All the Ups and Downs: Book Blitz and Giveaway: Falling for Another Darcy (Love Manor #3) by Kate O'Keeffe

Title: Falling for Another Darcy
Series: Love Manor #3

Author: Kate O’Keeffe
Publisher: Wild Lime Books
Publication Date: May 5th 2021
Genre: Romantic Comedy

Don’t miss this laugh-out-loud, heart-warming final instalment in the Love Manor romantic comedy series for fans of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, Sinéad Moriarty, and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. Right?

That’s the way the song goes, anyway. For Emma Brady, marrying her Mr. Darcy was a road to happiness that is about to take a sharp turn to trouble. Creating a tiny Mr. Darcy isn’t exactly proving to be easy. Sure, being newly-weds mean they’re more than happy to give it a good shot, but as time ticks along, Emma and Sebastian’s efforts come to nothing.

It’s time to call in the big guns.

For Emma, that means mood swings, hot flashes, ovulation kits, and more needles than a haystack. Add that to an increasingly-disapproving granny, and Sebastian and Emma’s love is being put to the test in a way they never saw coming.

Will they get the family they so desperately want? And will their love survive? Or will Emma’s fairy tale ending with her Mr. Darcy slip between her fingers?

Goodreads * Amazon

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EXCERPT:

I need to find my husband, and I need to find him now. I race down the long corridor to the hidden door covered in wallpaper. I pull it open and dash down the stairs, only to come to a crashing halt as I come face-to-face with another group of visitors. Too late, they spot me, and they all go quiet as they peer up the stairs at this strange woman in a mismatched outfit, holding an ovulation stick in her hand.

“Hi,” I say, giving them all a small, awkward wave. “I hope you’re enjoying your tour of Martinston today.”

“It’s brilliant, love, thanks so much for asking,” a member of a group of four or five elderly ladies says.

“What are you doing up there?” someone asks.

“Do you live ’ere?” a man at the back asks. “Only, you sound American.”

“Oh, I know who she is. She’s the lady of the manor. That’s Lady Martinston,” a woman in a bright pink sweatshirt and matching pants replies. “Aren’t you? You’re the one from the telly what married the lord.”

“Is she the girl who fell out of the limo on Dating Mr. Darcy?” someone else asks.

“That’s right. I forgot about that part. That was, like, so funny,” a woman who must be in her mid-twenties says. “But then she went on to marry Mr. Darcy, and now she gets to live here.”

“That’s right,” I reply with a smile all the while thinking MOVE! Don’t they know I’ve got to go have baby-making sex with my husband right this minute?

Don’t answer that. If they knew, it would be just plain weird.

“Can you answer some questions?” one of the older ladies asks, and she looks so hopeful, I can’t help but agree to do so.

“Of course. What would you like to know?”

They begin to pepper their questions at me, and there are a lot.

“When were these kitchens last used?”

“Is that the original fireplace?”

“What’s it like to be a lady?”

“Do you have a portrait of yourself in the house somewhere, or is it just some crummy old photo?”

“Do you have servants, like on Downton Abbey, and are any of them Irish chauffeurs because I like the idea of having an Irish chauffeur?”

“Oooh, or a gay footman. Do you have a gay footman?”

The last question comes from the woman in the bright pink ensemble. “Why’s your dress on backwards?”

They gaze up at me in expectation.

“Excuse me?” I ask, thrown by the last question.

“Your dress, love. It’s on backwards. I can see the label here.” She places her fingers at her neck.

My fingers fumble over the label at my throat. Dang it! It is on backwards—and inside out. In my hurry to reach Sebastian, I didn’t even look in the mirror. I just grabbed that ovulation stick and ran.

“And what’s that in your hand?” Pink Woman asks.

Uh oh.

My eyes dart to the ovulation stick before I hastily thrust it behind my back, embarrassment creeping up my body from my toes like a bathtub filling to the brim with piping hot water. I’ve got to do some quick thinking, stat! “It’s, ah, it’s a tool used to measure the depth of the floorboards upstairs.”

Where the heck did that come from?

“Really?” a woman asks with a disbelieving frown. “Why would you need to measure the depth of the floorboards?”

“It sounds off to me, too, pet,” a man at her side says.

“Oh, it’s a very common problem in these older houses,” I say, making it all up on the spot. “You see floorboards get worn down from all the foot traffic over time.” I gesture at everyone’s feet as though they are personally responsible for the imaginary floorboards wearing out. “We need to measure them regularly to make sure they’re a certain height. It’s so that people don’t fall through and hurt themselves.”

Where am I getting this stuff?

There’s a murmur among the crowd.

“It’s a health and safety issue. It is in fact a very serious job,” I say to add some gravitas to my little made-up speech.

“Are you saying it’s not safe for us to go upstairs?” a man asks, his brows knitted in concern.

“Yes, are you? Is it not safe up there?” someone else asks.

“We’ve paid good money to visit this house. We should be allowed to walk on the floorboards.”

“Not if they’re not safe, we won’t.”

“But there are a lot of good things to see up there. My sister Mildred said it was the best part.”

I wave their concerns away with my hand—the one not holding the ovulation stick. “Oh, it’s all fine. I measured them myself, and you’re totally safe. Nothing to worry about at all.” I try to sound confident—and not like I’m making this crap up on the spot as I hold an ovulation testing stick behind my back, wearing a dress that’s both inside out and on backwards.

Just your standard Saturday morning at Martinston.

“Well, that’s a relief,” the man gushes. “Isn’t it a relief, Marion?”

“I daresay it is,” Marion replies. “I’d hate to miss out on the reception room. I heard it’s quite magnificent.”

“Oh, it is for sure,” I reply with a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to slip past you and get on with measuring the, ah, bushes out in the garden.”

“You’ve got to measure the bushes?” the man asks.

“Oh, yes. We take the height of our bushes at Martinston very seriously,” I say as I make my way through the crowd, aiming for the back door—and my freedom. “It’s all part of creating the most wonderful visitor experience possible for you all.”

“Well, we appreciate your work,” the man says. “Don’t we, Marion?”

“We do,” she announces, and others agree.

As I back away from them, a smile pasted on my face, I feel for the door handle behind me. “Thank you so much. I sure hope you enjoy your visit here at Martinston today!” I pull the door open, turn, and dash through it.

“That’s a jolly useful tool, that stick,” I hear someone say as the door slams behind me.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kate O'Keeffe is a bestselling author of fun, feel-good romantic comedies. She lives and loves in beautiful Hawke's Bay, New Zealand with her family, two scruffy dogs, and a cat who thinks he's a scruffy dog too. He's not: he's a cat. When she's not penning her latest story, Kate can be found hiking up hills (slowly), traveling to different countries, and eating chocolate. A lot of it.