Spotlight & Giveaway: Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows by Barbara Dunlop

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Barbara Dunlop to HJ!

Hi Barbara and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

In a daring plan to reunite their divorced parents, ten year old twins Scarlett and Sam go on a rollicking holiday adventure through Colorado’s Mountain Mystic Village Christmas theme park. Frantically trying to find her missing children while the clock ticks down on her quirky Christmas television special, host of Cooking With Kate finds her feelings for her ex-husband pediatrician Brock Andrews reignited when he demonstrates strength and compassion as he works tirelessly to find and rescue their beloved children.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Maybe I was spiteful.
Or maybe I was just a good mother.
The way I was feeling right now, it could have gone either way.
The timer went off on my oven, and I realized that thirty minutes had gone by since the phone call from my ex-husband.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

This story started as a suggestion from my friend Jane Porter of Tule Books. She said: “Wouldn’t it be fun if a set of fraternal twins were frolicking around a Christmas theme park trying to reunite their parents al la The Parent Trap?” I replied: “Yes, it would.” Just like that, the writing of Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows was launched. We used the working title: The Christmas Trap while I wrote in honor of its origins.

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

I loved writing Kate Andrews. She’s quirky and klutzy but full of energy and fun. Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows was one of my very first first-person POV stories. I was a little intimidated by the change in format. But first-person is terrific. It creates an intimacy with the characters that is quite unique.

Kate’s side-kick Robin Welsley walked into the first scene and never slowed down. Anything Kate needed, Robin was on it. She was clever, creative and endlessly supportive. I hope I have a Robin in all of my future books.

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 where Kate and Brock are stuck in a snowbank and he’s talking on the phone to his fiancée Jacinda. Here’s a snippet:

I couldn’t make out her words, but I could hear the rise and fall of Jacinda’s tone.
If I had to guess, I’d say she wasn’t exactly happy.
“There’s been a complication,” Brock said after what seemed like an inordinate amount of Jacinda-talking time. “Yes, sweetheart. I understand.”
Brock went silent again while Jacinda’s voice droned on.
I checked a couple of text messages. I wished I had access to the Cooking with Kate account on my phone. There were always audience messages there, and I could have answered some while I waited.
I glanced at the phone battery monitor to see it was at twenty percent. Ah, well, I wouldn’t have wanted to drain it down on audience messages anyway.
“I did call a tow truck,” Brock’s words caught my attention again. “They’ll be two hours.”
There was another full minute of silence, and I couldn’t help but look at him.
He met my gaze. “We can’t exactly walk back to the hotel.”
He closed his eyes, looking pained. Then he turned away from me.
I went back to my text messages and tried not to listen.
“We’re just sitting here.” He paused. “Sitting here in the car and waiting.” Another pause. “No. Stop. That’s ridiculous. I’ve told you…”
His shoulders moved up and down with a sigh.
I desperately wanted to get out of here and give him some privacy. I contemplated trying to carefully open the door. I wondered exactly how much snow would fall inside.
But it was cooling off fast in here, and I didn’t particularly want a lap full of the stuff.
“I’m not having this conversation,” Brock said.
I didn’t want them to fight. I really didn’t. Then again, I didn’t particularly want them to be deliriously happy either. Sometimes, I wasn’t a very nice person.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Pick whatever you want. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He ended the call.
From my end, it sounded like he’d pretty much hung up on her. I couldn’t help but wonder how that was going to go over once he got back to the hotel.
“Everything okay?” I asked, unable to come up with a better way to break the silence.
“She’s tense,” he said.
“Her wedding’s not exactly going as planned.”
“It’s only been planned for two weeks.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “True.”
He stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
I didn’t blame him. “I guess not.”
“She didn’t even ask about the kids.” He sounded annoyed.
I didn’t have the first idea of how to respond.
He canted his body sideways toward me. “That’s weird, right?”
“I thought we weren’t talking about this?”
“You’re the only person here.”
“Brock, I’m your ex-wife. You can’t talk about your new wife with me.”
“She’s my fiancée.”
“Same principle.”
“I suppose.” He looked annoyed at me now.
“It’s not a suppose thing. It’s a thing thing.”
“Just tell me if you think it’s weird.”
I gave up trying to take the high ground. “It’s weird. It’s really weird. There are two missing kids, and her focus on this quickie wedding seems astonishingly self-centered.”
Brock stared at me for a minute.
I could tell I’d said the wrong thing. Well, too darn bad. He’d forced me into a corner, and I’d been honest.
“It’s not a quickie wedding.”
“Sure. Right.” I didn’t really care if he wanted to lie to himself.
“I know that tone,” he said.
“I’m sure you do.”
“It’s going to be a long two hours.”
He was right about that.

