Spotlight & Giveaway: The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Kirsty Greenwood to HJ!

Hi Kirsty and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Love of My Afterlife!

 
Hello Harlequin Junkie readers! I’ve very happy to be visiting.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Love of My Afterlife is an unabashed Romantic Comedy with elements of magic, all of the tropes, lots of swoon and plenty of belly laughing moments. It follows reclusive Delphie Bookham who dies, right on the first page. In the afterlife she challenged to go back to earth, find her soulmate AND get him to kiss her, all before ten days are up.
 

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

“The thing about people is you have to let them drag you to places you don’t want to go. Let them tell you things you don’t want to hear. Let them break you and put you back together…That’s what being alive is.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This book was written mostly in twenty minute bursts with an author friend of mine. Cathy Bramley and I would get on zoom, write furiously for twenty minutes and then reward ourselves with a five minute dance break, taking turns to pick the songs. It was the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book!
• Delphie is named after the tiny village of Delph, where I used to live. I wanted to bring a part of the past with me when I moved to London, and this was my way of doing it!
• One of my big inspirations for this book was the film As Good As It Gets. It’s my favourite movie of ALL TIME. The curmudgeon being forced out of their comfort zone? Enemies to lovers road trips? Romance novels? Tricky mental health? Important breakfasts? Humans being flawed and kind and messy and gorgeous?
• There’s even a line from the movie in the book!

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

Oh god, so many. My favourite thing is making readers laugh and cry and the best way to do that when writing is to try to make myself laugh and cry too! There’s a scene where Delphie is accidentally roped into podium dancing at a silent disco. It’s one of the more bonkers scenes in the book, and not something I planned to write initially. But it just happened and I like that of all the dances to do, Delphie chooses The Hand Jive.

