What’s In a Name?
When I first heard about the Dreamspun Desires line of category romances, my first thought was mostly just, “I want to write one!” I had no particular ideas. I had only a deep love of the form. I’ve been reading Harlequin Presents and similar lines since I was in middle school and my BFF and I would pick them up at the library and read the sexy bits to each other.
It was at dinner with a few Dreamspinner authors a little over a year ago where we were doing some brainstorming for the line. By then, I had kind of settled on “green card marriage” and “wealthy tycoon” but had nothing more than that. It may not surprise you to learn that Damon Suede took that and came up with the title The Greek Tycoon’s Green Card Groom.
I’m terrible at book titles. Most of my books have dumb dummy titles, and then I come up with something before I submit it. Out in the Field was just called “baseball” on my computer until, like, three days before I submitted the first edition to my editor. The Boy Next Door was called “neighbors” until one of my beta readers came up with the actual title. Blind Items went through, like, six title changes until I settled on that one. Such a Dance was called “jazz” until I had to come up with a real title, and then I spent two hours googling quotes about the Jazz Age. (That title comes from a Hart Crane poem and I think it fits the book, but still: titles are hard.) So it was kind of novel for me to START with the title.
The fun thing about categories is that they all have titles like The Billionaire’s Secretary’s Secret Baby or The Italian Prince’s Amnesia what have you (I made those up, but it would not surprise me if those exist) so descriptive titles are part of the territory. I liked the ring of my new title, so I figured, okay, Greek tycoon, boss-intern, green card marriage, go!
I won’t lie; I love romance tropes. Playing around with them was really fun. My goal was to take some old romance clichés—marriage of convenience, conspicuous wealth and beauty—and put new spins on them, which I hope I’ve done successfully here. I wrote a gay Harlequin Presents, essentially, if you’re familiar with that line. It’s the sort of book that I know may not appeal to all readers but if you, like me, are a sucker for those little paperbacks with the crazy titles, I think you’ll enjoy this one.
Kate McMurray~
About the Book
Marriage gets less convenient when love is involved.
It started simple: Ondrej Kovac marries Archie Katsaros so Ondrej can stay in the US, away from his judgmental family in eastern Europe. Archie marries Ondrej in exchange for the money to bail out his failing company. It’s a fraud neither man is convinced he can pull off.
But as Archie introduces Ondrej to New York society and Ondrej proves his skill in the office, they start to discover a connection between them. Can they overcome the rocky foundation their relationship was built on, meddling immigration agents, gossip columnists determined to out their deception, and an aggressive executive set on selling Archie’s company out from under him? Only if they can prove to each other their love is worth fighting for.
BUY LINK: Dreamspinner Press
About the Author
Kate McMurray is an award-winning romance author and an unabashed romance fan. When she’s not writing, she works as a nonfiction editor, dabbles in various crafts, and is maybe a tiny bit obsessed with baseball. She has served as President of Rainbow Romance Writers and is currently the president of the New York City chapter of RWA. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
