Spotlight & Giveaway: Some Kind of Blunderful by Livy Hart

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome romance author Livy Hart to HJ!

Hi Livy and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Some Kind of Blunderful!

 
Hi there!
 

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

A thrifty, independent teacher winds up on series of increasingly bad dates with her dad’s young, terrible, hot-shot boss.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

The road to Hades is paved with suspiciously hot online dating profiles.
I peek at Alex’s picture for the fourth time in twenty minutes. He’s cologne-model handsome: amber eyes that glint with mischief, light stubble, a roguish smile. The kind of timeless hot that your grandma and twenty-year-old cousin can agree on.
Could be my dream guy. Could be a catfisher.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This book is my love letter to The Office, finding love right where you are, and the magic of the mundane. I wrote several scenes as homages to my favorite episodes (hello Booze Cruise!).
• This is my spiciest book yet.
  Alex Conroy went through several name changes until I found one that fit his boss-man personality!
• Much of Mia’s experience as a teacher comes from my own, even her love of Fancy Nancy and Magic School Bus.
• This book features one of my favorite side characters in Christos Papadakis. He is unabashedly based on Stanley Tucci.

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Mia first notices Alex’s fantastic forearms, impeccable style (is that an actual Rolex on his wrist??), and swagger, but denies that she’s attracted to any of it. But after a few dates, she can’t deny it any longer. He’s magnetic. She HATES that she’s attracted to her dad’s terrible boss. Though as she gets to know him, she learns he may not be as terrible as she thought…

Alex first notices Mia’s preppy pony tail, bright clothing, and dimpled smile. She’s his type physically, no doubt about it. When he learns how devoted she is to family, friends, and her job, he’s drawn in more than he ever expected.
 

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

Secret, sexy, snowballing, scandalous, serendipitous.
 

The First Kiss…

Was born from a very heated hug. It was supposed to be a JUST goodbye hug! But when you deny your feelings long enough, they’re bound to explode once you get too close.
 

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

I love when Alex, clueless about all things baby and wedding, convinces Mia to help him pick out a baby shower and wedding present for his friend. It’s a seemingly innocent things that spirals out of control very quickly.

Snippet:

“This place is huge.” I point to the end cap of the first aisle we pass. “What’s that?”
She barely has to look. “Bottle cleaning and sterilizing tools.”
I point vaguely toward another end cap. “Those?”
“Pacifiers.”
“And that?”
She grabs a tube and tosses it toward me. “Nipple cream.”
I place it gingerly back on the shelf.
“Let’s get to the back of the store,” she continues, walking in front of me like a woman on a mission. I concentrate on not staring at her ass in that tight skirt.
Mia peeks over her shoulder. “How much do you plan to spend in total?”
I shrug. “However much you think is appropriate for the sister of my best friend.”
“You’re giving me a lot of power here, Conroy.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
She turns down an aisle and takes a strappy thing off a hook. “Too late. Arms out.”
I hug my chest. “What is that?”
She lifts a shoulder, a coquettish grin on her face. “Put it on and find out.”
With a sigh, I extend my arms. She steps closer, brown eyes alight with amusement as she slides it into place. Her arms skirt my waist, snaking to my mid-back. The buckle
closes with a quiet click. She stays nearly hugging me as she buckles the other straps between my shoulder blades, gaze burning a hole in my throat.
“I put it on,” I grumble, my skin prickling from her nearness, “and did not, in fact, find out.”
She doesn’t back up, instead staying close as she admires her handiwork. “It’s a Baby Bjorn.”
I peer down at the sturdy black fabric. “That doesn’t clear it up.”
“It obviously holds a baby.”
“No, it’s obviously a laser-tag vest.”
She tugs on it with a rough jerk. “Baby goes here, in the gap. Right next to your chest.”
“False. That’s where the battery pack goes, powering the lights and score-keeping functionality.”
“Hilarious.”
“I thought so. Can we get this thing off me?”
She reaches around and undoes my shoulder buckle with one hand. The same hand moves to my low back, and I wait for the release of the tight strap wrapped around my
already tense body.
Face crinkling from the effort of wrestling with the second buckle, she adds her other hand to the mix. Both of her arms tighten around my waist as she struggles to release
it. “Dang thing”—she gives me a good jostle I enjoy way too much—“is stuck. This is a tired parent hazard—”
“Mia,” I say quietly.
Her gaze darts up and her lips part in surprise, as if she didn’t realize just how close we are with her arms around me as she manhandles me. That must be one difficult and distracting buckle because I feel the nearness of her like I’m submerged in boiling hot water—everywhere, all at the same
time, until I can’t stand it. In my efforts to avoid looking at her mouth, my attention falls there, tracing the shape of it.
I didn’t know lips could be perky, but I’m cursed to never forget it at this rate.
My gaze bounces back to her eyes. “Let me.”

