Spotlight & Giveaway: Anyone But Rich by Penelope Bloom

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Penelope Bloom to HJ!

Hi Penelope and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Anyone But Rich!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Seven years ago, my best friends and I made a promise: No matter what, we would never date one of the King brothers. Even if they grew up to become megafamous, gorgeous, heart-stopping billionaires. Even if they crawled on their knees and begged for forgiveness.

But guess who just flew back into our lives in a private jet? And guess who just showed up to my job on my first day? Richard. King. Fortunately, it takes two seconds for Richard to reveal he hasn’t changed. Conceited. Cocky. Rude. Unfortunately, he’s also the kind of gorgeous that’s borderline offensive—with a jawline to make statues self-conscious and a grin that short-circuits my brain.

He’s spent years taking what he wants. I doubt he’s hungry for anything else—except me, apparently. There’s no way I’ll let him maneuver his way back into my life. My friends would never forgive me. I would never forgive me. But did I mention his jawline?
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

We parked our cars at Overlook Point. The hills surrounding our little town were so small that it would’ve been more accurate to call it Mosquito Bite Point, where the hill was barely big enough to see over my uncle’s bald spot, let alone the school that blocked most of the view. If you leaned just right, you could sort of see the chapel and the river near the center of town, but my friends and I never came here for the view.

For as long as I could remember, this was where we came to talk when something had gone seriously wrong. And not I tried to hover pee and accidentally blasted the entire toilet wrong. Not even the I mistook my mom’s hair removal cream for conditioner event of two years ago. No, Overlook Point was for the big-drama moments. It was for life-and-death situations, and if the King brothers weren’t a life-and-death situation, I didn’t know what was.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I borrowed quite a few details from my real experiences in my first year of being a teacher (including the violent pooper event, which was a true story) into Kira’s chapters.
• Kira’s completely weird side hobby is actually pulled from somebody I knew while I was teaching. They sold little rodent sweaters for things like ferrets and guinea pigs on ebay. They made enough money to fund a vacation every year, believe it or not!
• This book was the first I’ve ever written with a traditional publisher. The process of pitching all three books of the series before I’d written a single paragraph of book one was totally new to me, but it made for a much more cohesive and awesome three-book series.
• Traditional publishing is a really slow process, which means I’ve actually already finished the entire series.

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

The two main characters are Richard King and Kira Summerland. Richard has a twin brother, Cade, and a younger brother, Nick, who each get their own books in the series as well. Books two and three also bring in Kira’s best friends, Iris and Miranda.

I think I’m always surprised by my characters, partly because of how limited my planning/outlining phase is. For me, the most fun way to write is when I’m being pulled along for the ride. If I know every little detail and conversation ahead of time, I lose some of the spark that I think helps make my voice distinctive.

Some of my favorite surprises with this series were…

• I had a much more stern, serious kind of character in mind for Rich from the outset. As I began writing and saw the goofballs that surrounded him, I kind of felt some of that lightness forcing its way into his personality. He’s still generally serious, but I think it added a really realistic and endearing sense of humor to him that I didn’t plan for.
• The friendship between Kira, Miranda, and Iris turned into something that felt really genuine to me. I guess this wasn’t a true surprise, because that is sort of the plan, but I was surprised that it winded up clicking as well as it did. It can be really hard to force friendships and chemistry on the page, so it always feels like a surprise when I feel like it’s coming together.
• Iris’ personality. I didn’t really plan for her to be such a wild, mildly crazy character. A few of her early scenes ended up setting the tone for me though, and I was just having way too much fun with her to go any other way. The other side of this was Cade. I did plan for him to be basically a lunatic, but I didn’t plan for him to be so funny. Maybe that’s self serving to say, but I think I can objectively say Cade is hilarious, and I was extremely happy with the consistent way he brought humor to not just his book (book 2), but to the whole series as a side character in books 1 and 2.

Set the scene for your characters’ first kiss.

I think the few paragraphs leading up to the moment do the best job. This is an excerpt from the scene:

“Since we seem to have a hard time reading each other,” he said, each word sending a puff of his hot breath against my lips. He was so close now. “I’m about to kiss you. I didn’t want any confusion this time. I’d also prefer if you didn’t punch me again. That really hurt.”

“And I’m about to let you,” I whispered.

