Spotlight & Giveaway: Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jenny Holiday to HJ!

Hi Jenny and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Duke, Actually!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Duke, Actually is about a woman in the middle of a stressful divorce who is thrown together with a baron of a fictional Alpine country because her best friend is marrying his best friend (his best friend being the princess of said country!). He’s an infamous playboy, and she’s proclaimed herself done with love, so since “nothing will ever happen between them” (heh!) they fall into an easy friendship that surprises them both with its depth. Of course, they catch feelings!
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

When Dani Martinez woke up on Friday the tenth of December, she thought, It’s going to be a good day.

And then she thought, Liar.

But whatever, just because it was the last Friday of the semester and she was about to be inundated with forty-seven essays on The (Not So) Great Gatsby, it didn’t necessarily follow that today was going to be bad.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This series had its origins in me watching Hallmark Christmas movies with my dad, who LOVES them. I thought, Hmm, I wonder if I could write a book version of one of these.
• Except mine are spicier than Hallmark! A reader once called the previous book in this universe (they are all stand-alones, but take place in the same world) “Hallmark meets HBO,” and I loved that!
• The title is a take-off on Love, Actually, which is probably pretty obvious, but there are also a ton of references to Dirty Dancing in the book.

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

Dani is an English professor in New York, and she’s coming off a bad divorce. She’s smart AND street-smart and totally done with men. Max is a baron and heir to a dukedom who’s known for being a bit of a playboy. She has no tolerance for his usual bullshit, which of course piques his interest.

I guess what surprised me was how perfectly the two of them fell into friendship. I mean, I knew I was writing them in a way that they would be friends first, but the depth of their friendship , and the degree to which they came to rely on it, surprised me a bit!

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

I would use a scene in which Max accompanies Dani to her work holiday party. She doesn’t like Max, and he knows that, but he’s down to be her arm candy at the event because she’s going to have to see her crappy ex-husband there. There’s a lot of banter between them, but this is where she starts to see a different side of him. He charms everyone, and then they swam off triumphantly.

“Vince, Berkeley, meet my friend Max.”

“The duke, right?” Berkeley said, eyes wide as Max stood to greet them.

“Alas, a mere baron,” Max corrected. Wow, the Depraved Duke nickname must have everyone thinking Max was actually a duke.

“What brings you to New York?” Vince asked.

“Just visiting,” Max said smoothly, sitting back down and sliding his arm around Dani’s shoulder in such a way that implied it was her he was visiting. “New York at Christmastime has so much to recommend it.”

Dani had the sudden notion that Max’s answer to the “What brings you to New York?” question was changing based on whatever answer would paint her in the most flattering light. With her departmental chair, it had been an intellectual mystery Dani was helping him solve. With her shitty ex, it was her.

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

I’m happy for people to take whatever they like from it! Perhaps a little holiday escapism, perhaps a reminder that we all deserve love and happiness on our own terms.

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

Fall 2022 is my next Christmas book in the Eldovia universe, and it features the starchy equerry to the throne, Mr. Benz, and the American management consultant who’s hired to come in and modernize royal family’s watch company. Then in mid 2023 I have a standalone novel called Canadian Boyfriend coming out, which is about a girl who meets a Canadian hockey player in passing and invents a fake version of him to get her out of stressful social situations, only to meet him again in real life decades later.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday –will mail internationally.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What is your favorite holiday romance book or movie?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Duke, Actually:

Chapter 4

Dani didn’t remember The Nutcracker being so good. She hadn’t seen it since she was a girl, and she’d been wondering if her adult self would be too jaded to suspend her disbelief and enjoy a story about toys and candy and flowers come to life. But a few bars into the overture and she’d fallen right into the story, and Mom must have too—she kept looking at Dani at the same time Dani looked over at her.

“That was lovely, Max, thank you so much,” her mom said when they reached the lobby.

It really had been. Even though Dani had had to be talked into coming, she was bummed that it was over.

“May I take you ladies for a post-show drink?” Max asked as they waited in line at the coat check.
Yes. Dani didn’t want to go home yet.

But her mom said, “Thank you, but no. It’s a long ride home, and my husband waits up for me even though I tell him not to.”

“Let me call the car,” Max said, holding their coats for them one at a time.

