Spotlight & Giveaway: Look Before You Leap by Virginia Heath

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Virginia Heath to HJ!

Hi Virginia and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Look Before You Leap: A Novel!

Hi! It’s great to be invited back here again!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Look Before You Leap is a grumpy/sunshine Regency romcom where a Calamity Jane type tomboy heroine bursts into the reclusive, burned by love hero’s life and completely upends it. Failed governess Lottie Travers has to take a job as a lady’s companion to an old battle-axe after being dismissed for galloping through Hyde park on her former employer’s horse without his knowledge. She accompanies the old lady to her nephew Viscount Wennington’s estate to help plan his surprise 30th birthday celebrations.

After being publicly burned by love and made a fool of nine years before, Guy Harrowby has retreated to his estate and has made his work his life. Unfortunately for him, he foolishly promised his mother a house full of grandchildren by the time he turned thirty. With that milestone looming and no sign of any of those grandchildren in sight, he is oblivious of his mother and aunt’s plans to throw him a birthday celebration. The first he learns of the week-long house party that they have planned for him is when 15 husband-hunting debutantes turn up, all competing to be his wife. Worse, not that things could be worse, his meddling aunt’s breeches-wearing, reckless horse-galloping new companion has really gotten under his skin…
 

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

“You can be as pessimistic as you want, Lord Wennington, as that is your dreary, doom and gloom, no-joy-in-your-soul prerogative. However—and I appreciate that this trait in me will only annoy you further—I am an eternal optimist to my core and I am confident in a miracle. So confident, in fact, that I will wager that you will not celebrate the day that I leave.” Before she thought better of it, her errant index finger prodded him in the center of his chest. It was every bit as solid as she’d imagined it. “You will dread it instead. Because I am a veritable ray of sunshine and I am determined to make you—my perennially depressing storm cloud nemesis—like me.”
He folded his arms and regarded her with fake pity. “My poor, misguided Miss Travers. While I admire your ambition, you have more chance of touching the moon than you do my joyless soul.” Then as if thoroughly fed up with her presence, he stalked off, tossing a mischievous insult over his shoulder as he went. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, Miss Guided. Mine is certainly all the brighter—simply because you won’t feature in it.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

I am a life-long lover of old Hollywood musicals and I had always wanted to do something in honor of one of my favorites—Calamity Jane. She is the inspiration for Lottie, who climbs trees better than she embroiders, who shoots better than she paints, who feels more comfortable in men’s breeches than a demure Regency gown and who rides a horse like a bat out hell. As a result, all the way through this book I played Wrecking Ball by Mylie Cyrus because that is exactly what the heroine feels like to the hero. From the first moment Guy literally collides with Lottie at high speed in Hyde Park, she blindsides him.

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

For the Guy, it’s a love at first sight thing but he fights it all the way. For the Lottie, its only when she starts to see what lies beneath all the hero’s grumpy layers that she starts to fall for the man. That first starts happening because of a goose…

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

And on the subject of that goose…

A dragonfly buzzed past her nose and then dipped to hover over the water as it whizzed towards the willow, drawing her eyes to the two splashing juvenile geese again who hadn’t moved since she had arrived. Now that her ears were attuned to the sounds of the pond, one was squawking as it rapidly flapped its wings. The other was pecking at something under the waterline just beneath it.
Lottie smiled at the playing geese until something about it seemed off. For all the movement the squawking gosling wasn’t moving an inch. Almost as if it was trapped on something.
“Are you stuck, little fellow?” She waded closer to check and could see that the bird was more distressed than playing. His friend appeared to be trying to free him.
It was probably a line left by a careless fisherman and if it was wound around the poor thing’s feet, he was going to do himself a mischief if he kept yanking on it so violently. “I’m coming—try to keep calm.” A ridiculous thing to say to a goose. As if it knew English! But she hoped the reassuring sound of her voice would help it realise that she was a friend and not a foe.
The depth of the pond remained unchanged as she waded further, thank goodness, but the gravel beneath her bare feet was sharp. “I’m almost there little—”
“Stop!” She instantly halted at the loud and panicked bellow from behind, and spun around in time to see Lord Wennington galloping towards her at full pelt. “The bottom of the pond isn’t—”
The end of that sentence disappeared as the shingle ledge beneath her feet slipped away with the speed of an avalanche and, because she was already unbalanced thanks to his unnecessary hollering, she yelped as she fell backwards into the water. It all happened so fast and so unexpectedly, Lottie managed to swallow half the pond in the process.
She came up coughing and spluttering, unexpectedly having to tread water because this part was so deep.
“Try not to panic!” shouted Lord Wennington, who was obviously panicking as he threw himself off his horse to run along the path. “I’m coming!”
She still hadn’t caught her breath when his intent to save her became apparent, tried to wave her hands to stay him, but all to no avail. Fully clothed and while still in motion, he did an ungainly dive off the bank and joined her, with a huge splash, in the water.

Readers should read this book….