There was a world outside this moment, but none of it felt like it mattered. There’d be consequences and drama and maybe even tears, but trying to think about that was like worrying about the price of gas when I was eighty. It was so impossibly distant and so impossibly irrelevant.

Rich was here. His lips were parted and soft and so, so inviting. What else mattered?

He kissed me, or I kissed him. I didn’t know who made the final plunge across those spare, electrified inches between our lips, and I didn’t care.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 

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

I think I’d use the scene when Rich first shows back up in West Valley at Kira’s job (coincidentally, on her first day as a teacher). Kira has a kind of charm and humor to her that pairs well with a strong backbone. I wanted her to be vulnerable but somebody who has the balls to protect that vulnerable side, if that makes sense. I’d be interested to see if an actress could manage to tread that line between delicate and powerful.

In a similar way, Rich shows up and appears cocky and unshakable. Whether Kira tries to get him to leave or not, he knows what he came back to West Valley for, and he doesn’t plan to leave without it. But, underneath the determination, there’s a sensitive side of Rich that also comes through, and it’d be really important for me to see if an actor could manage to not let either side overpower the other.

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

For me, this book and the series as a whole look at how often we lie to ourselves about what we want. We let money or career goals distract us from what our hearts want.

Every book in this series kind of starts with a snapshot moment between two people who thought they were moving toward their goals. But sometimes, the real goal is the one we’re too afraid to pursue. We’d rather know it’s still there and still an option, no matter how farfetched.

So the fun of this series is that it shows you what happens when you say screw the consequences and start being honest with yourself–honest enough to go after what you really want.

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

I’m not an extremely organized person, and part of that is by choice. If I have six books planned out and locked into the calendar, I carry that knowledge around like an anchor on my neck. So I almost always only have one concrete book planned (the next one), and I only start thinking about the next book when I’m about 75% of the way through whatever I’m currently working on.

Right now, I’m in the planning stages for my next book, so all the details aren’t locked in. One thing I do know is that I’ve kind of become obsessed with this idea of doing a romantic comedy with a BDSM twist. I know that may sound like a kind of odd mixture, but I have a feeling it would turn into a really awesome and fun reading experience that would be pretty unique.

I’ve also been wanting to write a sports or rockstar romance pretty much forever. Those are always kind of my backup books incase something unique doesn’t pop into my head in time.

It’s also a little too early to say whether my next books will be self published or if they’ll also be coming through Montlake. I can say for sure that Anyone But Cade and Anyone But Nick will be coming in 2019. After those, the future is still uncertain, which, coincidentally, is just the way I like it!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: eBook copy of ANYONE BUT RICH (Anyone But… Book 1) by Penelope Bloom

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Book Info:

Seven years ago, my best friends and I made a promise: No matter what, we would never date one of the King brothers. Even if they grew up to become megafamous, gorgeous, heart-stopping billionaires. Even if they crawled on their knees and begged for forgiveness.

But guess who just flew back into our lives in a private jet? And guess who just showed up to my job on my first day? Richard. King. Fortunately, it takes two seconds for Richard to reveal he hasn’t changed. Conceited. Cocky. Rude. Unfortunately, he’s also the kind of gorgeous that’s borderline offensive—with a jawline to make statues self-conscious and a grin that short-circuits my brain.

He’s spent years taking what he wants. I doubt he’s hungry for anything else—except me, apparently. There’s no way I’ll let him maneuver his way back into my life. My friends would never forgive me. I would never forgive me. But did I mention his jawline?

Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2TZCaGe
 
 

Meet the Author:

Penelope Bloom is a USA Today, Amazon, and Washington Post bestselling author whose books have been translated into seven languages. Her popular romances include His Banana, Her Cherry, Savage, and Punished.

Her writing career started when she left her job as a high school teacher to pursue her dream. She loves taking her imagination for a spin and writing romances she’d want to live. She likes a man with a mind as dirty as sin and a heart of gold he keeps hidden away. Her favorite things include getting to wear socks all day—pants optional—and being a positive example for her girls. Showing her daughters that no dream is too big, no matter what anyone tells them, is worth all the late nights, doubts, and fears that come with being a writer.

Stay connected! For giveaways, goodies, updates, and extras, join the mailing list at https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/a0y7m1. Follow her on Facebook at PenelopeBloomRomance, and check out her website at www.penelope-bloom.com.
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