Guest Author: Cate Lord & Giveaway!

I’m so pleased to have contemporary romance author Cate Lord guest blogging today.  Some of you may already know Cate under another name – as Catherine Kean, she writes award-winning Medieval romance.  But Cate’s with us today in her other guise, talking about her latest book, Lucky Girl.  Take it away, Cate!

A few years ago, my family and I set ourselves a project: to watch all of the James Bond movies in chronological order. While I can’t remember all of the plots now, the films were entertaining, and it was fun to recognize the different actors who played the suave, handy-with-a-gun secret agent James Bond. Of course, every movie featured a model-beautiful, sexy, sophisticated woman—the “Bond girl.” Gosh, how many of us secretly dreamed of being one of those?

When I wrote my contemporary romantic comedy Lucky Girl, I couldn’t resist a literary nod to those films. I gave my British hero Nick Mondinello the nickname Spy Man. He looks like a younger version of Pierce Brosnan, who played Agent 007 in four movies. Nick’s also intelligent, charming, lusted after by women everywhere, and resourceful (gosh golly, does he know his way around a kitchen).

The story’s heroine, Jessica Devlin, is an American beauty editor for the Orlando-based magazine O Tart. The book is written entirely in her point of view, and from her musings, it’s clear she’s everything a Bond Girl is not. Her blah brown hair is rarely right (not like that of the perfectly coiffed Bond heroines) and she dreads wearing sexy high heels because she’s likely to trip and fall on her face. Her figure is far from slim—thanks to her fiancé who betrayed her months before their wedding and caused her to drown her sorrows in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Due to that heartbreak, her self-confidence is non-existent, and so is her love life.

Overdue for a vacation, Jess takes two weeks off and flies to England to be maid-of-honor in her cousin’s wedding. Jess is anxious about the trip, and not just because her cousin’s getting the happily-ever-after Jess wanted. There’s also the embarrassing incident that took place two years ago after Jess’s grandfather’s funeral; it involved an English pub, too many drinks, an overflowing of grief for her grandfather, and a handsome stranger who comforted her while she bawled. That man was Nick.

Jess assures herself there’s no chance of running into Nick again. She sets herself a vacation mission: to have as much fun as possible for a gal who’s twenty-nine and single. Then, she steps into the English church on the wedding day and finds that the best man is Nick.

Yikes!

Jess resolves to avoid him, but she can’t ignore that he’s one gorgeous, intriguing Brit. Moreover, fate keeps throwing them together in ways that challenge her perceptions not only of Nick, but of herself.

Writing Lucky Girl was a fun, exciting adventure for me as a writer. I lived every quirky, humorous, crazy moment with Jess. I giggled with her, held my breath when she flirted with Nick, and got a little teary-eyed when the plot knocked her on her butt. It was an adventure for Jess, too—and I don’t mean adventure in the car-chasing, boat-exploding, secret-agent espionage kind of way. I mean as a journey of personal growth, because Jess isn’t the same woman at the end of the book as she was in the beginning. As I wrote her story, I wanted her to become a Bond girl. She deserved to be confident, beautiful, happy, and desired.

Thanks to Nick, who is a far more complex and noble character than she ever imagined, she finds true love. In the end, she’s not just a Bond girl. She’s one lucky girl.

If you could be a heroine from a movie, who would you be? Leave a comment and you might win one of two eBook copies of Lucky Girl. Vanessa is also giving away a digital copy of her contemporary romance Hardball. Good luck!

Vanessa, here.  Great post, Cate!  And you heard the lady – just answer Cate’s question for a chance to win a copy of Lucky Girl and Hardball.  And be sure to stop by Cate’s website, for all the info on her books.