Spotlight & Giveaway: How to Hack a Heartbreak by Kristin Rockaway

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Kristin Rockaway to HJ!

Hi Kristin and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, How to Hack a Heartbreak!

 
Hi there! Thanks so much for having me!
 

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

How to Hack a Heartbreak follows 20-something underemployed techie Melanie Strickland as she navigates the frustrating world of online dating in New York City. She’s been swiping for months through the hot dating app du jour, Fluttr, but all she’s found are guys who flake out, stand her up, or send the occasional unsolicited dick pic.

Fed up, she does what any disgruntled coder would do: she creates JerkAlert, an anonymous website that allows jilted women all over the city to rate their experiences with the men they meet online. When JerkAlert unexpectedly goes viral, Mel sees an opportunity to take her career to the next level. But it could also mean losing everything – including her job, her friendships, and her burgeoning romance with her coworker, Alex Hernandez, who is most definitely not a jerk… or is he?
 

Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:

“It was funny: modern technology could forge a connection between two people on opposite ends of the earth, but it could just as easily drive a wedge between two people standing side by side in the same room.”

What inspired this book?

Basically, my entire twenties inspired this book: I was living in Brooklyn, working in IT as a software developer, and dating a lot of douches I met online. I wish I had thought to create JerkAlert back then… I bet I would’ve made a fortune!

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

I always start every story I write with a character in mind – a woman who is at an important crossroads in her life and is on the verge of making a huge change. My first step is always to fill out a character sketch, including a worksheet to describe her arc (how she changes from the beginning to the end). Sometimes I’ll even journal a little bit from her point of view to get the voice down.

When I finally dive into the actual draft, I usually think I know everything there is to know about her. But inevitably, as I’m writing some tricky scene, she’ll surprise me by doing something totally out of character. Then I’ll curse for a few minutes before completely revising my character sketch (and probably my plot outline, too).

What was your favorite scene to write?

The Krav Maga scene. I’m a plotter, meaning I usually plan every scene out ahead of time – it helps me control the pacing of my stories. Sometimes, though, I’ll have a placeholder for a scene, so that I know how it’s going to move the story forward, but the details of exactly what happens are a little fuzzy. That’s what this scene was: total improv.

I can actually remember where I was when I was writing it – sitting at a desk at a local hotel for a mini solo writing retreat – because the words came to me so quickly, seemingly out of nowhere, and I was laughing my ass off the whole time.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

The scene on the subway, when Mel has that run-in with a creeper. I know many women (including myself) who’ve had to deal with pervs on the subways and streets of New York – flashers, gropers, you name it – and I actually found it really difficult to convey the gravity of the situation while keeping it light and entertaining.

As I was writing it, all these feelings came flooding in, anger at the injustice of being violated, and regret that I’d always been too scared to fight back. Eventually, I was able to channel those feelings into Mel, making her exact the revenge I’d never gotten for myself.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

How to Hack a Heartbreak definitely showcases my writing style, arguably moreso than my previous book, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Traveling the World, though the two stories are both romcoms about young women finding their voices and purpose in life – and finding love while they’re at it.

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

I hope readers come away from this story feeling the power of women and the importance of female friendships. Frankly, I’d be nowhere without my girl-gang of strong, intelligent, supportive women – both personally and professionally.

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

I’m currently working on edits for my next book, which is due for release next summer. I haven’t settled on a final title yet, but like How to Hack a Heartbreak, it’s a romcom/women’s fiction, and centers around a floundering college dropout who accidentally falls into Instagram influencing after getting sucked into the gravitational pull of a GOOP-wannabe lifestyle guru.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 1 print copy of HOW TO HACK A HEARTBREAK by Kristin Rockaway (entrants limited to North American mailing addresses)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What’s your take on dating apps? Do you think they’re a great way to find an HEA or is swipe culture ruining courtship?

 
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Excerpt from How to Hack a Heartbreak:

