Spotlight & Giveaway: The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jessica Joyce to HJ!

Hi Jessica and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Ex Vows!

 
Hello hello!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Ex Vows is a second chance romance about two estranged exes who have to help replan their mutual best friend’s wedding when his all-inclusive Napa venue burns down the week before the big day. Lots of forced proximity in the romantic landscape of California wine country ensues!
 

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

1. How strange it is to have a first for the second time. How lucky and messy and perfect.

2. I think about hellos and goodbyes, beginnings and endings. I imagine an endless circle that brings me back to one feeling again and again and again: loving him.

3. It’s a gift to know someone when you’re in love with them, and a curse when you’re out of it.

4. “I love it when you beg, Georgia. You never ask for anything.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I wrote a friends to lovers (and all around VERY different) version of this book back in 2021 that never made it out of the querying trenches. When Berkley signed me to a two-book contract, I decided I wanted to completely overhaul the story because I loved Georgia and Eli so much and wanted to give them the story they deserved.
• The working title of this book was Our Best Friend’s Wedding!
• If I had to describe the vibes of The Ex Vows in five songs they would be: Rivers & Roads by The Head and the Heart; it was supposed to be us by EXES; Fine Line by Harry Styles; This Love by Taylor Swift; Forever by Noah Kahan.

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

They meet when they’re fifteen (in the prologue) and it’s kind of an instant connection. I always imagined it as them each seeing something undefinable in the other person that they needed and made them feel safe. Sometimes you just have that alchemy with someone, and Georgia and Eli have that from the start.

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

I have scenes that apply to all of the above! When I was drafting this book, I was worried about it being steamy/horny enough, because in a second chance romance, they can’t really let themselves *go there* until they’re giving in. But when I read it back, I was like “yep! That’s pretty horny!” I definitely teared up writing multiple scenes, but I really love one scene between Georgia and her best friend, Jamie, who’s encouraging her to be more open emotionally. This part in particular still speaks to me!

Jamie’s hand envelops mine. Her skin is warm, the squeeze of her fingers the only thing keeping me from spiraling away.

“I know you’re scared. I mean, fuck if that’s not the human experience,” she says quietly. “But you deserve to let yourself feel whatever you need to. You can be messy. A disaster, if you need to. The people who love you will accept every single piece of it, I promise you.”

Readers should read this book….

If they’ve ever been at a crossroads in their life professionally, personally, AND romantically. If they mourn the end of eras. If they can relate to the line “sometimes I swear adulthood is staring at your phone and wondering which of your friends has enough time to deal with your latest emotional meltdown, then realizing none of them do.” If they are also mesmerized by a dangling chain on a beautiful man. And if they love found family and forced proximity and second chances set amid a total disaster of a wedding!

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

I have my hands in a few different things, but nothing I’m ready to reveal just yet! I do have two more books planned with Berkley, which will be standalone adult contemporary romances.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of THE EX VOWS by Jessica Joyce

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Have you ever experienced your friends moving into different phases, i.e. getting married, moving away, having a baby, etc? How did you navigate that change?

 
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Excerpt from The Ex Vows:

Eli is passed out hard in the passenger seat when I parallel park in front of Sucre Bakery in Yountville, a picturesque town halfway between Napa and Blue Yonder. He doesn’t even stir when I turn off the engine.

I sigh, unbuckling my seatbelt.

Good thing I didn’t let him drive; he offered when we stopped for gas near Adam’s house, and I stared at the purple moons under his eyes as he topped off the gas tank, hip propped against the car.

“I’d rather not crash,” I said, then blurted, “You’re really not going to give me the list?”

He straightened, appraising me like he knew I’d been stewing. “We really can’t share?”

“We agreed to split up the tasks.”

“Okay.”

It was nearly a sigh, his gaze latched onto me. “I’ll send you half of it. Fifty-fifty’s fair.”

