Spotlight & Giveaway: The Mother-In-Law Book Club by Kate Hash

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Kate Hash to HJ!

Hi Kate and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Mother-In-Law Book Club!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Andi Walker is a thirty-something business consultant whose life looks very put together from the outside, but in reality, everything is falling apart. She’s in the middle of a divorce, burned out from work, and in a terrible mood when she overhears two seventy-something strangers on a plane complaining about their daughters-in-law. She loses her cool on them and just when things could turn totally sideways, one of the women – Marilyn – offers her something surprising: friendship.

She slowly falls in love with the city she’s posted in, the book club she’s been accepted into thanks to Marilyn, and, rather unexpectedly, a handsome professor she meets at the Durham Farmers Market. Andi not only uncovers pieces of her old self, but discovers who she can be moving forward into the next chapter of her life. Just when she thinks she has everything figured out, her past shows up on her doorstep – literally. She must decide if she’s ready to take the leap into the unknown or fall back into the life that she knows.
 

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

My two favorite lines are quite literally the first and last sentences:
• Andi Walker does not lose her cool on planes
• This I know for sure: Found family is worth the wait. It’s worth all of the pain you’ll go through to find them because when you do, you will finally be home.

I love the first line because it really sets up the comedy that’s about to transpire. The last line really wraps up the overarching sentiment of the entire book.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

The first chapter of this book is one hundred percent inspired by a conversation that I eavesdropped on in an airplane! Much like Andi does in the book, I overheard two strangers complaining about their daughters-in-law. I was riveted! Unlike Andi, I didn’t confront them, but I did use the experience as the catalyst inspiration for the plot. I even thank those two strangers in my acknowledgements.

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

They are a personality match! They meet in a sweet, quiet moment on a food tour and run into one another once or twice before deciding to go on a real date. Their meet cute and subsequent interactions feel very low key and real. Andi is late thirties and Dustin is early forties – there is a maturity and calmness to their relationship. They are also extremely funny together and full of passion, but it starts rather gently.

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

There’s a scene between Marilyn and Andi in the last third of the book where big secrets are revealed and I teared up while writing it and have cried a few times reading it – especially in the final proofing of the book, when I was a healthy distance from the writing. As important as the romantic love story is in this book, the platonic love story between these two women is the true heart of the novel. This scene between them is beautiful and honest and brings it all home, in my opinion.

Here’s a single line of dialogue to give you a teaser from the scene:

“Sorry, but that person you thought I was on the plane back in August?” she begins. “Let me be her. Let me be the naggy, insufferable mother‑­ in‑­ law.”

Readers should read this book….

If one of their favorite holiday movies is The Family Stone. A lot of the same themes are present in The Mother-in-Law Book Club: intergenerational dynamics, family function and dysfunction, found family, 30-somethings falling in love, and, of course, the holidays!

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

I’m currently writing another contemporary romance that I’m hoping could be a spring 2028 release. We’ll see!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Finished copy of THE MOTHER-IN-LAW BOOK CLUB by Kate Hash!

To enter Giveaway, please share this post on your Socials and Leave a comment below to this Q: How have unexpected friendships in your life caused you see the world and those around you differently? What are the benefits of having friends at different life stages than your own?

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Book Info:

Sometimes the family you need is the one you never expected to find.

On the plane to Durham for her next big gig, traveling consultant and soon-to-be divorcée Andi gets into an argument about the impossible expectations of mothers-in-law that will change her life forever. When her seventy-something adversary unexpectedly extends an olive branch invitation to her book club, Andi does something completely out of character: she says yes.

This social circle is delightfully feisty, gossipy, and also hopelessly clueless about how to navigate frayed relationships with their adult children. Andi spends evenings doling out advice to her new coterie of retired friends, helping to repair generational divides.

As the weeks and months go by, Andi has a quiet revelation: life in Durham just fits. The book club members love her, the company loves her, and after a whirlwind romance with a handsome professor, she’s fairly certain her new beau loves her, too. It’s all going great . . . until her past comes walking through the door. Andi must decide what happiness really looks like–and she just might need the wisdom of her new friends to figure it out.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Kate Hash is the author of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction and the writer behind the Substack newsletter It’s Been a Week. Born and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, she spent most of her twenties bouncing around the world, including a stint in Florence, Italy. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and two children. The Mother-in-Law Book Club is her second novel.
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