Spotlight & Giveaway: Wish Upon a Cowboy by Jennie Marts

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jennie Marts to HJ!

Hi Jennie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Wish Upon a Cowboy!

Tell us about the book with this fun little challenge using the title of the book:

W is for a Warm-hearted Western romance
I is for Inmate- what Harper was before arriving in Creedence to take back her son
S is for Star- a theme in the book and the name of Logan’s marshmallow-eating cow
H is for a Hot Hero who coaches and plays Hockey

U is for an Uplifting holiday story
P is for Peaches-the nickname Logan gives Harper after trying her famous Peach cobbler
O is for a single mom trying to Obtain custody of her son
N is for Nacho- a notch-eared mama cat

A is for an Adorable green-eyed kitten named Tinkerbell

C is for an enchanting Christmas tale (according to the STARRED review from Booklist)
O is for the housekeeper Occupation that brought Harper into Logan’s life
W is for Bryn, the Waitress, who introduced Harper to Logan
B is for a ridiculously sweet 8-year old Boy named Floyd
O is for Organize, which is what Harper tries to do to Logan’s life
Y is for the Youth hockey league that Logan coaches and Floyd just happens to play on.
 

Please share your favorite quote from the book.

I really love the part where Logan and Harper are decorating the tree and they put the star on top and she tells him why the Christmas star is her favorite…

“I don’t know. I guess I think of the star as a promise of something amazing ahead. Like the star the wise men follow in the Christmas story. They don’t question it, they don’t second-guess it, they just believe. And it led them to everything they would ever need. They didn’t have to earn it or even deserve it. They just had to follow the star, and the promise would be fulfilled.” The lights on the tree blurred and transformed to tiny twinkling stars as she blinked back the tears filling her eyes. “Sorry. I love the Christmas star the most, but I think stars in general are amazing. They’re so far away, and we shouldn’t even be able to see them, but we can. I think each one is like a little miracle, and maybe they shine so brightly because they hold so many of our wishes.”
They were standing shoulder to shoulder and not looking at each other, but she still felt as though they were seeing each other. As though here in the glow of a hundred tiny, sparkling lights, they were each giving the other a small piece of themselves, holding it out to see if the other would take it.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to the candlelight service at our church. I love standing with my family and singing Silent Night as we lift up our candles and fill the sanctuary with light. So, in that holiday spirit, I had to put a scene in this book where Harper could do the same with her family.
• I stole the name Nacho (the mama cat with the notch in her ear) from my husband. He has an aquarium of Greenback Cutthroat Trout at his Nature Center, and he gave that name to a fish with a notch in his tail, and I thought it was too funny not to steal.
• I am a hockey mom and my husband played and coached our son’s hockey teams. The scene in the book where the grandma tries to help with creating the taped knob on the end of Floyd’s hockey stick was inspired by my first pathetic attempt at trying to tape one of my boy’s sticks.

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?

This book is about a rancher and hockey coach, Logan Rivers, whose attempts to hire a housekeeper are hindered by women more interested in marriage than meal-planning. So when snarky Harper Evans arrives with zero romantic interest in him, he couldn’t be happier. But as he gets to know her, he finds himself hungering for more than her cooking.

Down-on-her-luck single mom Harper Evans’ trust in the wrong person landed her in county jail. Once released, she raced to Colorado to find her son. But now she has to get him home. Temporary work for a local rancher seems perfect, but to keep the job she has to deny her feelings for the hot cowboy who’s heating up her kitchen.

Logan’s secret learning disability has caused a financial mistake that could cost him everything. With the holidays approaching and a storm closing in, he and Harper have to save his ranch and fight for her son. But Harper is used to counting only on herself, so she has to find a way to trust the rancher who is offering her not just a home, but also his heart.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

This is a book about relationships—not just the hero and heroine, but of moms and sons and friends and finding a place in a community. It’s a story of forgiveness and redemption and second chances. Harper made a huge mistake and fears she may have lost her son in the process. This story is not just about her son forgiving her, but of Harper forgiving herself. It’s also got a lot of Christmas magic in it, and the theme of the Christmas star plays out in lots of little hidden moments in the book.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Paperback copy of Wish Upon a Cowboy by Jennie Marts

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I am big into holidays and family traditions, and this story has a lot of those Christmas traditions thrown in, from making dinosaur-shaped Christmas cookies to cutting down a Christmas tree in the woods. I would love to have you share one of your favorite holiday traditions.

