Spotlight & Giveaway: Pretend Honeymoon with the Best Man by Andrea Bolter

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Andrea Bolter to HJ!

Hi Andrea and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Pretend Honeymoon with the Best Man!

 
Hi Readers! So glad to connect with you.
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

Best Man and Maid of Honor are a fake married couple on a glamorous Bermuda honeymoon and fall in love despite each believing they never would.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

“That flower arrangement is blocking Melissa’s face a little bit.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Help me move it,” Laney Sullivan, the maid of honor that best man Ian Luss had just met yesterday, urged. They were watching the bride and groom prepare for rehearsal-dinner photos to be taken next to a mammoth display of orange gladiolas.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

While researching the book set in Bermuda, I learned about the Bermuda Triangle. And about rum swizzle, a cocktail made famous there. Writing the story, I forgot to include someone wearing Bermuda shorts (a specific garment design). If any readers follow K-pop music like I do, I based the character of Ian on Bang Chan. Aside from Bermuda, there are scenes in Boston and New York, two places I’ve lived.

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Laney’s warmth and humanness. Ian comes from a cold family who don’t value love. And as his seductive romantic flair is slowly uncovered, Laney is the lucky recipient.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe your main characters”love affair?

Reluctant, Surprising, Humorous, Dreamy, Life-Changing
 

The First Kiss…

Without remembering not to, or deciding to ignore remembering not to, he took her face in his hands and brought his lips to hers. At first, he just brushed his against hers, taking in their pillowy coolness. But the second, yes second, kiss lasted longer. He didn’t pull away didn’t want to. He pressed his lips into hers with urgency. Which she met. And then he did it again. And again. The more he kissed her, the more he wanted to. His hands caressed her cheeks, finding her bones, getting to know them with his fingers.

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

When they go rowing in the lake.

Ian is becoming more and more free with himself as he takes Laney onto a rowboat. It’s so romantic, he even recites the lyrics to “their” song. It’s one of life’s magical moments. Until…

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

I think the beginning scenes would make audiences laugh. When they’re pretending to be a married couple on their honeymoon, but they don’t always have their stories in sync, so they spend a lot of time fumbling over themselves.

Readers should read this book …

If they want to be whisked away to the stunning location of Bermuda, its pink sand, a villa on the beach, sumptuous local food and crystal clear ocean but then…A trip to New York with the finest of everything and a true act of romance not like anything either of the characters had ever experienced before.

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

I’m just starting a new book but I don’t like to give details because you never know, I might end up changing everything! I’m pretty much always writing, I’ve been doing it forever. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Signed paperback of PRETEND HONEYMOON WITH THE BEST MAN if within the US, or ebook. Ebook only if outside the US.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: In the book Ian recalls a romantic scene in a movie that sticks in his mind and heart. Do you have a scene from a movie that carries you away with the romance?

 
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Excerpt from Pretend Honeymoon with the Best Man:

