Spotlight & Giveaway: The Friendship Fling by Georgia Stone

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Georgia Stone to HJ!

Hi Georgia and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Friendship Fling!

Hi – thank you for having me! I’m so excited to share a little about The Friendship Fling with everyone.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Friendship Fling is a slow-burn romcom about a snarky, cynical barista named Ava and her customer-turned-lover Finn, and the dreamy, vibrant London summer they spend together completing Finn’s London bucket list before he moves out of the country. They’re supposed to just be friends for the summer, in what I call a ‘friendship of convenience’ (a friendship fling, if you will), but it’s a romance, so of course things don’t quite work out that way.
 

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

I’ll give you two quotes with very different vibes.

This is the very first line of the book, and perhaps my mantra:

“It is fundamentally against my morals to tell a man he’s funny.”

This quote perfectly encapsulates how Finn sees Ava:

“Did you know everything on this planet is made of stardust? You, me, this couch. All of it. But I think it’s often easy to forget that.” […] “I never forget that you come from the stars, Ava.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• The Friendship Fling has tons of celestial references and metaphors, and in fact, it was previously self-published under the title A Collision of Stars! That original title was inspired by a lyric from a song called I Revolve (Around You) by Neck Deep.
• I decided on Ava’s last name (Monroe) by posting a poll on my Instagram story and asking for input on which surname sounded best.
• I’m much more similar to Ava than to Finn, but I took inspiration for Finn being an ex-international school kid from the fact I went to an international school as a teenager.

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

Finn definitely falls first, and he’s initially attracted to how little Ava seems to care about him (which, to be honest, he should probably talk about in therapy), and that she’s content just being herself without appeasing others.

Ava registers that she finds Finn physically attractive early on, but it takes a while for her to realise she’s attracted to him in other ways, too. Ultimately, she’s attracted to how easy it is to be around him, and how good of a person he is, even when she throws barbs his way.

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

Frankly, I am my own target audience, which means I find every single piece of banter far funnier than I probably should. Chances are, if there’s a lot of quippy back-and-forth between characters in the scene, I laughed while writing it!

Readers should read this book….

If they like seeing a grumpier heroine with a sunnier hero. If they want to visit London without the hefty price tag. If they like excruciatingly slow burns. If they want to feel the same feelings as they do while watching an early-’00s romcom. If they want to watch two wildly different strangers strike up a mutually beneficial friendship before slowly and gently falling in love.

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

My second book is with my editors at the moment – all I’ll say about that novel for now is that this one isn’t set in London, but is still set in the UK, and will likely come out next spring/summer.

In terms of what I’m physically working on (because do authors ever take a break? NOPE!), I’m in the very early stages of outlining a completely new story. I’m super excited to get stuck in and meet/laugh with/swoon over new characters. It’s my favourite pastime!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: We’re giving away one finished copy of THE FRIENDSHIP FLING!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you could live out one trope (or if your own love story already fits perfectly into one), which would it be?

 
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Book Info:

No one would ever call Ava Monroe a people person, which isn’t ideal for a barista in a busy London coffee shop. She’s sarcastic, blunt, and cynical, and her relationships are strictly no strings attached. With her best friend Josie soon leaving for a year, Ava knows she’ll be all alone unless she shakes up her routine. But she can’t risk bringing chance back into her carefully controlled life.

Then insufferably cheerful, country-hopping, undeniably gorgeous Finn O’Callaghan rolls into her coffee shop with a horrifying proposal —a strictly friends-only summer fling. Finn needs a local to help him complete his London bucket list, and Ava needs to reassure Josie she won’t be on her own. And it’s only for a few months.

To Ava’s surprise, their mismatched friendship of convenience becomes oddly tolerable, and as they work their way through Finn’s list and around the sun-drenched city, from rooftops and floating bars to nights at the museum, their adventures—and Finn’s company—start to feel . . . nice. Incredibly, terrifyingly, dangerously nice.

Still, rules are rules—Ava has good reasons for them—and as the days get shorter, Finn’s departure gets closer. Because that’s the thing about summer: it always ends. Right?
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Georgia Stone is a London-based author of contemporary romance. She writes love stories that she hopes make people laugh out loud and clutch at their hearts in equal measure.

After dabbling in fan fiction as a teen growing up in rural Switzerland, she didn’t write her own stories for years, until one fateful day, she had the idea that sparked her debut novel. She fell back in love with writing and now very much appreciates that being a fiction author is essentially just a socially acceptable way of having imaginary friends.

When she’s not reading or writing, you can usually find her trying out DIY projects in her ridiculously colourful flat, spending far too much time feeding The Algorithm, or acting unhinged at gigs with her friends.
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