Title: The Lucky Charm (Portland Series #1)
Author: Beth Bolden
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Publication Date: April 30, 2014
Event Organized By: Literati Author Services, Inc.
Synopsis
IT ’S THE BOTTOM OF T HE NINTH . . .
Izzy Dalton’s about to strike out. Her new job as the sideline reporter for the Portland Pioneers major league baseball team is problematic on several levels:
- Baseball is her least-favorite sport. Falling behind golf, tennis, and maybe even curling.
- What Izzy knows about baseball could fill about three minutes of airtime.
- Her last experience in front of a camera was in college. Six years ago.
- The Pioneers’ second baseman has a wicked sense of humor and even wickeder blue eyes.
AND A FULL COUNT. . .
Jack Bennett couldn’t be more uninterested in a little sideline action. He just wants to show up at the park and win baseball games. Izzy is the one woman he should steer clear of, but she’s also the key to his success–and his heart, too.
All Izzy has to do is convince her misogynistic boss she’s competent, learn what the heck an RBI is, and stay away from Jack Bennett. Izzy tells herself it’ll be a snap, but 162 games is longer than she ever imagined and Jack more irresistible than she counted on.
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About the Author
Beth Bolden lives in Portland, Oregon with one cat and one fiance. She wholly believes in Keeping Portland Weird, but wishes she didn’t have to make the yearly pilgrimage up to Seattle to watch her Boston Red Sox play baseball. If only the Portland Pioneers weren’t only figments of her imagination.
After graduating from university with a degree in English, Beth unsurprisingly had no idea what to do with her life, and spent the next few years working for a medical equipment supplier, a technology company, and an accounting firm. Now Beth runs her own business as a Girl Friday for small business owners, assisting them with administration, bookkeeping and their general sanity.
Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. Her first novel, The Lucky Charm, will be available in the beginning of 2014.
In her nonexistent spare time, she enjoys preparing overambitious recipes, baking yummy treats, cuddling with the aforementioned cat and fiance, and of course, writing. She’s currently at work on the The Lucky Charm‘s sequel, featuring Noah Fox. She hopes he’s a lot easier to wrangle than Jack Bennett was.
Top 10 Books That
Inspired Me to Write The Lucky Charm
This is a really hard list to compile because I am a huge reader and have been for almost as
long as I can remember. I’ve been reading romance since I was about 14 and
found my mom’s few romance novels buried behind the Anne McCaffrey and Terry
Brooks she normally favored. I can’t remember exactly but like so many others
my age, Nora Roberts was probably one of the first romance authors I read, and
one I still read today. I think she’s had the kind of career we all dream about
when we fantasize about being a romance author—and I can’t deny the influence
she’s had on me as an author. But she hasn’t been my sole influence. I read a lot and it was really tough to narrow
this list down to only ten books.
1.
Tears of
the Moon by Nora Roberts
This is one of my most beloved
novels. I revisit it at least every year or so. It’s a testament to just how
great this book is that while the other books in this trilogy are fantastic
too, this is the one that really sticks with me. Nora writes such wonderful,
human, real characters. They’ve got
their own little idiosyncrasies that make them tick, that turn them into so
much more than broad-stroked caricatures. But the thing that I love the most
about Tears of the Moon is the
fundamental respect and support Shawn and Brenna show each other. Sometimes
they might not agree with what the other is doing, but they’re never not supportive. When I was writing Jack
in The Lucky Charm, I wanted him to
never give Izzy a reason to doubt his love and his support. He knows what kind
of difficult position she’s in with her job and even though it’s hard as hell
on him to keep his hands off of her, he does simply because she asks him to.
2.
Nobody’s
Baby but Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Susan Elizabeth Phillips is
probably my soul-twin. Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. If she reads this by
some miracle, Susan, I promise, I’m not as weird as that came out! But the
first time I read her Chicago Stars series, and this was probably ten years ago
at least, I knew I had to write a similar series someday—but about baseball. So
I’ve been thinking about the Portland Pioneers (or in whatever iteration they
existed in before they even had a name) for a long time.
Nobody’s Baby but Mine is such a strong book, with so many great
undercurrents running through it, but they don’t distract, they only emphasize
the main plot and the main conflict. Plus, I love how Jane never lets Cal get
away with anything and I confess to
thinking about a few of their scenes together while I was writing and echoing
some of that strong self-reliance in Izzy’s personality. Also the cereal killer
part is literally one of the funniest scenes in a romance ever.
3.
Mr.
Impossible by Loretta Chase
Loretta Chase writes such
amazing heroes. Even when a book of hers isn’t on par with one of my very
favorites of hers, it’s still pretty damn fabulous. A lot of her heroes tend to
be more alpha, but she can write a great beta, like Rupert Carsington from Mr. Impossible. Rupert tries to pretend
he’s just a big, dumb brute, and maybe in comparison to the brilliant Daphne,
he is a little, but he’s really so much more. He brings quickness and humor and
heart to the story. And that’s what I really wanted to bring to the page when I
wrote Jack Bennett. Someone who infuriates with his sometimes kooky, sometimes slightly
off-kilter sense of humor, but can’t help but make you smile.
4.
Body Check
by Deirdre Martin
Like I said earlier, Susan
Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago Stars series gave me my first taste of how good a
sports romance could be, but a lot of her later books didn’t have as much of a football flavor as I
wanted—I’d later discover why she did this, because it’s freaking hard to write
a romance that takes place during a
sports season when one of the main characters plays the sport in question. A
book that does this amazingly well, and does it for quite a bit of the
continuing series is Body Check.
