Blog Tour: Amy Andrews - Taming the Tycoon

Amy Andrews - Taming the Tycoon

• Pub Date: August 18, 2012
• Publisher: Entangled Publishing
• Format: Paperback/ebook, 244 pp
• Age Range: Adult

Real estate tycoon Nathaniel Montgomery is one deal away from making his first billion and fulfilling a promise to his dying father. Nothing will stop himfrom tearing down the decrepit St. Agnes hospital and erecting posh condos in its place. Not even the crystal-wearing, health food store owner whose publicity stunt lands him in the hospital.

After her brush with death five years ago, child prodigy Addie Collins learned what’s truly important—health, happiness, and the two-hundred-year-old rose garden at St. Agnes. To make amends for the accident, she agrees to pose as Nathaniel’s girlfriend at his eccentric grandmother’s birthday party.

But Addie has an ulterior motive. To repay her debt to the universe, she must show him there's more to life than making money. Nathaniel hates to lose, but as she breaks through his defenses, losing himself in Addie's arms might be exactly what this tycoon needs...

Guest Post

by Amy Andrews

AMY ANDREWS TOP 10 ICK WORDS

Yes, ick words. We all have them. You know the ones that make you shudder when you read them. They’re different for all of us and its no reflection on the author – they’re just words that, for some reason, usually unknown, set your ick-o-meter twitching. For example, I love the word “chuckle”. I think it’s a wonderfully descriptive word for a particular kind of laughter. It says warm and deep and rich and I use it a lot. But I have writer friends who hate it. Who wouldn’t even use it if it was the last word left in the English language. Again, they can’t articulate why its icks them out – it just does.

And I get that. I truly do.

So, here are my current top ten ick words. I say current because I think it’s also pertinent to establish a caveat and that is that ick words can change over time. Words that icked me out years ago, don’t necessarily do so today. And vice versa. Ick is a state of mind! I’d also like to add that no doubt I’ve probably used most of my ick words at some stage in my career and that someone will diligently search through 30+ books looking for them and then write to me about it. All I can say to that is, please refer to the caveat. It also may come as no surprise that most of my ick words come out when characters are getting it on so if you’re a little squeamish or I don’t know, eating breakfast, you may want to keep clicking.

10) Womanhood. Seriously, what is that?

9) Manhood. Yeh, you probably guessed that already, right? Can we please, for the love of God, just call it a penis already??

8) Member. Again, what the hell? If you’re talking about being part of a club well and good. If you’re prefixing it with male – ick!

7) Rod. I understand that for many years, as writers, we’ve had to find euphemisms because no-one would print the word penis. But, seriously, rod? Ouch!

6) Cock. Okay, I realise I may be beginning to sound like a prude. But trust me, I’m not. I’m not really sure why this one hits my ick-o-metre, it just does. I actually don’t mind reading it, nor am I put off when people say it, I just can’t bring myself to use it in my own writing. And I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just that I’m a penis/dick/erection kind of girl. These are words I can use, no problems. But that C word….

5) Button. Whether it’s referring to nipples or the clitoris, it really icks me out. If it’s sewn on a shirt or it’s a big, round, plastic, knobby thing that can be pushed to make a machine go ping, I’m good.

4) Cleft. This kind of sounds too crevice-like for me. Too dark and deep and dangerous. A place that should, I don’t know, kind of be avoided.

3) Moist. Ugh! It’s kind of the thing you expect to find in clefts, don’t you think? It conjures up dark and dank and things like yeast infections. But maybe that’s just the nurse in me.

2) Giggle. Yes, giggle. Hah! See they’re not all about sex. Giggle drives me nuts because too often they have women giggling in books and I just want to slap them. Little girls giggle - grown women do not. Now, to be fair, the occasional woman does giggle – I’ve known 2 myself - and I think the word can be used very effectively if you want to give an annoying character trait to someone. But use it wisely I say, because the minute a woman is giggling I’m wondering when she’s going to break her ankle and then the book is kind of ruined.

No doubt this is how some people feel about chuckle….

1) Panties. This is my current number one ick word. And it’s a hard one because as I read mostly romance novels it’s a word that gets used a lot. Writers love it, they love it like I love chuckle – so I get it, I do. But for me, it’s a word that a paedophile would say and that really gets my ick-o-meter twitching. The only time I’ve ever hit the roof professionally was when a copy editor changed knickers to panties in one of my earlier books. I think there’s now a red flag on my file in the London office somewhere. Possibly also at Scotland Yard. Maybe Interpol.

So, there you have it. What about you out there. What are your ick words? And I’ll tell you if I’ve ever used them….

Amy is an award-winning author who has written thirty romances for Harlequin Mills and Boon in both the Medical and RIVA/Presents lines. She wrote her first book at the age of twenty-two while unemployed and freezing her butt off in the UK, largely because it involved being able to stay in bed with her electric blanket. One twelve year apprenticeship later she finally got "the call".

To date she's sold over a million books and been translated into thirteen different languages. In 2010 she took out the sexy category in the prestigious Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award affectionately known as The Ruby.

She's recently launched a couple of separate writing ventures with the release of Sister Pact a contemporary women's fiction novel that she wrote with her sister Ros Baxter and was published by Harper Collins Australia as well as the very exciting release of her first category romance, Taming the Tycoon, with Entangled Publishing.

In what she euphemistically likes to call her spare time, Amy works part time as a paediatric intensive care nurse and was on the national executive for Romance Writers Of Australia for six years during which time she organised two national conferences and undertook a two year term as president.

She's been married for twenty-two years and has two teenagers who only admit to her being a writer when they have to explain to their friends why there's no food in the house when their mother is approaching a deadline. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

Find Amy:

goodreads | website | twitter | facebook