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

While at a company sponsored NBA game that Mia’s dad was too sick to attend, Mia and Alex wind up sitting next to each other. They have more fun than either of them expect, and that is a very bad thing when you’re trying to hate someone.

The kiss cam finds them in the crowd, and if this were a movie, it’d be a crucial moment to include!

Snippet:

After not nearly enough time has passed, Alex returns with two bottles of water and two hot dogs. One is smothered with tomatoes.
Without a word, he forks over the tomato-loaded dog and a water.
“I—What?” I tilt my head his way as I trap the bottle between my legs and rest the paper bowl on my knees. “What’s all this?”
“Dinner.”
“Thank you, but I didn’t ask for dinner. You did not have to buy me a hot dog covered in tomatoes.”
His gaze is challenging. “You said tomatoes were your favorite food, did you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“So pick them off if you don’t like the hot dog.”
Resigned and kind of hungry, I sigh. “How do I pay you? I didn’t carry cash. Wait, what’s your Venmo?”
“Don’t have one.”
I stifle the urge to grab his chin so he’ll look at me again.“You are a menace.”
He turns his head my way as if he can hear my thoughts. I expect a joke or a barb but find something probing in his stare. “So are you. Bon appetite.”
“Mia,” Jameson says, reaching over Christos to wave his hand in my face. “Look.”
I startle, and my hot dog almost falls to the ground.“What?”
“Kiss Cam!” He points at the JumboTron hanging above center court.
Alex and I are on the screen, in all our megawatt glory, framed by a red heart.
My stomach drops and drills through the arena floor as Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” launches its melodic attack.
How?
How, of all the people in this packed house, did the camera find us?
Christos shoots me a curious look. “It’ll move off us!” Alex yells, competing with the choral chant of kiss, kiss, kiss.
I look around in a panic. Notably, none of my father’s coworkers are chanting for us to kiss.
New plan.
I point emphatically to my left to inform the camera man there’s a couple there, prime for the filming.
The camera jumps to Christos and Jameson, who share a kiss to great fanfare.
My relief has about four seconds to settle in when the camera jumps back to me and Alex. Gah, this camera man is out for my blood.
The crowd gets even louder.
My and Alex’s heads turn in panicked unison.
“They aren’t gonna stop,” he all but hollers.
Inspiration strikes. I thrust my hand in his face with the intention of securing a kiss of the knuckles. Proper, innocent, and enough action to get them off our backs.
But at the same moment, he moves in, head tilted. My hand strikes his face as the crowd shrieks in shock.
I gasp. My hands fly to my face in real life and on the hi-def screen.
I’ve just punched Dad’s boss clean in the jaw in front of more than fifteen thousand people.

Readers should read this book …

• If they’re looking for a relatable, high tension/low angst slow burn that gets very steamy in the second half.
• If they enjoy enemies-to-lovers, small town, forbidden romance, or dual POV stories.
• If they love The Office.

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

I am working on a book called The Great Dating Fake-Off out in August of 2024! I can’t wait to share more about it as it gets closer, but for now I can say that it’s chock full of the kinds of shenanigans and steam my other books feature!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A digital copy of Some Kind of Blunderful!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Would you date someone your family doesn’t like or approve of? Why or why not?

 
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Excerpt from Some Kind of Blunderful:

In this scene, Mia and Alex are shopping for a wedding present for Alex’s friend.

Excerpt:

