Christine Warner and Weird Jobs!

We're excited to host the fantabulous Christine Warner today on WordWranglers! Christine writes sexy, contemporary and sometimes humorous-romantic-suspense...Christine, take it away!


Thank you WordWranglers for turning over your fabulous blog to me today!


I love reading romance. I love that I know there will be a sexy hero, a strong heroine (preferably with sass and spunk), wonderful settings, and a happily every after. These are all things I can rely on when I pick up a book in the romance genre.

But something you never really know until you read the blurb, or get into the first chapter of the story, is what these amazing characters do for a living.

Did their author scour the internet to look for something totally off the wall, or did they give their characters a profession they are familiar with, or that’s considered in the norm?

I actually looked up some odd professions in the name of research when I was writing Two-Timing the Boss. Not for my heroine, because I already knew I was going to give her something familiar to me and hundreds of thousands of others…she was going to be an office worker—namely a personal assistant for the hero.

But what about my hero? What profession should he dominate?

In surfing the internet I found some interesting professions. Can you believe there are actually odd jobs out there such as:

ODOR TESTER? Yes, there is a chemist who gets paid to use his/her sniffer to make sure all the anti-perspirants and deodorants are doing their job with a fresh, clean aroma. Sorry, had to cross that one off the list…very unromantic in my opinion. lol

CROCODILE WRANGLER? Uh-huh, you couldn’t pay me enough to even consider tangoing with a croc, and I don’t think my hero wants to give it a go either because he wants to keep his limbs intact for the heroine.

CHEESE SPRAYER? W-what? Yep, someone actually gets paid to spray cheese or butter on your popcorn. Who’d have known, right? Still not right for my hero, it just doesn’t seem manly and strong to me.

GOLF BALL DIVER? Really? People get paid to dive into the water (think if you lived in Hawaii or the Caribbean—not to shabby) to retrieve golf balls that they can clean up and resell. Do you think they make enough to pay rent? Or do they even care because they are living in the sun and surf all day Maybe they are actually having the last laugh after all. But again, if my hero did this for a living, what would his assistant do? And would he be the multi-millionaire I envisioned…um, probably not 

DICE INSPECTOR? Now I might like this one since I enjoy a good game of yahtzee My hero could own a casino or something…but it just wasn’t thrilling me.

After all my research and then brainstorming with my sister, I decided to give my hero from Two Timing the Boss a normal profession—he became owner and CEO of his own contracting business.

In your reading travels, have you ever run across a hero or heroine with an odd profession? If so, what was it?


Here’s my blurb for Two-Timing the Boss:

Farah Smith is on a mission: secure the funds for her twin sister’s surgery.  She’ll do whatever it takes to succeed.  Even if that means putting her values aside to work for a man she finds morally bankrupt.  But when the real Farah meets her new boss, she wonders if she’ll be able to resist his sexy advances long enough to help her sister.

From the blonde wig, to the stilettos strapped around her ankles, Farah’s a clone of Keller Donovan’s harem of past assistants.  She can’t believe she’s let herself be talked into the disguise, let alone working for the man planning to demolish the hospital her sister so desperately needs, but the salary he offers is the only way she’ll be able to afford her sister’s surgery.  The moment Farah meets Keller she realizes her most daunting task isn’t typing, spreadsheets or organizing travel arrangements, but fighting the growing attraction toward a man whose ruthlessness is legendary in the boardroom as well as the bedroom.

Determined not to end up in a disastrous marriage like his divorced parents, Keller believes all relationships should have a shelf life of sixth months or less.  But when he meets Farah, all bets are off.  He not only wants her to continue as his personal assistant, but his own private bed warmer.  Unfortunately, his offer of an affair doesn’t sit well with her fairytale dreams or the strangled hold gripping his heart.

Excerpt:

These damn shoes would be the death of her.  She could read the headlines now:  Penniless P.A. Falls to her
Death while on Job Interview.

Almost to her destination, with no more mishaps, her confidence surfaced.  Okay, maybe mastering this heel thing wouldn’t be such a big deal.  Her steps became light, almost bouncy.  Although she sensed Keller Donovan behind her, she didn’t let it deter her feeling of success.  She stepped onto the large black and red area rug, less than ten feet from her target.  The leather chairs.

“Oh!”  Farah’s spiky heel caught on the edge of the expensive rug.  Her legs shook and she shot her arms out from her sides, circling them like a bird about to take flight.  She fought to regain balance inside the ridiculous stilts strapped to her feet.  A brawl to the death.  Over when she looked down to see the rug coming up to kiss her face.  She threw out her hands, sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, scrunching her face as she prepared for impact.

But nothing happened.  There were stars all right, and a blazing jolt of electricity shot from her toes, up her legs, through her body and exited with the small gasp which escaped her lips.  Somehow Keller Donovan had grabbed her around the waist before she met the floor.

Heat burned her cheeks.  He may have saved her body from bruises, but her ego, and whatever confidence she’d walked in with had shattered.

“Let’s not have an accident before your health benefits kick in.”  His breath tickled her ear from behind.  Chills hugged her backbone.

His touch released an unsettling flutter in her abdomen.  She sucked in her stomach from the pressure of his strong arms wrapped around her middle, afraid to breathe.

Two-Timing the Boss is available in print and digital format at:
http://thewildrosepress.com/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
http://www.amazon.com/

And you can find me at:
My blog/website:  http://christine-warner.com/
Twitter under ChristinesWords: https://twitter.com/#!/ChristinesWords
My Facebook page…stop by and give it a LIKE to stay informed of what I have in the works: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christine-Warner/143430882396013
Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5763713.Christine_Warner

I love to hear from readers and other authors!

Comments

  1. Hi Wonderful Wrangler Ladies...thanks so much for having me on your blog :)

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  2. Those are some crazy professions, Christine. The cheese sprayer really made me scratch my head! I'm sure I've encountered some bizarre professions in books I've read, but nothing comes immediately to mind. I think you made a wise decision with the CEO of a contracting company over the dice inspector, LOL.

    Wishing you a successful tour for Two Timing the Boss!

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  3. Hi, Christine! It's always great to see you--and I love your post!

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  4. LOL...thanks Mae...I think I made a wise decision too. Of course a golfball diver could lead into some interesting scenes.

    Thanks Liz....glad you enjoyed the post :)

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  5. Loved this! I think a cheese sprayer would also make the hero smell bad. Lol! I think the weirdest job I've seen is a man that was half owner of a pleasure ship. It was an erotic romance.

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  6. Those are some strange professions. I think my problem is that many jobs seem pretty normal to me. Like the people to row out to anchored boats to sell provisions, or boat owners. Now I've got it, in Germany there is a grout person. That's all they do is the grout on tile. Tweeted.

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  7. *waves to Christine* Thanks for being our guest today. I'd be a golf ball diver...yanno, unless I lived in Florida.

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  8. LOL Shawn....I didn't even think about the smell of a cheese sprayer....good point. Funny about the 1/2 owner of a pleasure ship...I think I might have read the same book a few years back. Thanks so much for coming by.

    Glad you came by Ella and thanks for tweeting. I would think grouting tile all day would put me to sleep. lol

    Thanks for having me Kristi...I always have fun when I visit the Wordwranglers. I'm going with the golf ball diver too...preferably on a tropical island :)

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