It was just as well. Dani took her mom’s arm. “I need to pick your brain in the car about gift ideas for Dad.” Though maybe admitting she hadn’t bought gifts yet was a dumb move—it might lead to a line of fruitcake questioning, and Dani had never been able to lie to her mother.

“Oh, no, you two go have a drink!” Mom shrugged out of her grasp. “I’ll enjoy the peace of a cozy ride home.”

Dani looked at Max, who had an eyebrow raised—the man had the uncanny ability to lift one eyebrow at a time—like he was daring her to do something so transgressive as have a drink with him. She wanted to, but without her mom as an excuse, she should refuse. Spontaneously going out to drinks with Max last night had been one thing. Doing it again felt like veering into list- violating territory. But really, there was nothing on it a drink with Max would be violating, except #6, and she had already violated that one by being here to begin with. And perhaps more to the point, Max wasn’t a “man” in Things I Will Never Again Do For A Man sense. He was a baron who lived on another continent. There was no danger of him upending her life.

“Stay, honey,” her mom said.

“It is the first day of the Christmas season according to the Daniela Martinez calendar,” Max said.

She made the decision by not making it, by not saying anything as she let them sweep her along.

At the car, as they were saying their goodbyes, Max said something to her mom in French. Dani recognized Joyeux Noël in her mom’s reply, but soon the two of them were conversing rapidly and animatedly—Max was such a flirt—and were beyond Dani’s limited French.

After the car departed, Max turned to her and said, “Negroni? Three negronis?” “What were you and my mom talking about?”

“How much I hate Christmas.”

“You hate Christmas? What are you doing at The Nutcracker, then?”

He shrugged and said, “I’m a walking contradiction. So, negronis? Diet Coke? I admit I’m not really in the mood for a negroni myself this evening.”

“Me either. I was thinking it would be nice to walk a bit.” “What’s our destination?” He held out his arm.

……

The snow crunched beneath their feet as they entered the park. “Did you grow up on Long Island?” he asked.

“No. My parents only moved there a few years ago after my dad retired. I grew up in Sunnyside, Queens. My mom taught at my high school, and my dad commuted to Manhattan.”

“What prompted the move?”

“I don’t think it was any one thing. They both love the city, but they were getting tired of the stairs—we lived on the top floor of a walk-up—and tired of fighting for parking. And my dad wanted to be near the water—he’s big into clamming.”

“Clamming? Is that…fishing but for clams?”

“Yes. You dig them up, though.” She shrugged. “He kind of randomly got into it after he retired, and he was always getting up at the crack of dawn and driving out to wherever they were supposed to be good that day. My mom wasn’t quite ready to retire, but she got a teaching job in Huntington, which is a town on the north shore, and that was that.”

“You’re close to them?”

He had asked her that last night, and he seemed strangely interested in the answer. “Yes.” He was looking at her as they walked, and he was listening so intently, it made her want to say more. “And I love the beach, so I’m always happy to visit them. My dad was always a beach person, too, though the clamming is a more recent development. We used to rent a place in Long Beach for a couple weeks every summer. And my dad grew up on the beach in Playa del Carmen, which is a bit south of Cancun. His parents owned a hotel—they still do, though they don’t do the day-to-day running of it anymore. Every few years over the holidays we all go there for a visit. The beach is big in my family, is my point, so Long Island made sense for my parents. Of course they’re not right on the water—that’s too expensive for us commoners.” She smiled to show she was kidding.

“And you have a sister, you said?” “Yep. She’s three years younger.” “And you’re close to her, too?”

“Yeah, but in that weird way siblings are without there being a lot to it objectively. We love each other, but we don’t have much in common. She’s a corporate lawyer for a mutual fund company, and I write and teach about nineteenth-century literature. We don’t talk that much, but, you know, we’re sisters.”

“Funny how that happens. You can grow up with someone, spend all your time with them, and then…” He waved a hand in front of his face. “It’s all gone once you become adults.”

It occurred to Dani that in the space of two days, she’d told Max about Vince, her job dissatisfaction, and her family. He had a gift for drawing out information. He’d seemed genuinely interested, but maybe all he was doing was being polite. She, on the other hand, knew nothing about him.

“Do you have siblings?” she asked in an attempt to make the conversation more two-sided. He had sounded, when he’d talked about growing apart from a sibling, as if he’d been speaking more than theoretically.

“A brother.”

