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Hi, y’all! I’m Abby Sharpe, writer of passionate and playful contemporary romance. Thanks, HC, for having me here today!
Did you know there are all sorts of weird holidays? From Play Monopoly Day, to Smash Your Pumpkin Day (first day of November, shocking), to Eat Chocolate Cake Day. And let’s say your sister is recently engaged and wants to show off her fiancé’s baking skills on National Pecan Day (that’s today!), and you really want to bring a date so you can avoid all the raised eyebrows and looks of pity. What’s a girl to do?
She joins the Holidates App and finds herself a date!
It would be totally cool if this was a real app, right? Alas, it’s not. Twelve authors every year each pick a month and a holiday, and then write a story using the app as a way of getting the couple together.
Holidate Fail, my Holidates debut (available for preorder on Amazon), is releasing on May 10 in Kindle Unlimited. I love this fun and flirty story so hard. It’s a trip to write within parameters that other people set, but it also allows you to explore worlds you wouldn’t have gone to before.
Betcha wanna know what obscure holiday I picked, right? Read on!
The wrong turn can lead you right to your brother's best friend
Nerdy hydrologist Dahlia Pesch has better luck attracting alligators while collecting water samples than finding a man. This includes Kelly Brannigan, her brother’s best friend and her crush from afar. Since the tri-county scavenger hunt celebrating National Scavenger Hunt Day is much easier with a date, she sheds her shy identity and tests her luck with the Holidates app. She spends hours analyzing the data before picking her perfect match. She’s mortified when she meets up with Kelly…until she realizes he’s not her Holidate.
When his latest girlfriend dumps him two weeks before the tri-county scavenger hunt, Kelly Brannigan turns to the Holidates app to quickly find a partner. With his fledgling business sponsoring the hunt, it’s important that he be there, having fun for social media pictures and garnering some much needed publicity. His match was perfect on paper—so why was the awkward sister of his best friend taking over his thoughts?
An app didn’t align their algorithms, but since when did computers understand the laws of attraction?
What do you think? And what obscure (or made up!) holiday would you like to celebrate with a date? Romance Reader Day is March 1, and Book Lovers Day is August 9. Just in case you need help deciding.
Don't forget to take a minute to connect with Abby!
Romance Unraveled (Facebook group)