A Model Fiancé

BLURB:

There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t ask Audrey to pretend to be my fiancée. For a start:

1.    She’s my best friend’s sexy little sister.
2.    She’ll have to travel around the world with me.
3.    The paparazzi will eat her alive.
4.    So will I.

But I also have a million followers on social media who think we’re already engaged, and there are millions of dollars at stake.

So what have I got to lose?

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43901422-a-model-fiance

PURCHASE LINKS – $3.99

US: https://amzn.to/2VRW0mw
UK: https://amzn.to/2HuVZkH
CA: https://amzn.to/2EURT2g
AU: https://amzn.to/2NZiBLk

Free in Kindle Unlimited

About Nikky Kaye:

Nikky Kaye writes funny, sexy romance about sassy women in fabulous shoes and the alpha heroes who sweep them off their feet.

In real life, Nikky has dipped her toe in a lot of careers, but her twin boys always come first. When not writing, you may find her brandishing puns and power tools, or wandering through the dollar stores of western Canada.

AUTHOR LINKS

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/officialnikkykayeauthor
Facebook Profile: http://www.facebook.com/nikkykayeauthor
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/nikkykayebooks
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/nikky-kaye
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15398094.Nikky_Kaye
Amazon: http://author.to/nikkykaye
Website: http://www.nikkykaye.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/readnikkykaye

Interview With Nikky Kaye:

1. Can you tell us a little about your books?

You would have to pick the hardest question first, wouldn’t you? J When I started writing romance again a few years ago (after a very long hiatus), I thought I was writing erotica. Then someone told me that first novella or two were really more like erotic romance. However, I was then told that it was too funny to be erotic romance. But it was too sexy to be straight romantic comedy. So who knows?

Someone last year told me that they felt like my books were like Gilmore Girls with sex. I thought that was a great way to describe them! A review of my most recent release, A Model Fiancé, called it “complicated, sweet, hot, awkward, random, and absolutely amazing.” That description really tickled me.

2. What inspires you to write?

I suppose I’ve always written in some form or another. I went from insipid short stories in junior high to freelancing for newspapers and magazines in high school. I wrote and published academic articles and book chapters. Freelance copywriting. Advertising. TV scripts.

With regards to the types of characters and stories that inspire me… Well, I used to teach Film, and I love old romantic comedies from the 1930s and 1940s. Some of my all-time favourite movies are The Thin Man (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940). The banter always makes me grin. With the way censorship was in Hollywood then, it was up to the writers to make a movie sexy—sometimes only through dialogue, wordplay and rhythm. Maybe that’s what I’m striving for (only, uh, without the censorship LOL).

3. How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

More tough questions? Back in the last millennium, I wrote three romantic suspense novels, a romantic comedy, and the first book in a mystery series. I had a powerhouse agent in New York, but the general consensus around town was that my voice was “too quirky” for the market at that time. So, five books “back in the day.” I started writing again in spring 2016, and did a crash course in self-publishing with a niche non-fiction book. It reinvigorated my love of writing, and I wondered how my romance voice might have changed after all these years (spoiler: it’s even more quirky).

So, since summer 2016 I’ve written and published eleven novellas, four novels and three short stories. They are not all currently on the market, as I’m in the middle of rebranding and changing covers and titles on many of them.

I know every author says that their most recent book is their favorite, but it’s kind of true for me right now. I began A Model Fiancé (my working title for it was Instalove) last fall. It’s the longest I’ve ever taken on something, but my schedule got screwed up by career tailspin and fairly serious health issues.

My other secret favorite child is my first novella, which was a new adult erotic romance titled Once Should Be Enough. That’s what got me back into this. The first line of the first book is “I think I hate sex.” It’s a friends-to-lovers college romance. It had a sequel titled Don’t Think Twice, but both are off the market now… because I’m writing a third part and plan to re-launch the whole thing.

4. What is a usual writing day like for you? How is it structured?

I wish I had a better routine. My husband travels and works a lot, so I’m a married single parent to young twin boys. I used to start writing after they went to bed, and would work until the wee hours of the morning (sometimes all night!), but I can’t do that anymore. In a perfect world, I’d get to work as soon as I get them off to school in the morning. It’s far too easy to get caught up in social media and other paperwork, though. They often come home for lunch, as well, which breaks up my focus even more. I usually write for a few hours in the afternoon, before they’re home again.

