Blog Tour: All I'm Asking For: A Contemporary Christmas Anthology ~ Promo ~ Q/A - Christi Barth [Author] !!!

[Click on the tour banner to visit the tour schedule page]

[Click on the covers to visit the Amazon page of the respective books]

Book Synopsis:

Put love on your wish list with the romance anthology "All I'm Asking For."

Included in this holiday anthology are three romantic holiday novellas:

 Tinsel My Heart, Season of Second Chances and Mine Under the Mistletoe.

Tinsel My Heart by Christi Barth: 

This Christmas, the producer of a small town holiday spectacular is swept away by a handsome Hollywood director. 

Season of Second Chances by Brighton Walsh: 

Being stranded in a snowstorm offers a couple a second chance at a future together. 

Mine Under the Mistletoe by Kat Latham: 

An American in London helps a brooding Brit put the ghosts of Christmas past behind him. 

Wherever you are, however you celebrate, this collection of three festive novellas will bring warmth to your holiday season.

Stories also available for purchase separately.

Book Details:

Included Novellas:

• Tinsel My Heart by Christi Barth

• Season of Second Chances by Brighton Walsh

• Mine Under the Mistletoe by Kat Latham

Edition: First Edition

Format: eBook

Publication Date: December, 2013

Publisher: Carina Press

Tour Hashtag: #ChristmasA

 Tinsel My Heart, by Christi Barth:

Becca Huntley’s produced the Lyndale Park Player’s over-the-top Christmas pageant for ten years. The beloved Minneapolis tradition is the theatre’s main fundraiser. But this year’s production is almost canceled when their director disappears into rehab at the last minute. Good thing his directing partner steps in to save the day. Except for the minor fact that he hates everything about Christmas.

Jack Whittaker wiped the Twin Cities off his shoe with his graduation tassel and never looked back. But duty compels him to fulfill Tyler’s promise to direct the show. Even though it means working side-by-side with Becca, the girl he always wanted, lost to Ty, but never forgot.

Season of Second Chances, by Brighton Walsh

When a storm strands Claire Hanlin in Chicago on Christmas Eve, the last person she expects to come to her rescue is Logan Dawes, the man she almost married two years ago. The chemistry between them is dangerously potent, but with nowhere else to go, Claire accepts Logan’s offer to stay with him for the night.

Back in the home they shared, surrounded by reminders of Logan and his young daughter, Claire begins to realize how much she misses the family she almost had. After a few cups of Christmas cheer, she falls right back into her ex’s arms—even though she knows it means setting herself up for heartbreak all over again.

The magic of the season has thrown him together with the woman he’s never stopped loving, and Logan’s not about to pass up this gift. He’s not the workaholic he was two years ago—his family comes first. Now all he has to do is prove it to Claire, before the snow stops and she flies out of his life for good.

 Mine Under the Mistletoe, by Kat Latham

Thanks to a transatlantic house swap, California girl Ashley Turner is finally going to fulfill her lifelong dream of a proper English Christmas. Her holiday plans did not include a sexy stranger climbing into her borrowed bed in the middle of the night. But in the light of day, Ashley can’t help but wonder if Santa has delivered early.

Game designer Oliver Stansfeld can’t wait to leave dreary London—and all its difficult holiday memories—for sunny San Diego. But a freak ice storm and a grounded plane have forced him back to his already-occupied flat. To make up for the mix-up, the least he can do is show his pretty houseguest where to get the perfect Christmas tree before he leaves.

The more time they spend together, the more their attraction grows, and soon Ashley is tempting Oliver to give in to the spirit of the season and snuggle up for the rest of the winter. As the ice melts and flights start taking off again, he must choose between giving in to the past or risking his heart on a chance at love.

Christi Barth – Q&A  

1. Christi, your bio mentions that you have your Master’s degree in vocal performance and pursued a career on the stage.  Where did you earn your Master’s and can you tell us a little bit about your stage performances?  

 I was lucky enough to spend grad school at the University of Colorado, Boulder – one of the most beautiful places in the whole country. I then performed for ten years in musical theatre and opera.  I could go on for days about all the wonderful casts and shows, so if you ever want to talk Broadway, just let me know!

2. You have performed on stage and worked as wedding planner.  Which do you think has had more influence over your writing – the stage performances or the wedding planning?  

My friends and family would leap up to tell you that I have a dramatic streak. There’s a chance I might exaggerate. A bit. Occasionally. I think that manifests in my writing and helps me push the creative envelope. But the organization of being a wedding planner is something that helps me with the business end of writing. I’d say I mesh them well together!

3. Have you based any of your fictional romance couples on any of the real life people you met while working as a wedding planner?  If you had to choose any couple that you worked with during that time to write a book about, who would it be?  (It’s ok to change names but describe them for us.  Why choose them?) 

I try not to use real life people in my books very often. It is too easy to turn people into caricatures.  On top of that, I like creating the people in my books from scratch – kind of the whole point of being a writer. However, for my Aisle Bound series which had to be densely populated with wedding clients, I did ‘borrow’ a couple of stories horrifically funny-but-real stories. Names changed, locations shifted, so that nobody gets angry.

4. You are an award-winning author of the Aisle Bound series and have written a novella, Tinsel My Heart, in All I’m Asking For: A Christmas Anthology.  Do you feel that being an author yourself has affected the way you read the works of others?  

Absolutely – in 2 ways. 1) I can’t read as much, which breaks my heart. There are only so many hours in a day, and I had to sacrifice quite a bit of reading time in order to write. When I finish a manuscript, I go on a reading bender for about a week. I’m in the middle of one right now, and it is glorious! 2) While I can still lose myself in a great story, I find I’m much more critical of humdrum books. I’ve got trouble turning off my inner critic. Luckily, there are lots of extremely talented authors out there churning out exceptional work.

5.  From start to finish, how long do you think you spent writing and publishing Tinsel My Heart and this anthology?  Did you have the entire story imagined before you started writing or did you make it up as you went along?  Did you edit anything out of the novella after it was finished?  

I spent two days plotting it. Once I come up with the initial idea, I plow ahead to plot the entire book. I have to know where I’m going before I sit down to write. Like following a road map. Then I banged out the synopsis in a couple of painful hours. Spent just about six weeks writing it. No, I don’t take anything out (aside from tweaks my editor sends me) – I write an incredibly clean first draft. A few months went by, and when my edits came I polished them off in an hour. And then I spent loads of time on arranging blog tours, contacting reviewers, writing guest posts, interviews and all that promotional stuff.  Possibly longer than I spent on the actual writing!