Blogtour: Fake Dating The Prince by Ashlyn Kane

Please say hello to Ashlyn Kane and 

Fake Dating The Prince

a Dreamspun Desires title

Hi all and welcome to My Fiction Nook! And by that, I mean welcome to Sandra’s Fiction Nnook, and thank you to Sandra for being willing to host me for a guest post. I’m Ashlyn Kane, guest blogging about my new release, out today. So what’s it about?

When fast-living flight attendant Brayden Wood agrees to accompany a first-class passenger to a swanky charity ball, he discovers his date—“Call me Flip”—is actually His Royal Highness Prince Antoine-Philipe. And he wants Brayden to pretend to be his boyfriend.

Being Europe’s only prince of Indian descent—and its only openly gay one—has led Flip to select “appropriate” men first and worry about attraction later. Still, flirty, irreverent Brayden captivates him right away, and Flip needs a date to survive the ball without being match-made.

Before Flip can pursue Brayden in earnest, the paparazzi forces his hand, and the charade is extended for the remainder of Brayden’s vacation.

Posh, gorgeous, thoughtful Prince Flip is way out of Brayden’s league. If Brayden survives three weeks of platonically sharing a bed with him during the romantic holiday season, going home afterward might break his heart….

Here’s the bare facts about Fake Dating the Prince:

• It’s a contemporary M/M romance
• Includes fake dating, “platonic” bed sharing, and a royalty/commoner relationship
• Releases June 18, 2019
• 55,000 words

And here are some more interesting and fun facts that you might like to know about this book and the process of growing it from the seed of an idea to the beautiful flower it is today!

1. It’s set in a made-up European country in the tradition of Ruritanian novels (a word I didn’t learn until after I’d written the book)! Ruritanian novels are generally set in fake European countries and centered on the aristocracy and royalty. In this case it’s a romantic romance instead of the swashbuckling kind, though. I suppose you might think of Lyngria as the kingdom of Arendelle from Frozen. (Full disclosure: I have never actually even seen Frozen. Although I have been on the ride at Epcot Center.) I really enjoyed getting to build a country’s traditions from the ground up based on some of the places I’ve lived and traveled to over the years. I even made up a whole holiday that I really wish I could celebrate.
2. There’s always a little something of me in each of my books. In this one, I’ve drawn on my own family to create Brayden’s—from the morning scuffle over who gets to do the crossword to some of the more amusing anecdotes about the Christmas gift exchange. Sadly, no one in my family has yet won the lottery and decided to take the rest of us on a Christmas cruise to celebrate, but I live in hope. The first step is putting the idea out into the world, right?
   
3. Originally the book was going to involve a heist plot, with the Brayden character’s flight attendant job being a cover for his real identity: an art thief who was going to seduce a prince in order to get access to the royal gallery and make off with a few pieces at the ball in order to finance health care for his aging grandmother. Editor Sue Brown-Moore was doubtful I could make this work as a Dreamspun Desire, which are supposed to be tropey and low on angst and also fairly short, but it turned out it didn’t matter whether it’d work as a Dreamspun Desire, because I couldn’t get past writing chapter three. Even in the early incarnations of the story, Flip was ass over teakettle for Brayden, and I just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to betray him like that. Obviously they’d have gotten a happy-ever-after eventually, but, well. Turns out I’m soft, and also that plotting a heist novel is a job to which I am poorly suited. Once I abandoned that part of the plot, the book came together in just two months, which is quick for me.
4. Finding the right cover model took 6,000 years. I must have searched every stock photography site known to humankind. (It’s possible I’m exaggerating.) When Alexandria Corza and I finally settled on someone who was handsome enough to fit the role, it turned out the photo wasn’t available in high enough resolution to look good on the cover and we had to start all over. Finally Claudia Mayrant found the cover photo we ended up using and sent it to me as a suggestion, and I was like, Yes! This guy! He’s perfect! He’s even wearing a scarf in the Lyngria royal house colors! That’s my prince! There were a lot of exclamation points and a nonzero amount of happy sighing.
5. Like a lot of my books, Fake Dating the Prince features a hero without a brain-to-mouth filter. Brayden is a breezy, happy-go-lucky guy on the surface, but also kind of an easy one—the kind of guy who sort of just leaks innuendo everywhere as part of his charm, without being creepy or weird or pushy about it. But unlike pretty much every other unfiltered hero I’ve written, Brayden finds himself square in the middle of a very posh family that gets lots of press attention, and so he actually gets into situations where he’s got to bite his tongue or he’s going to cause a scandal. Little does he realize that this only ends up working in his favor, because Prince Flip’s used to his actual boyfriends being very appropriate all the time and he’s absolutely whacked over the head with how much he likes being with someone who’s just going to say what he thinks, even if that means he didn’t actually do a lot of thinking beforehand.

Fake Dating the Prince releases June 18. It is available at Amazon, Dreamspinner, Barnes & Noble, Indigo Books, Target, and (this just tickles me, so I have to mention it) at the Dayton Public Library—so you’ll want to check your local library too!

About the author:

ASHLYN KANE is a Canadian former expat and current hockey fan. She is a writer, editor, handyperson, dog mom, and friend—sometimes all at once.

On any given day she can usually be found walking her ninety-pound baby chocolate lapdog, Indy, or holed up in her office avoiding housework. She has a deep and abiding love of romance novel tropes, a habit of dropping too many f-bombs, and—fortunately—a very forgiving family.

You can find her on Twitter, Facebook or her website.





Note from Sandra: As one who's read this book, take it from me - you'll want a copy of your own. Cute, but not sappy, and often funny story with a sweet romance, a handsome Prince, and a sassy flight attendant who's his perfect match.

Promotional post. Materials provided by the author.