Inner Goddess: Lauren Layne guest blogs about Love the One You're With

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Lauren Layne guest blogs about Love the One You're With

Love the One You’re With:

Sex, Love & Stiletto Series

By Lauren Layne

Published by Loveswept

On Sale December 9, 2013

Blurb

Lauren Layne’s Sex, Love & Stiletto series simmers to a boil as two high-powered magazine writers find love amid a war of words.

As a leading columnist for Stiletto, Grace Brighton has built a career warning women about rotten, cheating liars. She just never suspected her fiancé would be one of them. After Grace takes a heart-mending hiatus, her first assignment is to go on a couple of dates with a counterpart from the men’s magazine Oxford and report her impressions. Grace 1.0 may have been instantly smitten with the gorgeous correspondent, but Grace 2.0 has sworn off relationships for six months, and she’s not falling for his outstanding bod and trophy-winning kisses . . . or is she?

Jake Malone wants to get back to the fly-by-night, who-knows-what’s-next guy he used to be, and he knows exactly how to do it. Oxford is adding a travel section, and Jake—with no wife and no kids and a willingness to live anywhere, eat anything, do everything—is perfect for the job . . . except that his playboy reputation makes his new editor nervous. To get the gig, he must agree to a fluffy joint article with Stiletto. But after just one date with snooty, sumptuous, sensational Grace Brighton, Jake starts taking this assignment a whole lot more seriously.

GUEST POST:

A Conversation between Grace 1.0 and Grace 2.0

I can’t claim that I’ve ever bee a big cartoon buff, but there’s one animated gimmick that even I can identify: the old “angel vs. devil” on the shoulder thing. It’s sort of brilliant, really. A physical manifestation of those “voices in your head.” Or perhaps more precisely, those conflicting voices in your head! Universal, is it not?

Which got me thinking . . .

What if I snuck that theme into a romance novel . . . except instead of good vs. bad, we’d be dealing with something a little more subtle and even more complex:

The “old” you vs. the “new” you.

Grace Brighton is my romantic, believe-in-true-love heroine who’s just discovered that her long-time boyfriend has been having an affair right under her nose. This would be brutal any under circumstances, but Grace is a ALSO relationships expert who’s supposed to see these calamities coming a mile away. Finding out she’s missed all of the usual signals of a cheating spouse doesn’t just break her heart . . . it turns her professional life upside down as well.

Enter Grace 2.0: the new and “improved” Grace who knows that men are not to be trusted and that relationships don’t always end up happy just because you want them to. The only problem? Grace 1.0’s still hanging around, and 1.0 is convinced that happily ever after’s DO exist, and that the handsome guy that just stole your cab might be “the one” simply because he has nice shoulders.

Needless to say, 1.0 and 2.0 don’t see eye-to-eye. Let’s take a look at their first impressions of Jake Malone:

Grace 1.0: Oooooh. Come to mommy!

Grace 2.0: Don’t even start. He’s trouble.

1.0: You say that about all men.

2.0: Show me a man who can’t be led around by his reproductive organ, and maybe I’ll reconsider.

1.0: But those buns. Look at those buns! Those buns like us.

2.0: Pull yourself together. Do tight man buns get you the corner office? Do tight man buns ensure emotional stability? Do tight buns—

1.0: (interrupts) Are we wearing the good panties? Tell me we’re wearing the good panties. Because he’s looking this way.

2.0: Do not make eye contact. Do not—oh damn. Now you’ve done it. Now we’re going to end right back where we started. Wallowing in chocolate and wine and weeping over our wedding scrapbook.

1.0: Okay, but silver lining . . . chocolate! Am I right?

2.0: *opens a wine bottle and puts in ear plugs*

Get to know Grace (and 1.0 and 2.0!) better in LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH, available Monday, December 9^th!

Buy Links:

Find LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH on Goodreads

About Author Lauren Layne

Lauren Layne graduated from Santa Clara University with a B.S. in political science that she has yet to put to good use. After dabbling in an e-commerce career, she decided to quit talking about writing and actually do it. A Seattle native, Lauren’s also tried on the Bay Area, Orange County, and most recently Manhattan. She’s currently back in the Pacific Northwest, missing the big-city life but also enjoying the cheap price of wine in the burbs. She lives with her husband and badly behaved Pomeranian.