If they love the grumpy sunshine trope. If they love banter. If they love Calamity Jane. If they love two people trying their level best to fight the obvious sparks shooting between them. If they love meddling older women, feisty young women, the strong friendships formed by women and the poor, put upon men who have to live in a house full of women. And they should definitely read it if they love to watch an uptight, love is for fools hero unravel as he falls head over heels.

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

I am currently working on the edits 3rd instalment of my Miss Prentice’s Protégées Regency Romcom quartet entitled Pride Comes Before a Fall. This governess graduate from Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies is a placard-waving political reformer who thinks that all the aristocracy are a waste of space. Right up until she begins working for a duke who forces her to re-evaluate all her ideas.

I’m also writing a contemporary Romcom set here in the UK where I live, with a British heroine and an all-American hero who really doesn’t understand why the Brits are annoyingly British, lol.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One print copy giveaway of LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP, US Winner only

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What Hollywood musical should I use for some Romcom inspiration next time?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Look Before You Leap: A Novel:

A second horse burst out of a gap in the trees scant feet before him, shocking him into an unmanly yelp. A similarly startled Zeus reared with such abrupt force that the next thing Guy knew, he was flying backwards in the air.
Weightless.
Powerless.
Flailing.
Until the earth smacked into him with a thud, knocking every bit of air out of his lungs and causing a million stars to explode behind his eyes. The impact making his ears ring so loudly he could hear nothing else but their chime.
In oddly silent haze he saw the idiot who had unseated him struggle to remain in his saddle as he fought his own rearing horse into submission. A battle which only took moments before a fuzzy silhouette stared down at him. Mouthed something that the church bells ringing within his head totally drowned out, then stayed him with a raised palm when Guy tried and failed to sit thanks to the spinning ground he was sat upon.
It was only when the other rider kicked his horse back into a gallop and left him there that Guy realised that Zeus had bolted too.
Marvellous.
There was fat chance of catching him now! Zeus was as temperamental and skittish as he was fast, and spooked would likely run frantic rings around this park for the next hour before he calmed down any. Which also meant that Guy no longer had a cat’s chance in hell of reaching the Kent Road in twenty minutes either. Or of leaving London and its unpleasant memories behind in a cloud of dust before the residents of this hell hole awoke to start their day.
Thanks to the recklessness of that other rider, he was well and truly stuck here, in this dreadful place he despised, for goodness knew how long now. A prospect that made him feel sick.
The last time the blasted horse had done a runner, it had taken three hours to find the brute. But that had been at home, on his own quiet acres, not here in the capital, winded and flat on his back. It was quiet now but in another hour, or so, the streets surrounding this park would be busy and his nervous stallion wasn’t used to that sort of city chaos at all. Worse, if Zeus decided to bolt out of the sanctuary of the park, then the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
Guy had to get up and search for him.
He groaned in frustration and pain as he gingerly reinflated his lungs. As the spinning stars behind his eyeballs began to subside, he tested his limbs. Rotated his ankles, flexed his knees. Stretched out his arms. Twisted his upper torso and neck. Nothing seemed to be broken beyond his pride and as he had none left here any way he supposed that shouldn’t really count—yet did.
His poor arse, however, was a very different story. It had taken the full brunt of his fall and it throbbed as he pushed himself to sit on it. The morning dew seeping into his breeches did little to relieve the pain in his pelvis. The base of his spine screaming in protest at being made to move at any speed faster than a snail’s.
It took a couple of minutes, but he managed to creak himself upright and began to massage his aching buttocks while he waited for the dizziness to subside, all the while scanning the park for any sign of Zeus. Not that he had any clue which direction his high-strung horse had gone. At full tilt, the brute could be halfway to Paddington already. Then what?
As hours and hours of futile searching loomed on the horizon, the other rider suddenly emerged from a clump of trees several yards away. By some miracle, trotting along beside him, bucking and fighting the taut reins all the way, was a less than impressed Zeus. Yet despite the horse’s obvious temper tantrum and to add insult to injury, the other rider still managed control him from atop their own saddle on a black stallion so huge it made Zeus look like a child’s pony by comparison.
Guy limped to meet them massaging his wet and aching backside, simultaneously relieved that his horse was unharmed and furious that he had been separated from him in the first place.
But then pride always came before a fall, and once fallen, pride was the only thing you had left to cling to that might get you through it.
“Do you always ride so recklessly in a public place?” He reached for Zeus’s reins and wound them tight around his gloved fist in case the damned horse tried to bolt again and glared up at the idiot. Squinting against the sunlight that pierced his retinas behind him and rendered the dangerous fool faceless. “They make bridle paths for a reason! So that everyone knows where a bloody horse is going to be! You could have killed someone going at that ludicrous speed over ground you had no place riding on!”
He could see enough of the surprisingly lithe and slight rider’s workworn attire to know that this wasn’t a gentleman—more a stable lad out exercising his master’s best horse. “You could have killed me with your unbelievable carelessness, idiot!”
“You were hardly cantering sedately yourself, sir.” The shock at hearing the curt but unmistakably female voice made Guy squint some more. “In fact, I would counter that you were galloping even faster than I was else you’d have been able to stop in time.”
“But I was on the bridle path, madam!” Not that he could yet discern if this hellion was a madam or a miss. “And you weren’t!”
“If you had been paying proper attention and had actually looked where you were going rather than staring straight up at the sky whilst galloping, you might have been able to control your horse before he threw you.”
“But I wouldn’t have been thrown if you have been on the bridle path like you were supposed to be!”
She brushed that outrage away with a regal flick of her wrist. “Arabians are notoriously difficult to handle and only a real idiot forgets that whilst on the back of one! Especially at the speed you were going.”
“Are you trying to say that this is all my fault? When I was riding my horse precisely where I was supposed to and you were not.” He flapped his hand towards the gap in the trees she had exploded through. “You were riding on the green and not the path!”
“I was, briefly, and for that I obviously apologise.” Although she didn’t look particularly sorry. Even in shrouded in the rising sun’s piercing silhouette he could see her chin was tilted defiant and she was very definitely regarding him with disdain down her nose.
“Your recklessness almost killed me! I could have broken my neck when you unseated me!”
Using just her trim thighs—thighs showcased outrageously in a tight buff pair of men’s breeches and weathered riding boots—she manoeuvred the fearsome and snorting black stallion out of the painful sunlight. Turned to face him and something odd happened to Guy’s innards.
They instantly bunched up inside him and then seemed to sigh in unison as they immediately relaxed as if they had been waiting his entire life for this moment. Even the muscles in his jaw gave way and he felt it hang in bemused wonderment.
Bloody hell, but she was stunning!
Even with her golden curls tucked into a tatty brown cap and her rich honey-coloured brows furrowed as two striking big blue eyes glared at him in disgust, she fair took his breath away.
Not that he had much left to steal after his abrupt collision with the ground thanks to her failure to ride on a bridle path like all good sense dictated that she was supposed to.
Which was probably why he felt so light-headed again.
Why peculiar things were happening in his chest.
He was too world weary and jaded to be irrevocably dazzled by a woman’s beauty anymore. It was hardly a surprise that his heart kept skipping a beat either. He had, after, just experienced a tremendous fright. Thanks to her, he’d almost had a brush with death, so was it any wonder he was suddenly more off kilter than he had ever been in his life.
“You were unseated because you lacked the skills necessary to stay in your saddle, sir. Because you bought yourself a horse that you haven’t the first clue how to control. If anything was at risk of dying this morning, it was that poor animal. Spooked, and running wild like that he could have been severely injured on the back of your ineptness.” She wagged her riding crop at him with such vigour it made him blink and take a step back. “If he had been, you’d have felt the sting of this!” The black stallion she sat astride—astride when all ladies rode side-saddle—snorted his agreement and began to dance on the spot ominously as if he was about to lash out. Then instantly calmed when she smoothed his neck. The taught, equine veins immediately softening beneath her touch, almost as if she possessed magical horse-whispering powers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

