Spotlight & Giveaway: The Accidental Countess by Emma Hart

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Emma Hart’s new release: The Accidental Countess

Hi Emma and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Accidental Countess!

 
Hi! Thank you so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

When The Earl of Anglesey proposes a fake marriage to Eva Astley during one of their no-strings meet ups, she can’t believe she says yes. But Matthew needs an heir to get his mum and grandma off his back – and in exchange, he’ll save her family hotel that’s about to go bust.
Neither one of them is prepared to fall in love with the other.
 

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

She felt like sunshine in my arms, and I didn’t want to let her go.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

I actually live on The Isle of Anglesey in North Wales, and I’ve always wanted to write a book set here because I love it so much. This book features some of my favourite places in real life, and it was such fun. (And Baxter the German Shepherd might have been slightly influenced by my own GSD, Ajax.) And, like Eva, I could also eat seven thousand pieces of hot buttered toast.

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

Eva and Matthew actually meet for the first time in Dating the Duke at a charity gala – their initial attraction is purely sexual and they spend the night together. They begin a secret no-strings relationship, meeting up on a somewhat irregular basis. Neither of them have a desire to get married until Matthew’s proposal, and the reason he asks Eva is because he enjoys her company as a friend (the sex isn’t bad, either.)

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

Yes. There’s a scene towards the end of the book where Matthew is given a letter from his late father that had been hidden for a specific moment. I won’t share it as it’s a bit spoilery, but rest assured it had me sobbing like a baby as I wrote it.

Readers should read this book….

Because there are three dogs, an Eminem-rapping Grandma, and a swoony as heck Earl.

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

I’m currently working on WRONG NUMBER, RIGHT GIRL. It’s a standalone rom-com about what happens when you help out your party-planner best friend at the last minute, get mistaken for her, and end up both arguing with and sleeping with a handsome but arsehole-ish duke-in-waiting. Maybe also falling in love with said man. It’s a chaotic mess, and I love it.

RIGHT NUMBER, WRONG GIRL, releases on April 19th.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Signed paperback of The Accidental Countess

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Would you ever get married if it meant saving either your or your family’s business?

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Excerpt from The Accidental Countess:

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked, sipping.
“It’s a bit out there,” he said slowly. “So I’d like you to listen before you throw me out of the window.”
I bristled. That didn’t sound like anything I’d like at all. “I’m not promising anything. In my experience, if I have to be told to listen, it means I’m going to hear something I won’t like very much.”
“You probably won’t,” he admitted. “But I’m going to say it anyway.”
“Mmph.” I put the wine glass down and pulled my legs into a cross-legged position. “Go on, then. Ruin my day.”
He shifted until he was comfortable, then reached for his drink. “I’m in a bit of a bind, and you’re the only person I can think of to help me.”
Yep.
This was going to ruin my day.
At least I’d had an orgasm before that happened.
I motioned for him to continue.
“I need to get married, and I want it to be to you.”
If it were at all possible, I’d have choked on thin air.
I stared at him. Had he really just said that? Not only was that the lamest marriage proposal in the world, it’d come from him?
Matthew?
The most eligible bachelor I knew?
Anti-marriage Matthew?
“Say something, Eva,” he said, uncertainty flashing in his eyes.
“What in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?” was what escaped my lips. “Have you lost your bloody mind?” I jumped off the sofa and held up my hands. “Look, I’m the first to admit I’m cracking in the bedroom, but even I know I’m not that good. Besides, it’s like not like anyone gets married because someone is good at a blow job. Bloody hell, man!”
“That probably wasn’t the best way to bring it up.”
“Gee, you think?” I threw my arms out and glared at him. “What on Earth is going through your mind, Matthew? What made you wake up this morning and propose that preposterous… proposal… to me? What makes you think for a second that it’s a good idea?”
“All right, hold on. Untwist your knickers a minute and let me finish.” He put down his drink and stood up. “I am under a great deal of pressure from my mother and grandmother to get married. They’ve banded together in a gruesome twosome to pressure me into something I have no desire to do.”
I kept staring at him.
“Unfortunately, I’m also aware that I have no choice, unless I want the earldom to die out. There’s also a chance my pillock of a cousin could inherit it, and I really do not want that. It’s a patriarchal inheritance, so I must have a legitimate male heir through marriage to inherit it. My cousin is a blithering idiot at the best of times, and I can’t let my ancestors’ hard work be rinsed down the drain by him. We’re also not entirely sure he is actually my uncle’s son, but that’s another story.”
Well, if that wasn’t the story of the lives of most of the aristocracy for the past nine hundred years.
It was good to know society was consistent.
“I see no benefit to getting married,” Matthew continued. “I like my life as it is, and if it were up to me—or my cousin wasn’t such a bellend—I’d happily live the way I have been.”
“But you can’t,” I replied.
“I can’t,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and if I must get married and have children, I’d rather it be with someone I trust and whose company I enjoy.”
I tilted my head to the side. “And I’m the lucky girl.”
Extra sarcasm on the lucky.
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out again, before running his hand through his damp hair and turning away. “Yes. And believe me, I understand that what I’m asking of you is a huge thing, but I have thought this through.”
“I cannot possibly see how you’ve done such a thing and still come to the conclusion that this is a good idea. It’s absurd, Matthew. Absolutely bloody absurd.”
“It’ll be a contract.” He turned back to me, and his blue gaze locked onto mine. “A deal, Eva. One that benefits us both.”
“Marriage aside, you’re asking me to get pregnant, lug a baby about for nine months, then stretch my vagina to accommodate an entire human exiting my body. I cannot possibly see how any of those things will benefit me.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“We’re done here? Excellent.” I moved to get up, but he shook his head.
“No. You said you’d hear me out.”
Oh, sod it. I’d been raised that a lady never goes back on her word, and he was right. I had said I’d listen to everything he had to say.
I huffed and dropped back down onto the sofa.
“I don’t want to get married, and I know you feel the same way I do. If you marry me and pretend to be my wife, provide an heir, and we amicably separate after a few years, I’ll make sure you never have to want for anything. You’ll be housed, clothed, and well-looked after for the rest of your life.”
This had to be a joke. There was no way he was being serious. This was some Netflix romcom movie nonsense. This didn’t happen in real life, did it?
Certainly not in the twenty-first century.
Dear Matthew. King Henry VIII wants his medieval customs back.
A laugh slowly bubbled up, and I nervously let it out. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? This is a joke.”
His serious expression never faltered, not when he glanced away, and not when he shook his head.
Oh.
Oh.
Okay, then.
Maybe not.
“Oh, my gosh,” I whispered, pressing my hand to my chest as I got to my feet again. “You aren’t kidding.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

An earl and an artist walk into a bar, and the barman says—never mind. They’re in a church, and they’re married now. Oops.
My name is Evangeline Astley, and the only thing you need to know about me is that I never imagined this was how my life would go.
I was supposed to devote all my time to painting gorgeous things to eventually open my own art gallery. Instead, I spent it all trying to sell my art to save my parents’ hotel.
Cue the Earl of Anglesey and his not-so-stunning idea.
Matthew Bennett needs an heir to the earldom, but for an heir, he needs a wife. And I’m the one the extremely eligible bachelor has chosen. Except I’m just as marriage-phobic as he is, so naturally, I refused—until he gives me an offer that I couldn’t.
If I agreed to marry him, provide an heir, and divorce amicably in due course, he would save The Fox and Hound hotel that I love so much.
That, ladies and gents, is how I became the Countess of Anglesey.
The one thing I didn’t count on, however?
Falling in love with my husband.
Book Links: Amazon |
 
 

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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