Focusing on the fictional New York Blades NHL team, you can practically smell
the sweat in the locker room. Plus major points for a totally authentic plot that
brings the hero and the heroine together.
5.
Pretty much anything
by Julie James. But I’ll settle for Something
About You
Julie James is a comic genius.
Her books pretty much define romantic comedy in the modern age for me. She only
writes one book a year, but they are always
worth the wait and I am never, ever disappointed. Her workplace romances
are also always amazing. Practice Makes
Perfect is one of her earliest books and the story between two rival
lawyers trying to make partner at a top firm is pure sugary froth with just
enough of a solid base. But Something
About You is a masterpiece of situational comedy, one hot FBI man and a
smart ass district attorney, and crazy chemistry they have together. So many
people don’t realize just how difficult it is to write comedy, but man, it’s tough. Especially to make it feel so
effortless, and that’s something Julie James does brilliantly. You never feel
her behind the scenes, pulling on the characters, trying too hard to be
amusing. Her books just are. I can’t
tell you how many times pre-readers and betas told me, “this just isn’t funny.
Isn’t it supposed to be funny?” Or people laughed at all the wrong places. I
worked on the humor in The Lucky Charm a
lot, and was pretty satisfied when I ended up with “mildly amused” as the main
reaction. But I guarantee you will literally laugh out loud when you read Julie
James.
6.
Good For
You by Tammara Webber
I don’t read a lot of NA or
college-age romance. My sister is just graduating from college this year, and I
spend a lot of time worrying about her. It’s not very reassuring to read about
all the shenanigans she could get up to. Nevermind that I was far, far worse. I found Tammara Webber on
Dear Author, and literally devoured her Hollywood trilogy in one or two days.
But Good For You left such an
undeniable impression on me, it’s hard to even express it in words. I remember
so vividly curled up on my couch, reading the scene of Dori and Reid’s first
kiss over and over and over, with tears literally rolling down my face. It’s
not a sad scene, by any means, but the way Webber expresses Dori’s emotions in
that particular moment struck such a chord in me that I still go back and
revisit this book all the time.
Sometimes I think we read so
much romance that we can forget how truly strong and transformative love can
actually be, and it’s the very best writers that can remind us. I hoped to
impart a little of that strength into The
Lucky Charm.
7.
Private
Arrangements by Sherry Thomas
Sherry Thomas is, hands down,
my favorite author. The things she does with language do unspeakable things to
my heart. And even more amazing, English isn’t even her first language. I
remember the first time I read Private
Arrangements, her first novel, and being absolutely blown away by the power
in the story. When Cam and Gigi clash and love and suffer, it feels so much
bigger than just their private lives. Their love affair is epic, but it’s the
dialogue, especially the understated and unspoken thoughts we glean from her
characters, that does all the heavy lifting.
It’s so difficult to figure out
how much of a character’s inner thoughts we should share with the reader—you
have to impart something, but if you
overshare, the flow of the novel becomes heavy and droopy. Sherry Thomas has
never been guilty of this in her entire life. I know I am, but then I’d be
happy to write a novel even half as powerful as Private Arrangements.
8.
Happy Ever
After by Nora Roberts
The question is, could I have
limited myself to only one Nora
Roberts book on this list? It was kind of inevitable that I’d fail there. But Happy Ever After is very much a
different book than Tears of the Moon.
It’s got none of that dreamy, fantasy feel to it; it’s very much a “real-life”
book and one I looked to for inspiration when I created a female character
whose career ambitions were a very real and prominent part of her personality.
Parker in Happy Ever After isn’t
going to change in any real way; she’s always going to work like a demon, but
with Malcom, she learns to find some balance. And that’s exactly what I strived
for when I wrote Izzy. Work is always going to be a significant part of her.
She’s not just going to give it up to be with Jack. That’s not who she is, and
he probably wouldn’t love her as much as he does if she was that person. So when I wrote Izzy, balance inspired by Happy Ever After was really what I was
going for, and I like to think that by the end of The Lucky Charm, Izzy’s begun to find that tricky balance.
9.
The
Chocolate Touch by Laura Florand
Laura Florand’s books are a
rather new discovery to me, but in a rather short amount of time, she’s become
one of my favorite authors. The Chocolate
Thief, the first book in her Chocolate in Paris series is awesome and
hilarious and a whole score of other fabulous things, but I think The Chocolate Touch is where Florand
really shines. In fact, she takes a truly horrific incident in the past of the
heroine and is able to both portray just how impacted her life is by it but not
let it ever define her. Tragic
backstories seem a dime a dozen now, but I loved how Jaime never lets her past
control her present. She struggles against the fear and the restrictions it
might place on her, and you can’t help but have massive respect for her. Izzy’s
story is rather sad too, and while it does still have an impact on her present,
she ends up in a place where she finally fights the restrictions she’s let it
put on her ability to choose what she wants to do with her life.
10.
Hot Island
Nights by Sarah Mayberry
Like so many other authors on
this list with fabulous, extensive backlists, I struggled with which of
Mayberry’s books to put on this list—there are just so many wonderful ones. But
I finally settled on Hot Island Nights because
it’s a great story and I thought it really illustrated the concept of setting
so brilliantly. The book opens in a rather drab, staid area of London, but by
the time Elizabeth leaves England and heads for sunny Australia, the mood of
the book shifts. As the sunshine grows more intense, she seems to shed more and
more of her own inhibitions. The Lucky
Charm takes place over summer, as the baseball season does, and so much of
the book takes place outside, mostly at ballparks but at a few other outdoor locations
as well. And I wanted the sun overhead and the green grass below to be as much
of a character as Jack and Izzy.
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