Blog Tour: Falling for Santa by C.J. Anthony (Guest Post, Excerpt + Release Day Review)

Blurb:
When Jack Frost’s aunt dies and leaves him her house in the tiny town of Great Falls, Jack seizes the opportunity to escape the rat race of Chicago for the quaint village he loved as a child. On his first night he’s welcomed by a baseball bat and a trespassing warning from Nick St. James—longtime Great Falls resident and infamous curmudgeon.

Jack wants to give Nick the benefit of the doubt—he can’t deny his attraction to the big man—but after several run-ins with Nick’s grumpiness and closed-off heart, he’s ready to give up. Only after discovering the secret Nick’s been covering up for years does he vow to break through Nick’s walls to find the loving man hiding behind them.

Hi, I’m C. J. Anthony and I’d like to thank Bayou Book Junkie for hosting me today. I’m here to talk about my new novella with Dreamspinner Press, called Falling for Santa Claus…

*record scratching noise* Back up, wait…did I just say Santa Claus? But it’s July, you’re thinking. Santa Claus comes in December with all that cold and snow right? Not in July when it’s shorts and T-shirt weather and ice cream and sunshine and all the good stuff we look forward to all year, right? Well, yes, that’s true…but hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little Christmas in July! 

This is the fifth stop on my blog tour. I hope you’ll prop your feet up, grab some ice cold lemonade or ice tea, turn that AC up to it’s coldest setting and blast it while you follow along. You’ll get to find out more about the story, why I wrote it and also a little side story about what Jack, Nick and the other residents of Great Falls are up to this summer. At the end of the tour, I’ll be choosing two winners from all the comments on all of the blogs (which means every time you comment on a different blog, you get another entry!) and they’ll receive a special Christmas in July gift from Santa himself. Blog links are listed below. 

Today I’m going to answer the question what inspired this story and these characters. What makes them so special? 

Honestly the main inspiration behind this story is just that I wanted to write a fun and light Christmas story. When I read Christmas stories myself, I don’t want a lot of angst or drama. I want warm and fuzzy, I want snow and lights and warm cocoa. And I want fun and happiness and love.

Whether it’s movies or TV or books, I’ve always loved small town settings with crazy and quirky neighbors and townspeople. I have a lot of fun creating the secondary characters in my books, they always have distinct personalities and this book is no different. With the setting being a very small town, there of course needed to be lots of nice-but-nosy neighbors and townspeople. Flo and Mabel are two eccentric ladies who have a lot of interaction with Jack and Nick. 

Jack and Nick are two characters that are of opposite temperaments. Nick is very surly and set in his ways and Jack (at the beginning of the book) has just overhauled his life and is starting on a new adventure in a new town. Jack is enamored of his new town, while Nick has lived there for many years and is a bit jaded to its charms. Deep down, he loves his town though.

Picking their names, Jack Frost and Nick St. James was just another fun bit of whimsy to add to the story, especially once Nick’s “secret” is revealed.

So, if you like fun, charming Christmas stories, I hope you’ll stop by Great Falls and read Jack and Nick’s story. Maybe stop at Mabel’s diner for a cup of coffee while you read. 

Check out the book at any of the links below:

Buy links: Dreamspinner Press  Amazon  ARE  BN  Kobo

Follow the rest of the tour:

July 17 - MM Good Book Reviews

July 21 -  Oh My Shelves

July 24 - Divine Magazine

July 24 - Love Bytes

July 25 - Bayou Book Junkie

July 28 - Dreamspinner Press Blog

July 29 - Prism Book Alliance

 

Jack Frost is ready to enjoy a quieter, slower paced  life. Leaving his home in Chicago to move to a small sleepy town in Vermont where he often visited his aunt, Great Falls, is perfect. During his first few minutes in town, he meets his cantankerous neighbor, Nick St. James, when the man threatens him with a baseball bat, mistaking him for a burglar.   

This is only the first of many run-in's the two neighbors have. While Jack may find Nick attractive, he can't seem to get past the man's grumpy and unapproachable personality.  However, Christmas Eve gives Jack a glimpse of the real Nick, making Christmas in Great Falls unexpectedly special. 


This is a very cute, funny and sweet story. I really liked both Jack and Nick even if Nick was
such a grump. The irony of a man who people tend to brush off as the town's grouch being a real life Santa Claus was definitely amusing. 

This is definitely a slow burn and the sexy parts are off page. However, there is definitely a sweetness factor to it.  I definitely recommend Falling For Santa Claus, it will be perfect for a touch of Christmas in July. 

4 Stars! 

Author Bio:

C. J. Anthony started reading and writing at an early age. She attributes her love of reading and romance to her mother who not only taught her to read but also made countless trips to the library lugging piles of books home for her to read. She loved getting lost in the people and places and adventures she found in books. It wasn’t a far jump to start writing her own stories, early childhood tales about flower families and travelling to the moon with her best friend.

C. J. has always been a hopeless romantic, believing in true love and soul mates, and HEAs with a little humor and a little angst along the way–life is never perfect, after all, but everyone deserves a happy ending and someone there to catch them when they fall. Her favorite stories to read and write revolve around the idea of “opposites attract”—couples who start out as two people who couldn’t be more different from each other. They might appear to be the odd couple to the rest of the world, but to each other they are perfect, creating their own happy ever after with a little hard work and a whole lot of love.

Not surprisingly, C. J. is a big lover of Rom Coms—she’ll gladly take Julia Roberts standing in front of Hugh Grant asking him to love her, over car crashes and shoot-em up movies any day. She also watches way too much TV and every singing reality show there is. She loves music and musicians of all genres with the attitude that nothing is a guilty pleasure and all music has a purpose even if it is just to make you dance and laugh.

She spends most of her time juggling a day job and a commute and freelance design work on the side and falling asleep on her couch.

You can find C. J. at:

https://www.facebook.com/cjanthony.writer

@C_J_Anthony on twitter

www.cjanthony.wordpress.com