Spotlight & Giveaway: The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Ally Carter to HJ!

Hi Ally and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Blonde Identity!

 
HI! So excited to be here!
 

Tell us about the book with this fun little challenge using the title of the book:

Okay! The full title might be a bit too long, so let’s go…

B is for Blindsided. Neither the hero nor the heroine of this book have any idea the other is coming–or just how much they are going to change each other’s lives.

L is for Loss. Both of these people have lost things. And people. And time. They have no money and no refuge and no allies. She’s even lost her memory! But sometimes you have to forget your own name to realize who you are.

O – Oblivious. Our poor heroine has no idea who she is. Or where she is. Or even when she is. She wakes up with nothing except an aching head and a hot guy standing over her, telling her to run. So run they do…

N – Nonstop! I didn’t want to write a book that was nonstop action (and I don’t think I did), but I did want to write about two people who can’t stop running. From the bad guys–and their feelings for each other.

D – Danger. Danger. And more danger. Whether it’s the bad guys who want her dead or the government agencies who want her caught, no place is really safe, so they’re always in danger and always on guard. True connection doesn’t come until you let that guard down, but for these characters, that might actually be fatal.

E – Europe! I don’t know about everyone else, but I spent a lot of lockdown daydreaming about places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do, so this book is my big love letter to a few of the sights I’d love to visit someday soon.

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Here’s the thing about waking up with no memory in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, in the middle of Paris…at least you’re waking up in Paris. Or so the woman thought as she lay on the cold ground, staring up through a thick layer of falling snow at the Eiffel Tower’s twinkling lights.

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book.

It would be very easy to boil them down to Grumpy and Sunshine, but, of course, they’re more than that. More like Grizzled and Innocent.

Sawyer is a spy, and as sexy and cool as that is, it starts to lose its appeal after five years of being undercover with the Russian mob.

Zoe doesn’t know who she is. Or what she is. Or what she’s doing in Europe–nothing. And that weighs on her, but it’s also somewhat freeing–living life with a totally clean slate.

Whenever I got lost, I’d always remind myself of one simple fact: that she was a woman who needed to remember, and he was a man who was desperate to forget.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I’ve had the kernel of this idea for years, and for years I tried to figure out how to do it as YA–or even MG–but I could never crack it, and it was starting to drive me crazy. Then one day I was on the phone with Rachel Hawkins and she said, “That’s because they’re adults.”
• The heavens opens up. Angels sang. There were probably harps playing somewhere. And suddenly every single piece of this book fell into place. I hadn’t really been thinking about writing an adult book, but from that moment I knew this was the book I was born to write.

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

It was fun playing with a character who was an identical twin. Initially, my hero thinks the heroine is actually her sister. Heck, everyone in Europe thinks she’s her sister. But he realizes pretty quickly that she’s not. Because he SEES HER. (Because…romance hero.) She doesn’t realize it at the time because she’s too busy dodging bullets, but there’s no way that’s not sexy.

As they go on the run together, he starts to realize that she’s tougher than he assumed she would be. She thinks outside the box. SHE saves HIM, and it floors him. He can’t predict her, but he likes it. He likes her. And from there it really grows.

The First Kiss…

There was no way–I mean NO WAY–that their first could be anything but part of a cover. “Quick! We have to make out” is the rock upon which my entire career was built, and I have chosen well!

This book has a slight variation on that, but I love it just the same.

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

Pretty much every scene in this book is full of banter. That’s one of the reasons writing it was so fun. I could write these two bickering until the end of time, but this is one of my favorite little moment. I think it sums them both up pretty well.

The deck below them stayed empty, and Sawyer studied her, a now-or-never look on his face as he slid over the edge. Maybe she really was afraid of heights, she realized as she looked down and he looked up, impatience all over his face.
“Come on,” he whispered.
“It’s high.”
“It’s not even ten feet.”
“That’s high!”
“You’ve jumped off two bridges in the last ninety minutes!”
“People were shooting at me! Guns are scarier than heights. It goes guns”—she drew an imaginary line in the air then dropped her hand ten inches—“heights. Everybody knows that!”
“I have a gun,” he mumbled under his breath. For a moment, he looked like he was considering pushing her overboard. But instead he held up both arms like she was a toddler who was refusing to go down the slide. Oh, how she wished there were a slide.
“Come on.” He cast a nervous glance in the direction of the disappearing woman. “I’ll catch you.”
Maybe it was the words . . . Maybe it was the gesture . . . Maybe it was the tone . . . But somehow she believed him. Sure, it was probably just because a sprained ankle or broken leg would slow them down even more. But why didn’t matter. It was enough that it was true, so she scooted to the edge.
“Any day now . . .”
And rolled onto her belly.
“Oh, we’re doing it this way,” he said, stepping closer.
And lowered herself down as far as she could go.
She was just starting to contemplate how long her arms could hold her when she heard a chuckle and felt the cold wind on the back of her thighs.
“Uh, you may want to drop . . .”
“In a second.”
“Okay. But just so you know your skirt got caught on something and I’m looking at your—”
She let go. She fell.
And, sure enough, he caught her.