Was it her imagination, or did he purse his lips a little as he spoke? “Younger, I presume? Since you’re the future duke and all.”

She’d been trying to lighten the mood, but he just said, “Yes. Younger.” The terse, clipped tone sounded like it was coming from a different person from the carefree baron who had taken her to The Nutcracker on a whim. “Are you close?”

“We were until he went to boarding school in England.”

She was about to ask where Max had gone to boarding school when he stepped off the path and said, “Let’s make snow angels.” It had snowed most of the day, though it had tapered off while they’d been at the ballet. He took big strides until he reached a patch of untrammeled snow. He stopped and turned about twenty feet from her, seeming to realize she wasn’t following. “What? Is snow-angel-ing not done in America?”

“It’s done if you’re seven. And if you don’t hate Christmas.”

“Come on.” He beckoned her. “You just said you wanted to get into the Christmas spirit this year.”

“Why are you always suggesting silly, impulsive things like ballets and snow angels?”

“Why are you always resisting them?”

She almost gasped at the question, which felt like a thin, perfectly honed blade sliding effortlessly between her ribs.

The answer was that was that indulging in snow angels and impromptu outings to the ballet felt like exposing herself somehow. Putting on display the tender, inner part of her that was capable of taking delight in innocent pursuits, and that, in turn, felt like she was setting herself up to be mocked.
Which was sad. She had never been a frivolous person, but she used to have fun.

In one sense, the sum total of her experience with Max was him asking her to do stuff and her saying no. Do you want to go to dinner? No. Do you want to go to The Nutcracker? No. Can I send a car for you? I’ll take the subway. Can I walk with you? You don’t have to.

Vince had done this to her. Vince and his operas and his cubist literature.

No. As much as she hated to admit it, that wasn’t entirely fair to Vince. The hard truth was she had done this to herself. She had let Vince turn her into this brittle, careful, suspicious person.

She had turned into a person who didn’t trust her own judgement. That’s why she had her list: Things I Will Never Again Do For A Man.

But the list didn’t say anything about outlawing fun. It was one thing to be post-men. But did that have to mean she was on the defensive in all human interactions? Did she have to become a misanthrope? Her parents had moved to Long Island. Leo had moved to Eldovia. She’d been thinking just yesterday about how she hadn’t seen much of Sinead this semester. If she saw the people she trusted rarely-to-never, what did that mean for her life? Not to be too melodramatic, but what did that mean for her soul?

Snow angels it was.

“You’re not dressed for it anyway.” Max started back toward her.

“No, no. Stay there. I’m coming.” He grinned, and she gasped as she stepped into the snow. It wasn’t a gasp that came from the shock of confronting painful truths this time, though; it was a gasp that came from the shock of confronting painful cold as her feet sank into the snow. She wasn’t dressed for this, but she could hardly turn back now. Snow angel-ing, to use Max’s silly verb form, had become symbolic.

“That was false bravado a moment ago,” he said when she reached him. “I haven’t done this since I was a child.” He eyed the snow. “I’m not sure I remember how.”

She made a shooing motion to get him to move farther away. “The trick is to have a big enough patch of fresh snow.” She waved her arms like she was doing jumping jacks. He did the same, positioning himself so he was next to her. “And keep your legs spread,” she added, stepping wide and ignoring the stabs of pain in her pantyhose-clad ankles.

He cracked up. “Keep your legs spread. Yes. A particular motto of mine.”

“Oh, shut up. No off-color jokes allowed during snow angel-ing.”

He made a show of shutting his mouth as he got himself into position. She adjusted her stance and looked over her shoulder to make sure the ground they would land on was still pristine.

“All right,” she said. “Fall flat and decisively. If you slump back, or are tentative, your angel will look sad.”

“How do you know all this? I’m the one who grew up in the Alps. You grew up in an apartment in Queens.”

“My dad used to take my sister and me to the library every Saturday, and it was across the street from a big playground. In the winter, my sister and I would make snow angels, and then we’d inch in along the top and add halos out of rocks or sticks. We had quite the technique developed.”

“Your dad sounds rather wonderful if you don’t mind my saying. The library, the beach, clamming.”

She smiled. “He is wonderful.” Both her parents were. She felt lucky, both to have them, and to be here, now, back to the pre-Christmas excitement she’d skipped last year. “Are you ready?” she asked Max, who nodded. “On three.”

