HOLIDAY POST – INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY

I’m an Emery Lord fangirl you guys… I absolutely fell in love with her writing in Open Road Summer and Matt Finch is seriously swoony! I’m so excited to read The Start of Me and You and it’s actually been staring at me in my pile of arcs… I’m pretty sure that I’ll be skipping ahead in my pile and grabbing it very soon!

If you haven’t read Open Road Summer, I can tell you that it’s on my best of 2014 list, and you must pick it up as soon as you possibly can! That said, we wanted to highlight Emery and giveaway a coveted signed copy of Open Road Summer. Plus we got to get some details on how her lovely characters might be spending the holiday – read on!

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for a year, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to live?

Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances.

ABOUT EMERY

Emery Lord is a 20-something Midwestern girl who writes stories about high school and best friends and weird families and the crushes that make you feel combustibly alive and also more awkward than you thought was possible. If you’re not sure how to pronounce Emery, try slurring the name “Emily,” and that will get you really close.

She lives in Cincinnati in a 100 year-old pink row house with her BFF/husband, a closet full of dresses, and lots of books. If karaoke-ing in grocery store aisles or guzzling coffee while impulse shopping were illegal, Emery would be writing her overemotional YA books from jail. Also, she makes up words sometimes. Like combustibly.

Let’s talk characters!

What would Matt have on his Christmas list?

He’s such a big kid but really sentimental. So…remote control helicopter and one of Reagan’s photos framed.

If Matt and Reagan are spending Christmas Eve together what would they be doing?

They’d be with Matt’s family in Chicago, playing board games and eating cookies and watching movies. Matt would hand off his little nephew to Reagan, and, she’d start to say, “I don’t know, I–” but it’s too late, the baby’s in her arms and nodding off. She’d sit there with him as the Finch Four get the band back together for Christmas carols, Matt playing piano, and their dad singing too. Later, Matt would lobby for Love Actually, and Reagan would say, “Oh Jesus, of course you love that movie.” (But she secretly does too.) Matt’s sister Carrie would pull for While You Were Sleeping, their mom’s favorite. Reagan would try to hide her tears at the end, when she realizes how easy it has been to love Matt’s family, the way they tease one another and how going to get coffee with Carrie earlier in the day felt like hanging out with an old friend. She’d panic a little until the next afternoon, Matt driving them back to Tennessee wearing a stupid Santa hat and singing along to every damn Christmas song on the radio.

What would Matt put in Reagan’s stocking?

Plane tickets 🙂

What is Lilah up to this Christmas?

Family traditions with her parents and brothers, with Amy Grant’s “Tennessee Christmas” on heavy rotation while Dee takes decorating Christmas cookies way too seriously. Every year, the Montgomerys do the Adopt-a-Family program, and every year, she and Reagan scour the city for the hardest-to-find Disney gifts for the kids. Reagan once bribed a guy at the toy store to get the last princess doll from the back. Dee would also being doing the holiday party circuit- going her label’s holiday shindig, singer friends’ parties. She’d be waking up in plaid pajamas on Christmas morning, watching her brothers open their gifts with George Bailey’s words repeating like a song stuck in her head: Isn’t it wonderful? Merry Christmas.

Now how about some questions for you!

When do you hang up your decorations?

The day after Thanksgiving!

What’s your favorite holiday memory?

Everything with my family. But especially first Christmas after I graduated college. My now-husband and I had almost no money, but we filled a tiny, horrible apartment with ornaments, decorated Christmas cookies, and splurged on going to The Nutcracker.

What’s on your holiday wishlist this year?

A pink typewriter (my husband already got it & was too excited to wait to give it to me)

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?

My husband and I have a weekend just the two of us called Usmas involving 6 core holiday movies, cookie decorating, around-town festivities, etc.

What’s your favorite Christmas song?

Aggghh impossible. Okay. Judy Garland’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

What’s your favorite holiday movie?

White Christmas and Home Alone. I CAN’T PICK.

It’s midnight on New Year’s Eve – you can kiss any celebrity, living or dead. Who do you pick?

EASY. Danny Kaye, my first crush.

Now tell us a little about what’s on the horizon for you? Are you working on something new? Do you have something coming out soon?

My second book (The Start of Me & You) is out March 2015. I’m in edits for my third book, When We Collided, which will be out in 2016. In between, I’m slowwwly starting to draft my 2017 book. I have asked Santa for 50,000 words for Christmas 😉

One lucky winner will win (us only) a SIGNED hardcover of Open Road Summer!

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