The Marriage Auction
(Book One)
by Audrey Carlan
From #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Audrey Carlan, discover The Marriage Auction: Season One, Volume One.
You can now dive into the Kindle Vella phenomenon with over 1 MILLON READS. This saga has ranked #1 for over a full year and continues to break records each month as America’s favorite serial. Each volume contains more than 10% new content that includes two scenes never seen before from some of our favorite couples.
What would you do for three million dollars?
Four young women enter into a clandestine auction to be married to the highest bidders. For no less than a million dollars a year, for three years, each woman will do what it takes to secure her future. Entangled in a high-stakes game of money, lust, power, and the hope for absolution, this group of women becomes a sisterhood unlike any other.
Once chosen by a man she’s never met and agrees to marry sight unseen…there is no going back. Hidden secrets, wicked desires, fiery couplings and intense family drama are all part of the deal when you willingly enter into The Marriage Auction.
You may now kiss the bride…
Buy The Book:
THE MARRIAGE AUCTION by Audrey Carlan, An Exclusive Interview:
~ with Jillian Stein of Read Love Blog
Hello readers! Normally in our newsletter interviews, I ask questions to the author. But, for our Blue Box Press titles, I like to have the characters chat with the author. I hope you enjoy! ~Jillian Stein, co-owner of Blue Box Press
What inspired you to tell our stories?
The concept of arranged marriages for the benefit of both parties individually spoke to me. Adding in a timeline and a huge payout helped define the parameters and what type of characters would be interested. But I wanted the characters to each have a very different reason and approach to the auction and marriage. It couldn’t just be about money. There had to be a whole helluva a lot more to it in order to engage the reader completely. It made for some excellent dialogue and spicy scenes that’s for sure!
Do you ever talk to any of us out loud?
Not really. I do all the talking inside my head because honestly that’s where all of you bug me. The best quiet time for us to chat is always in the shower. Apparently my characters prefer hot water before they communicate fully with my muse.
You don’t have to tell us who, but are any of us based off of someone in your real life?
Nope. Each and every last one of you are a figment of my imagination. It’s rare that I use actual people in my life. I’d only done that in my Trinity saga and that series is deeply personal for that reason. Perhaps some of you have traits or quirks that someone else in my life has, or something I enjoy. For example, Dakota loves throw back music. I’m a hardcore lover of what I consider the classics, Nelly, TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G., En Vogue, Boyz II Men and the like.
How long before you actually wrote our stories were you thinking of us?
Shockingly not long. I was under a time constraint. My agent contacted me and told me about Kindle Vella’s new serialized fiction platform and thought because of my successful serial saga Calendar Girl and International Guy, that I’d be the perfect fit for it. After spending over a year as #1 on it, with all of you amazing characters, she was right. Originally though, I had maybe three weeks to get something written, edited, and posted. However, in the beginning I’d burned through two other massive ideas and ended up scratching them at the last minute. Then the idea came of a marriage auction. It was all I could think about once the idea surfaced. I ended up writing the first five episodes within a couple days. I didn’t even have an image for the serial until maybe two hours before the entire platform went live. I’d forgotten I needed one, so busy with the character voices in my head that everything else ceased to exist, which happens often.
How did you come up with our names?
A character’s name is a tricky thing and intensely personal between me and the character. First, I do Google searches for whatever character image I’m imagining. I’ll pick actors and actresses, models, random people off Pinterest until a face speaks to me. Once I’ve done that, I’ll posted the picture on my board and let it live there until their name literally comes to me. Usually that will help spin off other names but mostly it’s about what name comes to me when I look at that image. It feels like my characters always choose their own first name. The last name however is always based on their heritage. So if I’m writing a hero from Norway like Erik, he would need a strong, powerful name that was definitely recognizable as Norwegian. I research surnames in that country or location and one always jumps out as a winner. The spelling is important too because you want the spelling based on the origin, not how it was adjusted in the States. So Erik is spelled with a “k” and his last name is Johansen, not Johanson or Johansson with an “o” at the end not an “e” or even the extra “s”. This is important to me for things to be legitimate and accurate for this character’s heritage.
Were you surprised at any of our matches or did you think any of us wouldn’t work as a couple?
The Nile/Ruby/Noah situation definitely surprised the heck out of me. Twin brothers vying for the same woman is not a new tale but it’s definitely a scandalous one. The way all of that turned out was nowhere near planned in the beginning of the story. It morphed and flowed naturally as it was meant to and I’m in love with the results. I think our girl Ruby is too.
The other character ARC that took on a whole new life was Savannah’s. The intense situation between her first love and the man she was auctioned to was an adventure to say the least. I swear it wrote itself.
Ok, who of us is most likely to:
- Make you laugh when you’re down? I think my cowboy Sutton has the quickest wit of the bunch. He’d have you howlin’ with laughter in no time.
- Throw a wedding for their pet? Maybe Faith as a mother figure for the two young girls in her life. She’d definitely take on a silly role and play along with the children.
- Get into shenanigans? Noah for sure. He’s the twin brother that loves to entertain and has made a living off it. He is no stranger to going big and making waves.
- Forget to text back? I’d put that on Sutton. He’s too busy on the ranch to worry about texts. He’s the type of guy that will speak to you when he’s ready or not at all.
- Own a unicorn onsie? She didn’t have a childhood. I could see her finding this a fun thing to do. She’d buy a matching one for her sister too.
- Save the day? He’d do anything. Spend any amount of money. Hire whomever he needed in order to protect those he loves. I think he proves this in many ways in the story.
- Know every word of We Didn’t Start the Fire? Probably none of them since none of them were born when that song came out thirty-four years ago. My husband though can SLAY that R.E.M song!
- Save a friend from a bad blind date? My girl Dakota would storm into a blind date, yank her friend out of the chair, point a finger at the bad date and say, “You are not good enough for this queen, but I am!” And walk right out of the restaurant as if she owned it. Girl has no problem with making a scene if she believes in what she’s fighting for.
- Have the best Zoom background? Nile would have the most appropriate background hands down because he’s the most proper of the bunch in business and in life. He’d probably have a desk in a beautiful library within their lavish British estate.
Biography:
Audrey Carlan is a No. 1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal best-selling author. She writes stories that help the reader find themselves while falling in love. Some of her works include the worldwide phenomenon Calendar Girl serial, Trinity series and the International Guy series. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages across the globe.
She lives in the California Valley, where she enjoys her two children and the love of her life. When she’s not writing, you can find her teaching yoga, sipping wine with her “soul sisters,” or with her nose stuck in a sexy romance novel.
Visit Audrey Carlan’s website and follow her on:
