Spotlight: The Second Chance Hotel by Sierra Godfrey
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It's all fun and games until you accidentally marry a stranger in Greece and inherit a hotel.
When Amelia Lang arrives at the Ria Hotel in Greece, she's just been dumped and fired from her tech job in San Francisco. She hopes she can figure out her next steps with a little help from the eccentric hotelier at the Ria Hotel, the charming townspeople of the isolated Greek island of Asteri, and a two-weeks stay at the slightly rundown but gorgeously situated hotel. But life goes topsy-turvy when she wakes up after a night of partying with James, the hotel’s only other guest, to discover that not only are they now legally married—they're also the new owners of the Ria Hotel.
For fans of Marian Keyes and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Second Chance Hotel is a madcap tale with a big heart that is sure to transport readers to the glittering, cerulean beaches of the Aegean Sea and the sun-drenched, golden groves of Greece’s famed olive farms.
Excerpt
Amelia Lang was not aiming for Micah’s head when she threw the coffee mug. But if he hadn’t moved, it would have hit him right between the eyes. Instead, it hit the conference room window behind him with a resounding smack. Tea dripped down the spiderweb of cracks in the glass. The mug, Amelia saw with regret, had broken. It was her favorite one, with whimsical travel illustrations and a gilded rim. Too bad about the tea too- it was a fancy French blend that was hard to find.
Those standing in the vicinity watched in shocked silence.
Amelia’s boss, severe on the best of days, looked thunderous. “Amelia. Go sit in my office.”
Micah had the gall to smirk as she passed. She closed her boss’s office door behind her and sank into the guest chair. And then it hit her. She’d thrown a mug at someone’s head. Never mind that it was Micah’s head, and that she, still in the flush of fury, thought he deserved it. She’d never done anything like that. Never gotten into a fist fight, never even shoved anyone. She, who gently escorted spiders out of her house and always held the door open for others. Throwing a mug and cracking a window? That was irreversible, evidenced by being sent to sit in her boss’s office like she was five.
The minutes ticked away. She wished she was the type to escape out of the window and briefly considered becoming that person. It looked bad, she could see that. Thirty-two years old, living with her parents again, and about to be fired for throwing a mug at her ex-boyfriend’s head at work. The past week had been a one-way ticket to Failureville.
Finally, after a long stretch that suggested her boss and HR were discussing how to handle her, they came in and closed the door behind them.
“Amelia,” her boss said. “I’m sure you can appreciate the difficult situation we’re in.”
Amelia did not appreciate anything, least of all what Micah said right before the mug left her hand, but she nodded.
“Can you explain what happened?” the HR manager asked.
She considered how much to tell them. It had been a terrible morning. She had left her apartment late, and because she’d been running behind, it was a certainty that a massive accident on Highway 101, running south out of San Francisco into Silicon Valley, slowed her down further. A car fire, no less. And if you were running late, and there was a car fire on the freeway, it stood to reason that your mobile phone would be dead so you couldn’t call and let people know you’d be late. Amelia didn’t even know where her charger was, because it was that kind of morning.
As a result, she’d missed most of the morning developer meeting. Sliding into the conference room, far from invisible, her boss had pounced on her. In a tone that sounded like he was sucking a lemon, he asked her what the status of the code release was.
“It went out last night, as scheduled,” she said. Obviously the code release had gone out. That was the entire point of her job.
There had been a visible shuffling in the room. Amelia looked around, but no one met her eye. Including Micah, but this was no surprise. They’d broken up last week, and he’d done it in the most craven way possible, trotting out the ol’ I need to work on myself line. She wasn’t heartbroken, not by a long shot, but they were supposed to have gone to Paris in three weeks. Amelia had been looking forward to the trip for months. Now, two non-refundable tickets and a breakup later and they couldn’t even look at each other. Which was a problem considering they worked together.
But there was no reason for the others to avoid her eye. A shiver of horror slid down her spine as she realized that the release had clearly not gone out.
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About the Author
Sierra Godfrey is a tech editor by day who loves writing stories about complex relationships. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, sons, and a bevy of animals, all of which seemed like a good idea at the time.
