Title: Forever in a Moment
Author: Charlotte O’Shay
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomCom, Holiday Romance
Book Blurb
One vivacious city woman, one grumpy farmer, and enough heat to melt a blizzard.
A stormy encounter...
Samantha DeMartino's Christmas wedding is two weeks away when her fiancé calls the whole thing off. Word on the street: His cold feet are being heated by an old flame. With her well-ordered world in complete disarray, Sam's friends convince her to go on her honeymoon - alone. A week at a charming Vermont inn away from the city, and her demanding corporate career could be just what she needs to figure out her next steps.
Between his 24/7 work schedule on his family's dairy farm and teaching tourists to ski, Jed Armstrong's too busy to think about how lonely he is...until Sam sings her way into his life during a Christmas blizzard. Now, he has to figure out a way to convince her to stay.
Can a vivacious city woman find forever with a reclusive farmer?
Will her secret keep her from trying?
Excerpt:
Honeymoon for One
How did I, Samantha DeMartino, end up driving a rental car in a snowstorm on my way to a tiny town in Vermont on a honeymoon for one?
I’ll tell you but keep your comments to yourself until the end. Let’s just say…it’s not pretty.
That Friday started out like any other day. And by any other day I mean every other day. You can set your watch by my schedule. No, actually you could run NASA by my schedule it’s that freakin’ predictable.
Five a.m. alarm, set so I can snooze till five-fifteen, workout, shower, protein shake. Select another just this side of staid outfit from a closet full of ‘yes, I am a curvy woman and yes, you must take me seriously’ wardrobe choices.
Since I spend the entire day stuck in my tiny office, in theory I could wear daisy dukes and a crop top but parental decree dictates otherwise. Ten hours a day, every day, I’m poring over the federal, state and city tax code and rulings along with writing the occasional memorandum of law. I don’t meet with clients. I’m a junior lawyer in a tax firm. Even my desktop finds me so boring it yawns and shuts down on a regular basis.
I walk the one mile from my shoebox of an apartment on the lower west side to the office, “Uber if it’s raining because—my hair. It’s long, thick and wavy and no amount of clever angle cuts can prevent it from blowing up into cartoon hair at the slightest hint of humidity or precipitation.
Then I greet Dad, sometimes Mom at the door of their adjoining lower Park Avenue offices at eight. We’re always the first ones there. Naomi and Jeremy, who share our receptionist and assistant duties, show up closer to ten am.
Then I sink into regs, opinions and precedent, like it’s my job, because it is. I don’t pick up my head till my yogurt and apple lunch at exactly twelve noon, unless it’s to answer a query one of my parents pose about a client.
My mom, Lina LoRusso DeMartino is an accountant and dad, Sam Sr. is a lawyer. Dad and I are DeMartino, LLP. In the adjoining office space is LoRusso Accountants. The accountants are my Mom and my fiancé Ben Talese.
“I mean ex-fiancé. You’ll excuse me because habits are tough to break, especially, I’m realizing, for me, and I’ve been calling Ben my fiancé for almost three years. I’m such a creature of habit you can tell what day it is by the color of my shoes. Friday’s are red, which is, I hope, self-explanatory.
But back to that Friday.
It wasn’t just any Friday. And yet like every Friday since even before we got engaged, Ben and I would have dinner together. At six o’clock if it was a working dinner with take out in our shared conference room or six-thirty if we went out to our usual place, the Park Avenue Bistro.
But it wasn’t just any Friday for a number of reasons.
First, it was two weeks before our wedding. Second, it was two weeks before Christmas. Third, I had some news to give Ben and fourth, it turns out Ben had some news to give me.
“Ben suggested, no, he insisted, we go to the Park Avenue Bistro and in retrospect it made sense. We were such a sensible couple. If he was going to break up with me two weeks before our wedding, he was going to do it in a public place where the legendary DeMartino temper, seldom seen but feared all the more because of its elusive quality, could not be unleashed.
Or so he thought.
“Oh, Sam, you didn’t...”
There’s shock and awe in Tracy’s voice and I don’t mind saying that if I have to tell my girlfriends the sad and sorry tale of being dumped two weeks before my wedding, I’m glad there’re some moments I can look back on with a smile. Make that a smirk.
“I did. I guess those tone up workouts really jacked my arms because I lifted that table like it was an empty pizza box.”
“And then what happened?” That’s Beth, she’s a New York City schoolteacher, idealistic and tough as nails.
“He brushed himself off but I’m guessing he took a hefty burger and fries scent home with him to the lovely Krystal. Along with my ring.”
“You gave back the ring?” Tracey and Beth shriek at the same time.
Other diners in the Murray Hill tavern we chose as our impromptu girls’ night out spot barely look in our direction but Tracey and Beth are appalled.
Tracy is an event planner and always has the Emily Post etiquette angle on everything. Beth has been my righteous protector ever since our middle school’s mean girl squad made fun of the embarrassing, too early, beginnings of my centerfold figure.
“Seriously? Why would I want it?”
“Because it’s almost two carats?” They’re both flabbergasted.
“No.” I shake my head. “I was up all night trying to figure out how it all went south and I decided I was as much at fault as he is.”
“You’re not the one who cheated...”
“No, no I don’t mean it like that. And he didn’t cheat right away. According to him, when Krystal first came back to New York, they just met to catch up, you know two college friends, blah, blah, blah.”
“Two college friends who were inseparable all through college.” Tracey sips the last drop of her extra lime, extra salt, double tequila margarita before pursing her lips in disapproval.
“Yeah, and after eight years apart, he still had feelings for her.” My voice droops against my will into a half whine.
“He should’ve told you right away.” That’s Beth.
Buy Links
Giveaway -
Enter to win one a paperback copy of Forever in a Moment by Charlotte O'Shay
Runs November 18 - December 20
Drawing will be held on December 21
Author Biography:
There's only one thing best-selling, award-winning NYC author Charlotte O'Shay loves more than reading steamy, page-turning, contemporary romance.
Writing them.
Charlotte’s writing has been called "intoxicating, emotional and irresistible." N.N. Light’s Book Heaven.
Whether they're blue-collar or billionaires, Charlotte writes protective heroes who fall hard for the independent women who challenge them on every level.
Charlotte lives with Mac, her real-life hero on the lower west side of Manhattan where her walks along the Hudson River serve up fresh story ideas every day.
Social Media Links: