Hi
It’s been a few years since I started a new series and I’ve learned a few things along the way. When I wrote Snug in Iceland, it never crossed my mind that it would be anything more than a one-off book and there are so many things I would have done differently if I’d known it would become a series. But I also know how much my readers love the Iceland series, and I think it’s safe to assume that you’re one of those readers. I wanted to give you a series that has all the things you love about the Iceland books (there are even cameos from some of the characters) but also an exciting new adventure to get stuck into. The second book in the series will be out in the autumn and there’ll be another Iceland book as usual at the end of the year, so lots to look forward to!
I don’t remember wrestling about the title of Snug in Iceland – I think I knew the title before I wrote it! With this book, the story chose the title. It’s about two people following their dreams, so what else could it be called?
It’s out on 2nd June and can be pre-ordered on Kindle now, there’s a link below. The paperback should be out on the same day but can’t be pre-ordered at the moment. Here’s the blurb:
Lotta Jansen has spent years building her marketing business from the ground up, and it’s finally paying off. Landing a campaign to relaunch Snug, one of the biggest names in international homeware, is the opportunity she’s always worked towards. She has a plan, a deadline, and absolutely no room for distractions.
Mats Larsen is on the verge of walking away from everything. A high-flying career in investment banking, his Oslo apartment, and a life that looks perfect from the outside. Now he’s betting it all on a luxury hotel on a remote island in the Norwegian fjords, a dream that is inspired or completely reckless, and he’s not sure which.
When a chance encounter throws them together, the connection is immediate, real, and entirely inconvenient for both of them.
But Lotta has been here before — happy, hopeful, and badly wrong. With her biggest professional opportunity on the line and her heart refusing to behave sensibly, she’s learning that knowing you can trust someone and actually believing it are two very different things…
And don’t forget, if you haven’t already read Welcome to Norway, which is a prequel to Dreams in Norway (but a stand-alone story) you can still download it for free with the link below. Because this novella is free, if you think anyone else you know would enjoy it, feel free to share it.
Download Welcome to Norway!
In Other News
Because the book is finished, aside from editing and polishing it, I gave myself the day off yesterday and went to London. I’ve been saving up sewing projects so wanted to go to a fabric shop and have a really good splurge. Because of the Tube strike, it was a mammoth 90-minute round-trip on a bus from Marble Arch and then they didn’t have anything I wanted. Isn’t that always the way?! But the bus journey in the sunshine was lovely.
And as it was a day of indulgence, I went to Islington to a wool shop called Loop which I have wanted to go to since it opened twenty years ago – it was a shock to hear that’s how long it’s taken me! Obviously I don’t need any wool, and I especially don’t need to knit another scarf but a lovely scarf kit fell into my bag, so what could I do? I did pick up some sock yarn and then decided I didn’t need it, so only buying the scarf kit felt virtuous.
And along the road from there is a new romance bookshop called Of Books And Love. I had been instructed by my daughter to go in there and smell a candle based on a character from Heated Rivalry (an ice-hockey romance series). If it smells like a hot man, buy it, she said. So I bought it. And had my photo taken by the lovely woman who runs the shop. Thankfully I was the only customer at that point or it might have been embarrassing.
An Indie Author Recommendation
Throughout 2026 I’m collaborating with a group of Indie Romance authors and each month I’ll share one of their books! This month’s book is available on Amazon and is free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
True Love Again is a slow burn, second chance at finding love, set in the Midlands, England, between a single parent and an independent app developer, full of longing, adorable kids and opening your heart to love after grief and betrayal.
At a Gujarati wedding in North Devon, the interfering aunties are in full force, scheming and pairing off the single people. Normally Meera avoids these gatherings, but for this wedding she can’t say no.
Krishan, a widowed single parent, struggles with the idea of moving on – especially when no one can compare to his late wife. And the Aunties’ suggestions for a perfect match aren’t helping. Then he meets Meera.
When an accident with the floral arrangements sends the pair off on a mission for replacements they develop an easy friendship. Krishan suggests to Meera that they pretend to date for the rest of the summer’s events, and she agrees as long as he promises to join as a Beta tester, for her dating and new experience app.
Krishan is reluctant, but Meera promises him it will only be a couple of times.
What could possibly go wrong?
Reading and watching
My reading this month has been sparse. I’ve just checked, and I think I’ve only read one book since I last talked to you. That can’t be right. I’ve finished reading Woman Down by Colleen Hoover. I think this is the first book she’s written since the success of It Ends With Us. I would say it’s a romantic thriller and I don’t often read those. I couldn’t reconcile how someone could want a person and be scared of them at the same time. That’s not really a romance, and maybe it wasn’t supposed to be. Anyway, I am happy to have finished it, but I know other people who thought it was great.
Now I’m reading The Eights by Joanna Miller and I’m loving it. It’s set in 1920 and is about four women who are amongst the first to be allowed to study at Oxford University and get a degree. I didn’t know that women had been studying at Oxford long before that but weren’t allowed to have a degree at the end of it. It’s so interesting and is against the backdrop of the end of the First World War so lots of social history in there too.
I’m obsessed with The Pitt on HBO Max. It stars Noah Wyle from ER, to me he’ll always be Carter, and it’s similar to ER the series of however many episodes is like real-time, so each episode is an hour of the day, all about the same day. It’s too gory for the rest of the household so it’s late-night viewing for me, which is perhaps why I have been reading less…
Until next time, happy reading!
Victoria
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