damian is a man around whom to be guarded and wary: he is passionate, yes, but also merciless, dangerous.

But according to another saying, we should not judge a book by its cover. What lies beneath Damian’s reputation and his demeanour? Can this conqueror be conquered by love? If he is lord of the island, can Oriel ever consider herself his lady?

HANNAH FIELDING is a multi-award winning romance author who was born and grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, the granddaughter of Esther Fanous, a revolutionary feminist and writer in Egypt during the early 1900s. Upon graduating with a BA in French literature from Alexandria University she travelled extensively throughout Europe and lived in Switzerland, France and England.

After marrying her English husband, she settled in Kent and subsequently had little time for writing while bringing up two children, looking after dogs and horses, and running her own business renovating rundown cottages.

Hannah now divides her time between her homes in Kent and the South of France.

She has written six novels: Aphrodite’s Tears; Indiscretion, Masquerade and Legacy (the Andalucían Nights Trilogy); The Echoes of Love and Burning Embers. Hannah’s books have
won various awards, including Best Romance for Indiscretion at the USA Best Book Awards. She has also won Gold Medal for romance at the Independent Publisher Book Awards (The Echoes of Love), and
Gold and Silver Medals for romance at the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards (Indiscretion and Masquerade).

She is a member of the association for Romance Writers of America (RWA) and her website and blog can be found at www.hannahfielding.net