We settled on Fresh Salt, a café on Beekman Street with outdoor seating. As I sipped my ice water, I took a moment to bask in how perfect everything was. A mild breeze floated off the river, and the snippet of sky visible between the surrounding buildings was blue and cloudless. For once, there were no construction vehicles spewing exhaust, no jackhammers clobbering the asphalt, no open bags of garbage festering on the pavement. The usual noises and odors of a New York City street were absent. It was simply a beautiful Monday afternoon.
And the most beautiful part of this beautiful scene? Alex Hernandez, smiling at me from across the weathered wooden table. Tousled hair, tawny skin, the perfect amount of five o’clock shadow shading his jawline. Somehow, he was equal parts scruffy and tailored, and it suited him.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“Go for it.”
“Were you really meeting someone on Friday night?”
“Yes. A Fluttr date, actually.”
“Then why’d you bolt out of there so fast?” His eyes went all wide and disbelieving. “Wait a minute, did you stand him up?”
“No! I would never do that.” I ran a finger through the condensation on my water glass. I wasn’t particularly keen on rehashing how I’d been blown off by some Fluttr rando, but there was no other choice but to tell the truth. “He stood me up.”
“Ouch.” The look of pity on his face was unbearable. “Sorry.”
“It happens.” I shrugged one shoulder, trying desperately to evoke a sense of indifference. “Getting jilted is just one of many risks you take when you decide to meet a stranger from the internet.”
He chuckled. “Fluttr is the worst, isn’t it?”
“The worst.”
“I should just delete my profile. I’m convinced no one ever meets anyone worthwhile on that app.”
“Actually, one of my best friends met her boyfriend on Fluttr, and they’re pretty serious.”
“Is he a nice guy?”
“I mean, he seems nice,” I said, realizing the only things I knew about Jay were the things Lia told me about him. They’d been dating for almost three months, but I still hadn’t met him. From the photos she posted on her Instagram account, it looked like they had a genuine, mutual affection. But there was always some excuse why he could never meet us for a drink: Late nights at the office, last-minute emergencies, business trips that sent him out of town for days at a time. I didn’t even know what kind of job he had that kept him so busy.
What I did know was that Lia was the happiest I’d ever seen her.
“He makes her happy,” I said.
“They’re definitely one in a million. I’ve never hit it off with anyone I’ve matched with.”
I smiled in solidarity. “Me neither.”
“See what I mean? No one I know has. Which begs the question of why people keep going back for more.”
“It’s those ads on the subway. They get inside your head.”
Fluttr had recently launched a marketing campaign aimed at New York City straphangers. They featured photos of radiant couples embracing against breathtaking backdrops, like rain forests and white sand beaches. Big, bold letters across the top screamed Fluttr: Don’t Let the One Get Away.
And though I knew damn well there wasn’t some male model impatiently waiting to whisk me away on a fantasy vacation, these ads always stirred an urgency inside of me that was hard to suppress. If I wasn’t swiping through Fluttr this very instant, I might miss the man of my dreams and never see him again.
Alex nodded. “That’s true. Those ads always make me feel bummed out about being single.”
“It’s just so hard to meet people.”
“But it doesn’t seem like Fluttr is making it any easier. We have too many choices, too much information. It’s paralyzing.”
“So you think we should go back in time to the days of…what were those called? When people would print dating profiles in the newspaper?”
“Personal ads.”
“Right.”
“No,” he said, carefully. “But I feel like we don’t take the time to get to know our potential partners anymore. We spend maybe two seconds looking at someone’s picture before–” he whistled and mimicked a swiping motion, flicking his finger through the air between us “–writing them off forever. I can’t help but think we’d be better off meeting people in person.”
“Like at speed dating events.”
Alex laughed, an infectious rumble. “Maybe.”
“Or in bars.”
“Or in the office.”
After he said that, he looked right at me, biting his bottom lip like he was suppressing a smile. My stomach did a little somersault when I saw his dark eyes dancing with mischief.
Was this a date?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Swipe right for love. Swipe left for disaster.

By day, Mel Strickland is an underemployed help-desk tech at a start-up incubator, Hatch, where she helps entitled brogrammers—”Hatchlings”—who can’t even fix their own laptops but are apparently the next wave of start-up geniuses. And by night, she goes on bad dates with misbehaving dudes she’s matched with on the ubiquitous dating app Fluttr.

But after one dick pic too many, Mel has had it. Using her brilliant coding skills, she designs an app of her own, one that allows users to log harassers and abusers in the online dating space. It’s called JerkAlert, and it goes viral overnight.

Mel is suddenly in way over her head. Worse still, her almost-boyfriend, the dreamy Alex Hernandez—the only non-douchey guy at Hatch—has no idea she’s the brains behind the app. Soon, Mel is faced with a terrible choice: one that could destroy her career, love life and friendships, or change her life forever.

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Meet the Author:

Kristin Rockaway is a native New Yorker and recovering corporate software engineer. After working in the IT industry for far too many years, she finally traded the city for the surf and chased her dreams out to Southern California, where she spends her days happily writing stories instead of code. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and son, browsing the aisles of her neighborhood bookstores, and planning her next big vacation.

Her second novel, How to Hack a Heartbreak, will be released from Graydon House/HarperCollins on July 30, 2019. Her debut, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Traveling the World, is in stores now.
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