Interview & Giveaway ~*~ Cross the Ocean by Holly Bush

1. What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you?
I’m very fortunate to have a wonderful, kind family. It’s not unusual for them to be sweet anytime. But I think the evening my husband proposed will always stand out for me. We’d already discussed getting married, and I was having my mother’s engagement and wedding rings cleaned for us to use. We didn’t have a lot of money and worked a lot but he made arrangements to go to dinner at a very nice restaurant and while we were there he stood up, came around the table and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was a singularly sweet and wonderful moment. More so because he’s a very private person and I’m sure he wasn’t crazy about drawing all the attention that he did when he knelt down and especially as I was crying and smiling and kissing him!

2. What kind of music you like?
Blues, classic rock and the classics. I’m a big fan of Bonnie Raitt, Barbara Blue, Kenny Wayne Shephard, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

3. Do you like to dance?
I love to dance and wish we still had formal dances. My favorite part of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice is the first dance at Netherfield Park. Ah, to waltz! But if you ask my family they say I dance like Elaine on Seinfeld.

4. Can you describe your dream home?
Two story Victorian style with a large wrap around front porch and big, high ceilinged rooms with tall windows. I wouldn’t have to have a lot of rooms, maybe just a large kitchen, mud room, and a living room on the lower floor and three bedrooms above. Of course, I’d want a finished basement for the husband and an office for myself. I don’t need a large work space though, in fact, small would suit me well as long as there was natural light. While I’m dreaming I need to add a screened in porch with a patio and mature trees. Is that asking too much?

5. If you could be any character, from any literary work, who would you choose to be? Why?
I suppose if I have to choose, it would be Lizzie Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. What a family! What a romance! I’d get to wear gowns and bonnets and go to balls. And I’d get to live at Pemberley!

Blurb ~*~
1871 . . . Worlds collide when American Suffragette, Gertrude Finch, and titled Brit Blake Sanders meet in an explosive encounter that may forever bind them together. Gertrude Finch escorts a young relative to London and encounters the stuffy Duke of Wexford at his worst. Cross the Ocean is the story of an undesired, yet undeniable attraction that takes Blake and Gertrude across an ocean and into each other’s arms.

Excerpt ~*~

Blake went to the stables, had his horse saddled, and rode to Anthony’s estate. Maybe Elizabeth will ask me to stay for dinner, he thought. Then she’ll go to bed, and Anthony and I can drink a bottle of brandy and get stewed. He could stay there if he couldn’t ride home. A room was kept ready for him with a fresh change of clothes. Blake smiled and felt better than he had in days.

As the butler escorted Blake down the hall of Anthony’s home to the drawing room, he heard a loud but feminine . . . snort and Elizabeth’s trill laughter in reply. Damn. He remembered now. A cousin of Elizabeth’s from America, sent as an escort to another cousin, was staying with them. Anthony had described and dreaded the arrival of Cousin Gertrude with horror. A spinster remotely connected to Elizabeth’s father’s side, she was big, bold and here for a month. Her arrival had curtailed Anthony’s visits.

Blake stopped and hissed at the butler. “Think I’ve changed my mind, Jenkins. I don’t want to disturb their company.”

“Quite the coward are we, Your Grace? Leave your life-long friend alone with this Amazon from America.” Jenkins stared as he spoke. “In any case they saw you ride up the drive.”

Jenkins spoke his mind to all including Anthony and Elizabeth. There’d be no expecting servile behavior for him. “I’m sure you did not miss the opportunity to point out my arrival,” Blake said.

“Of course not, Your Grace.” The butler opened the drawing room doors with a flourish. “The Duke of Wexford.”

“Blake,” Anthony said and jumped to pump Blake’s hand. “I am so very happy you are here.”

Blake watched the woman sitting beside Elizabeth stand, and walk across the room to him. She was every inch as tall as he, and Anthony made the introductions. She held out her hand. Blake grasped it and bent to place a kiss there and was surprised when she began to shake it, hitting him squarely in the nose. Blake covered his face with his hand.

“Oh, dear,” Miss Gertrude Finch exclaimed. She threw a look at her cousin Elizabeth.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION:

Holly Bush was born in western Pennsylvania to two avid readers. There was not a room in her home that did not hold a full bookcase. She worked in the hospitality industry, owning a restaurant for twenty years and recently worked as the sales and marketing director in the hospitality/tourism industry and is credited with building traffic to capacity for a local farm tour, bringing guests from twenty-two states, booked two years out. Holly has been a marketing consultant to start-up businesses and has done public speaking on the subject.

Holly has been writing all of her life and is a voracious reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, particularly political and historical works. She has written four romance novels, all set in the U.S. West in the mid 1800’s. She frequently attends writing conferences, and has always been a member of a writer’s group.

Holly is a gardener, a news junkie, has been an active member of her local library board and loves to spend time near the ocean. She is the proud mother of two daughters and the wife of a man more than a few years her junior.

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