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

I’d like people to take away a little fun, a little laughter, and a reminder to look past superficial disagreements to the strong and loving bonds of families.

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

Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows was released October 28th from Tule Books
The Twin Switch part of the Gambling Men series is out in January 2020 from Harlequin Desire
The Dating Dare part of the Gambling Men series is out in March 2020 from Harlequin Desire

Right now I’m working on a summer seasonal story for Tule Books.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Ebook of Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows and Tule Publishing swag

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Excerpt from Jingle Bells and Wedding Vows:

I got the kids washed up and into bed. Both Scarlett and Sam were asleep almost instantly.
I stood at the end of their beds for a minute, staring down at my beautiful children, thanking God they were safe and well. Then wondering exactly how a parent dealt with something like this.
They shouldn’t have run away. They shouldn’t have hidden out in the amusement park. They certainly shouldn’t have tried to mess up their dad’s wedding.
But they were only ten years old. They’d been put in a difficult situation. I sure wouldn’t want Jacinda to be my stepmother. And, at their tender age, with the resources available to them, I couldn’t help but be a little bit proud of what they’d pulled off.
As a good mother, I couldn’t condone it. And there’d have to be consequences of some kind. But, at the moment, I couldn’t exactly figure out what that was going to be.
It was late. But I texted Robin anyway. I knew she’d want to know.
She sent me back a thumbs up, a smiley face, and a sleepy face.
That was exactly how I felt.
The bedroom door opened, and Brock slipped quietly into the room.
“Asleep?” he asked, checking out the kids in the dim light.
“Out like two lights.”
“It was a big day.”
I thought back to the morning when my only worry had been whether to eat one cupcake or two. It seemed like a very long time ago.
“The park doesn’t have any available rooms tonight,” Brock said. “They’re going to call around Pineville and see if there’s something there. It’s a thirty-minute drive.” He paused. “I can drive you.”
I shook my head. “I’m sure my car’s drivable.”
“It’s at the towing yard.”
“Oh.” The thought of catching a cab to the tow yard, picking up my damaged rental car, and driving thirty minutes to a hotel in Pineville did not appeal to me at all. But I wasn’t about to let Brock drive me either.
“I don’t mind,” he said. He truly didn’t look like he minded.
Our gazes locked, and I felt a warm rush of…something. I didn’t want to examine what it might be.
“You should mind,” I said, breaking the look. “You’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well…” His words drifted to nothing.
“And you’ve been away from your fiancée all day long,” I carried on.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“You’re lying,” I said. “Jacinda will flip if you leave with me right now.”
Brock looked decidedly uncomfortable with my assertion.
If I hadn’t already known I was right, his expression would definitely have confirmed it.
I looked down at the kids, so peaceful and comfortable. I felt a little jealous of my own children right then.
“I could climb in with Scarlett,” I said, half-jokingly.
It was nearly one in the morning and, truth was, all I wanted to do was get off my feet and close my eyes.
Brock hesitated.
I shook my head. “I know Jacinda would hate that.”
Disagreeable or not, no woman wanted to wake up on her wedding day to her fiancé’s ex-wife.
“She won’t mind.”
I almost laughed. “Yeah, we both know you’re lying.”
