Summer Lovin': Interview With Jenny Holiday!

Hi, everyone! Today I am pleased to present an interview with Jenny Holiday, the author of multiple Adult Romances, including the Matchmaker Bay series, which are all out now, and the upcoming Duke, Actually, which releases this October!

The bold font are the questions I asked, the regular font are her answers, and the bold italic font are my comments about her answers.

Would you please tell us a little about your book, Sandcastle Beach?

Sandcastle Beach is the third and final book in the Matchmaker Bay series (but it works as a standalone), which is set in a beach town on the shores of Lake Huron in Canada. In it, we find Maya Mehta, the owner and director of the town theatre company, battling it out with Ben “Law” Lawson, the owner and bartender at Lawson’s Lager House, for an economic development grant. Maya is staging Much Ado About Nothing, and soon life begins to imitate art for the couple that claims to “hate” each other.

Duke, Actually releases this October! Would you like to share anything about it?

Yes! This is the second in a series of Christmas books I’m doing for HarperCollins. These books were born from an idle thought I had when I was watching Hallmark Christmas movies with my dad: What if I wrote a book like this that was sort of over-the-top Hallmarkey, except with the snark and heat levels dialed up? Duke, Actually is about a playboy baron in line to inherit a dukedom in my fictional Alpine country of Eldovia, and a no-nonsense English professor from New York. They are thrown together because they’re the man of honor and best woman in the Eldovian royal wedding (between the main characters from the previous book A Princess for Christmas). They strike up an unlikely friendship, and…you know the rest!

I'm really looking forward to this book!

Random Question! Your bio mentions you like to throw theme parties! What’s your favorite theme party you’ve thrown?

A friend was having a milestone birthday that coincided with a big promotion and work, and she wanted to celebrate with her closest women friends. Somehow this evolved into a Miss Havisham party. Miss Havisham was a character in Great Expectations. She was left at the altar and spent the ensuing years drifting around her house in her tattered wedding dress nursing her grudge and ruining people’s lives. I decorated with fake cobwebs and spiders, and we all dressed as hollow-eyed, jilted Victorian brides and ate blancmange and drank wine out of teacups. My friend even made a “wedding” cake, let it get stale, and topped it with a bride-and-groom topper, except the groom was decapitated and bleeding.

This sounds so fun!

If you’re able to talk about it, what are you currently working on?

I’m working on my last Christmas book, out fall 2022 and as yet untitled. It’s about the starchy, change-resistant equerry to the Eldovian throne and the American management consultant who is hired to overhaul the country’s declining watch manufacturing industry.

What are some of your favorite Romance books? And what are some you’re looking forward to reading?

Two longtime favorites are M. O’Keefe’s Burn Down the Night and Alexis Hall’s How to Bang a Billionaire. Neither is anything like what I write, but both writers are at the top of their game. I’m looking forward to Olivia Dade’s All the Feels, Jackie Lau’s Donut Fall in Love, and Farah Heron’s YA romance Tahira in Bloom.

The books you're looking forward to are all on my TBR list!

Thank you to Jenny Holiday for participating in this event! :)

Author Bio: Jenny Holiday is a USA Today-bestselling and RITA®-nominated author whose books have been featured in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. She grew up in Minnesota and started writing at age nine when her fourth-grade teacher gave her a notebook to fill with stories. When she’s not working on her next book, she likes to hang out with her family, watch other people sing karaoke, and throw theme parties. A member of the House of Slytherin, Jenny lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

Here Are a Few Links:

Her Website

Her Twitter

Her Instagram