About
the Book
Title:
A Hard Days Night
Authors:
Anastasia Winters and Greg Godek
Genre:
Romance
Author
Bios
I’ve
been a writer of romances for twenty-nine years, but an author
(meaning published)
for, um, one month. I wrote my first romance in First Grade (“The
True Story of Cinderella and Anastasia”), then wrote about a
million pages of an unknown number of romance stories before I (and
my writing partner) penned A
Hard Days Night—this, my
first published romance novel. OMG!
Somehow
it turned out to be an erotic
romance, so please don’t tell my mother.
But
I do
have my mother to thank for introducing me (unbeknownst to her) to
the wondrous world of romances. I somehow stumbled upon her copy of
Love’s Wild Desire—Jennifer
Blake’s 406-page exploration of unbidden ecstasy—in the back of
her closet, behind the shoeboxes, under the magazines—when I was
eight. I didn’t know what was going on most of the time in that
novel, but I did
know that I was intrigued, baffled and thoroughly hooked (I didn’t
yet know what it meant to be “turned on”!) I spent the next
sixteen years as a closet reader of romances. Sixteen
years! My English professors
and my fellow students would have been aghast if they had known I
read those “trashy” books. It was my guilty pleasure.
I
came out when I was twenty-four. (I happened to watch the films The
Bridges of Madison County and
The Notebook
within two days of each other), and—in a blinding flash of the
obvious—I realized that these tremendous romances had managed to
cross over into the mainstream of American culture. My insight:
Romances didn’t deserve to be labeled as “trashy”! It’s then
that I went public. And despite my trepidation the world didn’t
end, my cat didn’t leave me, and my reputation suffered not at
all.) So there you go.
I
still can’t believe that I’m the writing partner of Greg Godek.
(He’s a bestseller! He’s
been on Oprah! OMG!) He and I
have an amazing working relationship, and as a male-female writing
team we seem to be nearly unique.
I have a pretty good
imagination, but I can’t imagine you’d want to read any more
about me at
this point. How about if, instead, you read my next romance novel.
And the next and the next and the next and the next. Just a
thought.
Greg
Godek
I’ve
been writing relationship books (advice for real life romances) for
twenty years, and writing romances
for a three. Back in the roaring 90s I wrote and published 1001
Ways to be Romantic.
The stars must have been aligned because I sold three million copies.
Somewhere along the line I lost my mind and decided it was a good
idea to undertake the biggest booksigning tour in the history of
publishing: Two years spent criss-crossing America aboard a custom
36-foot RV, visiting 43 states and 189 bookstores.
Along
the way I was invited to appear on Oprah,
Donahue, The Today Show and
Good Morning America;
my advice and antics have appeared in The
Sunday New York Times,
The
Boston Globe,
Cosmo,
Playboy,
Reader’s
Digest
and (honest to god) The
National Enquirer.
The
genesis of 1001
Ways to be Romantic
is too long a story to relate here, but the highlights are…teaching
romance seminars for ten years before sitting down to write the
book…and a longstanding fascination with the complex relationship
between fictional romance and real life romance.
I
feel honored to be welcomed into the community of romance writers. As
one of the few males in the sorority I’m both an insider and an
outsider, and I’m experiencing what it’s like to be a minority.
(Hmmm, sounds like the plot for a romance novel!)
I’m also lucky to
have met my co-author Anastasia Winters. (Now that’s
a crazy story! For another time.) Anastasia and I are currently
writing the sequels to A Hard Days Night
and we’re toying with ideas for some erotic romance for
men. Look out below!
Links
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Book
Excerpts
Excerpt #2
Maxwell
and Abbey looked down from the rafters and watched the frantic female
fans running this way and that. Abbey imagined what might happen if
the gaggle of groupies spotted them. “What would they do
to me? Ignore me? Beat me up? Shove me aside? Stomp on me with their
heels? I can see myself on the cover of The
National Enquirer—face
gashed, two black eyes, disheveled hair with a stunned, wide-eyed
look on my face. The headline: ’Unknown Woman Nearly Killed in Mob
of Mad Maxwell Groupies.’ The photo caption: ’Mystery woman
nearly left for dead after a backstage stampede of frantic women
chased Maxwell.’ And ’She was way out of her league,’ commented
one busty blonde.”
Abbey
looked around at their precarious perch. The catwalk hung in open
space above the stage like a strand of a spider’s web. “We’re
so exposed!” she thought.
She
whispered to Maxwell, “They’ll easily see us if they look up!”
She shuddered at the thought of it.
Maxwell
shook his head confidently. “Those stage lights over there are
shining down on them. If they look up, the glare will blind them. And
anyway, we’re in the shadows.” He smiled.
“He
is so
confident!” Abbey thought. “He just exudes it. I’ve never been
in the presence of anyone so confident.” And then as an
afterthought, “It’s so
sexy!”
They
sat quietly together as the gals skittered this way and that below
them. Their breath slowed.
Abbey
felt as though she were in a movie…A series of black-and-white
images flashed through her mind…crowds of girls
running…screaming…rock stars running for their lives. She turned
her head just as Maxwell turned toward her…and simultaneously they
both whispered, “A Hard Day’s Night!” And they nearly fell over
laughing—and tried to muffle the sound with their hands clapped
tightly over their mouths.
They
huddled together in the dark, waiting out the storm. They looked at
each other and grinned. The silence stretched on, and Abbey felt
surprisingly at ease. Well, it was an ease with an undercurrent of
electricity.
She
didn’t want to ask. She thought, “I
don’t want to appear
insecure.” But she couldn’t help herself. She turned toward him
and whispered, “Why me?”
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