Spotlight & Giveaway: It Had to Be You by Tracy Solheim

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Tracy Solheim to HJ!

Hi Tracy and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, It Had to Be You!

 
Thanks so much for hosting me today!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The world’s number one golfer has his life turned upside down when a little girl appears on his doorstep carrying a stuffed bunny and a birth certificate inexplicably bearing his name. A teacher has her career and reputation destroyed after getting conned by the wrong guy. Together, they try to solve the mystery of the mute little girl while trying to ignore the intense spark between them.
 

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

Paige tries so hard to resist Tanner’s charms. I love this exchange when she finally gives in:

Her laugh sounded perilously close to hysterical. “Don’t make me like you.”
She felt his smile against her skin. “Mmm. I think it might be too late for that.”
Paige was afraid of that, too. She felt something give within her, though. Liking him didn’t mean she had to hand over her heart for him to smash with his golf club. Maybe her No Men Ever Again plan could have a 2.0 version. One that permitted getting naked and sweaty with Tanner Gillette. After all, she was a modern woman. Sex didn’t have to be about commitment.
“It’s just lust,” she murmured to herself as much as him.
“I can work with that.” Tanner spun her around and cupped her face with his palms.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

This is the fourth book in the series set in Chances Inlet and involving the McAlister family. But readers will recognize the heroine, Paige, from Double Dog Dare, a Milwaukee Growlers book. A character from one of the Baltimore Blaze books appears in this book, as well. Lots of cross-pollination between series in this book!
 

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Paige and Tanner’s first meeting is a chance encounter at a wedding. The attraction is instant, but both are just passing through on the way to what they think is something better. They ignore the attraction. Fast forward to when each of their “something better” falls apart, leaving them scrambling to gain control of their lives once again. At their second chance encounter, the simmer is still there, but they are too busy bickering to act on it.
 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

There’s a scene where Paige returns to her room at her stepmother’s inn, tired and sad that her relationship with Tanner is at an impasse. When she enters the suite, Tanner is waiting for her, wearing nothing but a grin, and reading one of her romance novels. They make up quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

“What? How?” The words were hard to push past her panicked throat.
He grinned at her distress, the rat bastard.
“Imagine my surprise when Gavin showed me the secret entrance to this room.”
Her pulse jumped up another ten notches. “There’s a secret entrance?”
Great.
There went any chance of Paige getting any sleep in this room. She ran to the wall and began tracing her fingers along the wainscoting. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tanner lift up one of her beloved paperback books.
“But what really surprised me?” He cocked an eyebrow devilishly. “Reading how naughty those dudes in Victorian England were.”
“Oh. My. God!” She jumped on the bed, trying to rescue her book. “Give me that!”
He laughed as he held it out of reach. She sprawled across his bare chest in an effort to retrieve it. Except the minute she came in contact with his warm skin, she lost interest in the book. His familiar scent filled her nostrils making her insides quiver. Her lips found their way to his neck as though following a homing beacon.

Readers should read this book….

If they like small towns, big, nosy families, and second chances. Throw in a sexy Aussie golfer and an adorable little girl and this one is the perfect summer read.
 

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I alternate releases between my Chances Inlet series and my football series, so next up, Milwaukee Growlers quarterback, Trey Van Horn, will meet his match, Catch and Release. For those who enjoy the enemies-to-lovers trope, this one is for you. It will be available to readers on February 5, 2024. After that, it’s back to Chances Inlet for another Christmas romance featuring the sheriff’s deputy and the youngest McAlister sibling, Elle. Take Me Home for Christmas will be available to readers in the fall of 2024.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A signed print copy of It Had to Be You. The U.S. Only

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you prefer books set in small towns or big cities?

 
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Excerpt from It Had to Be You:

