I am so excited that MISCHIEF and MAYHEM by L.E. Rico is ON SALE for .99 today that I wanted
to share the news!
If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book by
Author L.E. Rico, be sure to check out all the details below.
This blitz also includes a giveaway for a $10 Amazon
or Barnes and Noble gift card, International, courtesy of L.E. and Rockstar Book Tours.
So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of
this post.
About the Book:
Title: MISCHIEF and MAYHEM
Pub. Date: July 9, 2018
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
(Bliss)
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 315
Welcome to Mayhem, Minnesota, home of
the Knitty Kitty, The Little Slice of Heaven Pie Shop, and O’Halloran’s
Pub—owned by the four young women known as The Whiskey Sisters.
In the wake of her divorce, Jameson
O’Halloran has gone man-vegan. And this is one diet she’s determined to stick
with. Even when her long-lost ex-brother-in-law shows up looking like two
scoops of double dutch dipped in chocolate… She’s not giving in. Been there and
still wearing the messy T-shirt.
It’s been a decade since Scott Clarke
left his family and his hometown, never to return. But when tragedy strikes, he
finds himself dragged back to the land of gossip, judgment, and the one woman
he absolutely, positively, without a doubt can never have. His brother’s ex is
off-limits. He just needs to keep repeating that to himself until it sinks in.
Excerpt:
The shelf is a little too high for my short
self, and I’m only able to brush the dishes with my fingertips.
“Oh, here, let me help you with that…”
Before I can object, he’s standing
behind me, reaching over me to get the dishes. For a brief second, his front is
pressed against my back. His broad, muscled, perfectly sculpted front. I feel a
wave of unwelcome warmth beginning under my collar and creeping up my neck.
“Thanks…” I murmur awkwardly, keeping my
back to him for a moment longer in an attempt to quash my blush.
“Okay. I’m just going to grab a shower before
my brother gets here, if you don’t mind.”
“Nope. Not at all,” I say quickly. “You
go right ahead.”
Once he disappears around the corner, I
silently smack my palm to my forehead.
What was that, Jameson? Why the blush?
He’s just your ex-husband’s brother, that’s all. This is insane. I’ve got to
stop this childish behavior. No. More. Men. Remember? No thinking about men. No
looking at men. No fantasizing about men.
Especially not that man!
I’m still shaking my head and silently
berating myself when I hear him behind me.
“Hey, Jameson, do you happen to know if
my dad keeps an extra toothbrush around? I dropped mine in the toilet and…”
I don’t hear the end of his sentence
because, when I turn to face him, I suddenly can’t hear anything. I’m too
entranced by the sight of him wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.
Oh, crap, oh crap, oh crap… I am in so
much trouble here. No men. No men. No men… I repeat the mantra over and over
again in my head, but clearly the rest of my body isn’t getting the memo.
Q&A With L.E.
How did you pick
Minnesota to be the location of the Story?
L.E. (Lauren): My primary
career is as a classical music radio DJ and when I was in my late twenties, I
had the chance to work for a nationally syndicated service called
Classical24—which happened to be based in St. Paul, MN. Even though I’d lived
all over the east coast, I knew the Midwest was a whole other world, so I was
pretty scared when I got there. But the Minnesotans welcomed me with open arms
and helped me weather (pun totally intended) my first winters, buying and maintaining
my first house and my ongoing struggle with depression. I had friends almost
immediately and was totally enamored of the quirky, cool community around me.
The polka mass at the local Catholic church, the obsession with hotdish, and
the state fair—where everything is on a stick and Princess Kay of the Milky Way
reigns supreme, were some of my favorites. Honestly, had I not met my husband
and moved back to New York, I’d probably still be there now!
Was it always your
intention with this book to do it about a sister and then two brothers?
L.E. (Lauren): Yes. We first
see Jameson in book one, Blame it on the Bet and it’s clear that her marriage
to Win is in trouble. Knowing that her book would be next, I was already
concocting scenarios for her to find love after divorce and by having someone
who’s been away for so long, I was able to use him to reintroduce the readers
—who may or may not have read Blame it on the Bet—to the wacky town of Mayhem
and its quirky residents. Plus, I knew it would make Win craaaazy! And that’s
always a bonus :^)
Was it always your
idea to have different issues like stroke, adoption, working in foreign
countries a part of the story or it just came as the story flowed?
L.E. (Lauren): It all came
as the story unraveled under my fingers. My characters often tell me what their
stories are, believe it or not! I start off with a very basic idea of who they
are and then the events just kind of unfold.
Adoption played into
this story. Was that something you researched or did you know someone who went
through that?
L.E. (Lauren): I have two
uncles who were adopted—the youngest of whom is two years younger than me. He
and I grew up more like brother and sister and we’re still very, very close
today. And, while I didn’t purposely set out to write a story about adoption,
it was easy to paint that kind of attitude that we were raised with—family is
family is family, blood or not. In the case of my elder uncle, my grandparents
had to fight for him when, mid-adoption, a “white” family was interested in
taking him (my grandparents are Latino). Those were totally different
times—even though it was just in 1961—and it was a battle but they never backed
down. So this idea that Big Win and Marjorie would do whatever they had to do
to adopt that child and keep him—and his identity—safe wasn’t foreign to me.
Was the county fair
always part of your original story?
L.E. (Lauren): Ohhhhhh yeah…
I’ve never seen anything like the Minnesota State fair. The food is all
deep-fried and on a stick, the rides are amazing, there are people walking
around in bee costumes for the honey judging. And, of course, there’s Princess
Kay of the Milky Way and her royal court— the inspiration for my Princess Mary
of Midwestern Dairy. They really do make a butter bust of her! How could I NOT
include that?! Although, I have to admit that the float catastrophe was all
mine.
