Racing Dreams and Family Saga’s

Merindah Park

by

Renee Dahlia

A brand new rural romance series about an emerging racehorse stud and the family desperately trying to make their racing dreams come true.

John Henry Bassett

‘Money lost, nothing lost. Courage lost, everything lost.’

My dad’s favourite quote. Maybe not one I should be listening to, given my gambling-addict dad sank our once-famous horse stud into a deep, deep hole. Five years I’ve been digging it out. Slowly. Carefully. And now … I am risking it all. Risking Merindah Park on a stallion. Tsuyoi Red, runner up in the Japan Derby last year.

Now is not the time to get distracted by a gorgeous, pragmatic veterinarian.

Toshiko Sato

I’m at a crossroads in my life. Though my father encouraged me to follow my dreams and become an expert veterinarian, he left our family’s horse farm, Tomikusa, to my younger brother. My family expects me to honour my father’s wishes and marry a neighbour-a perfectly nice man who I don’t feel any spark with at all. But my own ability to bet-successfully-on horse races has given me options.

This decision would be easier if I didn’t feel the wicked chemistry hovering between me and the handsome, broad-shouldered Australian that my brother has decreed I will travel with to Australia to look after an injured horse. I’m usually so good at calculating the odds. But how do I choose between losing my place in my family, and losing myself?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Renée Dahlia is an unabashed romance reader who loves feisty women and strong, clever men. Her books reflect this, with a side-note of dark humour. Renée has a science degree in physics. When not distracted by the characters fighting for attention in her brain, she works in the horse racing industry doing data analysis and writing magazine articles. When she isn’t reading or writing, Renée wrangles a partner, four children, and volunteers on the local cricket club committee as well as for Romance Writers Australia.

Q. What sentences in writing have changed your life?

That’s an incredibly esoteric question! There is a sentence in a Lisa Kleypas book (A Wallflower’s Christmas) that I credit with giving me the idea to attempt to write a romance novel. I’d written non-fiction for over a decade, when I read this. “I complained one day that I’d read all the books in the house, and there was nothing new at the bookshop, and Matthew challenged me to try writing one of my own.”

Q. What is the best opening sentence you have written?

I have a soft spot for the opening sentence in The Heart of a Bluestocking (http://books2read.com/u/3yD16v).

It perfectly sums up the heroine, Claire.

‘No,’ Claire said emphatically. ‘I don’t owe you my time.’ She lifted her chin a fraction and glared at her father. He stared back with those astute eyes.

Q. Best closing scene, you have written?

I enjoyed writing the epilogue to the Merindah Park series – it gives the reader one last taste of all the characters, as well as a nod to the success of one of the horses whose stories are threaded through the series.