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 Roommate Rule!
Hi! Thank you for having me.
Please summarize the book for the readers here:
A chaotic travel influencer named Max is invited on a six-week trip to Pembrokeshire in Wales, and when his plus-one drops out at the last minute, a friend of his sister’s named Dylan takes his place. They’re total opposites, and as someone who’s extremely Type A, Dylan decides they should set some ground rules. Turns out they’re better at following some of them than others…
Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:
“Even when all we are is energy, I’ll find your soul in the stardust and keep loving you there too.”
Please share a few Fun facts about this book…
I intended to self-publish The Roommate Rule (following The Friendship Fling, which I self-pubbed in February 2024) and had prepped a few weeks’ worth of Instagram content to announce the book, including a title reveal, tropes, character art, etc. Just two days before the first post was scheduled to go live, I got a two-book deal with my UK publisher and ended up cancelling the posts and having to wait over a year before being able to talk about the book publicly! If you’re curious, the old title was Leave the Light On, but we ended up changing both books’ titles to fit the market a little better.
What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?
Max is, to put it bluntly, mostly interested in Dylan in a physical sense at first. But he can tell she’s hiding parts of her personality, and he’s drawn in by the idea of uncovering those secrets. He also immediately loves when she argues back with him, which says a lot about him as a person, I think.
Similarly, Dylan acknowledges Max is attractive initially, but has no desire to date someone like him. She finds herself pulled to him because of how direct and open he is about what he wants, and maybe she wants a little piece of that too.
Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?
I have a terrible habit of laughing at my own jokes, and the sillier they are, the better. For some reason, this line about the weasel/beaver tickles me every time. But basically, any scene in Max’s POV involving Bertie made me laugh to write, because he’s always so catty about him.
“This can be today’s new thing. Cross it off your bucket list.”
“It’s not a bucket list, it’s a series of new experiences I’m mentally keeping track of so that I can return to London satisfied with all the things I’ve done, then move forward with everything else I have planned for my life without what-ifs plaguing me.”
“Of course, silly me.”
“Go from the lower one!” Bertie calls up to us.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Take advice from the weasel.”
“Stop being so horrible to him.”
“What’s he gonna do? Build a dam?”
“That’s a beaver,” she mutters.
Readers should read this book….
If they like any of these specific things:
– tall FMCs
– tall(er) MMCs
– the Welsh coast
– snarky men who never stop flirting
– eldest daughters
– pears
– my first book
– yearners
– emotional grit but with a generally light tone
– a dearth of beds 🙁
What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?
I’m currently editing a book I drafted back in 2024 and I’d forgotten how much I love it. It’s set in London but it isn’t a summer book, for once! The characters are really special to me, and I hope that if/when readers get to meet them, they’ll love them too.
Having said that, the only upcoming confirmed US release I have right now is The Roommate Rule’s paperback on July 7. But watch this space!
Thanks for blogging at HJ!
Giveaway: One finished copy of THE ROOMMATE RULE to US-based winner
To enter Giveaway, please share this post on your Socials and Leave a comment below to this Q: If you were given the chance to go on a free six-week-long trip anywhere in the world, where would you go? And would you still go if you knew you’d have to share a tiny cabin the entire time with someone you didn’t get along with?
🎉 Giveaway Rules 🎉 ✨ Must be 18 years or older to enter. ✨ MUST leave a comment answering the giveaway question. ✨ Bonus Entry:Share this post on your social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and drop a comment below letting me know you've shared it. ✨ Winner(s) will be selected at random. ✨ No purchase necessary—just enter and cross your fingers! ✨ If you win, I'll need your full name and mailing address to send your prize. This information will be shared with the author, publisher, or publicist solely for prize fulfillment purposes. ✨ Giveaway closes 3 days from the date this post is published.
Excerpt from The Roommate Rule:
This is going worse than I’d anticipated, and for someone with a mild-to-moderate affinity for catastrophizing, that’s saying something.
Max has his back to me while he’s talking to the front desk, giving a few “uh huh”s and “yeah, that makes sense”s as he scrolls his own phone in his other hand. By the time he hangs up with a chirpy “thanks for your help,” I’m feeling hopeful.
He turns slowly and smiles. “So, funny story, you’re really gonna laugh. Turns out I forgot to ask for the bigger cabin. Look, the email is in my drafts, I just never pressed send.” He turns the cracked screen of his phone toward me, as if I needed to see proof.
I do not, in fact, laugh. Instead, my brain goes into overdrive. I agreed to this trip because we’d be in separate bedrooms, doing our separate things, not to live fully on top of a practical stranger.
My voice is desperate when I ask, “Can’t they move us into another cabin?”
“They’re retrofitting their two larger cabins at the moment as part of this whole accessibility initiative they’re working on, which is cool, actually, they’ve updated all the footpaths and—”
“Max.”
“Right.” He sees something in my expression that forces him back on track, though he still looks far less rattled than I feel. “Anyway. Both the bigger cabins are kind of a mess because of the renovations. They obviously wouldn’t have started working on them if they’d known we wanted one. So no, they can’t move us. But they were extremely apologetic, if that means anything.”
It doesn’t mean anything, not when it was his fault, not theirs, but I inhale deeply and try to keep calm.
“Good news, though,” he says, perching against the back of the sofa and patting the cushions. “This is actually a bed.”
“Amazing,” I say, relief flooding me as I step toward him, eyeing the sofa. It’s not massive, and I’m sure it won’t be the comfiest thing in the world, but it’ll work. “I’ll take it.”
“What? No.” He flings an arm out to stop me coming any closer.
“No way. I will.”
“You should take the bedroom.” My voice is breezy. “You’re taller. You need the bigger mattress.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he drawls, “but you’re not exactly short.”
“It’s your trip; I’m just tagging along. You take the bed.”
“As my guest, and because the mix-up was my fault, I’m saying you should take the bedroom.” Both his arms are out now, like he’s worried I’m about to hurl myself on the sofa and fall asleep on it right this minute. His tone is taunting when he says, “We could always share the bed?”
I inadvertently step back, my response immediate. “No, thank you.”
“Thought so.”
I can’t let him take the smaller, less comfortable mattress when he’s the one whose trip I’m crashing. If I weren’t here, he could’ve had an entire cabin to himself and starfished across the bed to his heart’s content. And I know that any normal person would just take the bed, but I can’t inconvenience him and owe him any more than I already do.
“If you’re trying to be a gentleman, you don’t need to.”
“I assure you, Dylan, I am never trying to be a gentleman.”
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Book Info:
Dylan is the kind of person who is always fifteen minutes early and never leaves things to chance–so she can’t believe she’s about to spend six weeks on a last-minute trip to Wales that she didn’t plan, living in a cabin with a man she’s only met once.
Max always goes with the flow, and after his plus-one drops out of his all-expenses-paid travel influencer trip, he’s happy for his sister’s friend to take the spot. After all, from what he remembers of their brief meeting a year ago, Dylan is the kind of woman he’d be more than happy to spend some alone time with.
Not that anything is going to happen between them, because Dylan knows getting involved with this reckless, irrepressible flirt is the last thing she needs. So she makes a house rule: they are roommates only, and under no circumstances can anything . . . untoward . . . happen between them.
But as the days go by, Max starts to realize how much he enjoys chipping away at the walls Dylan hides herself behind, while Dylan begins to admit to herself that there may be more to Max than she first assumed. And before she knows it, she finds herself wondering if their “roommate rule” might be one rule she actually wants to break…
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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.
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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