In this hilarious second installment of a Regency romance series, a single lord is forced to settle down…and when a houseparty brings a happy-go-lucky lady’s companion his way, his grumpy heart is unexpectedly warmed.

Nine years ago, Lord Guy Harrowby, Viscount of Wennington, was publicly humiliated when a reckless romantic gesture went very wrong. Despite that, his mother held tight to the promise he made her then: that she would have a house full of grandchildren by his thirtieth birthday. Still single, embittered, and swiftly approaching 30, there’s not a grandchild in sight. His heart now lies with his land and work is his life. In desperation, his mother decides that if he refuses to venture back into society to find her future daughter-in-law, the only solution is to bring society to him via a weeklong houseparty to find one for him. The first Guy knows about her plan is when her hand-picked gaggle of debutantes arrive at his estate, all competing to be his wife.

After failing miserably as a governess, Lottie Travers isn’t proving to be any better at being a lady’s companion. As the only girl in an all-male household growing up, she’s developed several bad habits she can’t shake and that keep getting her dismissed. Even after years of Miss Prentice’s teachings, Lottie still climbs a tree better than she embroiders, and still cannot seem to curb the desire to gallop astride a horse in breeches whenever an opportunity arises. But with the family farm in trouble, and her father now in dire need of her wages to keep it afloat, she’s determined to conquer her wildness once and for all and concentrate on her career.

Even with his home full of eligible women, there is only one that catches Guy’s eye, as much as he tries to deny it. And succeeding in her new role is easier said than done for Lottie when the Wennington Estate is filled with horses and she can’t help but feel a spark around the grumpy Lord. By the end of the week, will the two of them remain stuck in their ways, or will they learn that they may just be the perfect match?
Book Links: Amazon | B&N |
 
 

Meet the Author:

When Virginia Heath was a little girl, it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older, the stories became more complicated, sometimes taking weeks to get to the happy ending. Then one day, she decided to embrace the insomnia and start writing them down. Now her Regency rom-coms (including the Wild Warriners and Merriwell Sisters series) are published in many languages across the globe. Thirty books and four Romantic Novel of the Year Award nominations later, it still takes her forever to fall asleep.
Website | Facebook | Instagram | GoodReads |