If your hero had a sexy-times play list, what song(s) would have to be on it?

There’s probably a lot of Taylor Swift on there. He’s no doubt a closet Swiftie.

If you could have given your characters one piece of advice before the opening pages of the book, what – would it be and why?

I’d love to lean close to Zoe’s ear and whisper, “It’s okay. He’s one of the good ones.”

What are you currently working on? What are your up-coming releases?*

I’m hard at work on my next adult rom-com! We haven’t announced it yet, so I can’t share much, but I will say that it’s another stand-alone high concept idea. So, no, it’s not Alex’s book. But hopefully I will be able to revisit The Blonde Identity world soon.

In the meantime, I think you’re really going to like what we have coming in 2024.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway:  A print copy of The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I think everyone has a covert superpower. The ability to remember phone numbers or always find a bathroom in a department store–things like that. What would yours be?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Book Info:

I wasn’t sure if this means blurbs or cover copy, so here are both.

“Bestselling YA author Carter (the Gallagher Girls series) serves up an irresistible cocktail of danger and passion in her un-put-downable adult debut. This snappy and suspenseful romance fires on all cylinders.”
— Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

“Ally Carter wrote a unique, delightful, hilarious, unputdownable romance! I didn’t know I needed an adventure romcom about grumpy/sunshine spies with amazing chemistry and a dash of amnesia, but it was exactly what was missing in my life. I’m wonderstruck by The Blonde Identity! (Also, this book needs to be a movie!)
– Ali Hazelwood, New York Times Bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

“Spies! Amnesia! And banter that’ll make you chant “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” No one writes an action rom-com quite like Ally Carter.”
– Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs

“The Blonde Identity is explosively funny and jam-packed with chemistry! I couldn’t have loved this hilarious romcom more. The story is full of humor, action, romance, and emotions that tug on your heartstrings. Ally is a romcom genius!”
– Sarah Adams, New York Times bestselling author of The Cheat Sheet

“I am a Gallagher Girls fan, and The Blonde Identity satisfied ALL of my GG cravings! Carter has that magic formula of the perfect amount of brilliance, fun, and sizzling banter down pat!”
– Jesse Q Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

“Completely captivating — funny, fresh and deliciously swoon-worthy, The Blonde Identity had me smiling over every action packed page. I loved it.”
– Annabel Monaghan, author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer

“The Blonde Identity was everything I wanted in rom-com and more! I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book.”
– Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of A Curse for True Love

“A delightful, delicious joy ride of a romp!”
– Susan Elizabeth Phillips, #1 New York Times bestselling author of When Stars Collide

“The Blonde Identity is hands-down the cutest, most fast-paced wild ride of a rom-com I’ve ever read!! I LOVED this unputdownable book!”
– Lynn Painter, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Wager

COVER COPY:
The New York Times bestselling YA author of the beloved Gallagher Girls series bursts onto the adult scene with a fast-paced, hilarious road trip rom-com about a woman with amnesia who discovers she’s the identical twin sister of a rogue spy… and must team up with a rugged, grumpy operative to stay alive.

It’s the middle of the night in the middle of Paris and a woman just woke up with no memory.

She only knows three things for certain:

1. She has a splitting headache.

2. The hottest guy she has (probably) ever seen is standing over her, telling her to run.

And oh yeah…

3. People keep trying to kill her.

She doesn’t know who. Or why. But when she sees footage of herself fighting off a dozen men there’s only one explanation: obviously. . . she’s a spy!

Except, according to Mr. Hot Guy, she’s not. She’s a spy’s identical twin sister.

Too bad the only person who knows she’s not the woman they’re looking for is this very grouchy, very sexy, very secret agent who (reluctantly) agrees to help her disappear.

That’s easier said than done when a criminal organization wants you dead and every intelligence service in the world wants you caught. Luckily, no one is looking for a pair of lovesick newlyweds on their honeymoon. And soon they’re lying their way across Europe—dodging bullets and faking kisses as they race to unravel a deadly conspiracy and clear her sister’s name.

But with every secret they uncover, the truth shifts, until she no longer knows who to trust: the twin she can’t remember or the mysterious man she can’t let herself forget…
Book Links: Amazon | B& N | iTunes | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Ally Carter is the bestselling author of novels that have epitomized action-adventure YA romance for more than a decade. Her first original screenplay, A Castle for Christmas, was recently #1 on Netflix.

Ally lives within an easy drive of her home farm in Oklahoma and encourages you to follow her online if you love bad pictures and typo-filled tweets that she sends out when she really should be writing.
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