Spotlight & Giveaway: A Marriage of Inconvenience by Amy Vastine

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Amy Vastine to HJ!

Hi Amy and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Marriage of Inconvenience!

 
Hello! Thank you so much for having me today!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

A Marriage of Inconvenience is a book about two people who fall in love at first sight after a shared traumatic experience. Unfortunately, Mr. Perfect is engaged to be married and the next time he see his Miss Right, she’s his wedding planner. Well, Evan’s not a bad guy, though. He’s trying to help his best friend, who needs to be married in order to prove to her uncle that she is the right person to take over the family business. Evan never thought he’d meet someone like Sophia and he never expected he’d have to work with her as he planned his wedding. There’s a little suspense as well as romance and a lot of ups and downs before our couple get their HEA!
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

“I’m running to the bank now to deposit the check from the Mahoneys and get pennies for the Westbergs’ wishing well. I should be back in the office in about twenty minutes.” Sophia Reed pulled open the door to the Wharton Bank and Trust.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My daughter is in college right now studying to be an event planner. After spending a lot of time with her hearing about all the cool classes she gets to take (like a whole class on wine!!), I was inspired to make my heroine an event planner.
• This is the book I wrote or at least finished during the pandemic. It was always be one that I remember because of that!
• In my head, Uncle Gordon looks exactly like Donald Sutherland. I even hear his voice when I write Gordon’s dialogue.

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?

Sophia Reed is one of my favorite heroines to date. She is smart and good at what she does. She’s someone I would want to be friends with because she’s a good person, loyal, and has great taste. She loves what she does but has sadly had a hard time finding the right person. Until she meets Evan.

Evan Anderson has a heart of gold. He will do anything for the people he loves. He takes care of his brother with Down’s Syndrome. He’s willing to marry his best friend so she can have the job she deserves. He falls head over heels for Sophia and agonizes over his feelings for her and trying to do what’s best for her, for his best friend, for his brother. Evan is truly the tortured one in the story.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

Well, Evan and Sophia meet in a very unusual way – during a bank robbery. I think that scene is one I would need to see because the characters connect in a very intense way during it. Here’s a snippet:

“Everyone down on the ground! Down on the ground right now!” someone shouted. Four men had entered the lobby dressed head to toe in black and each wearing an animal mask. The one in the tiger mask had a gun pointed at the security guard.

“Hands where I can see them,” the man in the monkey mask said to the teller behind the counter.
“Everyone else down on the ground like my friend the giraffe said!”

Sophia’s heart stopped before jumping back to life and beating at a pace that it hit only during her toughest spin classes. The shock had her frozen in place. The man in front of her took her by the hand.

“Let’s do as they say and they won’t hurt us,” he said, guiding her down to the ground.

There was kindness in his eyes. Kindness was something she’d never take for granted again. This was a bank robbery. A real-life bank robbery. Sophia knew they happened, but she never thought she’d actually witness one.

The two of them and the woman who had been at the counter were the only customers in the lobby. The robber in the lion mask led two bankers and a customer out of the cubicles where people opened accounts and applied for mortgages.

Sophia had done that recently. She had gotten a mortgage from the banker with the blue tie so she could buy her first house. A real house with three bedrooms and two and a half baths. It was charming in its own special way. She loved it. Wouldn’t it be a terrible twist of fate if she died in a bank robbery less than a month after she bought her first home?

“You aren’t going to die,” the kind-eyed man said. He squeezed her hand. “You’ll be home before you know it.”

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

That in the end, the people we love and who love us back will do right by us. I think everyone learns that lesson in this story. Evan thinks he has to make everything right for everyone else and never considers the fact that maybe they should make things right for him.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I am currently writing the fourth book in the Stop The Wedding series. This is a redemption story with the bad girl heroine being the one who needs to redeem herself after running away from home ten years ago. I also am so excited to say I am working on the third series of Blackwell books with my author friends Anna J Stewart, Melinda Curtis, Cari Lynn Webb, and Carol Ross! Both of these books will be coming out in 2022.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Print copy of the first two books in the series – A Bridesmaid to Remember and His Brother’s Bride and some author swag (US only, Ebook if international)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What song did you or would you like to dance to at your wedding? I danced to Bryan Adams I’ll Always Be Right There even though Everything I Do, I Do For You was super popular back then!

