The first book in the Italian Brothers series, 2004

Dear Reader,

When two brothers love the same woman, the result is a mighty clash in the fierce heat of Tuscany, a place where the colors are darker, and the air crackles with danger.

Rinaldo and Gino share a powerful love of the land, and have the same emotional, virile intensity. But fate has turned Rinaldo into a gruff, hard-bitten cynic, while Gino, his younger brother, likes to laugh and still has traces of the boy in his carefree nature.

Their peace is wrecked by Alex, from England, who has unexpectedly inherited a claim to some of their farm. Then no amount of brotherly love can count against the passion for a woman both see as an interloper, yet whom neither can resist.

Elegant, determined, a success in her high-powered career, Alex is sure she can deal with the Farnese brothers. She doesn’t know that they have tossed a coin for her, nor would she care. She will choose the man she wants.

One will win the prize. The other will be cast out to find his destiny among strangers.

Best wishes,

L G

‘HE HATES me. He really hates me!’

Alex had expected some resentment, but not this bleak hostility. All the way out from England to Italy she had wondered about Rinaldo and Gino Farnese, the two men she had partly dispossessed.

Now, meeting Rinaldo’s eyes across his father’s grave, she thought she had never seen so much concentrated bitterness in one human being.

She blinked, thinking it might be an illusion of the brilliant Italian sun. Here there were sharp edges like sword blades, and dark shadows that swallowed light; hot colours, red, orange, deep yellow, black. Vibrant. Intense. Dangerous.