Thank you for taking the time to join me for my second stop on the Blog Tour for Single by Christmas by Rosa Temple. First of all let's take a look at the book and then you can read an excerpt and then finally enter the lovely giveaway!
About the book:
You’ve heard the
saying, ‘opposites attract’ haven’t you? Well meet 27 year old Alex Marshall, a
party girl with a penchant for free flowing Prosecco, and her devilishly
handsome scientist boyfriend, Charlie, who loves jazz and dinner for two.
Alex and Charlie
are together for 11 blissful months until Alex goes out of town and does
something she will later regret. Was she drunk? You bet. Does she want Charlie
to know? Well what do you think?
With the couple
about to spend their first Christmas together will Charlie be the forgiving
kind or will Alex be Single by Christmas?
This is a feel
good, Christmas novel with very few mince pies, not much snow and absolutely no
mistletoe – just a couple of best friends, a sociopathic nemesis and a lot of
drinking.
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Excerpt
You might be
wondering what I was doing, sitting in a graveyard at five minutes to midnight
on Christmas Eve. And if you guessed gravedigger or graverobber, you’d be
wrong. But ask yourself, who sits in a graveyard when it’s cold and out and out
spooky unless it’s absolutely critical? The church, where I attend Midnight
Mass with my family every year, is just across the way. But sitting on that
particular bench just inside the graveyard was absolutely critical.
You see, in
the lead up to Christmas I managed to lose something. Well, not something,
someone. Charlie; my reason for living, my heart, my soulmate … you get the idea. And before you start
crying, don’t worry, he wasn’t buried there. At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure
where Charlie was, but he knew I was there. Waiting.
By the stroke
of midnight I would have known for sure if I’d truly lost him. I’d asked him to
join me and my family for the service. They’d arrived earlier. I smiled and
greeted them all – Mum, Dad, big sister, Elise, and her husband and my younger
sister, Jo-Jo. They asked where Charlie was and I managed to hide my worst
fears and say he’d be along soon, that he was held up. So they just kissed me
and piled inside with the rest of the congregation.
My family had
been looking forward to seeing Charlie, even more so than they were me. You
see, like everyone who meets Charlie, they’d fallen in love with him. Who could
blame them? He’s charming, he’s intelligent, he’s sweet, kind, generous. The
list could go on. I admit those things weren’t what first attracted me to
Charlie. No, the attraction was pure lust and desire. He walked into that New
Year’s Eve party the year before and I was stunned into silence. And I’m never
silent. Tall, well dressed, mesmerising looks and those dimples that appear
every time he smiles, which he does a lot by the way.
And I love
Charlie’s family, too. His mum, Leeza, his dad, Don, who Charlie gets his looks
and sense of humour from, and his
brother. I wasn’t sure Leeza approved of Charlie having a white girlfriend, at
first, but I realised that was just paranoia on my part. His family are not
like that. His mum, who I grew to admire and love, was just being protective,
the way some mothers are.
But, I
digress. My family had no idea that I’d seen Charlie twenty-four hours prior to
the service and that we’d had a heated argument and that Charlie had
practically slammed a door in my face. Minutes before that I’d made a complete
and utter fool of myself in front of his wonderful family and he’d walked away
with such disgust and disappointment in his face my heart broke in two. He’d
closed the door on me but I hadn’t stopped sending begging texts and hysterical
voicemails just so he would show up on Christmas Eve – like he’d promised me. I
wasn’t expecting a miracle, just praying for one. Because it would have taken a
miracle for Charlie to walk towards the church, bypass the tall wooden doors,
see me on the bench, push open the graveyard gates and tell me he’d forgiven
me.
With everyone
nice and warm inside the church, I continued to sit watching puffs of vapour
appearing in front of my face from every exhale, brimming with an apology that
may never be heard.
You might be
saying, “If Charlie’s that wonderful, why couldn’t he just come to the church,
it’s Christmas after all?” You have to know, he’d never be that unforgiving
without very good reason.
Honestly? It
took a whole year of knowing Charlie to finally understand what it is to love
someone completely and to be loved the very same way in return and just one
month to lose it all.
And this is how …
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About the Author
Rosa Temple
is a writer of romantic comedies, chick-lit and contemporary romance. To date
she has published one novella, Sleeping with Your Best Friend, and her
first full length novel, Natalie’s Getting Married, was published on 14th
March 2016.
She has tried
her hand at various occupations, from tea lady (albeit for one morning only
after being returned to the agency because half an office block suffered
caffeine deprivation) to supervising the office running the London Bar Exams.
Rosa is a
Londoner born and bred and still resides in West London with ambitions to
escape to the country when a suitable country pile becomes available.
In 2014 she was
awarded a Distinction in her Creative Writing MA from Brunel University.
Rosa admits to
being a reluctant keep fit addict. She owns a yoga mat, a pair of trainers and
a spin cycle that gathers dust in the corner of her writing room. She vows that
she will run the London Marathon again but has been saying this since her first
and only marathon, run in 2010. Hence the trainers.
Having been a
ghostwriter for several years, Rosa has written several magazine articles and
has penned a multitude of one off novellas and novella length series in the
romance genre and in its various sub-genres to include: contemporary romance,
historical, adult only, romantic comedies and sweet romances.
Rosa is a member
of a writing critique group who meet monthly. This lively and hard working
group keep her on her toes as she hones her writing, listening and editing skills.
Rosa’s husband
and eldest son are both musicians, her second son swims at a National level for
his London team.
Before devoting
the majority of her time to her writing of romantic comedies and chick-lit,
Rosa was a singer (that’s how she met her husband) and still continues to
perform and write songs.
Early reviews
show that Natalie’s Getting Married is a favourite of many readers and
book bloggers and she follows it with Christmas romantic comedy novel, Single
by Christmas, with plans to publish a book series in the very near future.
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Giveaway
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Why not follow along with the rest of the Blog Tour.
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