Spotlight & Giveaway: Love Walked In by Sarah Chamberlain

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sarah Chamberlain to HJ!

Hi Sarah and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Love Walked In!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Love Walked In is an opposites attract romance set in a once prosperous, now failing bookstore in London. Mari Cole is the Californian bookstore whisperer who’s come to town to try to save the store, where she butts head with Leo Ross, the grumpy manager and co-owner. As London’s cold and dark winter turns to spring, Leo and Mari bicker about books and family and legacy and oh-so-slowly fall in love as they work together to turn the store around. Think You’ve Got Mail meets Ted Lasso!
 

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

“But Mari, I also need to be clear about something, If we do this, you won’t be my friend with benefits.”

I held very still. We clearly weren’t going to be enemies with benefits, and I didn’t like the other options. “What
will I be?”

He held my gaze. “Mine.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I loved getting to sneak all of my favorite books set in London into the text! I hope readers will explore some of the ones I mention after they finish Love Walked In.
• While I was writing, I listened to The xx’s self-titled album and If You Wait by London Grammar on repeat. The dark, moody music was great for capturing London in winter.
• My visual reference for my MMC Leo was Ben Whishaw as Q in Skyfall. Love a man in glasses!

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

Leo’s been pretty depressed for a long time, and Mari’s warmth and joy are like a magic spell for him, waking him up after a long winter’s sleep.

For Mari, it’s Leo’s steadiness and caretaking that really do it for her. She’s been looking after herself for a long time, but in his arms she can just relax.

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

Leo and Mari are on the verge of combustion for a while before they fall into bed, and I loved writing this scene where they’re stuck on a stopped train and standing way too close to each other. The tension! The chemistry! So good.

“I said Leo’s name again, but this time it was a sigh.His hand pressed gently, and I shifted that little bit closer. When I looked up at him, our faces were so close that he was just shapes in the dim light – slash of black eyebrow, pale blade of nose, his full mouth an outline.”

Readers should read this book….

If you’re looking for a cozy and bookish read, if you dream of traveling to a new city and really making your home there, if you love grumpy/sunshine and found family and a hero who’s both a sweetheart and just a little bit dominant in the best kind of way, Love Walked In is for you!

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

I’m working on a small town second-chance romance about the mayor’s daughter who’s returned to the town she hates after running away twelve years ago, and her teenage situationship, who’s an affordable housing campaigner also the older brother of her biggest bully. It’s about the pettiness and long memories of small towns and whether we can ever truly reinvent ourselves in the place where we grew up.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Print Book of LOVE WALKED IN by Sarah Chamberlain, US only!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What draws you to this book?

Book Info:

A sunshine American bookstore whisperer clashes with the grumpy British owner of the shop she’s trying to save in this winning opposites-attract romance for book lovers.

He has a struggling bookshop. She has a knack for bringing bookstores back to life. As soon as she walks into his store, all bets are off…

Mari Cole’s whole life is her dream job: rescuing and revitalizing indie bookstores. Friendship? Love? No thanks. After a hard childhood, she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone. Besides, books have never let Mari down the way people have. Then she gets the offer of a lifetime: rescuing Ross & Co. Once the most prestigious independent booksellers in London, the store is a shadow of its former self and needs an expert outsider to turn things around. But the offer turns out to be a double-edged sword: Leo Ross, the store’s new owner, is as cold and hostile as the British winter.

For as long as he can remember, Leo Ross has known his future is becoming the next generation to run Ross and Co. He’s sacrificed almost everything he cares about, but the bookshop is still failing on his watch, and now there’s an obnoxiously cheerful American woman convinced that she’s going to magically make everything better. Leo’s life is difficult and messy enough as it is, and he doesn’t want her help.

When Mari and Leo are forced to work closely together to bring the store back to life, Leo’s icy surface thaws to reveal the passionate man underneath. As winter gives way to the possibility of new beginnings, Mari begins to see that true love could be even better in real life than in the pages of a book. Can they put their pasts aside and learn to let love in?

Book Links:  Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Sarah Chamberlain is a writer, editor, and cookbook translator whose articles have appeared in VICE, The Guardian (UK), Food52, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. When she’s not writing witty, sexy contemporary romance, she enjoys making dinner for her friends and family, watching Cary Grant movies, and setting records as an amateur competitive powerlifter. Originally from Northern California, she lives in London.
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