Today we are welcoming to our blog author Kate McMurray who joins us to talk about her new release “The Greek Tycoon’s Green Card Groom”.
Welcome Kate 🙂
For my last stop on the tour for The Greek Tycoon’s Green Card Groom, I thought I’d give you some trivia about the book, facts, and details about the book. In no particular order:
The character Ondrej Kovac, the titular green card groom, is from the Czech Republic. He was inspired by the husband of an old friend of mine, also from the Czech Republic. When working out how Ondrej would have come into his money, I did a lot of research, and so learned quite a bit about what Czechoslovakia was like in the eighties. It would have been an environment in which Ondrej’s family would have struggled to make money. Hence Ondrej’s relatives in France. I picture his grandmother as a lively, enterprising woman who could have started a vineyard nearly from scratch and made a small fortune.
I wanted the book to be a gay Harlequin Presents. The Presents line has long been a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. It’s a line of romance largely dominated by alpha heroes and conspicuous wealth, so those are elements in my book, but I put my own spin on them.
Archie’s name (Archimedes Katsaros) came from my wanting him to come from the same mold as Aristotle Onassis. So I thought about Greek historical figures. “Katsaros” means “curly haired” in Greek. In the first chapter, Ondrej thinks he looks a bit like a devil, albeit a handsome one, with dark curly hair and a goatee, but Ondrej will change his mind as the story progresses.
The first party Archie and Ondrej attend together is at a hotel ballroom that I based on the ballroom at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. One of my former employers used to have their holiday parties there, and it always struck me as being fancy without being over the top.
When I first moved to New York, I sometimes followed the society gossip, which had kind of an old-timey feel to it. Does anyone really care about what various New York socialites are up to? Apparently some people do if it continues to be published. There was a time when I could have named a half dozen women who had name recognition entirely because their fathers were famous or absurdly rich. It’s those sorts of people who populate the ballroom scene.
The yacht club in a scene late in the book is based roughly on the yacht club building at the marina on a lake in Connecticut where my dad used to keep his boat. I’ve never actually been inside—my dad owns a little power boat he mostly uses for fishing, not a yacht—but walked by it enough as a teenager that I always kind of wondered what it would be like there. The fantasy of participating in whatever leisure activities the New York wealthy indulge in on the weekends is part of the appeal of a book like this, in my opinion.
So that’s a little about what went into the book. I hope you enjoy!
The Greek Tycoon’s Green Card Groom
By Kate McMurray
Published by Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: July 15th, 2016
Cover Artist: Bree Archer
BLURB:
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 LINKS:
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.
Website: http://www.katemcmurray.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/katemcmwriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katemcmurraywriter