Guest Post: My Love Affair with Florida by Amie Denman
Hello lovelies! Amie Denman, author of The Gull Motel, is here today to share a guest post about her 'love affair' with Florida. I haven't been to Florida... yet, and it would be great to have her book on my ever-growing TBR so at least I have an idea. Plus, this sounds like a wonderful story. Check. Added. :)
Amie is on currently on blog tour to support her newly released novel, The Gull Motel, a sweet contemporary romance. Let's read and share this guest post ... and, oh, don't forget to enter the giveaway after reading! :)
*****
When Savvy Thorpe rolls into The Gull Motel on the Gulf Coast of Florida, she expects to stay a few weeks. Sure she loves her aunt and uncle’s aging 1950s beach motel, but she has no idea she’s in for much more than a beach vacation.
I totally wish this would happen to me.
However, I live in Ohio. Ohio, for Pete’s sake. For years, I’ve been tempted to make Florida my permanent home. What am I waiting for? I’m usually terrible at resisting temptation. I’ve told myself all the usual lies people in the North tell. I just love the change of seasons. I’d miss cool autumn days. Pumpkins. Frost. Snow. Shoveling snow. Falling on my ass in the iced-over mall parking lot. Scraping ice off my windshield. Breaking the key off in the door lock because it is That. Damn. Cold.
Who am I kidding? I should end my long-distance love affair with Florida and move a thousand miles south. I could shack up with Florida without even blushing.
I know where this all started. I grew up in a small Ohio town filled with old people. You know where they went in the winter. The old man next door gave sage advice about travelling: take half the clothes and twice the money. His wife always brought the same sensuous gift to me and my sisters. Orange perfume in a little container shaped like an orange. It was wonderful. I’d hide it and hoard it in my room. I’d open it carefully and smell it. A guilty pleasure for a 7-year-old.
When I wrote The Gull Motel and Savvy’s marketing ideas about a return to “Old Florida” with roadside stands, polka-dot bikinis, Alligator kitsch, and orange blossom perfume, I was thinking about the yearly gift from the elderly couple next door. I wonder if I could find an old souvenir stand somewhere in The Sunshine State that still sells it.
*****
Thanks for sharing the post, Amie! Again, this sounds like a wonderful story.... My love for contemporary romance. :)
More about the book:
The Gull Motel by Amie Denman
Sweet Contemporary Romance
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords | ARe | Turquoise Morning Press
Savvy Thorpe needs a vacation. Finally finished with college, she heads to her favorite shabby motel on Florida’s Gulf Coast where her aunt and uncle always save her room twenty-four. She quickly finds out, though, that The Gull Motel is not just her home away from home. It’s hers to manage while her aunt and uncle take an extended trip.
Skip McComber, The Gull’s former maintenance man, has been working on Savvy’s nuts and bolts for years. Now the new owner of the bar next door, his mission is to renovate a pirate bar while being a walking temptation for the girl he can’t get off his mind.
For Savvy, keeping her cool running a motel in Florida heat is one thing, but navigating the steamy waters of a former fling takes a whole other kind of savvy. In addition to the motel and the man next door, Savvy stumbles on a plot to swindle land from the residents of Barefoot Key. Devalued properties tumble like dominoes until Savvy musters her colorful crew from The Gull Motel to make the pillagers walk the plank.
About the Author:
Amie Denman lives in a small town in her native Ohio with her husband and sons. Her two cats and large yellow labrador are kind enough to share a sunny office where she lets her imagination run wild. Reading books was her favorite escape as a child, and growing up four houses away from the community library encouraged her addiction. When she's not reading or writing, she enjoys walking and running outside. The helpless victim of a lifetime of curiosity, she's been known to chase fire trucks on her bicycle just to see what's going on. Amie believes that everything is fun: especially roller coasters, wedding cake, and falling in love.
... Giveaway:
Amie Denman is giving away a paperback copy of The Gull Motel (US only)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
0 Dazzling Comments