Beatriz Williams is right on "Target"...plus a book giveaway

It's July and we have a new theme...Shopping! Helping us kick it off is Beatriz Williams. Her latest novel, Cocoa Beach, came out last week and HarperCollins has one copy to give away! A few months ago The Wicked City also published. Her book covers are gorgeous and what's inside takes readers through time, as well as on a virtual vacation.

Beatriz Williams is the New York Times bestselling author of A Hundred Summers, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, Along the Infinite Sea, A Certain Age, and several other works of historical fiction. A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, Beatriz worked as a communications and corporate strategy consultant in New York and London before she turned her attention to writing novels that combine her passion for history with an obsessive devotion to voice and characterization. Beatriz’s books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and appear regularly in bestseller lists around the world.

Born in Seattle, Washington, Beatriz now lives near the Connecticut shore with her husband and four children, where she divides her time between writing and laundry. (Bio courtesy of Beatriz's website.)

Visit Beatriz online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

Synopsis:
The New York Times bestselling author of A Certain Age transports readers to lush, lawless Prohibition-era Florida in this rich historical novel—an intricate blend of suspense, betrayal, and redemption set among the rum runners and scoundrels of a paradise far from home.

France, 1917. Virginia Fortescue journeys overseas with the Red Cross in order to escape the claustrophobia of a childhood spent hiding her father’s criminal past. While driving an ambulance across the battlefields of the Western Front, she meets a brilliant, charismatic British army surgeon and falls into a passionate affair. But Captain Simon Fitzwilliam’s charm disguises a history filled with its own darkness, and as the war draws to its close, Virginia is forced into a terrifying choice for herself and their unborn child.

Florida, 1922. Newly widowed, Virginia Fitzwilliam arrives in the tropical boomtown of Cocoa Beach to settle her estranged husband’s estate, and discovers a dazzling new world of citrus groves, white beaches, and rumrunners, to which Simon’s brother and sister welcome her tenderly. But Virginia senses a predatory presence lurking beneath the hedonistic surface of this oasis. The more she learns about Simon’s life in Florida, the more she fears that the uncanny circumstances of his demise point to a sinister agency, and that her life as well as their daughter’s may lie next in its crosshairs… (Courtesy of Beatriz's website.)

Current favorite place to shop:
My local independent bookstores, of course! But as a mom of four children—from elementary school to teenagers—I have to say that Target is my addiction. I can pick up orange juice and tennis balls and a dress from the Victoria Beckham capsule collection, all in one stop. And since we moved out to a more rural part of Connecticut, I have a new and even more dangerous temptation—not one but two outlet malls within a twenty-minute drive. I now own five or six Kate Spade handbags. I tell myself I don’t have a problem because I need them to match my book tour outfits.

Last item you purchased in a store:
If you set aside all the endless groceries required to fuel my teenagers, that would be a pair of (replacement) sunglasses from the J Crew Factory store. (Again with the outlets, but I did manage to avoid the Kate Spade store this time!)

Do you participate in Black Friday sales?
I just can’t! Like most writers, I’m allergic to crowds. But I do go online during Black Friday weekend and clean up.

Favorite purchase from the past year:
I’m going back to my first answer—that Victoria Beckham dress. It was on sale for twenty dollars and it looks unbelievable. The cut and the fabric punch way, way above the price point. Even my husband said “Wow!” when I came out of the closet, and he usually only says that when there’s cleavage involved.

Retail or thrift?
Retail because I’m a lazy shopper, except for this wonderful furniture consignment store in our town where I get all my housewares. I sent my husband there for Christmas shopping, and he came back with a set of sherry glasses and a silver cocktail tray. Best Christmas ever!

Favorite commercial for a store or product:
Definitely that Staples back-to-school commercial where the parents dance through the store to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, throwing school supplies into the shopping cart. That sums it all up.

Thanks to Beatriz for visiting and HarperCollins for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends July 9th at midnight EST.