Guest post: Meet the Chalet Girls by Lorraine Wilson
14 Feb
What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a lovely guest post from one of my favourite romance authors, Lorraine Wilson. Lorraine is the author of the Chalet Girl series if novellas and I’m delighted to say, has just released the first full length novel in the series, Chalet Girls. Today Lorraine joins me to introduce her chalet girls to you all. Welcome Lorraine!
Those of you who have been following the blog may already know I started the Chalet Girl series because I love Switzerland and I thought the seasonnaire scene would be rich with story possibilities. With the novel Chalet Girls some of the inspiration came from characters already created in previous novellas although this doesn’t stop Chalet Girls being read as a standalone novel.
Chalet Girls features the stories of three characters – Sophie, Lucy and Beth. Sophie’s story started in Secret Crush of a Chalet Girl but I felt there was more to tell and a full length novel gave me the space to dig deeper into what really happens after ‘happy ever after’. Those of you familiar with her character know that Valentine’s treasure hunts feature in her story and this novel is no exception, I couldn’t resist creating another one 
Lucy has been a secondary character in some of the novellas and the inspiration for her story started when I read the real life story of Jenny Jones – a chalet girl who became an Olympic medal winner: From there my research lead me into the world of extreme skiing. Watching videos of pro snowboarder Xavier de le Rue being dropped by helicopter onto the ridge of an alpine mountain gave me the inspiration for the character of Seb. You can watch one of Xavier’s jaw dropping mountain descents here:
With Beth’s story the inspiration was more personal. I like to write escapist, fun stories but I also try to tackle some of the hard, painful things a lot of us carry around but rarely talk about. In a way hers is a story of perseverance and hope. Maybe this theme is of especial importance to me because a neurosurgeon told me eight years ago, after a severe brain injury, that I’d never be able to write a book. This was following an accident that left me with lasting disabilities. Finishing my first novella (Confessions of a Chalet Girl - ) using speech to text technology felt like a real triumph but as ‘Chalet Girls’ is my first full length novel its publication is yet another milestone in my own story.
On a lighter note, animal-loving readers might like to know that the dog called Pip featured both in the book and on the book cover is actually one of my own rescue dogs. He has his own story of perseverance and you can read about how he made his way from my lap into the book on the Harper Impulse blog –
Chalet Girls is out now in paperback and ebook formats from HarperImpulse.
What happens when life in Verbier suddenly goes off-piste?
Lucy’s been bowled over by the sexy extreme skier who’s hurtled into her life. But can she accept Seb’s commitment to his adrenaline-filled career?
Trusting any man is out of the question after what’s happened to Beth. So why is she so drawn to twinkly-eyed Dan when he’s leaving at the end of the season?
Sophie’s madly in love with her gorgeous fiancé, Luc. Only instead of gleefully planning the winter wedding of her dreams, all she wants is to run and hide…
Three Chalet Girls are about to strap on their skis and find out!
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