We are very happy to welcome back to Book Lovers Inc. Jeanette Grey, who has penned captivating stories in a wide range, be it fantasy or erotica stories, she has tried her hand at it. Today she is celebrating the release of Take What You Want, her latest contemporary romance novel. Please join her as she tells you more about it and you could even win yourself a copy! 

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

As might be clear from the title, one of the central themes of my new book, Take What You Want, is about deciding what you want, then reaching out and going for it, consequences be damned. Both of the main characters, Ellen and Josh, have a lot of things they’d like to be doing and a lot of impediments that have been holding them back.

Ellen, the good girl who’s dedicated herself 100% to putting herself through college and getting into medical school, just wants to let loose and have some fun, to have a fling, and to finally enjoy herself while she still has the chance to.

Josh, who’s spent his whole life trying to live up to his parents’ expectations, wants a lot of the same things Ellen does. He’s looking for someone to warm his bed. He’s looking for companionship and fun.

But he’s also desperate for a way to get out from under his parents’ heel and start living his own life.

You see, while Josh’s father has been making plans for Josh to go to medical school at his alma mater, Josh has been making his own plans. He’s good at science, and he enjoys the classes he’s been taking on his way to fulfilling his dad’s dream, but the idea of becoming a doctor leaves him cold. For the first half of the book, he’s constantly stressing about how to break it to his parents that he wants to follow his own path.

His story is one that I know intimately, myself. It’s no secret that I tried about a billion careers before I got serious about writing, and not one of them was something my father approved of. Up until the day I graduated from college with degrees in physics and painting, he seemed convinced I was going to go on to have some sort of lucrative career in finance. I’m not sure where he was getting his information about my dreams and ambitions from, but it certainly wasn’t me.

The weekend I went home to tell him that I wanted to pursue art was the most nerve-wracking of my life. To my absolute shock, after a few minutes of stony silence, he turned around and waved a hand at me and said, “Do whatever makes you happy.”

I don’t know why I thought he would put up more of a fight or otherwise make the conversation into an ugly one. I half expected to be disowned, or to otherwise never hear from him again. There’s just something about the assumptions our parents make about our lives. They know us best of anyone, right? They’ve molded us and raised us to be certain people, and telling them we’re not quite who they thought we were is one of the hardest things we ever have to do in life.

Josh’s eventual conversation with his father isn’t an exact mirror of my own, but suffice it to say that he, too, is surprised by the reaction he gets. And in the end, he does just what the title of the book would have you think: he reaches out and goes for what he wants.

So tell me, readers, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did it work out the way you planned?

Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey

She needs an escape…and he’s exactly what she had in mind.

College senior Ellen Price spends every spare minute studying to get into medical school. Until spring break yawns before her, as empty as her wallet.

With no money to hit the beach, she fills her empty to-do list with a plan: for just one week, she will become the kind of take-no-prisoners woman she secretly wishes to be, starting with the hot guy at the bar. It’s a no-risk situation: at the end of break, he’ll head back to his campus, and she’ll go back to hers. No muss, no fuss.

At first, Josh Markley isn’t sure what to think when the quiet, intense beauty from his pre-med classes approaches him for a night of casual sex. Even more mystifying, she doesn’t seem to return his recognition. But if she wants to play “strangers in a bar”, he’s game.

Their passionate night is a welcome respite from life’s stress, but afterward, Josh realizes he wants more—from himself, from life, from Ellen. Except she still thinks he’s a one-off she’ll never see again. Confessing the truth now—before she figures it out on her own—could shatter the fragile beginnings of just what the doctor ordered. A forever love.

Warning: Contains mistaken identities, a sometimes-glasses-wearing hottie, deep questions about figuring out what you want from life, and a red-hot college romance.

Buy at Amazon –  B&N – Samhain – Goodreads