Do you have a process
that you come up with when you are choosing names and personalities of your
characters?
L.E. (Lauren): I’ve run
through most of the guy names I like so I sometimes use a name generator for
help with that. I’ve got a ton of girl names, though. Sometimes I consult a
baby names book. The personalities just kind of unfold as I write. I had a good
idea of who Jameson, Win and Big Win were based on Blame it on the Bet. Scott
was a mystery to me—I had to figure out what it was about him that kept him
from coming home and confronting his past for a full decade. Oh, and then
there’s little Jackson…God help us all. He was the most fun of all! I’m at a
loss for what I’ll do with him as he gets older in the upcoming books!
Do you use daily
events sometimes as your inspirations?
L.E. (Lauren): Oh, sure, all
the time! The character of Bryan, Hennessy’s boyfriend, is basically me when I
first moved to Minnesota. I was the fish out of water—especially when it came
to things like winter preparedness and regional foods like lutefisk (yuck!) and
cheese curds (yum!). But more than events it’s people I know who inspire my
characters. Janet Lahti, the pie-making mystic is actually an aunt of mine.
She’s a bit of a psychic and has had some really spooky occurrences over the
years. Julie Freddino, aka The Knitty Kitty, is a girlfriend of mine who took
up knitting and gave me a pussyhat last year. It gave me the idea for her
business and she picked out her own purple hair.
Did you always have
big Win getting sick at the beginning in your draft?
L.E. (Lauren): Oh, yeah. In
the absence of the late “Pops” O’Halloran, Big Win is the paternal figure here.
So when his life is in serious jeopardy, it’s a crisis that sucks them all
in—the sisters, Win Jr, Scott—even Jackson is effected by the fall of his
“goppa.” So it’s a good thread to bring them all together in shared fear and
stress and grief. And with his life on the line, it was an opportunity for me
to explore the kind of man he’d been when he was younger—when Scott and Win
came along. It was also a chance to really see his incredible strength and the
love that comes with that.
Was that scene
considered the hook to the story?
L.E. (Lauren): I’m big on
starting things right smack in the middle so that the reader is immediately
thrown into the deep end. And that image of Big Win on the floor with Jameson
giving him CPR and little Jackson wailing in the background—well, it doesn’t
get a whole lot more high-stakes than that.
When you began to
write this book did you know it was going to be a romance and a mystery?
L.E. (Lauren): Bringing
Scott home was easy—his father’s health crisis put him in an impossible
position. He had to come back. But that begs the question—if he’s such a great
guy, why did he leave in the first place? So, yeah, it was kind of a mystery
for me as well while I sorted out what kind of demons might make someone run
away from their family—from their life—for a decade.
When do you know that
the time in the story calls for humor, like the float scene at the fair?
L.E. (Lauren): Honestly, I
didn’t even know I was funny until the reviews came in for book number
one—Blame it on the Bet. So it was pretty scary approaching Mischief and Mayhem
thinking I HAD to be funny. But I found my way. There were a couple of early
drafts that were just way too dark and my editor helped me find my way back to
a more lighthearted, funnier place—like Princess Mary showing up at the pub and
the iguana on the plane. Of course, there’s always going to be something around
the Knitty Kitty. But, yeah, that float scene—it was totally organic and it
STILL cracks me up!
If your book was made
into a movie who would you have play…
L.E. (Lauren): Yikes! This
is always tough for me…
Jameson: Rose Leslie
Scott: Theo James
Win Jr.: Alex Pettyfer
Win Sr.: Treat Williams
What song or songs
best describes your couple or book as a whole?
L.E. (Lauren): It’s the
theme song from the prologue through to the epilogue—with a generation in
between:
“Make You Feel My Love” –
Garth Brooks
“Make You Feel My Love” – Adele
What is your next
project and when is due out?
L.E. (Lauren): I’ve just
released a new, non-Whiskey novel, Counterpoint about two concert pianists who
bond over a tragic past, a dismal future, and their love for one another.
2019 will also see books for
the remaining two sisters, Walker and Bailey.
About L.E:
Award-Winning author Lauren Rico also happens
to be one of the top classical music
broadcasters in the country. Her voice is heard nationally on SiriusXM’s
Symphony Hall channel, as well as on radio stations in New York City,
Charlotte, and Tampa. She’s even been known to accompany travelers as they fly
the skies over Thailand, Oman, and China as part of the in-flight entertainment
on several airlines. Her love and passion for classical music have allowed her
to breathe new life into the stories of the great composers.
And now Lauren is telling some stories of her own…
Beginning with her erotic thriller, Reverie (Harmony House Productions,
2016), she set out to “put the sexy back in Bach,” creating a riveting tale of
passion, deception and redemption set against the backdrop of an international
music competition. She rounded out the trilogy with Rhapsody (Harmony House
Productions, 2016) and Requiem (Harmony House Productions, 2017).
From there, Lauren partnered with Entangled Publishing, LLC, to create
the first in her Symphony Hall series of romance novels, Solo (Entangled
Publishing 2017). Her most recent release, Mistletoe in Mayhem, is the third in
the five-book Whiskey Sisters series (Entangled 2018). Upcoming projects
include two more Whiskey Sisters romances, a follow-up to Solo and a
super-secret, as-of-yet-unnamed thriller.
Lauren hopes to bring classical music to a new audience by showcasing it
in twisty, steamy stories that grab the reader and keep them turning pages —
and YouTubing the music — into the wee hours.
When she’s not on talking on the radio or typing on her laptop, Lauren
enjoys time with her husband and spectacularly spoiled mini-schnauzer.
Giveaway
Details:
1
winner will win a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card, International.