I also have ADD, which a lot of authors do (I think), and it’s harder for me to focus because of that. My goal is generally one chapter or 2000 words a day, which is slow in comparison to a lot of people I know. But even that gets out of whack due to travel and other things. For example, I was just at a conference for four days then came home briefly before going away again for another three days to visit a sick family member. Now I’m home for a week before we take the boys to Japan for two weeks for spring break!

One of the reasons that A Model Fiancé took me as long as it did is because I had three strokes in late November, so I was forced to pull back and not be so obsessive about work. I have fewer functional hours a day in some ways now, and I have to be better about balancing things like working out and resting with writing and parenting.

5. Do you have a favorite spot to write?

I write everywhere—home, the library, airplanes. I’ve been known to go park at a mall and just write in the car for hours. People probably think I’m doing drug deals or something. I find it hard to write at home when my kids are home too, because they distract me. Shocking, right?

Last year we were faced with some storage issues. My husband is a bit of a packrat, and after many years of shuffling bankers boxes full of old sports magazines and VHS tapes I was ready to have a bonfire. We looked at getting a storage unit, but for what we’d need it was going to be $1000/month! My husband said, “Just get an apartment.” So I did!

I rented a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo about a mile from my house. We use it for storage, and have the living room set up as a kind of home office for me, and the smaller bedroom has a little bed in it for the occasional nap. My kids like to stay there sometimes because they think of it as like a secret hotel. There’s no Internet, so it allows me alone time to work, without too many distractions. I know—I’m very lucky to have it!

6. If you ever experience a case of writer’s block, how do you cure it?

If I get writer’s block, it’s always towards the end of a book. That’s the point at which I’m convinced that everything I’ve written to that point is incomprehensible nonsense, and I’ve lost track of my own story and characters.

I rarely struggle with creativity—in fact, I have more ideas than time to execute them—but I definitely struggle with confidence.

Honestly, I can’t count how many times I’ve agonized over quitting. I’ve been frustrated by administrative troubles, such as Amazon rank-stripping me and losing my Facebook ad account (which happened in August 2017). I’ve cried my eyes out, wishing I were a better writer or wishing I could do things that other authors seem to do so easily. Of course, everyone probably feels like that at times. Comparing yourself to others brings nothing but self-doubt and depression, but we all do it at least a little bit.

If you’re self-publishing, it can be really tough to separate your artistic and creative brain from the business brain that you’re required to hone. Sometimes it’s hard to look at your work from the perspective of a marketer, or analyze yourself commercially. Some of the authors I admire the most make a point of not writing and doing business stuff on the same day, or even in the same week. That’s really, really smart.

7. If you could spend 24 hours as a fictional character, who would you choose?

I’ve been thinking on this, and I really don’t know. You’re talking about inhabiting someone else’s thoughts and feelings. If an author has done a good job of it, then it should be easier to imagine being inside that character’s head. Being inside a character’s head isn’t the same as being inside their body and place and time, however. I love Diana Gabaldon’s Claire Fraser, but I’m not sure I’d want to be in the times and places that she found herself.

This might sound like a cop-out, but I would love to spend a day as the ideal me—the Nikky who is consistent with her kids, who has a ton of energy and is in fabulous shape. The Nikky who achieves every goal with grace and cheerful determination. The Nikky who isn’t distracted and forgetful, whose house is devoid of baskets of random items to put away and paperwork to deal with. J Like I said, fictional.

8. What writing projects are you currently working on?

Right now I’m trying to reshape some of my backlist, with new titles, covers, and additional content. I also have a new novel and a novella to edit. Plus, I want to get back into writing a reader-driven serialized novel for my list.

So what do I begin next?

· A standalone enemies-to-lovers romance, like Sabrina meets Wuthering Heights?

· A romantic comedy about a woman who runs an adult toy business but asks her escort neighbor for “pleasure tutoring”?

· A series spinning off from my novella Do It Yourself, about a company of women contractors and construction workers?

Strategically speaking, I should do a series but I’m afraid that I won’t be able to fully commit to seeing it through at this point. Busy life + health + ADD = inconsistency. I’ve got half a dozen standalone ideas in my head that I want to write, but also need to balance my own creative desires with commercial viability.

For the past year, I’ve also been planning a four-book Regency series, and there’s a paranormal cozy mystery series that I’m dying to try. I need more time and energy, but I have less now than before. I’m not trying to be vague; I’m just a bit… squirrelly.

It’s the story of my life—which might also be considered a screwball comedy.