a word about ‘waiting on Wednesday’:
I have decided to start participating in this book blogsphere meme with a few small changes of how it’s regularly blogged about by my fellow book bloggers. I will either be introducing my current reads of upcoming releases as I am in the process of reading them and/or I might be releasing a book review about a forthcoming title by which I had been blessed to read ahead of publication. The main purpose behind the meme is to encourage readers and your fellow book bloggers to become aware of new books being released which caught your eye and which held your interest to read. Sometimes if your still in the process of reading the books, its the titles which encouraged your bookish heart. I look forward to spending the next seasons of the year, talking about the books I have on hand to read, the books I’ve been reading and the books I might not even have a copy to read but which are of wicked sweet interest to become a #nextread of mine.
Today I am linking with Can’t Wait Wednesday via Wishful Endings!
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
It has been a long while since I’ve had the chance to soak into a Contemporary Rom of Ms Freeman’s – as the last entry I’ve read was “A Second Christmas Wish”; which coincidentally was my first ChocLit Christmas novel. Since my initial readings of “Search for the Truth”, “Before You” and this Christmas Rom – Ms Freeman has moved to a new publishing house Once More Chapter which is the digital imprint house for HarperCollinsUK! As you might have remembered – I used to be a reviewer for ChocLitUK and this is how my path originally crossed with Ms Freeman’s novels.
I was wicked excited I could be one of her book cheerleaders to boost the news of her newest release “The New Guy” – which is a light-hearted Contemporary Romantic Comedy about the head of a company and the one bloke who might be the one who needs to stay in her life but he’s also the bloke she sort of hadn’t considered much past the fling they shared once. The premise is an interesting one – because it talks about what happens when you encounter someone in one set of situations and then, they re-enter your life in another – how do you co-merge the two encounters OR do you endeavour to keep them separate but equal in your life? There’s the rub isn’t it though? As Sam is the person in charge at her company and you could see where the complexities would evolve if rumour let out about how she and ‘the new guy’ at work first met!
I admit, I have the tendency of reading harder dramas, evocative Historicals and generally in Romance I opt for second chances, new beginnings or meet-cute scenarios whenever I am not reading my beloved Love Inspired Suspense novels which keep me on my toes for jarring suspense with a dash of romance woven into the background! When it comes to Romantic Comedies I am a bit shy of exploring the genre overall as I tend to find the stories aren’t always my cuppa – however, when I find a writer I’ve previously have loved reading in the past, taking a chance on one of their Rom-Coms isn’t a hard choice! This is why I was keenly interested in finding out more about “The New Guy” by Ms Freeman.
A bit of this new story also reminded me of my readings of “Search for the Truth” – about the complexities of workplace romances and how corporate life can be its own tricky sea of navigating a personal and professional life!
Let’s introduce you into this new novel & have you brew a cuppa whilst you read the extract Ms Freeman graciously has provided! Afterwards there is a mini Q&A, too!
The New Guy
Subtitle: She's the CEO. He was the One Night Stand.
by Kathryn Freeman
Sam Huxton doesn’t do one-night stands, especially not with men she’s just met! But the hot guy at the bar was hard to resist and one night is all they share – no names, no numbers, just some much needed fun…
Until the same guy walks into Sam’s life the next day as her new employee. Sam never mixes business with pleasure and makes it clear an office fling with Ryan is off-limits. But after-hours…one thing can lead to another. Can Sam trust her heart and her business with the new guy?
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B07WQ2G7QL
Also by this author: Search for the Truth Cover Reveal, Before You Cover Reveal, Search for the Truth, A Second Christmas Wish Cover Reveal, Before You, A Second Christmas Wish
Published by One More Chapter
on 13th March, 2020
Published by: One More Chapter (@0neMoreChapter_)
the digital imprint of HarperCollinsUK
This is a Digital First Release – #PubDay is 13th March, 2020!
The GOOD NEWS is the print release is scheduled for 11th June, 2020!
Converse via: #TheNewGuy + #KathrynFreeman
along with #ContemporaryRomance or #Romance
ENJOY reading this beautiful First Chapter Extract from “The New Guy”:
(as provided by the author Ms Freeman)
Chapter One
Sitting alone at the bar in her local pub wasn’t how she wanted to spend the evening. Only a few hours ago, Sam had been with her family in Cornwall, saying goodbye to her grandad. And by saying goodbye she meant watching, tears streaming down her face, as his coffin slid behind a heavy velvet curtain.
