Spotlight & Giveaway: Rebel Without A Claus by Emma Hart

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Emma Hart to HJ!

Hi Emma and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Rebel Without A Claus!

 
Hi! Thank you so much for having me to celebrate the release of Rebel Without A Claus! It’s always a pleasure.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Quinn Langley’s family has run the grotto at Snow Cove’s Christmas fair for the past sixty years, but her father–the resident Santa Claus–is sick. Her grandpa keeps spiking the eggnog, her sister is heavily pregnant, and her brother-in-law is running the tree farm at the family farm, leaving Quinn fully responsible for the grotto.
Unfortunately for Quinn, she’s a huge Grinch, and wants to be doing anything but that. When the guy who took her virginity after their graduation party and left returns to their hometown and says he can be her Santa, she finds herself stuck between a rock and a hard place.
But not everything is as simple as she thought it was, and spending time with Nicholas in such close proximity might just make this holiday season her favorite one yet.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

“We’re out of eggnog.”
I blinked up at my grandfather. “It’s nine-thirty in the morning.”
“Is it?” He looked toward the clock that was sitting on top of the fireplace. “So it is. We’re still out of eggnog, Quinn.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• It was a rather spontaneous decision to write it. I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas book, and I found some time this year, so I did!
• I share a lot of Quinn’s feelings about Christmas. And Mariah. Definitely Mariah.
• I loved the idea of a grumpy/sunshine book where the heroine was the grump and the hero was a sunshine.
• The five-present Santa rule Quinn refers to is one we implement in our household, and one must always be a book.
• It was supposed to be a novella. Like 30/35,000 words. And I don’t want to talk about how it became a novel.

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 think I’m always surprised by my characters – I admit that I go in with them being quite one-dimensional in my mind until I get to know them, but Quinn was a bit like Shrek as I unravelled her. An onion. Full of layers. I won’t go into too much detail because she’s fun to get to know, but I think she’s quite relatable for most people.
Nicholas… Well, he’s just a good guy. In my very humble opinion, I think romance just needs some really good guys who are genuinely good guys but who might have made bad choices, whether they’re unintentional or not. Especially those who are willing to make up for past mistakes just beause they can.
As for everyone else, I strive to write very real characters, and sometimes those characters can be quite self-centered. *cough*Verity*cough*

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

Oh, God. It would have to be either the one where Nicholas shows up at the grotto or the one where they have their first kiss.
Hmm. I think the one with their first kiss, just because that was stuck in my head for three days before I could get it out.

I put my empty takeout cup in the nearest trash can and walked back over to Nicholas. Right as I drew level with him, a little girl wearing a pink, sequin Santa hat came over with a stool tucked under her arm.
Wordlessly, she set the stool down on the ground near us and stepped onto it. She couldn’t have been more than eight-years-old, but she was full of confidence when she held out a hand and said, “For one dollar, I’ll make your day.”
This sounded like a scam.
Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “And how will you do that?”
“With Christmas spirit, silly.”
His lips twitched into a small smile, and he replied, “All right. I’ll buy it. But if you run off with my dollar, I will chase you.”
“That’s what everyone says.” She stared at him.
She was so going to run off with his dollar. I liked her.
He pulled a dollar bill from his wallet, put his wallet back into his pocket, and put the money in her hand.
The little girl delicately folded the dollar bill and put it in her little reindeer-shaped crossbody purse. I almost laughed when I saw all the meticulously folded notes in there.
The girl had been doing good business.
She had another crossbody purse, this time in the shape of Santa’s head, resting on her other hip. She unzipped it and pulled out a sprig of—
Oh, hell no.
I did not like this little girl.
She reached up onto her tiptoes and held the offending piece of mistletoe up as high as she could. “Christmas spirit, see?”
Nicholas looked at me. His eyes were full of amusement, and he didn’t even bother hiding his grin. “She’s not wrong.”

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

I’m not sure–perhaps that Christmas means many things to everyone, and the world might be a better place if we all thought about one another a little more than we do ourselves.
And that children with mistletoe should not be trusted.

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

I’m currently working on DATING THE DUKE, which is book two in The Aristocrat Diaries. It’s the story of Adelaide and Alexander, The Duke of Worceseter, and what happens when he hires her to tutor his autistic ten-year-old daughter. One fake date later and the society papers declare them an item.
It’s very much my take on the modern-day aristocracy, and as a Brit and a Royal lover, it’s such fun to write. As a mother of an autistic ten-year-old daughter, it’s also about bringing some awareness to the dreadful system of diagnosis for girls.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Two signed paperbacks of Rebel Without A Claus to seperate winners

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What’s your favourite thing about Christmas? And what’s the one thing you really wish there was a little less of? I promise you can say Mariah Carey. It’s fine. Same, guys, same.

