#Spotlight #Author and #NewRelease ~ Donna Simonetta
Please make welcome my "Rose" friend, Donna Simonetta! We're both with the same publisher, The Wild Rose Press, so it's always a treat when a sister rose visits my Tavern. We're celebrating her new release, A Sweeter Spot.
I absolutely love this cover, and I'm looking forward to reading Donna's new story.
I'm serving champagne and peach tarts, so get comfy and hear what Donna has to say about her new story.
A Sweeter Spot is the first book I’ve written with no fantasy elements. It’s a contemporary romance set in the fictional small town of Rivers Bend, which is located on the Virginia side of the Virginia-Maryland border. Without the support of angels, the Fae, witches, and were-creatures, I was stressed when I set out to write a contemporary. I decided to follow the old edict to ‘write what you know’, and I made my heroine a Connecticut librarian, who’d been working in the business world, but wanted to make the transition to library work. And my hero is a native Virginian, gentlemanly to the core.
Hmm…bears a certain resemblance to my husband and me.
Of course that was just the starting point, and Magda and Jeff go on to diverge pretty sharply from my honey and me. Sadly, I am not the granddaughter of a billionaire, nor is my husband a former NFL star, but I have to confess the initial similarities are leaving me feeling more vulnerable as A Sweeter Spot’s release date approaches. If readers hate Magda and Jeff, it will sting a bit more than if they felt that way about the characters in my previous books.
When Angels Fly was released last summer, I was terror-stricken by the whole process. It was my first published novel, and I had to learn everything as I went along. Seriously winging it! Thankfully, I had the support and guidance of fellow writers, like my host today, Mary Morgan. I was awed by the sense of community and support I received from other authors. It was not at all the cutthroat, competitive world I expected. They helped ease my way into the world of blogs, interviews, Twitter, Facebook author pages, and promotion.
This time around, I am much more comfortable with the publication process, so it’s less of a black hole of anxiety and cluelessness for me. However, I have a new worry with A Sweeter Spot. I’m feeling a little exposed and vulnerable as y’all get to know Magda and Jeff, and I’m hoping you like them as much as I do!
Excerpt for A SWEETER SPOT
“Being cheated on is no fun. It happened to me once. Up here,” he tapped his forehead. “You know it’s not your fault. But here,” he tapped his chest over his heart. “You feel like it has to be your fault – like you could’ve done something to prevent it. But you couldn’t have. It’s all on him, Maggie. Not you.”
She picked a dandelion, whose flower had turned into a puffball, and blew on it, scattering the fluff to the wind. “Maybe. Maybe not. But thanks for the support.”
She pushed to her feet and took a couple of steps toward the river. Jeff rose and followed.
How could he be so angry at a man he didn’t even know? How could this Pierce jerk have slept around on a woman like Maggie? And the prick had even made her doubt herself in the process. It was written all over her anguished face.
He stood behind her and gently kneaded her shoulders. He turned her to face him and cupped her face in his big hands.
“This Pierce guy is the biggest fool on earth to go to someone else when he had you at home, Maggie.”
She blinked away tears, and he felt his heart constrict. Before he could think it through and decide it was a really bad idea, Jeff dipped his head and captured Magda’s lips in a gentle kiss.
Blurb for A SWEETER SPOT
Magda knows a 28-year-old shouldn’t run away from home, but Rivers Bend is the ideal escape. Helping out her best friend will get her away from her uber-wealthy, controlling grandmother and duplicitous ex. She doesn’t expect the quirky little town to feel so much like home. Add in hotter-than-the-sun Jeff and his daughter, and leaving seems as unthinkable as it is inevitable.
Raising Sam alone, Jeff knew he wanted her to grow up in his supportive hometown. The arrival of a feisty new tenant sends Jeff's world spinning. Magda fills a void in his life that he’d like to make permanent.
Will love triumph over the most powerful woman in the country, and can they figure out how to make this happy-for-now in Rivers Bend into their happy-ever-after?
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More about Donna Simonetta ~
After years working in the business world, my love of reading led me to get my MLS, and I currently work part-time in a school library, a job that allows me lots of time to explore my other love - writing romance! I live in Maryland, with my husband, who is my real-life romance hero. We both enjoy traveling to visit our far-flung family and friends, and spending time on the beach with an umbrella drink and a good book.
