Summer has always been my favorite season, maybe because summer is the time that I get to go to the beach! I grew up on Long Island and summers were always spent going to Jones Beach whenever someone’s parent had days off or taking what we now call a “Staycation.”
Now I’m lucky enough to live close to the Jersey Shore and since I’m a Jersey Girl now and love the shore so much, I decided to share it with you in my upcoming contemporary romance release, ONE SUMMER NIGHT, the first book in the At the Shore series..
ONE SUMMER NIGHT is set in the fictional town of Sea Kiss which is a blend of some of my favorite Jersey Shore towns.
When hero Owen Pierce and his brother Jonathan (the hero of the second book in the At The Shore series) stroll through a quaint Victorian town and stop in at a surf and skate shop, you’ll get to experience a little bit of the lovely town of Ocean Grove. Ocean Grove was founded by the Methodists and besides some lovely Victorian homes and Main Avenue, it has many unique features, like these tents that are used by residents during the summer months. The town of Ocean Grove is a historic landmark and known as God’s Little Square Mile.
The heroine, Maggie Sinclair, has a beach house in Sea Kiss and would often spend her youth reading romance novels in a gazebo sitting just above the dunes on the beach. The gazebo and dunes are based on my town of Bradley Beach, the southern neighbor to Ocean Grove. Bradley Beach is a lovely family-oriented beach town and was actually the first town to issue beach badges for access to the beach. Yes, in Jersey we pay per person to go to the beach in many towns. This is a photo of our original gazebo in Bradley which was unfortunately destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
Now that you’ve met two of the towns that inspired Sea Kiss, how about a little teaser about ONE SUMMER NIGHT?
An offer that’s impossible to accept…
Maggie Sinclair has tried everything to save her family’s business, including mortgaging their beloved beach house on the Jersey shore. But now, she’s out of options.
The Sinclair and Pierce families have been neighbors and enemies for almost thirty years. That hasn’t stopped Owen Pierce from crushing on Maggie, and he’s determined to invest in her success. Now he has to convince her that he’s more than just trouble with a capital T…
I had a blast writing this story about enemies who become lovers. Actually, Maggie and Owen were actually childhood friends before the feud really heated up and they were torn apart by it. But it’s hard to avoid each other when they run in similar circles and constantly see each other. It’s even harder when there’s attraction simmering between the two of them that’s impossible to resist.
I hope you’ll take the time to check out this fun, tender and sensual story!
ONE SUMMER NIGHT has been named a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Romance!
Publishers Weekly: In a passionate modern Romeo and Juliet-inspired story (with a much happier ending) that opens a contemporary romance series, Pineiro (Under the Boardwalk) develops the forbidden love between sensitive, spunky retail heiress Maggie Sinclair and stoic real estate scion Owen Pierce. Three decades earlier, Maggie and Owen’s fathers, formerly best friends and business partners, had an ugly fight, supposedly over real estate. They bequeathed that animosity to their children. Inconveniently, Owen and Maggie have been attracted to each other since they were young, and chemistry arcs between the two when they reconnect at their families’ side-by-side beach houses in Sea Kiss, N.J. Owen’s bitter father threatens to disinherit Owen if he dates Maggie, so Owen comes up with a desperate plan: he pretends that he’s only marrying Maggie to gain control of her faltering retail chain. A cast of lovely, imperfect supporting characters–including Owen’s entrepreneurial younger brother, Jonathan; Maggie’s friend Emma, a wedding planner avoiding love; and her friend Connie, a workaholic lawyer gunning for partner–neatly surrounds this endearing hero and heroine as Owen’s father attempts to derail their love story forever. Readers will want to visit the charming town of Sea Kiss again and again. (Oct.)
Kirkus: “A sexy, fun, yet touching summer read.”
You can purchase ONE SUMMER NIGHT at these retailers:
Thank you so much for letting me visit with you today!