 
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Excerpt from Rebel Without A Claus:

I tilted my head back and looked up.
There, right above my head, hanging from the porch, was a giant sprig of mistletoe.
I ran my tongue over my lower lip. I was going to kill my mother. This was not a joke. One of the rules she lived her life by was: If there’s mistletoe, there must be kisses.
This mistletoe was not here this morning. It’d hadn’t been here for the entire holiday season.
No.
This was new mistletoe.
She wasn’t even trying to hide the fact she was trying to set us up.
Well, that was one Christmas present she wasn’t getting this year. She’d have to settle for her cookbook.
The crunch of snow under tires made me turn my head, and I waited as Nicholas pulled up behind my truck in the carport and parked. He’d gotten caught on two red lights—muahahahaha—and was at least three minutes behind me.
Which had given me a moment to find this… this… trap.
Yes.
Trap.
It was a trap.
It was a trap, and I was not going to stand for it.
“What’s wrong?” He shoved the door shut behind him and narrowed his eyes. “What are you staring at?”
I pointed up. “My mother. That’s what’s wrong.”
“Is she stuck in the porch roof?”
“Don’t be stupid. Look at this. It’s a trap. We were right.”
He took the steps two at a time and looked up. “Ah.”
“It wasn’t here this morning.”
“I don’t imagine it was,” he said slowly. “What if I go back down those stairs and come in after you?”
“You can, but it doesn’t solve the problem that there will be at least one bit of mistletoe in every room of this house.” I rubbed my chin. “She usually does this on Christmas Eve. It’s not usually a problem because I don’t have anyone to kiss, so the mistletoe rule doesn’t apply to me.”
“The mistletoe rule?”
“Yes. In this house, if you’re under mistletoe, you have to kiss someone. Every time.”
“That seems excessive.”
“Oh, it is. It is.” I met his gaze. “Someone needs to tell her Cupid is on vacation in December.”
“I don’t think she cares.”
“I should have left her stressed. She’s taking liberties.” I pulled my keys out of my pocket with a huff and shoved the key in the door. “I’m going to have to talk to her.”
“You really hate mistletoe, don’t you?”
“No. I like mistletoe just fine. I just don’t like being under the mistletoe with you.”
“You wound me.”
“Well, I almost kissed you the other night and you pushed me away, so excuse me if I’m feeling salty about that and think you’re the last person I want to be under mistletoe with.” I sniffed and stomped my feet against the porch to get the snow off my boots before I went inside.
Nicholas did the same with a sigh. “Quinn, you know full well why I pushed you away. It wasn’t because I wanted you. You’ve made your position very clear, I respect that, and that’s all there is to it.”
It wasn’t, though. My position was not clear. It wasn’t all there was to it.
My position was very unclear, and there was a hell of a lot more to it.
“Then can you please inform my mother? We might not find ourselves under this shit again.” I batted away a piece that was hanging in the middle of the hallway.
The hallway!
The nerve.
Nicholas stopped it from swinging wildly and stopped before taking off his coat. “Do you want me to go?”
“No, you’ve got no heat or hot water and there’s a hot meal here and—”
“Maybe we’re spending too much time together, Quinn.”
I stopped and looked at him, meeting his gaze. “You think we’re spending too much time together?”
“Maybe,” he said softly. His eyes darkened. “I—” He stopped and ran his hand through his hair. “I think we might be.”
Oh.
“Oh.” I swallowed and looked away. “Well, then, if you’re going to go, at least take some food so you don’t offend my mom.” I turned away and walked into the kitchen.
There was a huge lump in my throat.
Big.
He thought we were spending too much time together.
Why did that sting?
“Quinn, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…”
I grabbed a ladle and laughed, but it was hollow, and it most definitely betrayed the sting I was feeling. “There’s only one way to mean that.”
“No, I—”
“I know I’m grouchy and stressed and probably not the best person to be around at this time of the year,” I said, looking at him and clutching the handle of my ladle. “And we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot when you came back, but—”
“Quinn!”
I stopped talking.
He took a deep breath and looked at me, and his jaw twitched. “I like you. A lot. More than I fucking should.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year—unless you’re Quinn Langley.

I’ve hated the festive season for as long as I can remember, but this year really takes the chestnut. My family has run Snow Cove’s grotto for the past sixty years, but when my dad—our resident Santa Claus—gets the flu, it’s down to me to find a new Santa and save Christmas.
If only Grandpa would stop spiking the eggnog…
Oh, and if I had more than twenty-four hours to do it. Not to mention that all the people who can help me are already busy with their own plans for the Christmas fair.
Until Nicholas freaking White knocks on the grotto door.
I haven’t seen or spoken to him since he took my v-card and abandoned me in a motel room nine years ago, but he’s my only option. I have no choice but to let him be my Santa Claus, or I risk ruining Christmas for hundreds of kids.
The last place I want to be is stuffed in the grotto with Nicholas, being Santa’s not so happy little helper, still desperately trying to hold onto my grudge.
Now, if only we could stop finding ourselves under mistletoe, that would be great…

Rebel Without A Claus is a hilarious, sexy, festive standalone novel.

Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels and has been translated into several different languages.

She is a mother, wife, lover of wine, Pink Goddess, and valiant rescuer of wild baby hedgehogs. She lives in North Wales with her husband and two children, three cats, one very large German Shepherd, and a currently undetermined number of chickens and ducks. (Don’t ask her to count. She will not.)

She’s known for her hilarious, sarcastic romantic comedies with wildly inappropriate grandparents, and has been dubbed “The RomCom Queen” by her readers.
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