BooksChatter: ☀ Key Change: Assignment: Romance [3]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Key Change, a Romantic Comedy by Barbara Valentin (2 December 2015, Gemma Halliday Publishing, 236 pages).

This is the third book in the Assignment: Romance series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below, as well as our Q&A with author Barbara Valentin.
Read the first two chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Barbara Valentin will be awarding a $25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

The first thing Sara Cleff, a hard-edged, shower-singing rock music critic, wants to do after following a band on tour is crawl into her nice comfy bed in her well-appointed, optimally located vintage apartment.
But before making it home, she learns her roommate-slash-boyfriend has apparently broken up with her while she was away on assignment and sublet their apartment out from underneath her. Ouch! When her key no longer fits in the lock, the last person she expects to find on the other side of the door is Andrew Benet, a wickedly gorgeous music director from a nearby church.

Something about the brash music critic strikes a chord with Andrew, and he offers her the chance to stay on one condition—she has to join the choir at his church. While Andrew may hold the lease on Sara’s apartment, does he have the key to unlock her heart?

Teaser: Excerpt

     Up as usual at the crack of dawn, Andrew trudged to the bathroom, almost forgetting to close the door behind him before he spotted Sara's bangles on the counter next to the sink. Reaching over, he shut the door and locked it.
     Fifteen minutes later, he was showered, clean-shaven, and ready to go, except he didn't have to be at the church until four-thirty that afternoon. Unplugging his phone from an outlet in his room, he brought it with him into the kitchen, transferred Sara's clothes that she had washed the night before into the dryer and poured himself some coffee. He sat on a barstool, debated throwing a sweatshirt on over his plain, blue, short-sleeved T- shirt to ward off the chill, but started scrolling through his email instead.
     His eyes, however, kept drifting over to Sara, out like a light on the sofa sleeper.
     While most of her was wrapped in the blankets like a human burrito, with the sun starting to break through the bare branches of the ancient oak tree blocking the expansive bay window, he could see her face quite plainly.
     Without all that the heavy dark makeup, he noted, she looked younger.
     And kinda sweet, actually.
     But then again, she wasn't talking.
     Still, he was glad he invited her to stay the night before.
     But what about tonight? And tomorrow night? And the night after that?
     While he mulled the possibilities, she rolled over and stretched, arching her back and groaning as she did. Resuming her curled-up burrito pose, she opened her eyes and mumbled, "How long have you been sitting there?"
     Looking at his watch, he admitted, "About a minute. Or five. Maybe ten." His cheeks suddenly felt a lot warmer.
     With a loud yawn, she sat up. "I slept so good." Patting the thin mattress with her hand, she added, "So comfy."
     The words hung in the air between them.
     Sarcasm before coffee. Great.
     Still, the sight of her in his pajama top seemed to lobotomize him. All he could do by way of a reply was nod.
     With a shrug, she added, "Seriously, on a sleeper sofa—who knew?"
     Snap out of it.
     With no small amount of effort, he turned and glanced at the dryer. "Your clothes should be ready in about twenty minutes."
     At that, Sara took a deep breath and yanked the covers back, revealing two impossibly long bare legs as she flung her feet to the floor.
     Knowing full well that the sudden blast of heat he felt was not delivered by way of the gilded vents along the floorboards, Andrew got up to check the thermostat on the wall next to the upright piano anyway, mumbling, "Gotta love old buildings."

Key Change
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The Series: Assignment: Romance

False Start | Help Wanted | The Plate Spinner Chronicles |

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

False Start [1]

Mattie Ross is probably the last person who should be doling out good counsel to anyone on anything. Still smarting after being left at the altar two years earlier, she is strapped with debt, has sworn off men, routinely buries herself in her work and despite her well-proportioned figure, remains haunted by childhood taunts of "Fatty Mattie." But to her publisher at the Chicago Gazette, and readers, she is their latest advice columnist, The Plate Spinner, a self-assured working parent to adorable fake children and multi-tasking savant.

Enter Nick Derosa, the twin brother of Mattie's cold-footed fiancé who is trying to get back on his feet after his brother steals his identity and implicates him in an illegal investment scheme. But thanks to Nick's legendary running career, the publisher of the Chicago Gazette proposes a wager: If Nick can train an out-of-shape working parent in time to compete in the Chicago Marathon, he will contribute enough to help Nick launch his own non-profit running club for kids. Suddenly "Fatty" Mattie and Nick are thrust together as the most unlikely of pairs and under a deadline to put their trust issues aside and avoid another false start in their lives.

[Published 15 October 2014, 217 pages]

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Help Wanted [2]

When Claire Nelson decided that her happily-ever-after lay not in marriage but in a spot on the New York Times bestseller list, she vowed never to tie the knot. But that was before she met Paul Mendez, handsome and charming enough to have her breaking said vow and marrying him shortly after college.

Almost fifteen years and four sons later, Claire is now a burned out breadwinner ready to ditch her quest for happily-ever-after, and Paul has traded his dream of chairing corporate board meetings for volunteering at PTA meetings as a stay-at-home dad. Feeling trapped in a demanding job, Claire's repeated attempts to get Paul to return to work fall flat. Contemplating divorce, she drafts a letter to the Plate Spinner, a popular advice columnist, asking for help. But when the reply contains an offer that may just put her bestselling author dreams back on track, Claire’s only question is: will Paul be on board? Or does her charming husband make a surprise move of his own?

[Published 11 May 2015, 207 pages]

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The Plate Spinner Chronicles [NF Collection]

From author Barbara Valentin comes a collection of hilarious Plate Spinner columns from her bestselling Assignment: Romance series...

What working parent hasn’t considered delivering a performance review to their child prior to granting a salary, er, allowance increase? “The Plate Spinner Chronicles: A Working Mother's Epic Adventure” is a hybrid memoir/how-to guide that is stuffed with multi-tasking advice and relevant, but nostalgic anecdotes, all written in the wry tone of a harried working mother who’d rather laugh than cry over the length of her to-do list. This book is a compilation of The Plate Spinner columns which originally ran in the Chicago Tribune.

[Published 1 August 2015, 159 pages]

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About the Author

Barbara is an award-winning novelist and second-generation journalist.

After spending a decade in maternity clothes, she has five boys to show for it and much fodder for her column, The Plate Spinner Chronicles, a long-running feature in the Chicago Tribune.

A member of RWA's Windy City chapter, she still dreams of the day when her to-do list includes "Send NY Times book critic thank you note" and "Accept Godiva's request to be a taste-tester."

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