She wanted to be back in Cornwall now, celebrating his life with her slowly turning hippy parents, her beautiful, slightly crazy sisters and her raucous but salt of the earth brothers. Drinking too much and laughing too loud, because when you’d lost the head of the family, the lynchpin, the man they’d all turned to for advice at some point in their lives, what else was there to do?
Full of misery, she downed the rest of her glass. She could at least drink. And while she was drinking, the dark, brooding guy who’d eased onto the stool to her right was a welcome distraction. Catching the barman’s eye, she smiled and signaled for another glass of champagne.
‘I’m celebrating.’ Sam turned to find brooding guy’s dark brown eyes looking at her; wary, a little irritated. Surprisingly magnetic. When she realised he wasn’t going to say anything, she laughed. Sober Sam would have been embarrassed, but two glasses of fizz had given her a buzz. ‘Celebrating isn’t the right word, but Grumps would appreciate the sentiment.’
Brooding guy kept his eyes fixed on hers. Come on, she willed him. I’ve given you a neat opening.
He turned his attention back to the half-drunk pint in front of him. ‘Enjoy.’
Enjoy? Had she lost her touch? She wasn’t a woman that men tripped over themselves to talk to; her hair was too red, skin too pale, eyes abnormally large and her mouth too big. All on top of a body that might have the height of a model but had the size of someone who enjoyed her food. Still, she was a woman most people, male or female, responded to. Charisma, her parents called it, but they were hardly unbiased. She preferred empathetic. Sensitive and perceptive worked, too. Actually no, scratch that last one. Perceptive implied an ability to assess, to judge a person’s character. History confirmed she was lousy at that.
‘Not interested in who Grumps is?’ Again, sober Sam wouldn’t have pushed, but tipsy Sam was determined to prove she still had the knack of getting others to talk.
The guy’s eyes flicked back to her and he gave her a dark look, annoyance radiating off him. ‘A weird dwarf?’
She blinked, then burst out laughing. ‘Grumpy, Snow White, I see where you’re coming from.’
He gave her a brief, false smile – if she read it correctly, it said bugger off and leave me alone. Then he hunched back over his pint.
With a sigh, Sam took a gulp of her freshly filled champagne. It tasted sour now, the bubbles too joyful. Against her will her mind circled back to the last week, and the sorrow of sitting uselessly by her grandad’s side as she watched him bravely lose his battle against cancer.
Oh, sod it. She wasn’t going to wallow. ‘Grumps was my grandad.’ She didn’t care if the guy next to her didn’t want to listen. She was going to talk.
You can truly feel the weight of what Sam is feeling emotionally within the extract from the first Chapter because of how well-placed we are into her thoughts, feelings and her state of mind. You gather the sense that she is completely a step removed from her comfort zone and yet, she’s pushing herself to be a bit more aggressively forward with a bloke who on the surface of things doesn’t quite seem to be as keenly invested in her as she is flirting with him!
She’s wearing her vulnerability on her sleeve and of course, being at a local pub and drowning emotions by the swig isn’t quite the best way to overcome emotional loss but Sam isn’t thinking about that kind of recovery right now. You can tell she wants someone to take stock of what she has to say, discuss what is pressing on her heart and soul and just find a bit of release.
I definitely wanted to ‘turn the page!’ and see what was going to evolve from here – as per the synopsis you gather a strong sense about the chain of events but there are a lot of questions between the coupling and the end results of how they find themselves in each others’ lives in a corporate sense of familiarity! I look forward to pulling the pieces together and seeing the fuller story Ms Freeman wants us to read!
And, now for a lively and short Q&A with Ms Freeman:
Sam is at an emotional crossroads in her life – where she is trying to resolve her feelings about her grandfather’s passing whilst embracing where she is with her life’s path. How did you want her emotional state of mind to be of an influence on her actions and choices as we first enter into “The New Guy”?
Freeman responds: That’s a great question, Jorie. It was important to me that the reader understood Sam was going through an emotional time when she first meets Ryan, because what she does next (you’ll have to read the book, though the blurb probably gives it away!) is totally out of character for her.
