Romantic Book of the Year – Risky Business by Amy Andrews!

Photo courtesy of Ally Blake

Photo courtesy of Amy Andrews

Photo courtesy of Amy Andrews

Click through to the Romantic Book of 2015

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From USA Today best-selling author Amy Andrews comes a new single-title romance about putting pleasure before business, and the risks we all need to take when we find someone worth risking everything for.

Samantha Evans’s life is going to hell. Not only has she rage-quit her beloved, high-powered job, but she is suddenly afflicted by hormones, free time, and an unavoidable, unignorable, undeniably gorgeous irritant in the form of Nick Hawke, her extreme sports star neighbour, who has come home to take over the reins of his grandmother’s second-hand bookshop. Sam needs something to keep her from begging for her old job back until she’s good and sure her boss understands how wrong he was, and taking a low-risk, low-stress job helping Nick at the bookstore might be just the thing.

After all, it’s not like Nick is the right guy to help her with her hormones. He’ll just be fun to look at while she searches for the one.

Nick has six months to get over an injury before Everest and a big, fat contract beckon. That means no sports, no danger and, above all else, no risks. It means playing it safe. And Nick Hawke doesn’t do safe. So he’s going to need something to stave off the boredom while selling books he doesn’t read to people who wouldn’t know a carabineer from a crochet hook. What could be safer than hiring a cranky, unemployed accountant to help run the bookstore? Sam is efficient and methodical and messing up her neat, post-it note world could be a fun way to pass the time….

Ruby’s are red…Two nominations!

We are so proud and excited to announce our two nominations in this year’s Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year (R*BY) Awards.

The winners will be announced August 22nd. Congrats to our Ruby Red Escape Artists, and all the nominees. Good luck!

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Nominations in the category of Long Romance Novel…

From bestselling author Amy Andrews comes a new single-title romance about putting pleasure before business, and the risks we all need to take when we find someone worth risking everything for.

Samantha Evans’s life is going to hell. Not only has she rage-quit her beloved, high-powered job, but she is suddenly afflicted by hormones, free time, and an unavoidable, unignorable, undeniably gorgeous irritant in the form of Nick Hawke, her extreme sports star neighbour, who has come home to take over the reins of his grandmother’s second-hand bookshop. Sam needs something to keep her from begging for her old job back until she’s good and sure her boss understands how wrong he was, and taking a low-risk, low-stress job helping Nick at the bookstore might be just the thing.

After all, it’s not like Nick is the right guy to help her with her hormones. He’ll just be fun to look at while she searches for the one.

Nick has six months to get over an injury before Everest and a big, fat contract beckon. That means no sports, no danger and, above all else, no risks. It means playing it safe. And Nick Hawke doesn’t do safe. So he’s going to need something to stave off the boredom while selling books he doesn’t read to people who wouldn’t know a carabineer from a crochet hook. What could be safer than hiring a cranky, unemployed accountant to help run the bookstore? Sam is efficient and methodical and messing up her neat, post-it note world could be a fun way to pass the time….

Risky Business mixes the classic romance of Philadelphia Story, the humour and wit of When Harry Met Sally, and a strong, contemporary Australian setting to create a delightful, irresistible, utterly satisfying treat of a novel.

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Jordan must save her farm from debt and sabotage – can she place her trust in a man from out of town?

Born and bred on the land, Jordan Windcroft is brave and independent. She’s had to be. Her life revolves around running her property almost single-handedly on next to no money, and waiting out her four years of probation — a rap that she took for one of her closest friends for a crime she didn’t commit.

Thankfully there’s an end to her problems in sight. Jordan’s probation period is almost up, and if she can just make the cattle sale, there’s a chance she can pull herself out of more than ten years of serious debt and keep her precious farm. The last thing she needs is for Reid Easton to start monitoring her.

