GUEST POST for author Elizabeth Butts!

So, my second book, Secondhand Purses, released this past Tuesday.  I was chatting with an author friend of mine, and let her know I had only recently realized I seem to be naming my books sequentially, without intending to (my first book, Singleish, was released this past May).  Her response was, "Wait, I thought you did that on purpose.  How did you come up with the name?"  I told her, "It was kind of stupid, really.  You see, I used to work with this woman who was completely over the top offended if a person put their purse on the floor.  She would actually move women's purses because it upset her so much.  Well, late in life I developed an obsession with purses, but am completely unwilling to part with the money for a full price one. I have E-bayed my way to a wonderful collection of used purses.  I was in my office and turned to see my purse on the floor, and thought of that former co-worker and started laughing.  I thought to myself, 'when you have secondhand purses, these things aren't as much of a big deal'.  I sort of stopped myself and was all, 'hmmmm, secondhand purses...  I like that...  now how to make it work in the book'."  Her response was, "Wow, I wish I had a cute story like that for how I named my books."  

The challenge was making it work in the book, and it did work in the most wonderful of ways!  And because of that, I'm possibly a little kinder to my own purses these days.  

Would love to know how other Authors come up with their book titles!  (and yes, I will somehow get the number 3 in the third book's title..on purpose this time!)

BOOK:                   Secondhand Purses
AUTHOR:             Elizabeth Butts
RELEASE DATE:  January 19, 2016

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Secondhand Purses is the second book by indie author Elizabeth Butts.  It is a follow-up, stand-alone book that revisits characters introduced in her first book, Singleish (published May 2015). 

Secondhand Purses is all about Alex, the slightly crazy best friend who has no filter and sometimes is a little hard edged and sarcastic, but with a heart of gold.  What happens to a person to make their life take a 180, and change them forever?

Secondhand Purses is based primarily in the New England areas of Providence, RI and Onset, MA.  It is a humor based contemporary women’s fiction book that will have you laughing and crying when you are reading it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Elizabeth Butts is a 38 year old new author who only started writing in January 2015. 

She lives in West Wareham, MA with her husband, Mike, and their twelve animals.  No, she has never seen the show ‘Hoarders’ and doesn’t understand why people keep asking her that.

She has been an avid reader since the age of three, and her mom always said she expected Beth would write a book. 

A little gentle nudging (aka, serious kicking and shoving) from writer A. E. Murphy and Singleish was born. 

One year after Singleish was started, Secondhand Purses is being published.

Elizabeth works full time as a Payroll and Benefits Manager for a popular restaurant company in Massachusetts, as well as a part time HR Manager for an Executive Functional Coaching company near Boston.  She volunteers at a local animal shelter.

LINKS GALORE!

Goodreads link for Secondhand Purses:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28395807-secondhand-purses

Goodreads link for Elizabeth Butts: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13984502.Elizabeth_Butts

Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/elizabethbutts

Purchase links for Secondhand Purses (on Amazon):

US: http://amzn.com/B019NOE3C4
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B019NOE3C4
AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B019NOE3C4
CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B019NOE3C4

FB Author Page:  http://www.facebook.com/ElizabethButtsAuthor

Blog/Website:  http://elizabethbuttsauthor.wordpress.com

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/ebutts422

BLURB:

One Moment.

Once careless moment that can shred your heart and start building walls brick by brick. 
It just takes one moment to change a person.

Ten years ago, Alex was a cautious teen who didn’t make friends easily. Somehow, miraculously, she found a lifelong friend and mentor. Even more miraculously, she fell in love.

Just when Alex’s world was finally turning into something she loved, her one moment happened. She went from sweet and vulnerable to snarky hard edges.

Everyone has that friend. The one who will tell you what she thinks, even if you don’t want to hear it. The one that would throw herself in front of a train for you once you were ‘in’. The one that hides her pain behind her sarcasm. That friend is Alex.

But when the center of her moment reenters her life suddenly, what is she supposed to do? Will her world implode on itself again? Will she end up in prison for murder? Or will things somehow end up like she’d always wanted? 

BANNER TAG LINE:

What happens when the one person you are trying to forget won’t let you go?

EXCERPT:

I opened the door and nearly had a 1800s English romance novel level swoon.

I mean, seriously. Dayum.

I had to fight myself not to touch. How had I not noticed until now that Nick had tattoos? So my dream guy from my teen years has the dark Italian looks I seemed to crave, rode a motorcycle and had tattoos? My uterus was practically begging me at this point to just give it up already and make babies with this man. Or at least try to make babies. A freaking lot.

“Hey, Alex? My eyes are up here.”

Nope, pretty sure they weren’t. His teasing voice was trying to break through my thick skull as I salivated over biceps, abs and ink.

I shook my head to get the lust induced fuzz out of it, glared at him, and stepped back.

“Let me just get my purse and a bottle of water. You want one?”

“No thanks. I’ve got one in the truck.”

“Okay.”

I turned to walk away and felt his hand wrap against my wrist. I looked down at his hand in shock, the warmth flowing up my arm from where he held on to me.

He pulled me sharply towards, him, so that I ended up falling into him.

“This seems to be our favorite position.” His voice had taken on a deeper, huskier tone. This was dangerous territory. I needed to regain control of the situation, stat. My brain was trying to pull away from him, but I imagined that my girl parts had wrapped my brain in duct tape, put a gag in its mouth and was cheering me on from the sidelines.

I reached a hand to his chest to start to push him away from me. Ugh, he definitely worked out. I looked up to start speaking and was staring up into hot chocolate eyes.

In my defense, I did push him away. A little. He must have felt it, too, because he reached up and wrapped his other hand around mine and held it tighter to his chest.

I couldn’t have torn my eyes from his if you’d paid me a million dollars. Seriously, every cell in my body was frozen in place at this moment.

Nick slowly lowered his head towards mine. My heart was pounding. Oh my God, was I about to have a heart attack?  Well, I really didn’t care at this moment, it was a kind of worth dying right now, heart stopping moment.