Let her go, his brain screamed. The rest of him wasn’t listening, however. Without opening his eyes, his fingers reached between them, finding her wrist, gently encircling it.
“Stay,” he heard himself saying. Opening his eyes, he turned toward her. “Please,” he whispered, not liking the pleading tone of his voice one bit.
Paige’s eyes leaped from his hand on her wrist, up to his face, only to drop back down to where her skin was scorching his. Judging by the wary expression on her face, she thought it was a bad idea, also. Still, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip before nodding.
Relief raced through him. He brushed the pad of his thumb against the pulse throbbing at her wrist. Time seemed to stand still.
“I’ve got your lunch, Mr. Gillette,” a voice from above announced.
Paige yanked her hand away. The server was holding a folding table, but he seemed unsure where to put it until Paige gestured wildly to place it between them. She grabbed a fry from the plate and popped it into her mouth before he’d even set it down.
“Mmm. Do you have any ketchup?”
The server produced several packets from his pocket. “Anything else, sir?”
Paige picked up half the club sandwich and unabashedly took a bite.
Tanner sighed. “Apparently, I’m going to need another one of those.”
“And an Arnold Palmer,” Paige mumbled around the food in her mouth.
Tanner held up two fingers. The befuddled server nodded and disappeared.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Mmm,” she replied. “You might have mentioned lunch was part of the deal. I wouldn’t have been in such a rush to leave.”
He shook his head to avoid laughing at her cheekiness. “Thank you.”
She paused mid-bite. “Does that mean lunch is on me?”
This time he did laugh. “No. Thank you for staying.”
Her eyes darted away. Despite her outward bravado, she was skittish around him today. Not that he blamed her. He turned into a fool whenever he was near her.
The server brought their drinks. Paige swallowed half of hers in one gulp.
“I doubt you would have been lonely too long,” she said.
“Precisely what I’m trying to avoid.”
She lowered her sunglasses again. “Are you telling me I’m the . . . what? Some sort of decoy?”
“It’s been my experience that women won’t approach me if I’ve got a beautiful woman by my side.”
Paige choked on a fry. Tanner leaned over to slap her on the back. She glared at him when he let his hand linger too long.
“Puh-lease. I’m no competition for those women.” She waved a hand in the direction of the co-eds shimmying to an R&B song blasting from one of their mobile phones.
Was she kidding?
How could this woman not know she was a stunner? He let his eyes wander down her torso, lush and full in all the right places. Her legs were sturdy and toned right down to the purple nail polish on her toes. But it was the challenge in those pale blue eyes of hers that always seemed to draw him in. That and her saucy, sinful mouth.
“Why do women always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Put themselves down. Find fault with their appearance, no matter how gorgeous they are.”
Her mouth opened and closed twice. “Well—”
“No,” he argued. “Don’t you dare shame your body, Paige Hollister. It’s magnificent just the way it is. You are beautiful just the way you are. Any man who doesn’t see that is a damn fool.”
Tanner was breathing unevenly. He was surprised at the ferocity of his words. But he needed her to know she was perfectly desirable. Hell, after yesterday, she had to know he was attracted to her. Had some jerk made her feel less than enough? If he ever discovered the guy’s name, he’d wrap his driver around the dude’s neck. Paige was worthy of any man. And Tanner was determined that she know it.
She tore her gaze away. The server with the impeccable timing arrived with Tanner’s sandwich. Paige swiped another fry, then picked up her book and focused intently on whatever was between its covers. After inhaling his sandwich, Tanner tugged his golf shirt over his head, balled it up, and put it behind his head as a pillow.
“You should probably warn a girl before you do that. I need to get my stick ready to beat the women off,” she teased.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

It’s hard to keep a big secret in a small town . . .
When Paige Hollister discovers her “Mr. Right” already has a “Mrs. Right,” she swears off men forever. Even more humiliating, she suddenly finds herself labeled the other woman and out of the teaching job she loves. So Paige does what every unemployed single woman staring thirty in the face does: She hightails it to the beach. Bad luck like hers is hard to outrun, however. Her getaway is stalled when her car breaks down in a small-town chock full of meddling, nosy residents. The worst of them being the local sheriff—none other than her estranged father.
Finally on top of the golf world, Tanner Gillette is poised to show everyone he’s not just an entitled playboy coasting through tournaments on his pedigree. That is until his life is turned upside down by a little girl who shows up on his doorstep with a birth certificate inexplicably bearing his name. Complicating matters more, the kid isn’t talking. When the stress of caring for a child whose mother is AWOL gives Tanner a bad case of the yips, he’s forced to enlist help from the one person in town who can’t wait to leave.
Sticking around Chances Inlet and her father’s shiny new, über-successful family isn’t on Paige’s to-do list. Especially when she’d prefer to keep her embarrassing incident under wraps. Yet she can’t walk away from the troubled little girl. Or the sexy Australian golfer who just might make her want to take a chance on trusting her heart again.
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Meet the Author:

USA Today bestselling author Tracy Solheim writes books with shirtless men on the cover. Some of them are actually bestsellers. The books, not the men. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing her curling. . . .bottles of wine, that is. She’s been known to cook dinner, but no more than two nights in a row. Most days, she’d rather be reading, which to her is just necessary research. She lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with her husband and a neurotic Labrador retriever. Her two adult children visit but not often enough. (See the note above about cooking.) See what she’s up to at tracysolheim.com
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