Brock gave a sheepish smile. “I’m lying. She’ll hate it. But it’s the only thing that makes sense. You can’t be driving around in a snowstorm at one o’clock in the morning. The tow yard probably isn’t even open now.”
“I could call,” I said.
Brock looked me square in the eyes. “No. You’re not calling the tow yard, and you’re not driving down to Pineville. And I’m not leaving Jacinda again.” He took a breath. “That leaves us with this.” He looked down at Scarlett’s bed.
Brock was sounding like Brock again, the old Brock, my Brock, the Brock that I missed so much. Some days, I missed him so very, very much.
“That’s settled,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
The lure of a soft mattress was too much for me to resist.
“That’s my girl,” he said with a grin.
We both stilled.
It was a phrase he used to use all the time when we were married.
I wanted to kiss him. Heaven help me, I wanted him to pull me into his arms and kiss me, hold me tight and hug away my fear, my relief, and my sadness.
“Katie,” he whispered. His brown eyes turned to molten chocolate.
He leaned in, his hands touching my shoulders, his head canting to the side.
I could almost feel his lips against mine.
I turned my head at the last second, but his momentum brought our bodies together.
He hugged me. Then he rocked us back and forth.
I tried so hard to hate it.
“We can’t,” I said. My voice cracked over the word.
“I know.” He pulled back. “I’m sorry. It’s been an emotional day.”
I managed a nod, fighting the desire to throw myself back into his arms. “Thank you for being there with me.” I truly didn’t know what I would have done without him.
He coughed out a laugh of disbelief. “Thank you for coming all this way. I’m the one who lost them in the first place.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It was their doing, their plan, their bad behavior.”
“Brock?” Jacinda asked from the doorway.
I reflexively widened the space between me and Brock. I couldn’t help but wonder how much she’d overheard. Had she seen us hug?
Judging by her expression—pinched but not furious—she hadn’t seen the hug.
I had to think Brock was wondering the same thing.
“I’ll be right out,” Brock said to Jacinda.
She came into the room. “What’s going on in here?”
“The kids are asleep,” he said in a low warning tone.
“We need to go to bed,” she said, coming up beside Brock and wrapping her arm around his.
Yeah, I understood the gesture. She might as well have written “he’s mine” across her forehead. I didn’t know why she’d think she had anything to fear from me. She didn’t. Brock and I were done long before the divorce was final.
That I missed him sometimes was a reflex action. Besides, he didn’t feel the same about me. He was about to marry her. She didn’t have to fight for him.
“Kate is going to sleep here,” Brock said.
Jacinda pasted him with an incredulous expression. “Excuse me?”
“Here.” Brock pointed to Scarlett’s bed. “With Scarlett.”
“Why?”
“Because the hotel is full.”
“There are other hotels.”
“It’s late, and that’s impractical.”
“But—”
He sounded impatient with her. “Let’s go to bed, Jacinda.”
“I’m not—”
Brock cut her off again, turning her toward the door. “Kate and I need to talk to the kids in the morning.”
“On our wedding day?”
They were walking now.
“My kids don’t stop being my kids because it’s my wedding day.”
“They should at least be able to behave themselves for a few hours.”
“That’s not what I meant we’d talk about.”
Brock and Jacinda’s voices faded as they went through the little foyer and into the living room.
I forcibly pushed Brock’s hug from my mind, along with my feelings and my longing. I was exhausted. I was probably punchy.
Yes. That was it. I was so overtired, I was beginning to imagine feelings that weren’t there, feelings that weren’t feelings at all.

