Match Made In Paradise by Barbara Dunlop (black female authors TXT) 📕

She felt instantly weightless with love and joy. “Yes.” She nodded. “We’re going to be fantastic. You and me. Right here, together, in Paradise.”

He kissed her lips. “Forever.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe this series to my hard-working agent, Laura Bradford, and my fabulous editor, Angela Kim, who believed in me and supported me in multiple ways from conception to publication.

My everlasting love and gratitude to my wonderful husband, Gordon Dunlop, bush pilot, technician and outdoorsman—he’s every hero a woman could want.

And finally, a huge thank you and a debt of gratitude to the authors who inspired, supported and cheered my writing efforts and continue doing so to this day: Jane Porter, Jane Graves, C.J. Carmichael and Lorraine Heath—fantastically successful authors and dearly valued friends.

Keep reading for a special preview of the next novel in Barbara Dunlop’s Paradise, Alaska, series

Finding Paradise

Coming soon from Berkley Jove!

Enjoying the last sip of a bubbly 2006 de Beauchene from her blown crystal flute, Marnie Anton paused beneath the vaulted ceilings of LA’s Lafayette mansion to ponder irony and the twists of fate.

“I see you need more champagne,” Hannah Lafayette observed, her voice light and cheerful as she approached Marnie in the great room. She gave a discreet wave to a nearby waiter who was standing at the ready.

Hannah had grown up in the mansion and was completely comfortable in its grandeur and opulence.

Marnie, on the other hand, had grown up behind an auto shop in Merganser, Kansas.

A crisp-dressed, white-shirted man refilled her glass with the dry, deeply flavored golden champagne that foamed partway up to the rim. In a town full of entertainment power brokers, the late Alastair Lafayette still had an unbeatable wine cellar.

“Thank you.” Marnie gave the waiter a truly grateful smile. She might have grown up playing in a wheel alignment pit instead of a wine cellar, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a great vintage.

“I can feel the excitement from here.” Hannah gestured to the dozen women chatting and laughing over drinks and hors d’oeuvres in scattered groups around the gracious room.

“You didn’t have to do all this.” Marnie had been surprised when Hannah and her twin brother Henry so whole-heartedly embraced supporting the Finding Paradise Alaskan matchmaking venture. They were hosting a launch party tonight, giving the selected women a chance to get to know each other before tomorrow’s flight to Anchorage then Fairbanks, then on to the small, rural town of Paradise.

“We’re more than happy to help out,” Hannah said with what sounded like sincerity. “I know Mia transferred ownership of the house to us, but we still consider it hers too.” She paused for a moment, a thread of humor coming into her voice. “And Henry wouldn’t have it any other way. He got a haircut, picked up a new suit and shaved at four o’clock this afternoon.”

Marnie couldn’t help but smile at Henry’s eagerness to meet the young, eligible women who were participating in the endeavor.

Her legal client and close friend Mia Westberg was a driving force behind the Alaska matchmaking project. At twenty-seven, Mia was only two years older than her stepchildren Hannah and Henry, and over the past few months, they’d battled each other in a drawn-out court case over Mia’s husband Alastair’s estate. By rights, Marnie and Hannah should still be adversaries.

Marnie had successfully argued for the fashion empire and mansion to go to Mia—as Alastair had directed. But Mia had promptly shared ownership of the company with the twins, handed over the family mansion to them, then ceded control of the company and moved to Paradise, Alaska.

Having met bush pilot Silas Burke and having seen the diamond ring he put on Mia’s finger, Marnie didn’t blame her friend for falling in love. But Mia had turned a clear court case win into what felt like a partial loss. It was hard for the competitive streak in Marnie to accept the final outcome.

“Scarlett Kensington seems particularly amped up,” Hannah continued the conversation like she and Marnie were old friends, nodding to one particular group of women.

Marnie took in Scarlett’s flushed cheeks and her brisk hand gestures where she chatted with Olivia Axler and Willow Hale in front of the wide stone fireplace that soared to the ceiling—a portrait of Grandfather Lafayette gazing down from its face. Scarlett was twenty-two and worked as a production assistant in the film industry.

Mia and her cousin Raven, who also lived in Paradise, had carefully selected each applicant, choosing women they thought might fit in best in small town Alaska. There were plenty of robust, hard-working men in Paradise who were eager to meet new women. And the women here were eager to meet honorable men.

“Scarlett’s into surfboarding and parasailing,” Marnie said to Hannah, having studied the background on each of the successful applicants. “She also said she likes to hike in the San Gabriel Mountains.”

“I guess that’s that kind of thing you’d be looking for.”

“Willow hang-glides, and Olivia’s been fly fishing with her grandfather. We built outdoor sports into the algorithm.”

“That seems smart,” Hannah said, tilting her head to study another of the conversation groups. “From the pictures Mia sent, Paradise is nothing but mountains, trees and rivers. You’d have to be outdoorsy to put up with that.”

Marnie had seen those same pictures. “They have a café, a bar, housing—well cabins and camp trailers mostly. But there’s the health center, the school, Galina Expediting’s warehouse and West Slope Aviation at the airstrip.”

Galina and WSA, were the main employers in the town, its reason for existing, in fact.

Hannah pouted her pretty red lips. “Not a single designer boutique, no fine dining, no beach-front, never mind a country club.”

Marnie cracked a smile at the justified criticism. “Plus, the bugs and the bears. Definitely not my idea of paradise.”

“Whose was it, do you think?” Hannah looked perplexed, giving her champagne