Thank you to Jennifer Schmidt for joining us here today for Part of the Last Call blog tour. Check out my review of Last Call HERE. And I agree Abby was a total mystery. I always just assumed that she still has a thing for Dean. But you can judge for yourself…
First, thanks to Book Briefs for asking me to do a guest post to help promote my first novel Last Call.
With a little help of alcohol, most of us have done something we regret the next morning. Whether it’s the head splitting hangover that even a whisper makes you want to crawl under a rock and die, the embarrassing photos your friends took of you using that telephone pole as a stripper pole – which coincidentally also makes you want to crawl under a rock and die, or waking up next to a man (or woman) and your first thought being, “Who the hell are you?” followed very closely by, “Where the hell are my pants?” I mean, that doesn’t just happen to me, right? Right? This is where I assume you all agreed with me and carry on.
Yes, waking up next to a complete stranger has happened. Unfortunately for me it’s never happened in Vegas, but fortunately it’s also never resulted in a quickie marriage. But what if it did?
Through that curious wondering Novalee and Dean’s story was born.
While on vacation, a night out turns into a drunken haze, and Novalee Jensen wakes up hung over, confused, and… married? Fleeing Nevada, Novalee returns home to Montana to hide out, dreading the moment when her husband will show up to take her hard-earned business. But two years later just when Novalee thinks her secret is safe, guess who walks through her door? Now, face-to-face with the man she left in a hotel room two years ago, Novalee discovers the difficult part isn’t having to explain her actions that night, or the questions that arise about the sexy stranger’s arrival, it’s keeping her hands off her husband. And what’s Novalee to do when the hardest part turns out not to be confronting her past, but facing a possible future without her soon-to-be ex-husband?
Multi-millionaire Dean Philips wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel room to find the pretty blonde he married the night before gone. The piece of paper he possesses proves she served her purpose, and guilt ridden over his actions, Dean begins a battle with his father for a fight for his grandfather’s fortune. When Dean is ordered to have his wife appear in court, he finds himself in a small town in Montana, looking for the woman who ran off two years ago. Caught up in secrets and lies of his own, he has to find a way to persuade her to come back to Vegas with him without having her find out that she’s the missing puzzle piece to everything he’s been fighting for. But when Dean decides to mix a little pleasure with business, he suddenly finds himself in unfamiliar territory that could cost him everything.
We could talk about Novalee’s drunken mistake that leaves her changing her marital status from single to married overnight. Or we could chat about Dean’s impulsive decision to wed the woman he only met hours before in order to save his family’s wealthy empire.
Or, since they will more than explain themselves in the book, we could leave those two alone and dish about my favourite character in the book: Abigail Knight.
Abby is the ballsy take-no-prisoners, tell-it-like-it-is, cut-the-bullshit character. She’s not only Dean’s attorney but also his best friend and once upon a time she shared his bed. Abby is the character I wish I could have explored more. There’s something to her, something deep beneath the hard exterior she shields herself with that I want to know. It’s a part that she’s only shared with Dean. He’s seen the softness in her, the side of her that makes her just as vulnerable as the next person. And I would love to know what that is.
We learn a little bit about her in the book. Like how she and Dean met when she worked as an exotic dancer and paid her way through law school, and somewhere along the way they became physically involved, although we never learn how or when, and later on very close friends. She is Dean’s confidant, the only person who knows all his deep dark secrets, yet even she is kept out of parts of his life. I wonder though if it works both ways in their friendship. If Abby knows all about Dean, does Dean know all about Abby? What is there to know about Abby?
She has interactions with almost all of the characters. And one of my top five favourite parts in the book is when she confronts Novalee for the first time. It’s a short interaction, but it sets the course for the ending that I honestly didn’t intend for it to have.
But the thing I kept wondering while writing this book, and especially while writing her, was what made Abigail the way she is. Why did she become an exotic dancer in the first place? How did she become the woman she is today? Why did she want to pursue a career in law? Is that cold exterior a result of something that happened in her past? If so, what? Why did she allow herself to open up and genially care for Dean when she comes off as a woman who cares for no one?
Maybe Dean just has this way with women, an aura that draws them in and makes them feel safe and cared for. Or maybe she saw a kindred spirit in Dean. He is the exception to her rule and it drives me crazy that I don’t know why.
Abigail Knight is sort of a mystery in Last Call, and she really makes me want to know what’s beneath the surface. I want to dig deeper and find all those treasures she’s hiding, all the good, bad and ugly of her life. But I haven’t. And I never considered doing it.
Maybe Abby is meant to remain a mystery. 
I have two (2) ecopies of Last Call to giveaway today! it is open internationally and will end on November 2nd. Just read my contest policy above and fill out the rafflecopter form below. This is an adult book so you must be 16+ to enter.
Click Here to Enter to win The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer!
Click here to win a copy of Abigail! international
Come check out My Bookworm Santa! Giveaways, meet new people. It’s going to be a really fun event! Come Sign up 🙂
lag123
Oh my goodness. Can you imagine waking up to discover something like that had happened to you? Sounds like a Carrie Underwood song. I would love to read this story!
Jennifer
Thanks for being part of the tour, Michelle!
Anne
Last Call sounds like a light, fun read.
Barbara
I agree with lag123…that’s the first thing I thought of when I read the excerpt…Carrie Underwood’s song! Too funny! I can’t believe it took two years for these two to get together after their ‘one night’ in Vegas…I’m dieing to read their ‘story’!! I know it’s gonna be a good one…
barbbattaglia@yahoo.com
ann
Sounds like a book Im going to enjoy reading. thanks for the giveaways
amhengst at verizon dot net