{Blog Tour + Excerpt}- Marry Me, Charlotte B! by Carla De Guzman

MARRY ME, CHARLOTTE B!
Carla de Guzman 
Published April 30th 2015 by Midnight Books
Genre: New Adult


ABOUT THE BOOK

You are cordially invited to the wedding of the year!

Nellie Canlas loves her job. She loves being assistant to reality TV star and wedding planner goddess, the fabulous Charlotte Bertram, and she loves working with couples to make their wedding dreams come true. What she doesn’t love is having cameras following her all the time, especially when she’s crushing hard on the lawyer from another floor.

Robert Bertram doesn’t like planning weddings. He doesn’t like being on TV either. But when he finds himself in possession of Nellie’s diary, he thinks he can turn her into anyone’s dream girl. If he doesn’t fall for her first.

GOODREADS 

Purchase links:

Amazon | Smashwords 
The book is also available for direct download and a limited print run. Please contact the author for more information.

EXCERPT

The camera pans in on one of the many skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco. We zoom in on a corner office on the higher floors of the building. The wall on the right is a gallery, full of gorgeous black and white photographs of weddings. The desk looks simple and nondescript, with black glass top. There is a vase of peach roses on the desk, along with papers portfolios, and several sticky notes in neon orange clashing badly with the white walls. There are more photographs posted on the tall office window.

A woman strides in, her heels clacking against the hard wood floor until she reaches the large rug. Her long, wispy red hair lifts gently away from her face as she tosses her coat over the arm of the sofa. The subtitle tells us that this is the legendary Charlotte Bertram, CEO of Charleston Weddings and star of Marry Me! Charlotte has sharp blue eyes and a gorgeous figure, always dressed in low cut silk shirts and fit pencil skirts. She ignores the camera as she looks over the work she has to do for the day. Then she looks up and blinks around her office, as if expecting something to happen. 

**

“Je suis Charlotte Bertram, and I’m the CEO for Charleston Weddings,” Charlotte speaks plainly to the camera for the backroom interviews. “My job is to take every little girl’s dream wedding and turn it into… an event.” She breaths a sigh, like it’s the most satisfying statement in the world. “I’ve done weddings for the biggest names in every industry you can think of. Ms. Stefani’s ombre wedding dress? We were elbow deep in hot pink dye a week before. Go on, think of a name, we did that wedding. Go on!” Charlotte flashes the camera a daring, megawatt smile. 

**

Back at the office, Charlotte writes something down on another sticky note and slaps it on one of the portfolios on her desk. 

“Nellie cherie!” She calls loudly, craning her neck slightly to the side. “Did Gabby Feuersinger give us an ETA on the plain fondant for the Knowles wedding?”

Another person steps into the office. This time it’s a smaller, younger and much curvier woman with cropped chestnut brown hair and equally brown eyes. She’s wearing a soft blue cardigan over whatever it is she is wearing underneath. She’s also wearing plain, black flat shoes and no jewelry. Her name appears on the bottom of the screen: Nellie, Charlotte's assistant.

“She’ll need the deposit first, which is coming through today,” Nellie answers quickly, smiling and tucking her hair over her ear. “Then she’ll start just in time for April first.”

“Perfect, because I’ve just had a thought,” Charlotte says, holding up both her index fingers like she just came up with a brilliant idea. “We may be better off with the gorgeous, detailed powder blue/champagne Versailles cake the bride wanted, rather than what I recommended. The reception hall is already a bit bleak, so I think the details of the cake are going to make the whole thing pop!”

**

“I’m Nellie Canlas, Charlotte’s executive assistant,” she says, giving the camera an awkward wave. “I handle all the boring, administrative stuff for the company, basically. Charlotte has always been amazing at coming up with ideas for these weddings, and it’s my job to make them happen, no matter how hard it is.”

**

The voice-over continues as we return to the scene between Charlotte and Nellie. Nellie’s face blanches slightly at Charlotte’s idea. But, being a dutiful soldier, Nellie simply smiles and nods. She presses her plain black planner closer to herself before she answers her boss. 

“Sounds great,” she says. “Will you be the one to tell Gabrielle or…”

Charlotte looks up at her with a slightly confused, blank look. She’s waiting for Nellie to say something more. Nellie realizes what’s going on and nods knowingly. 

“Right, up to me then,” she says, smiling despite knowing that Gabrielle is famous for her temper, and that she is going to hate this new design. But Charlotte is the best, and whatever Charlotte Bertram says, goes. “Thanks Charlotte.”

“Mille tendresse!” Charlotte calls, her eyes focusing on the papers on her desk as she waves Nellie off, back to her little cubicle in front of the CEO’s office. 

**

“Do I love my job?” Nellie repeats the question as she’s filmed back at her desk, with Charlotte in the background, talking away on the phone with her legs perfectly crossed. For a forty-something year old woman, she looks absolutely stunning. “Well, of course I do. The pay is excellent and shadowing Charlotte is an amazing opportunity. Of course the hours are long, and it’s not always glamorous, but I love it. I wouldn't have agreed to be on this show if I didn’t love my job so much.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carla de Guzman (ck.deguzman@gmail.com) had horrible handwriting as a kid. That didn't stop her from writing, though. Riddled with too much energy and a vivid imagination, she started writing every midnight. She grew up with her toes in the sand and her bags packed and ready to go on adventures. These books are chronicles of her journeys, with a silly love story mixed in.

When she’s not sitting in a plane or working, Carla writes for her blog, Some Midnights (www.somemidnight.wordpress.com), Modern Filipina and for When in Manila.

Author links: 

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