HER DARLING MR. DAY - Grace Hitchcock - One Free Book

Welcome, Grace. What are some of the spiritual themes you like to write about? One of my favorite themes to write about is our identity in Christ. A lot of the time, we might place our identity in what we do, who our parents are, how much we make, if we are in a committed relationship, etc. The freedom of knowing ourselves in Christ is something I want to share with everyone.

What other books of yours are coming out soon? My final book in the AMERICAN ROYALTY series, His Delightful Lady Delia, will be releasing in November of 2022. This sweeping romance follows a rising opera star and an enigmatic phantom.

If you could spend an evening with one contemporary person (not a family member of yours), who would it be and why? Janette Oke! She is known as the pioneer of Christian Fiction and is one of my very favorite authors of all time with her stories of sweet romance and perseverance. I’d love to hear about her writing process and journey.

What historical person would you like to meet (besides Jesus) and why? This is a difficult question as it usually varies on which book I am researching, but if I had to pick only one, it would have to be Nellie Bly. She was a reporter who went undercover in Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum for women, which I wrote about in my novel, The Gray Chamber. I would love to get her perspective of being a woman writer in a time when it was dominated by men and the courage it took to go undercover to give a voice to the stories of the voiceless.

How can you encourage authors who have been receiving only rejections from publishers? When I began sending out one of my first manuscripts, I thought it was pristine, but after about 15 rejections, I put it on the shelf and focused on a new manuscript with fresh eyes and new goals based on some of the industry professionals’ suggestions. Six months after I shelved that first manuscript, I went back and looked over it . . . the professionals were right. It wasn’t ready, and it would require a lot more love (aka bleeding edits) before I attempted to send it out again. Sometimes, time is what you need to get a fresh perspective.

But it is also important to remember that when you get a rejection letter, they are not rejecting you. They are rejecting the work. And as much as you see it as a work of art, the publishers see it as a product. They are there to sell a product and if the product isn’t ready, it won’t sell well, so take heart and “hone your craft” and focus on any feedback you received that has merit. That critique was very hard for me to hear but it helped push me to keep learning, attending writers conferences, and following my dreams. So, keep it up! You can do it!

Tell us about the featured book. Her Darling Mr. Day was so much fun to write as it is set in New Orleans, in the very district where my husband and I lived when we first got married and where we now take our dates.

This book has one of my favorite tropes, friends-to-lovers, with all the drama that makes historical romance fun—think steamboats, suitors, belles, balls, mayhem, and river pirates. The official summary of the book is below:

New Orleans’ most eligible bachelor insists he’s not on the market. . . . He couldn’t be more wrong.

Jilted in front of all New York, Theodore Day decides to lose himself in his family’s luxury riverboat business in New Orleans and compete against his brother to become the next company head. The brother with the most sales by summer’s end will win the position. Thanks to Theodore’s fame as a suitor in Willow Dupré’s outlandish competition to find a husband, he has become very desirable royalty in southern society and thus has an advantage.

It took Flora Wingfield’s best work to convince her family to summer in New Orleans, but with Teddy Day a bachelor once again, she’s leaving nothing to chance. Desperate to stand out from all the clamoring belles, Flora attempts a bold move that goes completely awry, only to find it’s her interior design skills that finally catch his notice. But when Flora learns her father has matchmaking schemes of his own, Teddy will have to decide where his happiness truly lies and what he is willing to sacrifice for it.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Port of New Orleans, Louisiana

June 1883

It had taken some of her best work to convince her parents and four sisters to summer in New Orleans instead of in their mansion in Newport, but with Teddy Day finally a bachelor once more, Flora Wingfield wasn’t leaving anything to chance. She leaned against the polished rail of the steamboat, gripping her chapeau as she peered down at the muddy Mississippi River, attempting to catch a glimpse of life below the surface, but she doubted that if she stuck her hand in the water, she would even see her own fingers. Instead, all that greeted her was the blurry reflection of her cream hat peeking over the side of the boat.

At the Belle Memphis’s jarring whistle, she straightened and pulled at her high collar, the thick air leeching upon her skin. The hum of the levee workers greeted her as the boat’s paddle wheel slowly churned into port. As the landing stage swung into position, Flora was jostled against the crowd pressing with the rest of the passengers to disembark at long last. She clutched her beaded reticule to her chest, having been thoroughly warned against pickpockets by Father after losing her pin money on the journey here.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

Readers can find me on my website at GraceHitchcock.com, as well as on social media!

Bookbub: @hitchcockgrace  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/grace-hitchcock

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Thank you so much for having me on the blog today, Lena! Happy Reading!

Thank you for sharing this book with my blog readers and me. I’m eager to read it.

Readers, here’s a link to the book.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Her+Darling+Mr+Day&i=stripbooks&crid=197KGWZW2L4M&sprefix=her+darling+mr+day%2Cstripbooks%2C222&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

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