She counted, and they both landed with a muffled thud. “What now?” he said through laughter.

“Oh my god, that’s cold!” She was wearing a knee-length coat, so her legs were unprotected. “Flap your arms and legs.” His continuing laughter was contagious, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. She was making snow angels in Central Park with an Eldovian baron. How utterly ridiculous.

But also how fun.

See? She could have fun.

Max started to move like he was going to get up. “No!” she said. “Stop! The dismount is critical!”

“The dismount?” He cracked up again, but he went still. “What do I have to do?”

“Try to lever yourself up without making any marks outside your existing angel, then stand up at the bottom of your leg indentations and take a giant step away from the angel. The idea is to try to keep the outline pristine.”

He did what she said, getting to his feet and taking not a step but a large—and graceful—leap away.

“Yes! Good job!” She, however, was having more trouble. “Ugh, my high heels aren’t getting purchase on the ground. Mine is going to suck.”

“Hang on.” He came toward her but stopped a few feet away and peeled off his coat. He was left standing there in his suit—the same blue one from yesterday, but today he was wearing a lavender striped tie.

“What are you doing?”

He balled up the coat—the plush, expensive-looking one she’d been admiring earlier—and said, “Catch” as he unfurled it toward her.

“Oh!” She was too late to understand that he intended for her to grab it like a life preserver. “Do it again! I’m ready this time!” They both laughed as he re-threw the coat. Once they’d each got a good grip on it, he started pulling on his end. “Ahh!” she exclaimed as he levered her up. He didn’t ease off soon enough, though, and she was unsteady on her feet in the snow—oh, her poor shoes—so she didn’t have a chance to catch her balance. She pitched forward, stumbling until she crashed into him.

“Steady now.” His arms came around her. They teetered together for a few seconds. It was as if they were dancing but doing a very bad job of it.

Once they’d righted themselves, he didn’t let go. He was no doubt making sure she fully had her feet before he retreated, but it felt like a hug. Something happened to her body in that moment. It relaxed, despite the cold. It felt so good to have arms around you, to have someone help you bear your weight.

When was the last time she had hugged anyone she wasn’t related to? Probably not since she’d been to Eldovia last summer and hugged Leo and Gabby goodbye before she got on the plane to come home.
Oh, but all of a sudden this wasn’t that kind of hug. Now that they’d got their balance, she was suddenly aware of him. The solidity of him. A little bit of bare skin visible on his throat between his scarf and the collar of his coat. She could see his pulse thrumming at that spot.

She stepped away.

It felt too good. This was not something she could have. It wasn’t something she wanted, not beyond the weakness of the moment. You couldn’t get seduced by the momentarily buoying sensation of a hug like that, because ultimately, you had to buoy yourself in this world. And you most definitely couldn’t get yourself into a position where you were noticing things like hard chests and fluttering pulses. Maybe someday, but not yet.

Credit line: Adapted from Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday. Copyright © 2021 by Jenny Holiday. Reprinted courtesy of Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
 

Book Info:

There’s a royal wedding on, and things are about to get interesting.

Meet the man of honor…

Maximillian von Hansburg, Baron of Laudon and heir to the Duke of Aquilla, is not having a merry Christmas. He’s been dumped by a princess, he’s unemployed, and his domineering father has sent him to New York to meet a prospective bride he has no interest in. In the city, he meets Dani Martinez, a smart (and gorgeous) professor he’s determined to befriend before their best friends marry in the Eldovian wedding of the century.

Meet the best woman…

Newly single, no-nonsense New Yorker Dani is done with love—she even has a list entitled “Things I Will Never Again Do for a Man”—which is why she hits it off with notorious rake Max. He’s the perfect partner for snow angels in Central Park and deep conversations about the futility of love.

It’s all fun and games until their friendship deepens into attraction and, oops…

Falling in love was never part of the plan.

Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Jenny Holiday is a USA Today-bestselling and RITA®-nominated author whose books have been featured in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and Buzzfeed. She grew up in Minnesota and started writing at age nine when her fourth-grade teacher gave her a notebook to fill with stories. When she’s not working on her next book, she likes to hang out with her family, watch other people sing karaoke, and throw theme parties. A member of the House of Slytherin, Jenny lives in London, Ontario, Canada.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | GoodReads |