I’m delighted to welcome fellow Bookouture author, Jo Lovett who is going to talk to us today about her latest rom-com, The House Swap. Let’s take a look at the cover and find out a bit about the book.
Blurb
Island house off coast of Maine, with private beach, sea views and the occasional farmyard animal, seeks super swanky Central London penthouse overlooking Holland Park, complete with concierge service and spurned ex-lovers…
When thirty-somethings Cassie and James find each other on a home swap website, it feels meant to be. City hotshot James needs a bolthole after a relationship goes sour and Cassie needs to leave the comfort of her little island to research her new book.
Soon, James is living in Cassie’s cute but ramshackle beachside cottage, and Cassie’s living in James’s luxurious London apartment. It’s the perfect solution.
Except James didn’t imagine he’d be sharing his home with eleven chickens and three alpacas, not to mention the unusually friendly neighbours, who seem to find any excuse to drop by. And Cassie is less than impressed when James’s ex-girlfriend turns up at his door, demanding to know where he’s gone.
The more Cassie and James talk, the more the tension between them mounts. But as the insults fly so do the sparks, and when the time finally comes to swap back, Cassie and James find they aren’t quite ready to give each other up.
But there’s more than just distance between them – and when Cassie makes a surprising discovery, the pair are forced to confront their feelings and decide what kind of life they really want.
An utterly heart-warming love story that will make you laugh and cry, fans of The Flatshare, The Hating Game and movies like The Holiday will fall head over heels for The House Swap.
Buy links
Amazon: https://bit.ly/3da6FVl
Apple: https://apple.co/2LLYkvR
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3iqd1kh
Google: https://bit.ly/3sF99k0
What readers are saying about The House Swap:
‘I really loved this book. It’s funny, endearing, sweet, and just makes you feel good. It’s the kind of book you can read and smile… isn’t that what we all need right now? Something comforting and fun. I can’t wait to read more by Jo Lovett!’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars
‘I loved this book. I read it all in one sitting, I could not put it down… The characters are so relatable and lovable. I felt everything they were feeling… The writing was so amazing you really do feel everything. Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars
‘This was a super cute book!… incredibly fun… kept me hooked the entire time!’ Brinns Books
It sounds a fun story, doesn’t it? Let’s find out more about Cassie. Over to you, Jo:
So Cassie, tell me a little about yourself
I’m thirty-seven, I write children’s books and I’m originally from Scotland (although half Jordanian) but now live on a beautiful island off the coat of Maine surrounded by lovely neighbours and my three alpacas and eleven chickens.
What made you choose to live on the island?
I wasn’t actually planning to move permanently away from Glasgow – it was just supposed to be a temporary break – but then I saw my extremely dilapidated house for sale for an extremely good price and it turned out that I had no willpower whatsoever and couldn’t help myself buying it, and four years on I’m still here and loving it…
So what made you choose to do the house swap?
If I’m honest, I really didn’t want to do it. I love the island in the summer, and I didn’t want to leave my friends and animals. But I needed to visit London for work purposes, plus I’d been thinking for a while about going for fertility treatment with a sperm donor and it felt like it’d be a lot easier to be down the road from the hospital rather than on an island several hours away from Boston (where I’d otherwise have gone for the treatment), so I decided to go for it. I wanted to rent my house out for financial and security reasons and my agent recommended the website SwapBnB and I was lucky enough to find James’s flat on there and be able to agree the swap with him.
Tell us about your neighbours – they sound very important to you?
I’m unbelievably lucky with my neighbours. They’re wonderful and I adore them. On one side I have Laura, who’s eighty and amazing at baking, dragging your life secrets out of you and poker. And on the other side I have my friend Dina, who’s my age, a serious player in the world of dolls house manufacture and far too open about sex, and likes a big night out.
And your alpacas and chickens
I’m lucky with them too! The alpacas are called Maisie, Donna and Fred and are loyal and cuddly and spit. And there are eleven chickens of different breeds and a couple of them lay blue eggs which genuinely do taste a bit different.
And… James? I hear that you didn’t immediately hit it off
To be fair to James, he did leave his flat in an immaculate state and he did also leave three very welcome and very fancy bottles of wine for me. But we had slightly different ideas about what we were expecting from a house swap. I thought he was ridiculously unfriendly (and gorgeous, which was just annoying) and I’m pretty sure that he thought I was ridiculously over-friendly to start off with… And we both thought the other was unreasonable… And that’s when the arguing started…
Would you do it all over again?
Yes!
If you want to find out how Cassie and James get on, you can get a copy of the book here:
Buy links
Amazon: https://bit.ly/3da6FVl
Apple: https://apple.co/2LLYkvR
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3iqd1kh
Google: https://bit.ly/3sF99k0
Meet Jo
Author bio
Jo Lovett lives in London with her family. She started writing romantic comedy when she realised that she was regularly begging her oldest son to let her do his English homework but she wasn’t actually that interested in haunted houses or Macbeth.
Jo was runner-up in the Good Housekeeping/ Orion First Novel Competition 2018 and shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Award 2019.
Her first novel, ‘The First Time We Met’, was published by Bookouture in November 2020 and her second, ‘The House Swap’, in April 2021. Jo’s third book will be published in October 2021.
When she can escape her laundry mountain, she enjoys reading, tennis and wine.
Contact
Twitter: @JoLovettWrites
Lovely to talk to you and Cassie, Jo. I hope your book flies!
Karen King – Writing about the light and dark of relationships.
Amazon Author Page: https://tinyurl.com/y2q5audb
Website: http://www.karenking.net/