Description
"This is a charming tale of the popular jock and the shy bookworm, both trying to outlive their high school personas and prove to each other there is more to them than meets the eye. This is truly a root-for-the-underdog, feel-good story and a joy to read." (LEK) ~ Chicklit Club's Digital Domain, June 2011"You'll want to read it for the humor and great characters and a plot that's sure to leave you smiling." ~ Romantic Times Book Reviews , Hot Pick for October 2011 An Excerpt from ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAE: Elizabeth rarely swore aloud but, in her mind, she was cursing not just a blue streak, but also a red, orange, yellow and green streak. She was, in fact, well on her way to a complete blasphemous rainbow, and Rob Gabinarri hadn't even arrived yet.Of all people. She never thought she'd have to make it through so much as a ten-minute soda pop break with him again. The boy who'd broken her heart and didn't even know it.Or maybe he did know it.She couldn't decide which was the greater tragedy.A snazzy red Porsche convertible squealed to a stop behind her sensible blue Toyota Camry, and the town's Golden Boy stepped out of the car and into the empty confectionary shop."Hey, Lizzy. Long time, no see," he said, glancing around the shop in a frantic kind of way."E-Elizabeth," she corrected automatically."Oh, all right. Sorry."She stared at him, which of course he didn't notice because he was too busy looking at everything else in the place besides her. He walked into the backroom then out of it again. He peered into the washrooms.He opened and shut a few closets. He paced back and forth, sat down in a booth, got back up and paced some more.The guy was as tall and muscular and breathtaking as he'd been a decade before when he used to saunter through the unremarkable halls of Wilmington Bay High School, oblivious to anyone and anything beyond the football field and his bevy of admirers. If it were possible, he seemed even more youthful and in command now than he did at age eighteen.And she felt about as queasy as she'd felt the last time they'd been face to face.Finally, his pacing stopped. "Where is my uncle?" he asked in a husky whisper, directing the query at a tray of chocolate-dipped sugar cookies. "Uncle?" he called out. "Uncle Pauly?"She wanted to tell him, but the words were lodged in her esophagus and, anyway, he wasn't talking to her. He strode into the backroom again, as if convinced the elderly Italian man could be found hiding behind a jar of candied cherries or a vat of butterscotch syrup. The long black eyelashes blinked in confusion when he emerged into the main shop once again, his gaze and those nutmeg-brown eyes directed at her."Don't tell me he left already." This was more a threat than a question. He shook his head at her as though that gesture alone would discourage an affirmative reply.She held her breath and nodded."Where is he?"She pursed her lips, just as she'd learned in her special speech tutorials so long ago, formed the first letter and tried to push it out of her mouth. But she stuttered anyway."L-Lufthansa. F-Fl-Flight four-oh-three."He cocked his gorgeous head to one side and stared at her in the way she'd grown so accustomed to during her miserable school years: Poor Old Lizzy, the look said. What a geeky dweeb."What time is it scheduled to depart?" he asked her with an affected gentleness that made her want to rip out his vocal cords.She tapped her watch and gathered her courage for whatever might happen next. "T-Twenty m-m-minutes a-ago." Marilyn Brant is the national bestselling and award-winning women's fiction author of ACCORDING TO JANE (2009), FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE (2010) and A SUMMER IN EUROPE (2011), all from Kensington Books. She's also a #1 Kindle bestseller and has written a series of fun and flirty contemporary romantic comedies, available exclusively as original ebooks. The first of these, ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAE, was released in June 2011 and hit both Barnes & Noble's and Amazon's Top 100 Lists. Her second digital story, DOUBLE DIPPING, was a September 2011 release and a 2012 International Digital Awards Finalist for "Best Contemporary Romance." Recent releases include HOLIDAY MAN (November 2012), which was a 2012 RONE Award Contestant, and an Austen-inspired romance, PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND THE PERFECT MATCH (January 2013), which has been a bestselling Kindle title in the categories of both Humor and Single Women's Fiction. Marilyn's debut novel featuring Jane Austen won the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart® Award. Her second novel was a Doubleday Book Club and Book-of-the-Month Club Featured Alternate Selection. And her third women's fiction book was featured by the Literary Guild and the BOMC2, as well as by the Rhapsody Book Club, where it was a Top 20 bestselling title in "Fiction & Literature." She was recently named the 2013 Illinois Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. For more information, visit her website at www.marilynbrant.com. Read more
Features & Highlights
- In this light romantic comedy, when Elizabeth's uncle Siegfried and Rob's uncle Pauly rush off to Europe for a month in summer, they temporarily relinquish the reins of their ice cream shop to their respective niece and nephew -- two people who may have grown up practically next door to each other but who have next to nothing in common... Elizabeth "Please Don't Call Me Lizzy" Daniels is a small-town Wisconsin girl at heart. Shy and inexperienced at love, the frizzy-haired dessert cookbook writer still resides in her quaint hometown, stutters painfully when nervous and is only comfortable with her tiny circle of cooking pals. She must come out of hiding to help her uncle, but she's convinced her childhood crush, Rob, barely knows she exists. Roberto "You'd Better Call Me Rob, or Else" Gabinarri is the town's golden boy. A former football star who left home after high school, he made a splash in the big city and never looked back. He returns home to help out, but he's counting the minutes until he can escape to the relative anonymity of his commitment-free Chicago life and the restaurant he owns there. Despite his chattiness and charm, Rob was always intimidated by quiet, brainy girls like "Frizzy Lizzy," and he isn't pleased to be back where people still see him as that popular but dumb jock -- an image he worked for almost a decade to shed. And then there's his dear Italian mother, who's bent on lining up potential hometown brides for him... Rob has an idea that just might help them both, but it involves a bit of family deception. With time running out to finish her cookbook, Elizabeth reluctantly agrees. Neither of them are used to playing games of pretense, but can love, hot summer nights and, maybe, some chocolate sauce, caramel and whipped cream...turn their farce into reality?
