Friday Feature & Contest: Elley Arden

Today’s Friday Feature is a blog tour stop featuring a guest blog & contest for Elley Arden’s Baby by Design virtual book tour.

Keeping Contemporary Fresh

I started reading contemporary romance only after my favorite author, Judith McNaught, changed from writing historical romances to contemporary. I wasn’t thrilled. I didn’t want to read about real people falling in love in real locations. Gah! Life is too “real” to begin with, and her change to this “new, hot” sub-genre killed me…until I read the book, and I realized everything I love about Judith McNaught’s writing was still there in a contemporary setting.

Years later, when I sat down to write my first novel, a contemporary hero came to mind. He was a baseball player. (If you’re familiar with my books, that’s shocking isn’t it? Ha ha!) At the time, eleven years ago, the general consensus was nobody wanted to read about athlete heroes. They were manwhores, and they were impossible sells. Still, I wrote the book, because it was the kind of book I wanted to read. That (unpublished) book garnered me a partial request on my very first query sent…so obviously, somebody agreed with me. Athletes can be heroes. Fast forward eleven years, and sports romances are this “new, hot” thing, along with bikers, rock stars, and billionaires, and angst, darkness, and drama. These are the things you’ll come across in today’s contemporary market, but you can bet your sweet bottom they will be replaced by something considered “out” right now.

As a writer who wants a lengthy career, it’s important to keep up with the current trends and anticipate what’s coming next, but it’s not easy. In fact, it’s easier to get caught up in a mad dash to put something out that meets current market demand and get disenchanted with the whole darn thing. That’s why I propose something rather unorthodox. How do I keep contemporary fresh? By writing what I love to write, because eventually everything old is new again and everything “out” is “in.”

Title: Baby By Design by Elley Arden
Designing Love Book One
Publisher: Crimson Romance
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 170 pages

Summary:

Trish DeVign knows what she needs to be single, successful and satisfied. She needs a baby. With recent relationships falling short of her expectations, she’s single by choice. With a thriving interior design company, she’s got successful covered. It’s the satisfied part that eludes her, and that’s her mother’s fault-not her adopted mother, but the mother who gave her away, sentencing her to a privileged life with two good people who don’t share with her a single drop of DNA. Refusing to grow old bitter, Trish decides a baby will calm the restlessness and lead her to true happiness. Instead, it leads straight to her best friend’s brother.

Tony Corcarelli has spent his adult life as the black sheep of his large Italian-American family. The nickname became permanent when he took a buyout from his sister rather than run the family carpentry company after his father’s death. Now, Tony’s grandmother has cancer, and he’s expected to join the family in making her wishes come true. Unfortunately, the two things Nonna wants most for Tony, are two things he can’t fathom-a wife and kids or the priesthood. There has to be another way.

When Trish asks Tony to escort her to a wedding, a night of fun and flirtation turns serious, with Trish confessing she wants a baby-Tony’s baby. Could a calculated conception be the answer he’s looking for? Thrown together by a carefully constructed yet cockamamie plan, Trish and Tony struggle to define terms they didn’t expect to become so complicated. But what if neither disapproving family members nor Nonna’s rapidly declining health is their biggest complication? What if it’s love?

Sensuality Level: Sensual

Purchase Links: Amazon * iTunes

Author Bio

Elley Arden is a born and bred Pennsylvanian who has lived as far west as Utah and as far north as Wisconsin. She drinks wine like it’s water (a slight exaggeration), prefers a night at the ballpark to a night on the town, and believes almond English toffee is the key to happiness.

Author Links: Website * Facebook * Twitter

Contest

$25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift Card

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the rest of the tour HERE.