Ooh, I definitely can tell she’s not the kind of gal who would regularly chat up a bloke who is this ‘uninterested’ in her and then find herself caught between the sheets shortly thereafter! She’s walking such a firm step outside her comfort zone – I almost expected a portion of the story to be about her feeling run amuck in an emotional collapse!
What inspired the story to have such a keenly unique perspective about how sometimes the best guy to have in your life is the one you ‘let go’ without realising could be the one who was meant to stay?
Freeman responds: Umm, so I was asked by my publisher to set the story in the tech industry (gulp, I thought – what do I know about that?!) but after that, I had to decide how it was going to play out. Work place romances come with a special set of issues, but I wanted to up the ante on this by having him report to her, giving an extra layer of male ego complexity to the whole situation.
Tech stories are definitely at an all-time high right now! I admit, when I first saw the previews for #ZoeysPlaylist I hadn’t realised that it was a tech company. The story plays well off that bridge and for me – you can read my fuller thoughts about why #ZoeysPlaylist means so much to me and my Mum right now. However, back to tech stories overall – I think it might be a happy challenge to resolve as you really get to dive into an industry you might not know as much about but as you said – once you start to pull the romance bits together, it becomes a story rooted in those public vs private life scenarios which play out in a corporate setting!
How much fun was it to write this story as the premise and the overall character’s arc is a slight departure from your Contemporary Romances of the past? How did you to switch your style but still keep the heart of what you put into Romance be present in “The New Guy”?
Freeman responds: This is the first time I have worked with a publisher on a story line, rather than thinking one up alone. I found bouncing ideas off someone else so much more inspiring. At the heart of the stories I write though, are the characters, and these were left entirely down to me, so I was able to keep true to my writing style.
I did pick up the vibe this was a differently structured story from your past Contemporaries – however, I hadn’t realised it was collab with your publisher! What a wonderful bit of trivia before moving into reading the novel. I love hearing how these projects fuse well for both the writer and the publisher – where a new story can be curated together. I definitely knew you were keeping to your own style… that is what keeps me keenly interested in reading your Contemporary Roms – the way in which you bring your characters to life and the ways in which we find them in their everyday worlds.
This Book Spotlight is courtesy of the author: Kathryn Freeman.
Kindly help spread the word by tweeting this:
An exciting NEW BOOK by @KathrynFreeman1 is happily spotlighted on Jorie Loves A Story - read a chapter extract and mini #interview to find out about #TheNewGuy! Click To TweetNOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.
{SOURCES: Cover art of “The New Guy”, synopsis, author biography, author photo of Kathryn Freeman as well as the extract and promotional badge for “The New Guy” were provided by the author Kathryn Freeman and are used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #WaitingOnWednesday badge using Unsplash.com (Creative Commons Zero) Photography by Pacto Visual and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2020.
I’m a social reader | I love sharing my reading life
Jorie happily welcomes Kathryn Freeman to #JLASblog whilst announcing her NEW #ContemporaryRomance #TheNewGuy! Digitally released FRIDAY!🎊
📖🔦#BookSpotlight w/ an #extract & mini #interview
👉https://t.co/OJVHx4N0fT pic.twitter.com/CnaXBt10Lx— #SatBookChat (@SatBookChat) March 11, 2020
@joriestory
#WaitingOnWednesday | via #JLASblogCelebrating NEW #ContemporaryRomance by Kathryn Freeman "#TheNEWGuy" wherein Jorie shares an extract & a mini #interview!🙌
Pub day is FRI👍
📖🔦https://t.co/V87bpeUPCA#bookbloggers #BookBoost @BibliophileRT @bookbloggershub pic.twitter.com/SsbHzHLrQh
— Jorie Story 📖🎧 (@joriestory) March 11, 2020
Very fun, Jorie! I hope you love reading this one!
I do like the sounds of this!
My CWW
My dear Jorie, what a wonderful spotlight. Thank you so much for hosting The New Guy today, and doing it with such panache :-)
The pleasure was all mine, Ms Freeman! I am wicked thrilled you’ve dropped by to see it!! I truly loved sounding the trumpet today across my social feeds for you!!