He pulled out his phone as soon as we got in the car and my heart spiked seeing his name on my screen moments later, separate from the group thread we’ve shared. I expected him to fall headlong into his digital world after that, but instead he dropped his phone in his lap and turned on the radio, glancing at me. I took it for what it was—a silent promise that he’d be on his best behavior.

And he was, because he was unconscious five minutes later.

I should be grateful for it, but this scenario might be worse than a fully awake Eli Mora in my car for two-and-a-half hours, including the hour-long standstill traffic he slept through. If he doesn’t wake himself up organically, he’s going to emerge from sleep in another dimension. I’ve encountered the full breadth of that experience, from gibberish conversations to sleepwalking, from happy, sleepy smiles to blank stares, like I’m a stranger.

It’s silly to be scared, but that’s the feeling pooling in my stomach. I stare at him, because maybe if I do it hard enough, he’ll wake up on his own. And also because, quite honestly, he’s beautiful.

His knees are spread, arms folded over his chest, hands tucked under his biceps. In his lap are his phone and the ring boxes Adam handed over with a declarative “I can’t be responsible for anything significant right now.” His lashes are fanned out over his skin, his brows cinched together in a familiar, Manhattan-shaped frown.

I glance at the clock. Dammit. Our appointment is in five minutes.

“Eli,” I say, but it’s more like a whisper.

His lashes flutter, then still.

“Eli,” I try again.

Nothing, just his fingers twitching, a tell that he’s still deep in his dream world, busy even in his sleep.

With a frustrated groan, I lean on the console, getting as close as I dare. “Eli.”

His eyes fly open and lock immediately with mine, like he knew where I was down to the millimeter.

I can tell right away he’s here, but not. His mouth tilts up, his eyes sun-touched and calm. I’m frozen in that look. It’s a memory, hundreds of them: the first time we met; the first time we kissed, and the thousandth; our two years at Cal Poly and the thirtieth day we lived together. He’s looking at me the way he hasn’t for so long. I stretch toward it on instinct, that forever-needy girl inside me wanting its warmth.

He shifts in his seat, angling toward me. In a flash, his palm is shaping my cheek, then palming the back of my neck to bring me closer. And it’s not warmth now, it’s heat. Something that will burn me if I don’t pull away.

But I can’t.

“There you are.” A smile melts across his face, slow and sleepy. “Hey, Peach.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Estranged exes must stick close together to save their best friend’s wedding after a string of disasters in this swoony and steamy second-chance romance from the USA Today bestselling author of You, with a View.

Georgia Woodward lives by her lists, none more so than the one about her ex, Eli Mora. It’s full of the ironclad dos and don’ts they’ve been following since she returned to the Bay Area after their cataclysmic breakup five years ago.

With the wedding of their mutual best friend, Adam, looming, and them about to step into their roles as best woman and man, Georgia’s never needed it more. She refuses to threaten their tight-knit friend group with her messy—and still very present—feelings. The rules on that list will keep her cool, calm, and compartmentalized.

What’s not on her list? Eli arriving from New York with a new rule-breaking attitude or the all-inclusive venue burning to the ground, leaving the bride and groom in dire straits. Nor does she anticipate Adam asking her and Eli to help him make a miracle happen. Together.

As Georgia and Eli rush up to Napa Valley to pull off the perfect wedding, their old chemistry comes back in technicolor. Somewhere between cake tastings gone wrong, disastrous DJ auditions, and Eli’s heated attention, Georgia starts recognizing the man she fell in love with before. And if she lets herself break her rules, she might find what they’re building isn’t the something old that ruined them—it’s a chance at something new.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Jessica Joyce lives happily-ever-ongoing with her husband and son in the Bay Area. When she’s not writing character-driven, realistic and relatable tales of millennials who are just Doing Their Best while falling in love, you can find her listening to one of her dozens of chaotically curated Spotify playlists, trying out a new skincare face mask, crying over cute animal TikToks, or watching the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice.
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