 
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Excerpt from Wish Upon a Cowboy:

As she walked up the porch steps, Harper didn’t know if she’d just had a colossal stroke of luck or just landed herself in another gigantic pile of steaming poo. She didn’t know any of these people, didn’t normally trust folks much further than she could throw them, yet in the space of thirty minutes, she’d jumped in a car with a perky waitress and accepted a job keeping house for a hunky cowboy.
Bryn hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said Logan was hot. The man was sex on a stick—tall and lean, with muscled arms and eyes so blue a girl could get lost in them and not find her way out for days. A girl, but not this girl. No way. She needed this job, and the one thing Bryn had made very clear was that the best way to keep it was through this man’s stomach, not his pants.
It didn’t matter that his chestnut-brown hair was a little too long—just the way she liked it—or that the way a lock of it fell across his forehead made her want to reach up and brush it back. It didn’t matter that his smile had warmed her insides in a way that no man had since Michael. She wasn’t here to mix it up with a cute cowboy—she was here to do a job, earn some money, and get her son back. She needed to stay focused on her objectives.
“Welcome to Rivers Gulch,” Logan said as he opened the front door.
Harper took a step inside and gasped.
Logan let out a sigh as he looked around the room. “Yep.”
The house was a ranch style, with an open living room and kitchen. A long hallway on the right led to what Harper assumed were the bedrooms. A huge fireplace took up most of one wall in the living room, and large, comfortable furniture surrounded a heavy, square coffee table. The open area was decorated in farmhouse style in shades of blue and white, with weathered gray wood accents. A long butcher-block counter separated the two rooms, and the kitchen seemed to be a mix of modern and antique, with one edge of the counter holding a gleaming KitchenAid mixer next to a vintage cake stand and an old crockery jar stuffed with utensils.
The living area was covered with thick, gray carpet but gave way to dark wooden floors in the kitchen, and a heavy oak table surrounded by chairs filled the back corner of the room. The design of the house was all about function, but Harper could see a woman’s touch in the white antique pitcher filled with dried ruby-red roses and the wooden sign above the sink that read “Bless this home with love and laughter.”
It was a good house, and Harper imagined there was a lot of love and laughter in these walls. It spoke of home. Or she assumed it normally did. Right now, it spoke of one pissed-off woman.
A giant glob of meat loaf and mashed potatoes had congealed in the kitchen sink, and biscuits lay scattered around the room as though they’d been fired from a cannon. A broken egg leaked off the edge of the counter, its shell clinging to the side of the cabinet where the rest of the yolk had dripped to the floor. A broom lay in the middle of the room, and some kind of dark, gooey substance was spread across the top of the counter. Harper could only assume it was the gravy meant for the mound of potatoes. And that was just the kitchen.
The living room was a mess as well. It looked as if it had been torn apart and then someone had forgotten to put it back together again. Between the piles of laundry and the downed curtains, it was a war zone of chaos, with the vacuum standing sentinel amid the destruction.
Harper gazed up at Logan as she planted a hand on her hip. “Either you seriously pissed that woman off, or you really are in dire need of a housekeeper.”
He shook his head. “‘Hell hath no fury…’”
“Like a scorned, horny housekeeper?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Something like that.”
She couldn’t believe he was laughing. She wasn’t known for throwing tantrums like this, but her mother certainly was. And if her mom had thrown this kind of fit, her dad would have lost his shit. She’d witnessed some serious knock-down, drag-out fights between her parents, but she’d never seen her dad good-naturedly laugh off one of her mom’s stunts. Granted, her mom’s exploits usually ended with court fines or jail time, but still. “You’re being awfully calm about this,” she told him.
“This kind of feels like the state of my life right now. Just another friggin’ mess to clean up.” He gazed around the room and chuckled again. “Besides, what else am I gonna do? The deed is done, so no use crying over spilled milk—or mashed potatoes, as the case may be.”
She laughed with him. Geez. What a disaster.
He stepped between the strewn-about biscuits and picked up the fallen broom. Gripping the handle, he swung the end of it, connecting with a biscuit, and sent it sailing across the kitchen and into the overturned trash can. “Score.”
“Impressive.”
He whacked two more in, then let out a whoop. “Hat trick. And the crowd goes wild.” He grinned at her. “If only I played this well on the actual ice. Granted, it’s easier to score when there’s no pesky goalie getting in the way.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You play hockey?”
“A little. I played growing up and still get in a game now and then. I help coach a kids’ minor team now.”
Seriously? A cowboy who played hockey? And he coached kids? As if this guy weren’t hot enough, his heat ratio just shot through the roof.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Hot on the ice and tall in the saddle…

Rancher and hockey coach Logan Rivers’ attempts to hire a housekeeper are hindered by women more interested in marriage than meal-planning. So when snarky Harper Evans arrives with zero romantic interest in him, he couldn’t be happier. But as he gets to know her, he finds himself hungering for more than her cooking.

Down-on-her-luck single mom Harper Evans came to Colorado with one goal: to find her son and bring him home. Temporary work for a local rancher seems perfect, but to keep the job she has to deny her feelings for the hot cowboy who’s heating up her kitchen.

Logan’s secret learning disability has caused a financial mistake that could cost him everything. With the holidays approaching and a storm closing in, he and Harper have to save his ranch and fight for her son. But can Harper trust the cowboy who is offering her both a home—and his heart?

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Meet the Author:

Jennie Marts is the USA Today bestselling author of award-winning books filled with love, laughter, and always a happily ever after. She is living her own happily ever after with her husband, two dogs, and a parakeet that loves to tweet to the oldies, in the mountains of Colorado.

Author Website: https://jenniemarts.com/