Our final spotlight is on my brand-new book, releasing today, “Fifteen Minutes of Summer”!
“As long as people keep talking about me, I’m happy.” Former reality-TV contestant and current fashion designer/celebrity reporter Summer Young lives by those words. Since her time on the “Ragged Royalty” program Summer’s been looking for her big break in either fashion or show biz, whichever will let her show her family of literal geniuses that she can still be a success without being smart.
Touched to be asked to help her ex-husband Kent and his crazily private fiancée Madeleine-Cora plan their nuptials, Summer throws herself into taking charge of everything and being the perfect bridesmaid and even making MC’s bridal gown. At the same time, she’s juggling her romance with show-mate Aaron and her growing friendship with Kent’s brother Ron and the pressure from her celebrity-gossip-site boss who’s demanding every intimate wedding detail Kent and MC would never want shared.
If Summer shares those details with the world, she’ll get the attention and approval she’s always wanted, but she’ll lose her friends and the people who matter most to her. Are her fifteen minutes of fame worth the privacy they’ll cost?
My seventeenth book (!! I still can’t believe that!) is the third in the Seven Exes series, following “Seven Exes are Eight Too Many” and “Bad Will Hunting“. While my Toronto books are loosely linked, these three really are a series – “Bad Will Hunting” starts a few weeks before the end of “Seven Exes are Eight Too Many” and runs past it, and “Fifteen Minutes of Summer” starts where “Bad Will Hunting” ends then flashes back to explain how we got there before continuing forward to see where we end up!
The inspiration for this book was two-fold: Summer’s loud dramatic nature cried out to have its chance to be a main character, and I knew there was more to her than met the eye. I’m not positive I’d want to be stranded on an island with Summer, but she sure was fun to write. :)
A few things you might not know about “Fifteen Minutes of Summer” (code name Nectarine):
1. Some of the Toronto characters managed to sneak into this. I didn’t intend to do that, but when you’ve written pop stars and movie stars and then you write a celebrity gossip reporter, the urge to combine them is kind of overwhelming. :)
2. I did a little contest on my Facebook page back when I was just starting this book, and the winners had the chance to give me names to use for the book. So Annabelle and CJ and Agnes and Steve and Lucy and Dominic were all reader-supplied, and it was fun to write about them and wonder how the readers would feel about how I used their names. (Good, I hope!)
3. At this point, I don’t intend to go on and write about all the exes, but one never knows. :)
“Fifteen Minutes of Summer” should now be live at all retailers (if not, check back later today!). You can pick up your copy right here, and I hope you enjoy it! :)
And thank you for reading these spotlights. It’s been fun looking back on all the books I’ve produced in ten years of writing! :)