 
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Excerpt from A Marriage of Inconvenience:

“Um…” Sophia spun in her chair and rolled herself over to her file cabinet. She pulled out a red file. “You could sign off on a couple things. I also need to tell the band what song you want for your first dance. They were asking in case it’s something they aren’t familiar with, so they’ll have
time to practice.”
“We don’t have to do a first dance, do we? Is that required?”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed and her nose scrunched up. “Required? Nothing is required. This is your wedding, but it is fairly traditional for the bride and groom to dance their first dance at the reception as husband and wife.”
“We could probably leave that out. I don’t think Jamie would care. She’s not that into dancing in front of a room full of people.”
Sophia tilted her head. “You can’t dance, can you?”
He tried to act offended. “What? I can dance.”
She shook her head and a smile spread across her face. “You can’t dance.”
“I am a very good dancer. I could teach you how to Dougie, and I disco better than people who were actually alive during disco. No one can Y, M, C or A like I can.”
Sophia stood up and walked around to his side of the desk. “You can’t slow dance?”
Evan could feel the heat rising up his neck and onto his cheeks. He tried to hold his ground. “I can sway back and forth to a slow song, if that’s what you mean.”
Sophia held out her hand. “Stand up,” she said. He took her hand and did as she asked. “You cannot sway back and forth on your wedding day in front of people who are friends with Gordon Wharton.”
“That’s why we should skip that part. Just make it a group dance right from the start.”
She grabbed his other hand and placed it on her waist before resting hers on his shoulder. “I can teach you a very simple dance that anyone can do.”
Evan wanted to pay attention to her words, but with their bodies this close it was next to impossible. He was like a teenager again, nervous and tongue-tied around a pretty girl.“
We’re going to start out with a really easy first step. We’re just going to go left, touch, right, touch, left, touch, right, touch.” She led the way and he followed. “Super easy, right?”
“So far, so good,” he managed to say. The hand on her hip felt like it was on fire. Could she feel that? Could she tell he was burning?
“You can also spin your bride as you go—that way you won’t just be stepping side to side the whole song. You’re the man, so you get to lead. The way you’ll signal to Jamie that you guys are going to spin is by pushing with this hand and pulling with the other. Just enough to let her know that
you’ll be moving in this direction.”
Sophia showed him how to do it. She guided them into a full circle and stopped.
“See? Still easy, right?”
“I think so.” His eyes were locked on hers. She completely mesmerized him. The green in her eyes was flecked with gold he’d never noticed before. They were the prettiest eyes he’d ever had the pleasure of getting lost in.
“If you really want to impress your guests, you can twirl her. That’s a little more complicated, and I suggest you two practice it before you do it in front of everyone. Let’s just work on you leading for a minute, okay?”
Evan nodded. He didn’t want to practice with Jamie, though. He wanted to save all of his dances for the woman in his arms.
“One important thing to remember is don’t switch directions until after you touch. Then just pull here so I know where we’re going.” She showed him exactly how to do it. “Are you ready?”
“I guess. If I step on your foot, I apologize.”
“You won’t. You’re leading. I’ll go wherever you want me to go.” If only she meant those words in a completely different context. If things were different, if no one was counting on them, he would ask her to run away with him. Leave tonight and go somewhere they could be together forever.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

She’s met the perfect man…
But he’s engaged!

Wedding planner Sophia Reed never imagined she’d meet her perfect man during a bank robbery. Evan Anderson is handsome and funny and makes Sophia believe in love at first sight. There’s only one small hitch—he’s engaged to someone else, and Sophia is planning his wedding! But Evan’s wedding is purely a business arrangement…and true love might just turn this almost-perfect wedding into a beautiful catastrophe!

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Meet the Author:

Amy Vastine has been plotting stories in her head for as long as she can remember. An eternal optimist, she studied social work, hoping to teach others how to find their silver lining. Now, she enjoys creating happily ever afters for all to read. Amy lives outside Chicago with her high school sweetheart husband, three teenagers who keep her on her toes, and their two sweet but mischievous pups.
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