Detective Senior Sergeant Reid Easton drives into Whitewater Creek on a mission to wrap up a three-year drug investigation; his only lead, Jordan Windcroft. The attraction between the two is immediate, but Reid is undercover and Jordan has a secret she can’t risk him discovering. Will either jeopardise their cause, for something as transitory as love – or will they keep their secrets to themselves?

This book is nominated under its original digital format title, Deadly Secrets.

Urban families with Amy Andrews

When people ask me to describe Risky Business, I tell them it’s an urban-family rom-com which is kinda guaranteed to get me a blank look.

Just what the hell is an urban family?

Oh, I’m so pleased you asked!  🙂

I guess I can give you the long answer – a group of people – some could be related but not necessarily – from different places, coming together to form a community within an urban setting.

But, personally I’ve always found a picture is worth a thousand words….

The first time I ever heard the term urban-family was in Bridget Jones’s Diary and her three besties are absolutely the epitome of this modern cultural phenomena. Jude, Tom, and Shazza are Bridget’s family in the city. They’re not related in any way but as a bunch of London singletons they’ve formed a close-knit, “family” unit.

Another classic example of an urban-family is the gang from Friends.

Friends, set in New York, has more complex relationships going on between its characters. Ross and Monica are siblings. Monica and Rachel are old school friends. Chandler and Ross also went to school together. Joey lives with Chandler in the apartment across the hall from Monica and Phoebe forms the 6th member of the family whose daily lives revolve around each other and their friendships.

A more modern example is the brilliant Big Bang Theory.

Big Bang is set in Pasadena starring a bunch of geeks (none of them related to each other) and one hot blonde coming from cities and towns all over the USA and finding their tribe.

All these shows have an urban family at their core. The other thing they all have is a common place to meet, which I believe is another important element in the urban-family dynamic. In Bridget Jones it’s their local pub. In Friends, it’s Monica’s apartment or maybe the coffee shop Central Perk. In Big Bang its Sheldon’s apartment.

In my urban-family rom-com Risky Business the hub of the community is a second-hand romance bookshop. An injured Nick comes home to recover and, for something to do, takes over the reins of his dead grandmother’s bookshop. Samantha, his brainy, curvy neighbour and romance novel devotee needs a job so she ends up there too. Then we have the regulars that come into the shop. Old Dulcie Reardon. Sal the office worker who got dumped by her boyfriend for “getting too fat”. Kelly whose initial crush on Sam morphs into a lovely friendship. Vonnie who likes her books hot and spicy, Dora who likes a spot of romantic suspense, and Bernie who pops into buy historicals for his mum and her friends at the nursing home.

Then there’s Sam’s sister, Bec, who, although isn’t there in person until the end, is as much a part of the community consciousness as any of them.

So here we have another bunch of people from different walks of life coming together to form a community and the shop is their hub. It’s the place where books are read, lamingtons are eaten, and a campaign to save their favourite iconic tea shop from the wrecker’s ball is run. It’s the place where Nick and Sam fall in love.

I love these kind of stories. I love their urban, contemporary feel, but I also love how they have a sense of “small town” about them despite the broader cityscape. Urban-family stories are, above all, community stories with all the heart and quirk and richness that brings to a book.

I think they deserve their own sub-genre and I’m going to be writing a lot more of them!

 

Brr…it’s cold in here – Must be some July Releases in the atmosphere!

Guaranteed to generate some heat on those long, cold, winter nights 🙂

From best-selling author Amy Andrews comes a fabulous, funny, flirty new single-title romance about putting pleasure before business, and the risks we all need to take when we find someone worth risking everything for.

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Escape releases its first short story anthology this month, an erotic collection with a spirited twist from Elizabeth Dunk. Follow the journey of four remarkable women — Luisa, Anna, Cara, and Jan — and the four spirits that set them on a new path to sexual freedom and boundless pleasure.

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From Escape Publishing’s Queen of historical Australian romance, Téa Cooper,  comes an adventurous new story about a privileged member of Australian’s colonial squattocracy, a bushranger, and a very special horse.

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