{Spotlight & Exclusive Excerpt} Emma and the City by Amy Hilliges (@AmyHilliges)

Emma and the City
by
Amy Hilliges
 
Jane Austen meets Sex and the Cityin this friends-to-lovers tale with a dash of heat and lots of heart.
 
When arrows fly, Cupid better get out of the way... or risk being shot.
 
It-girl and blogger Emma Worth appears to have it all: beauty, brains, connections and a fabulous Manhattan apartment.Emma makes it her business to tell others what to wear and who to date because she knows best. Obviously.
 
Despite her designer outfits and glitzy New York lifestyle, something's missing . . . If she only knew what it was. That is, until a hot A-lister swoops into her life and sends Emma's pulse racing and fills her head with red-carpet fantasies.
 
Emma's neighbor Adam Knightley is disapproving, telling her she needs to fix her priorities and stop chasing celebrity pipe dreams. The man would look hot on a red carpet himself, if only he’d stop frowning for more than five seconds.
 
When Emma’s matchmaking backfires and her meddling causes mischief, what's a girl to do? Try to lie her way out of it, of course.  Anyway, who cares, right? Because Emma's finally getting the kind of attention she deserves. Except in her fantasies, things looked a lot different. And it didn’t feel this heartrendingly painful . . .
 
Love her or hate her, Emma is back––with a sexy makeover, 21st-century problems, and another chance to redeem herself in this grippingly entertaining, thoroughly original retelling of the Jane Austen classic.

Exclusive Excerpt ~ 

An exclusive excerpt from Chapter 7, a flashback to the first time Emma meets Adam 
 
“Emma, this guy’s been looking for you,” said one of her guests, indicating a man she’d never met before.

“Are you the one responsible for this party?” he demanded.

“Yeah,” she said, looking him up and down. Prone to judging people by their appearance, Emma decided he wouldn’t necessarily turn heads, but he was pleasant enough to look at, possessing a good height and build, regular features, brown hair cut short. Of course, he’d need to wipe that awful expression off his face and he definitely needed to lighten up. But then, he was old; in the neighborhood of 30, she guessed. “What’s it to you?”

“I’m your new neighbor. One floor down. I didn’t realize I’d moved into a frat house!”

A tinkling sound emerged from Emma’s mouth. “That’s funny.”

This only seemed to irritate him more. “Seriously. It’s way too loud. I’m exhausted and would really like to sleep in my new apartment without fear that the ceiling is going to cave in on me.”

“What you need to do is relax, loosen up. Come, have a drink; you’re here anyway.”

Adam only shook his head. “What I would really like is for you to turn down the music and tell your guests to go home.”

“As if!” Emma laughed again. Then she cocked her head to one side. “You’re not from around here, are you? If you have a problem with noise, then you’ve moved to the wrong place. Whoever thought New York would be quiet.”

“I’m not joking! If you don’t turn down the music and control your guests, I’m going to call the cops.”

Emma smiled to remember how annoyed Adam had been. She had probably been too drunk to realize how upset he was or too drunk to care.

“Here,” she’d said, grabbing one of the full cans of beer that Jim was walking by with and thrusting it into Adam’s hand. “By the way, Jim, this surly guy here is our new neighbor. He’s threatening to call the cops. We can’t let him do that, can we?”

Jim stuck out a hand, and Adam could do nothing but grasp it. “Welcome to the building. I’m Jim. I live in the basement unit.”

“Adam Knightley,” said Adam, shaking Jim’s hand. With Jim distracting him, Emma fled the scene. She’d send Isabel over to placate him.

A little while later, Emma spied on Adam from afar, gleeful when she saw him sipping from the can of Heineken she’d shoved in his hand and chatting with a couple of her business-school classmates.

Later, when most of the guests had left, Emma found Adam standing before her.

“Sorry about earlier. I was super cranky and tired. I’d just flown in from Frankfurt and was deep asleep when my ceiling started to shake.”

Emma nodded and waited for him to continue.

“But it was a fun party,” he conceded, much to her delight. “I just hope it’s not a regular occurrence.”

“Every Friday night,” she’d said with a straight face. Then her face had broken into a wide grin.
​
“Phew, you had me there for a second,” he’d said, and returned her smile. His smile, Emma had decided, changed his face from passably pleasing to decidedly good looking.

About The Author ~ 

​Amy Hilliges always wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Finally, at the age of 40, after years being paid to write professionally, she decided she was grown up enough to become a “real writer.” Emma and the City is the result. 
 
An American expat, Amy lives in Zurich, Switzerland, with her German husband and their two UK-born sons.
 
Find out more about Amy’s crazy, nomadic, multi-culti life, the evolution of Emma and the City and Amy’s future books at www.amyhilliges.com.

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