I put another foot of distance between us. “Okay, let’s think: What’s her personality? Or their personality as a couple? Weddings are a little harder to shop for than babies—give me something.”
“I don’t know her all that well, beyond events at Ezra’s house, but from what I know of her, she’s”—he waves his hand in the air as if summoning the words—“prissy. Reminds me of you, actually.”
Eyes narrowed, I wheel on him before I can start my perusal of the overpriced spatulas. “Prissy?”
He plucks one from the display. “You’re dressed up twenty-four seven, Mia.”
“Prissy means high maintenance. Expensive taste. It’s not a compliment.”
“This is the least dressy you’ve been, and that includes when we played basketball and you had the headband and the jewelry and that tight”—his gaze stays low as he gestures at my torso—“red shirt.”
“Bodysuit,” I say. My blood heats a few substantial degrees. “You have a very detailed memory.”
“Teachers used to tell me I’m a visual learner.”
I don’t know what to respond to: the admission that he’s paying attention to what I’ve worn down to the jewelry, or the fact that he’s calling me prissy because of it. I step closer into his space and try to force him to look at me so I can figure out what’s going on in his head. “I thrift almost all my clothing, other than my shoes. That bodysuit you are remembering cost me three dollars. And I don’t hear most people complaining about what I wear. Especially on dates.”
“Date. Singular. The rest were coincidental hangouts.”
I barely hear the last word of his sentence as he takes off.
My temper flares as I trail him around a corner. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Hot and cold! We were having a nice enough time and now you can’t even look at me.”
His body comes to an abrupt stop and wheels around. His hand closes around my bicep and tugs me behind a product display.
“What—”
“Shh.” Alex traps me between his body and a ten-foot tower of boxed Le Creuset Dutch ovens. “Jameson is here.”
My stomach sinks. “Jameson.”
“Christos’s husband,” he hisses.
“I know who he is.”
“Obviously.” Alex pokes his head around the display and jerks it back. “Yup, definitely him. I do not want him to see me with you.”
A flare of anger almost drives me to shove his chest, which is an inch from my face. Any whisper of fond feelings that might’ve surfaced earlier disappear in an instant.
“That’s a horrible thing to say,” I rage whisper, voice shaking.
“What, you want him to go and tell Christos we’re shopping together—in a home goods store, no less—who will then tell Richard? That sounds good to you?”
What I want is Baby Depot Alex back. The one who had me melting in the aisle with his sweetness.
Actually, I shouldn’t want that, either.
The internal scream trapped in my body would shatter the glass jars of hot sauce inexplicably displayed next to the blenders on the wall behind Alex. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you forced me to go shopping with you just so you could play games with me.”
His chest rises and falls as his breath fans my forehead. He leaves no breathing space between us. “I’m playing games?”
“Don’t play dumb, Conroy.”
He tips my chin up with his fingers. His touch shoots hot, fiery sparks across my skin, which only serves to make the frustration coursing through me that much more violent. The need to rip something in half with my bare hands has never been so potent.
Our breathing is audible as I wait for him to speak. His voice is dangerously quiet. “I shouldn’t have touched you in the other store. This is a bad idea.”
But his hand lingers on my face.
His hooded gaze is aimed at my mouth as his thumb runs the length of my jaw. It moves lower, ghosting my neck until I shudder. I try to take a deep breath, but my body is strung tight everywhere, even my chest. “Then why are you touching me now?”
“I don’t know,” he all but grunts. “I have no idea.”
My hand moves as if controlled by a motor. “This”—I close my fist around the silk knot at the base of his neck—“is too tight. You’re choking yourself. That’s probably why you aren’t thinking straight. Suffocation.”
I yank on it until it loosens, pulling his face even closer to mine. He smells good enough to taste. His heady gaze pins mine, and contrary to everything I thought I knew about him, he doesn’t look put together or in control at all.
He looks stressed.
“That’s not why.” His fingers leave my face bereft and find my hip. Our chests brush together as I cling to his tie. We’re as close to kissing as we could be while still maintaining plausible deniability.
“You and your little outfits are prissy,” he says, hovering his mouth near mine. “And I like that.”

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Fate doesn’t play fair in this hilarious and sexy comedy of errors from the author of Planes, Trains, and All the Feels.

If you ask Mia Madden, the road to dating hell is paved with suspiciously hot online profiles. Take tonight’s date, for example. Alex Conroy’s whole “boardroom in the streets, lumberjack in the sheets” thing totally works for her, but his profile did not convey that he represents everything she loathes about corporate hustle culture. He’s not even worth her bottle of purse wine.

Imagine her horror when it turns out that Alex is also the hot-shot new boss her dad can’t stop complaining about—the Forbes 30-under-30 company fixer of his nightmares. Worse, their respective best friends are dating. Mia and Alex are constantly thrown together, whether it’s for corporate volunteer hours at the animal rescue, squaring off at the company picnic, or literally trapped in an escape room. It’s one nightmare after another…no matter how sexy the company is.

Mia’s life is now a romantic-comedy of errors, complete with her kinda, sorta, accidentally sleeping with the enemy. And she’s not sure which is worse: that Alex could ruin her dad’s career, or that she might actually like him.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Goodreads |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Romance author Livy Hart has two children, too many Funko Pops, and a husband who’s workin’ on the railroad—literally. She currently resides in Dallas, Texas where she enjoys long walks on the concrete and people-watching at malls so big they have their own zip codes. When she’s not writing, she’s bickering with her KitchenAid stand mixer, road-tripping to her sleepy Florida hometown, or sipping espresso on her Nonna’s porch.
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