In front of the glass door there’s a tall, wide woman wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. Behind her is a sign that requests all visitors “please have their tickets ready.” We don’t have tickets. Damn. Maybe if I explain to the woman that we only want to dip in and out to find someone she’ll just . . . let us in? But judging from the irritated curl of her mouth I am doubtful of her inclination to relax any kind of rule. The woman shakes her head furiously as we approach. She runs her eyes over my little dress and then up towards Frida’s flower crown.
“You’re late!” she hisses.
“Excuse me?”
“You better not bail early like the last guy. So unprofessional. Left me up shit creek without a paddle. That’s the last time I’m hiring from Maurice Alabaster.” She huffs. “Though I’m glad he sent two of you, at least.”
What is she on about? Who is Maurice Alabaster? Who does this woman think we are?
I open my mouth to ask all of these questions, but Frida darts in front of me. “Yes, he sent two of us,” she echoes, chin lifted, as the woman opens the glass doors and leads us into the event space. I immediately scan the room for signs of Jonah. Nothing yet but it won’t take long for me to spot someone so tall and magnetic in this crowd.
“The pair of you are on that one.” The woman points to an uplit pink podium on the left side of the room. In each corner of the space there is a podium, on top of which are dancers. Professional dancers. Professional dancers dancing. And then I realise that each dancer is wearing a flower crown exactly like Frida’s. This woman thinks we’re here to dance?
“Where’s your headdress?” the woman asks me, her massive eye roll indicating that she’s edging close to the end of her tether.
“It was stolen!” Frida reveals as I stand there agog at what is unfolding right now. “On the street, yes. Someone pinched it off her head. A wizened old man, in fact. He had long silver hair and one wayward eye looking to the east. But Delphie is the most beautiful dancer in London. Nobody will care that she isn’t wearing the head flowers.”
I side-eye Frida. How is she this good at lying? The stern woman looks me up and down. “Fine,” she tuts. “But I will be making a complaint to Maurice. I expect performers to arrive in costume.”
“So sorry,” Frida singsongs as the woman stalks away back towards the glass doors. “Come on then!” she says to me, pointing at the podium. “She’s still watching us.” I follow Frida’s gaze to see the stern woman—now outside of the room—peering at us through the glass doors.”
“I’m not getting up on a podium!”
“It’s the only way we’re allowed in here without tickets.”
“But I . . . I don’t dance.”
“Everybody dances!”
“There’s no music!”
Frida takes my hand and places it on my chest. “The music, it’s in here.”
I snatch my hand away. “How are the other dancers dancing without any music—none of them are wearing headphones!”
“The headphones would crush their flower crowns,” Frida returns, as if this is obvious and I am thick. “Come on. From the podium you’ll see far and wide across the room—it’s much better for locating Jonah.”
That’s true—I’ll be able to see everything from up there. I glance back towards the stern woman. She’s gesturing madly through the glass that we should get a move on.
Fuck.
Following Frida—who seems oddly keen to get going—I climb atop the podium as elegantly as I can and peer out across the sea of bodies dancing before me, eyes peeled for Jonah’s soft shiny bronze mane. I’m momentarily distracted by the evening view out of the huge windowed wall. I can see the curves of the Thames, Tower Bridge looking like an expensive golden bracelet, the lights of a thousand buildings all twinkling, showing off like they know someone is watching. As the sun lazily bows out, the sky is a rich crocus purple, streaked with pink. God, it all looks so serene from up here. So simple.
I think about what Jonah said about London being magical. I’d immediately discounted it at the time, but I have to admit . . . from this angle it looks pretty damn special.
“Dance, Delphie!” I’m brought back to the room by Frida elbowing me in the ribs. She’s circling her hips, arms waving about in a delicate way, the floaty sleeves of her dress getting a chance to shine.
For crying out loud. I tentatively start to wiggle my hips from side to side and do the one and only dance I seem able to remember under such enormous pressure, which to my surprise and mortification is the hand jive from Grease.
“Don’t panic,” I mutter to myself, bumping my fists above one another, then jerking my flattened palms this way and that.
I must be doing quite a good job because the stern woman nods her approval before marching off, probably to make that complaint to Maurice what’s-his-name. Shit, what if she finds out that we’ve not been sent by anyone? That we absolutely do not belong here? What if we get kicked out before I can even say hello to Jonah?
Hang about—some of the people in the crowd are turning to watch Frida and me, like we really are professional dancers, here to dance for them. I glance at Frida, who has also started to do the hand jive, perhaps in solidarity, or maybe because it just looks good? The attention makes my heart flip nervously, and every cell in my body is telling me to run away. But then I realise that the crowd staring at me is actually a very useful thing indeed—if I can see everyone’s faces, then I can more easily spot Jonah’s! I speed up my hand jive to make it look even more impressive—Frida’s eyes widen but she keeps up like a champ. It works, and more people turn around to watch, some of them even nudging each other with what I think is admiration. Within a minute or so pretty much every eye in the room is on us. I smile brightly at the crowd and continue my hand jive while scanning the room for Jonah’s face. But I don’t see him anywhere. Damn it. He must be here. Kat said he would be here—that he was working here. He has to fucking be here.

Readers should read this book….

Because it’s fun and funny and hopeful and sexy and a little different.
 

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

I’m working on my next book. I can’t reveal the title yet, but I can tell you that it’s set in a manor house in the Scottish highlands, it’s very spooky, super romantic and the gorgeous, sexy, delightful leading man is called…Norbert.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 1 Print copy of THE LOVE OF MY AFTERLIFE by Kirsty Greenwood, U.S. only

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Book Info:

A recently deceased woman meets “the one” in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on earth before ten days are up…

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, but now she’s standing in her ‘shine like a star’ nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is until someone comes running out of a door, yelling something about a huge mistake, and sends the dreamy stranger back down to earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind…
 
 

Meet the Author:

Kirsty Greenwood is an internationally bestselling author of funny, fearless romantic comedies about extraordinary love. When she’s not writing books she composes musicals and explores London where she lives with her husband.