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Review & Guest Post with Natalie Anderson’s Gamble in Gold

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Natalie will be awarding sets of the first two eBooks in the series, “Seduction in Silver” and “Bargain in Bronze” to three randomly drawn commenters during the tour.  Don’t forget to leave a comment and your email addy.  Good luck!

Gamble In Gold

by Natalie Anderson

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BLURB:

 

Seven years have passed since shy Lexie Peterson had her heart trampled by her teenage crush. And Luke Marchetti walks into his flat to find Lexie in a negligee, all he can think of is having a little flirt and fling. But Lexie’s determination to keep him at a distance makes him realize she deserves more than he can offer. Is one kiss enough to entice the two to take a gamble on love?

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Excerpt One

 

 

“So how come you’re home?” Lexie briefly looked away as she finally broached the question. “Dani said you were going to be away for a month.” Her focus darted back to him. “Did you forget something?” She nervously babbled as he started to watch her far too intently. “Are you going back to Hertfordshire tonight?”

 

He shook his head. “Not tonight.”

 

Not tonight? So where did that leave her then? Because as lovely as Luke’s apartment was, there was only one bedroom. Only one bed. A huge one, yes, but only the one and there was just no going there. Not with him. Not ever.

 

Trouble was, this was London during the summer of the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza. While there was some accommodation in town, you had to pay kabillions for it. Lexie didn’t have kabillions.

 

She’d figure out something. Anything. “Oh. Okay. Well, now that you’re back to see to Mango, I’ll just get my stuff and—”

 

“You’re not going anywhere tonight.”

 

“I can’t stay here now,” she puffed, instantly breathless.

 

“Sure you can.” Luke suddenly smiled, his entire face lighting up. “We have to share, that’s all.”

 

Lexie blinked at him goldfish-style. Her mind was goldfish-blank too. Because his eyes had some wicked glint dancing in their depths. Share? Share what exactly?

 

“You can stay here.” He spelled it out slowly. “With me.”

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Writing a Series, with Natalie Anderson

 

Coming up with the concept for a new book is always an exciting time—I love the total ‘blank slate’ possibilities. I pin up some super-size white paper over the wall of my shed and brainstorm/mind-map/scribble to my heart’s content trying to explore some of those endless options… and yes, coming up with an entire series is even more exciting. Will it be two, three, four or more new stories to plan?

 

By series, I’m meaning a series of separate romances featuring different heroes and heroines but whose stories are interconnected in some way (such as Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changling series), as opposed to a series of books about the same couple (such as the Fifty Shades trilogy).

 

First up comes the decision on how the books are going to be connected—will it be through characters? Setting? Something in the plot – or all three?

 

Often these kinds of series are connected between characters—so it could be a trilogy featuring three brothers. I’m writing two other series at the moment—one featuring brothers, and one featuring a collection of guys who are all close friends (some are related, some just buddies).

 

My editors have suggested that readers tend to like series that are connected through the heroes, rather than the heroines, and I must admit I do like writing about a pack of gorgeous guys! But I’m also interested in writing about a sisterhood sometime. What do you think – as a reader would you prefer to follow a series about guys or girls?

 

But for my FLIRTING TO WIN series, however, I wanted to write a series of novellas that were interlinked in a different way—through setting and time. So all three novellas take place in London, in summer. This was a lot of fun—liberating in some ways, but limiting in others. The three novellas are completely stand alone in all other respects—there’s no overlap between the characters. This made the planning easier in some ways, because I didn’t need to have any common scenes between the stories etc, but as with all series, I needed to ensure that the three novellas were all different and dealing with different conflicts and themes. But in many ways, this series was simpler to plan out because the connection between them was just that location and season…

 

I really enjoyed coming up with the reasons why these characters were all in London, what they did, what they wanted… but then, coming up with the backstories and motivations of all my characters is a really enjoyable aspect of the writing process for me (ok yeah, it’s fun to play god!). But do you know what one of the best aspects for me is?

 

Silly as it sounds, I adore coming up with my character’s names. I have a really long list of heroines names that I adore, but my hero name list is a lot shorter. For some reason finding a good guy’s name is harder. I like them to be short and ‘manly’ – so help me out with planning my next series of books and tell me what’s your favourite hero name???!!!

 

Thanks so much and happy reading!!!

Review:

As most know, I’m a sucker for tropes in my reading and with any Entangled book, you are going to find at least one trope if not more tropes in the book.  What really sets Gamble in Gold apart from the other books with tropes is how well written and the depth of the characters that are on the page.  It’s a very well written story with depth, hot smexy times and emotions.

Keep in mind a couple of things:  1)  Gamble in Gold is part of a series but is a stand alone, 2)  its not a long book to read, 3) uses one of all time favorite tropes – Friends to Lovers and finally, its set in London.  Plus, I’m also a sucker for a series of books that are connected but can be read separately.

What really drew me into the story of Lexie and Luke actually was their back story.  It was believable, sweet and answered questions that I didn’t realize that I had.  🙂  In fact, the way the story is laid out, the flow never gives up and it was great to see Dani again.  That was another thing that pulled me in; there were only two characters in the story…Lexi and Luke.  Except for the scene with Dani, it was there story without all the fluff around them.

Both Lexi and Luke were scared of the move from friends to lovers scenerio but for me, I truly thought it was Luke’s ultimate decision.  I know, in most books, its the heroine but I felt like Luke was the one that had the more difficult choice to make.  Don’t get me wrong Lexi had the choice, too but I felt like she had already made her decision the first time when they meet again.

Again, while this book is short on pages, its not short on great dialogue, smexy times, character depth and high emotions.  Plus, every once in awhile, I like it when a man grovels.  🙂  Don’t miss out another great book by Entangled.  BTW, don’t you just love the new covers?  *sigh*

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4.5harlies

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:gamble in gold AuthorPic

 

USA TODAY bestseller Natalie Anderson writes fun, frisky, feels-good contemporary romance for Entangled Publishing, Harlequin Mills & Boon and independently. With over twenty-five books published and over two million sold, she’s been a Romantic Times Award nominee & a finalist for the R*BY (Romantic Book of the Year).

She lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her husband and four children.

Find out more at her website http://www.natalie-anderson.com and be sure to sign up for her newsletter.

She’s also on Twitter @authornataliea and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authornataliea

 

http://www.natalie-anderson.com

 

http://www.twitter.com/authornataliea

 

http://www.facebook.com/authornataliea

 

http://www.goodreads.com/Natalie_Anderson

 

2 thoughts on “Review & Guest Post with Natalie Anderson’s Gamble in Gold

  1. Good guest post! I like finding out how each author approaches their writing, how they work out how many books to write in a series and whether the books will focus on just one couple or be about all sorts of different people. Thanks for the giveaway too!

    junegirl63 at gmail dot com

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