By the end of the day, Laney and Ian were tired. They decided to make do with the many gourmet snacks and big bowl of fresh fruit that had been left for them in the villa, and call for a proper dinner the next day. A countertop held raised platters with a variety of nuts, cheeses, salads, breads and the gooiest chocolate brownies ever made that were more than enough to munch on, washed down with refreshing fruit drinks. Neither cared to open the champagne on ice. They sat outside on lounge chairs facing the ocean’s horizon as the sun set, watching the sky turn almost every color of the rainbow from red to orange to pink to the dark of night. They spoke of trivial matters, childhood things not heavy like they had before about Laney’s poverty and lack of a father, and Ian’s family with their strange customs. Instead, they counted the stars in the sky.
When they decided to go inside, there it was, just as they’d left it before they went out. The master bedroom. Still easy to locate by the trail of rose petals that remained on the rich wood floorboards. And the bed decorated with the gigantic rose petal heart. Where couples immersed in passion, the enticing scent of the flowers reminding them with every breath that tonight was one of the most significant nights of their lives. Laney thought she might have had a honeymoon night like this with the man she thought loved her. A night to remember with every tiny detail as special as it could be. One she’d treasure not only through photos and videos but in her soul and heart as a commemoration of the beginning of the rest of their lives.
Instead, she was acting in this strange and almost tragic play, one that to Ian was emancipating. Whereas he was clearly fantasizing about a romantic love he wouldn’t have, it could turn painful for her if she let herself get sucked into any of it. She was here to recreate and there was nothing wrong with doing so in the company of a soulful man as long as she kept reality front and center in her mind.
Ian said it first. “We haven’t discussed the sleeping arrangements.”
Right. Exactly.
“It’s kind of funny, all of this elaborate honeymoon stuff just for us. No one knowing that we’re just bunking together.”
“I’ll have to remember to definitely not book a place like this for my own honeymoon when the time comes.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned over to the bed to run his hand through the velvety rose petals. “This. Champagne and petals. The romance checklist.”
“You don’t even want that on your honeymoon?”
“I suppose if my bride wanted it. As long as she understood that it’s just for show. That our purpose is to produce the heir and the spare.”
“Do you have that etched on a plaque in the office conference room?”
His face shot sharply toward hers and for a moment she was worried she had insulted him. His family was clearly suffocating but she had no right to pass judgement on it.
“I do know one thing,” he said after whatever bothered him had passed. “One of us could surely sleep on a sofa or one of the loungers on the balcony.”
Sleeping outside alone. That didn’t sound too good. “What if creatures from the sea with gigantic tentacles swept up to the mainland, encircled me and pulled me into the ocean for prey? I wouldn’t want that to be your fate, either.”
“Glad to hear, thank you.”
She glanced into the living room at the two sofas as if they would have gone anywhere since she last looked at them. And then she eyed the ginormous bed again. “That’s not a standard size, is it? It has to be custom-made. It’s so big.” There was fear in her voice. Surely she wasn’t worried that Ian was going to morph into one of those woman-eating invertebrates with tentacles and capture her, turning her into a sea creature who existed only for his pleasure. Oh lordy, what was she thinking, and why did that sound not half bad? A crazy little wave splashed through her insides. Him capturing her with his tentacles.
“Yes, that bed looks as if it were custom-made.” His jaw jutted forward. He was having some thoughts of his own.
“I’d imagine we can put a row of pillows down the center as a barrier and do okay.”
“A barrier to what?” His eyebrows rose.
“I just…I just…maybe seems a little inappropriate to be sharing a bed with…”
“Don’t worry, I think I’ll be able to make it through the evening without throwing myself on you.” It might not have been him that she was worried about. Thinking about his hand thoroughly rubbing that sunscreen into her back was enough to make her grow a couple of tentacles herself.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s only, well come on, this is unusual, isn’t it?” He turned his head away from her but she followed it with until she could get him to look into her eyes again. She hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything untoward. And she was probably silly to think for even a minute that he might have been contemplating the activities that could transpire in that bed meant for lovers. He certainly wasn’t thinking of said activities with her. Even though he professed to like her lumps, they both knew what he was after in a woman. And what she wasn’t.
Although he was hard to second guess. His eyes were so mesmerizing, dark and big. Like someone could just jump into them and be immersed, whole and surrounded. They locked stares for far too long. With all the strength she had, she was the one to finally pull away. His face twitched a little bit. She didn’t dare imagine it was disappointment.
Finally, he concluded, “I do tend to toss around in my sleep so let’s use many pillows for your barricade.” He gestured at the dozen or so along the headboard. Turquoise, silver, and blue cases covered pillows of varying sizes. Together, they built a sort of fortress going down a straight line from head to toe, quite evenly dividing the bed in half, scattering some of the rose petals in the process. They backed off at the foot and checked their handiwork. “This is like summer camp,” she remarked.
“I didn’t go to summer camp.”
“Neither did I,” she shrugged.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

Faking it… in Bermuda!
Experience has taught unfussy maid of honor Laney Sullivan to have modest expectations of love and life. While best man Ian Luss is rich, successful and devastatingly handsome—and treats marriage like a merger! When circumstances throw them together on the newlyweds’ achingly romantic couples-only honeymoon, they decide they could both use the practice of pretending to be in a relationship. But what happens when practice makes perfect?
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Meet the Author:

Andrea Bolter has always been fascinated by matters of the heart. In fact, she’s the one her girlfriends turn to for advice with their love lives. A city mouse, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. She loves travel, K-Pop and rock n’ roll, sitting at cafés, and watching romantic comedies she’s already seen a hundred times. Say hi at andreabolter.com
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