I woke up to Scarlett turning over.
I opened my eyes to find her blinking at me.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said.
“Mom?”
Sam sat up in his bed.
“Morning,” I said to Sam.
Scarlett threw her arms around me and gave me a hug.
“You’re still in trouble,” I said, reaching for my best I’m-the-mom voice. What I really wanted to do was hug her back, hug them both back. I was still feeling grateful that they were safe.
“A lot of trouble?” Sam asked.
“You’re going to have to explain yourself to your father.”
“We really don’t like her,” Scarlett said to me.
She looked so sad, that it pulled at my heartstrings.
“You need to give her a chance,” I forced myself to say. “You need to support your dad.”
“Dad’s being an idiot,” Sam said.
“Sam!”
Sam scowled at me. “Well, he is. She’s…she’s…”
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I’d slept in my long, tunic blouse, and now I pulled my leggings back on.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I said.
I couldn’t let him insult Jacinda. But I didn’t want to be put in the position of defending her either. So I was using a tried and true parenting technique. Dodge and delay. It might not win me Mother of the Year, but it would get me out of this moment.
I washed my face while the kids got dressed. We cycled in and out of the bathroom getting ready. Then, when we couldn’t put it off any longer, we all went to the living room.
Jacinda was at the dining room table doing something on her tablet.
The enticing aroma of her coffee hit my nostrils.
Before I could ask if there was more, my phone rang.
It was Robin.
“Morning,” I said to her, moving back to the hallway.
“You’re up?” Robin asked.
“I’m up. No coffee yet. So, please don’t say anything complicated.”
“I’m not sure if I can do that,” she said.
“Uh oh.”
I felt movement behind me and turned to find Brock.
He was holding out a cup of coffee and smiling at me.
Thanks, I silently mouthed, taking a sip.
It was exactly the way I liked it best, one sugar and extra cream.
He gave me a salute.
“I’ve got coffee now,” I said to Robin. “What’s going on?”
“We’re at the airport,” she said.
“What airport? Why?”
I hoped they weren’t expecting to pick me up. I realized now that I should have thought to book my flight home before I went to sleep. I could have been on my way first thing this morning and maybe made it in time to do the show.
“We’re in Denver.”
It took me a second to digest the information.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. “The kids are fine. They’re here.”
“The kids are with you?”
“Yes.”
“Not with Brock.”
“Well, yes, him too.”
“Wait…you’re with Brock?”
“Jacinda’s with us.”
“Wow. That’s got to be…I don’t know…interesting.”
“It is,” I said, surreptitiously peeping into the living room.
The kids were sitting up at the table, and Brock was handing out muffins.
Jacinda was crunched to one side, her body language saying she wished she had the table to herself.
“How are the wedding plans coming along?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t, and I didn’t care. I turned away from the little domestic scene. “Why did you come to Denver?” I asked Robin.
“Remote,” she said.
“Remote what?”
“Remote location shoot. We’re all here. And we brought the cameras and equipment.”
“What?” My voice was louder than I’d intended, and the four people in the other room turned to stare.
I moved into the kids’ bedroom.
“What are you talking about?” I said to Robin.
“I’ve already been in touch with the hotel. It was tough, but they just confirmed a last minute space for us. Something called the Crystal Terrace. It had some kind of a plumbing problem, but they fixed it just this morning.”
“Say that again,” I said.
“We brought cameras and—”
“No, the part about where. Where are we filming a remote?”
Robin slowed her speech down, talking very slowly and deliberately. “At Mountain Mystic Village. We’re coming to—”
“The room,” I said. “Which room?”
“Don’t worry about the room,” Robin said. “They can bring in countertops and a stove and oven. It won’t be perfect, but we’ll make it work.”
“Did you say the Crystal Terrace?”
“Yeah, that’s it. We’ll pick up the groceries here in Denver and head out your way in an hour or so.”
I almost laughed.
I did laugh.
I was doing a remote Christmas cooking segment from Jacinda’s dream wedding venue. Life didn’t get much funnier than that.
“Are you losing it?” Robin asked.
“No. No, I’m fine.”
“Good. We won’t have a finished product for the end of the show,” Robin continued. “That’s too bad, but, what can you do? The kidlets come first. But I found those shots I took on my phone of the test run we did two weeks ago. I got them blown up into banners, and we can display them around the room.”
My brain was frantically trying to keep up. “You made banners last night?”
“Yesterday,” she said. “Contingency plans, Kate. I’m all about the contingency plans.”
That was certainly true.
“Do you have something to wear?” she asked me.
“No.” I’d jumped on the plane yesterday with nothing but my purse.
“Hit the hotel shops. They have to have something that will work. It just has to say Merry Christmas. Maybe a red sweater or something. Oh, see if you can find one with a snowman or a reindeer.”
“Sure,” I said, abandoning myself to Robin’s plan.
Robin made good plans. And if there was ever a day I wanted to be distracted by a mad-dash of a live cooking show, this was it.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Can ten-year-old fraternal twins work some Christmas magic to bring their mom and dad back together?

When her ex-husband, ambitious pediatric surgeon Brock Andrews announces he’s remarrying on Christmas Eve at a winter wonderland resort Mountain Mystic Village in Colorado, quirky cooking show host Kate Andrews can’t imagine Christmas without her twins. Worse, his wedding to the dazzling daughter of the chairman of the hospital board has Kate wondering what might have been

Ten-year-old Scarlett and Sam don’t want a stepmother. They definitely don’t want a mean one who monopolizes their father and only pretends to want them around. She’s changed their dad from a fun-loving man into a serious, elegant stranger. Certain the marriage will ruin their lives, the twins conceive a daring plan to derail the wedding and bring their mom and dad back together just in time for Christmas.

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Meet the Author:

Barbara Dunlop is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over fifty romance and romantic comedy novels. She is a four time finalist in the prestigious RITA award and has had her work optioned for film and television. The first book in her acclaimed Match series, An Unlikely Match, was a number one bestseller on Amazon.
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