I am thrilled to share the news that my second novel Rome for the Holidays just launched on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. I had so much fun writing this delicious fake dating trope RomCom. It’s book two in the Lit Lovers series but since these books are all stand alone, you can read them in any order.
Here’s a little more info about the book from the back/blurb:
It’s only for the week, then they’ll go their own separate ways.
Dumped and alone for the holidays, Emily needs to escape. She’ll even interview smug self-help guru Blaze Smith, if it gets her a free trip to Italy.
“Of all the random strangers I could have kissed in an airport lounge on the one and only time I’ve let my guard down enough to do something so reckless, it had to be this guy. My assignment.”
Who trusts a relationship expert who’s been publicly dumped? Blaze Smith’s manager wants him to fake date to save face, but he already feels like a fraud.
“Of all the times to meet someone I actually feel this kind of a connection with it had to be a journalist who’s gathering intel on me. There’s nothing I want more right now than to call off the entire book tour, cancel the interview, and whisk Emily away somewhere.”
Pretending to be in love is simple. Having real feelings about your make-believe romance is complicated. While Blaze and Emily may have no real future, at least they’ll always have Rome for the Holidays.
Writing this book involved some grueling research. I had to spend a whole week in Rome and another five days traipsing around Tuscany. The lengths I am willing to go to!
Taking a trip to Italy wasn’t exactly grueling. But recovering from Covid-19 afterwards was. It finally came for me at the very end of our trip. Fortunately we still had a blast and I had loads of Blaze & Emily worthy moments to inspire me, including viewing glorious Pitigliano at sunset and getting a little too close to a wild boar.
One of the things I was interested in investigating in Rome was whether there really were lots of paparazzi. I live near LA and grew up outside of NYC, so seeing people standing around and stalking celebs with cameras seems commonplace. “Paparazzi” is Italian but didn’t know whether I’d see as many in Rome.
Was I schooled! Everywhere we went in Rome, we ran into them. At one hilarious point during our trip my husband was followed by an overzealous group who were sure that he was a famous American actor. It reminded us of a scene from Woody Allen’s film To Rome With Love, which is incidentally a fantastic movie to watch if you’re a fan of the eternal city.
I hope you’ll read Rome for the Holidays and let me know what you think. Meanwhile I am hard at work on book three. Can you guess which Lit Lovers series characters will be featured this time?