This is my stop during the blog tour for A Cunning Plan by Astrid Arditi. This blog tour is organized by Lola's Blog Tours. The blog tour runs from 1 till 14 August, you can view the tour schedule here.
A Cunning Plan (Sloane Harper #1)by Astrid Arditi
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Age category: Adult
Release Date: 8 May, 2016
Blurb:
Determined to put her family back together, Sloane Harper stalks her ex husband and his annoyingly stunning mistress, Kate. And she’s not the only one. Handsome IRS agent Ethan Cunning is surveying them too, but not for the same reasons. He is attempting to nail Kate’s playboy boss.
Ethan and Sloane decide to help each other, which sends Sloane’s wobbly life spinning out of control. She’ll have to face danger, humiliation, and scariest of all, the dating scene, to lure her daughters’ father home.
Losing control was the best thing to happen to Sloane… until it turned lethal.
You can find A Cunning Plan on Goodreads
You can buy A Cunning Plan here:
- Amazon
- Amazon UK
- Barnes & Noble
- Kobo
- iBooks
Excerpt:
CHAPTER 1
So far, I have spent more than ten hours this week parked on the exact same street, in front of the exact same building, staking out my husband’s mistress. To be exact, Tom was my ex-husband now, but I was pretty sure he was still my husband when Katherine Stappleton started screwing him.
A sideways glance confirmed Claudia’s eyelids had finally closed, and I sighed in relief. If I had to listen to one more minute of heavy metal, I would hurl myself or my housekeeper extraordinaire out of the car window.
I shot my hand toward the Mini Austin’s radio. But just as the angry voices faded in favor of a monotonous radio show, Claudia’s hand lashed out and slapped my wrist away.
“Go back. I love that song.”
“But I don’t understand Polish,” I said with a pout.
“It’s music, you don’t need to understand it,” she countered, her eyes still closed.
My teeth hurt from the loud screeching she called music. I considered looking for Magic FM again, but Claudia read my mind first. She snapped open one fierce blue eye.
“Don’t,” she warned.
Heavy metal music wasn’t nearly bad enough to risk incurring Claudia’s wrath and chancing her leaving. Listening to any kind of music with her definitely beat sitting in the car alone.
I gave a last, longing stare at the radio then turned my attention to the dashboard’s digital clock. It was 3:43 p.m. according to the flashing orange numbers. Sighing, I thought again of how much time I’d spent here.
The details of my husband’s ‘infidelity’ mattered; they changed the way one perceived things. On one side, you had my ex’s new girlfriend, and on the other, the tramp who stole my husband. Doesn’t have the same ring to it, right?
The same way if you asked Katherine Stappleton, she might have described my endeavor as ‘stalking’ rather than ‘staking out’. If she knew I was hiding in front of her work place, that is, and I was extremely careful not be noticed. Plus, I never left the car or followed her home - the definition of stalking. Legally speaking, I was in the clear. I’d checked on Yahoo Answers.
*****
The reality of the situation was slowly creeping up on me. A stranger was inside my car. I inched toward the door handle, knowing my best solution would be to escape. My only knowledge of martial arts came from watching The Karate Kid. I harbored a strong suspicion it wouldn’t help much. I would probably hurt myself if I tried to pull off a crane move. Shoving all movie references away from my overwrought brain, I wondered what was wrong with me?
A burning sensation in my lungs reminded me to breathe. I gulped as much air as I could, getting ready to scream for help. All the while, I kept my eyes trained on him, trying to conjure a reassuring expression that wouldn’t set him off. Would I make it out of the door if he lunged toward me? Doubtful. Although he lounged back in the seat casually, I could feel the tension in his lean body, a panther ready o pounce on his prey.
I focused on his face, hoping to decipher his intentions. Besides his brown eyes that had lost their humor, the intruder had light chestnut hair clipped short, a nose that must have been straight once, and a square jaw sporting a five o’clock shadow.
At last, my hand connected with the metal handle and I tensed, ready to spring the hell out of here. Let him have the car, I just wanted out.
His hand shot in my direction, but he stopped it right before it touched my arm.
******
Q & A with Astrid Arditi
Bridget Jones Diary, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. Both master humor to perfection while not being afraid of showing a woman’s insecurities, creating protagonists you can really relate to as a reader.
Tell us something you hate doing. Why?
Housekeeping! My brain is far too scrambled to translate into a neat home. I’m a mess!
Share a funny incident in your life.
There’s quite a few, a direct result of being so distracted all the time. There was this one time when I met Bruce Willis in a nightclub and kindly told him in passing that he looked exactly like Bruce Willis. Maybe I was a little drunk…
What's your pet peeve?
Snobs. I can’t stand condescending people that think they are better than others.
When you are in writer mode, music or no music? If music do you have a playlist
No music but I do have some sort of a playlist. My heroine spends a lot of time in her car and she loves listening to music. The song that I associate with A Cunning Plan is Roxettes’ It must have been love.
Who was your favorite hero/heroine.Once again, Bridget Jones. She’s genuine and brave. She isn’t afraid to embrace her flaws and her need for love. Reading the novel in my early twenties was strangely empowering and made me accept my own imperfections.
Have you ever had one character you wanted to go one way with but after the book was done the character was totally different.
Not really. I’ve got a strong idea of my characters’ arc as I set to write and usually manage to lead them where I want. This said, my characters often surprise me in the course of a novel.
What’s you next project?
Book 2 of the Sloane Harper series, A Cunning Heist.
What's the one thing, you can't live without?
Not thing, people. My kids obviously. My family. I’m moving to New York this summer, leaving my almost twin sister behind in London. Breaks my heart.
What is your favorite movie (song)?
I’m very cheesy. All the romcom classics: Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman, Never Been Kissed.
What's your favorite TV show of all time and why?
Absolutely loved the first season of Outlander adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s novels.
Clean shaven, Scruff, beard, or mustache. Ink yay or nay?
Scruff! Love a rugged man. Yay for ink so long as it’s subtle. I have one small tattoo myself. Fortunately it’s easy to hide.
Your favorite book by you or another author
A Cunning Plan obviously! It’s funny, sweet and light. With two young kids I’m not in a mood to tackle the classics.
If you could write in another genre what would it be & why?
My first manuscript was a YA fantasy. Never pushed for publication as I think it wasn’t ready but would love to return to the genre at some point. Everyone needs to dream…
About the Author:Astrid Arditi was born from a French father and Swedish mother. She lived in Paris and Rome before moving to London with her husband and daughter back in 2013.
After dabbling in journalism, interning at Glamour magazine, and teaching kindergarten, Arditi returned to her first love: writing.
She now splits her time between raising her kids (a brand new baby boy just joined the family) and making up stories.
A Cunning Plan is Arditi’s first published work.
You can find and contact Astrid here:
- Website
- Goodreads
Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of A Cunning Plan. These are the prizes you can win:
- a Kindle Fire
- a 20$ amazon gift card
- 2 signed copies of A Cunning Plan by Astrid Arditi
For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I like the cover and reading the excerpt I know my oldest sister would enjoy the book.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing excerpt. I really enjoyed it and the interview with the author. Great post!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteThe cover is nice!
ReplyDeletePretty cover - the blurb and excerpt sound interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe cover's lovely. You can really read a lot into the meaning of the cover image. The title and blurb seem at first to be unrelated to the cover image until you get to the end. A pretty drastic plan on the part of the heroine!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeleteI really like romantic novels and this one seems to be a great one!