Today I’m joining the blog tour for Dating Little Miss Perfect. I’m sharing a guest post written by the author with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the tour and to Cassandra O’Leary for writing her guest post!

Blurb:

The perfect romcom read for fans of The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren and The Hating Game by Sally Thorne . . .

On an anonymous online dating app, LittleMissPerfect meets HotAussie007 and it’s love at first click. In real life, a smart but spiky woman in STEM, research scientist, Dr Eden, meets a laid-back Aussie marketing manager, Finn, at the big pharma company where they both work in California. They’re forced to compete for special projects funding, and both their jobs are on the line.

Eden just wants to win at science and in life. It’s not happening! She can’t stand Finn’s too-cool-for-school, nice guy act, or his delectable forearms that keep invading her space. While Finn is stupidly attracted to Eden, when she’s not telling him off, he isn’t free to pursue her. He’s stuck in the worst position in his professional life, and doesn’t see a clear way out. He can’t tell her the whole truth about what’s going on at work or in his personal life. . . or it could all blow up in his face.

When they realise the truth about their online alter egos, dating is off the table. Can they ignore their inconvenient attraction, and work together to take down their unethical boss? Or will intense rivalry cause their IRL work lives and online love lives to collide and explode like a science experiment gone wrong?Note: Dating Little Miss Perfect is an updated take on You’ve Got Mail for lovers of online dating romcoms, with added science, cupcakes and old movie references! This new release from award-winning author Cassandra O’Leary is a stand-alone contemporary romance novel of approximately 97,000 words.

Guest Post:

Cassandra O’Leary has written a guest post entitled “Something Strict: Fashion As Character Motif.”

Fashion is fun, as far as I’m concerned. I like wearing jeans and cardigans on a normal writing day, but when I go out somewhere special, I like to wear a pretty dress or a sharp suit. When I attended the recent Romance Writers of Australia conference with the theme “All That Glitters”, I had a ball. But when it comes to characters in my writing, fashion can sometimes be a serious business. 

In my new romcom novel, Dating Little Miss Perfect, the heroine is a professional, somewhat cranky and straitlaced scientist by day, but flirtier and more feminine by night. Dr Eden is a mass of contradictions and I enjoyed exploring this partly through the way she dresses. At work, Eden wears simple knee length skirts and shirts with flat shoes such as sneakers or Doc Martens under her white lab coat. Her work clothes are her uniform, almost like armour at times in interactions with her horrible boss. 

But Eden is also a big fan of classic movies (like this author) and emulates classic style in her off-the-clock clothing. When writing, I imagined she looked a little like young Elizabeth Taylor and she adores actress Grace Kelly. In the book, I note that enjoys sewing her own vintage-style dresses, something that occurred to me as a character trait as I’ve known a few women scientists who are also knitters, seamstresses or in one case, a hat designer! There must be something about the technical aspects of making clothes that appeals to the scientific mind. 

Fashion and clothing are important to the story in a few pivotal scenes in the book. In an early scene in Dating Little Miss Perfect, Eden and Finn are flirting online using their anonymous alter egos, LittleMissPerfect and HotAussie007.

Time to bite the bullet, to see if he was as funny and sexy as he seemed in their chats. She was dying to know what he looked like. Perhaps she’d indulge his librarian fantasy.

LittleMissPerfect: You’re on. Sweep me off my feet, big shot. Get back to me with a time and place. I’ll wear something strict.

HotAussie007: *dies* Will message later.

Later, in an important scene, Eden is due to meet her anonymous date from an app at a restaurant in Del Mar, California. She’s sitting on an outdoor terrace, waiting for the hero to arrive. The following snippet is in Finn’s point of view:

He should’ve asked her to wear a flower on her lapel or some other clichéd accessory. She’d messaged him earlier and said she’d dress in ‘something strict.’ But what the hell did that even mean?

“Excuse me.” Finn weaved his way through the restaurant to the terrace, then hung back near the French doors as a large group pushed past to exit. 

He scanned the outdoor area. There. Could it be? It was! His pulse thundered in his ears. It was definitely her. Eden.

She was stunning. Her outfit was… wow. And he was the proverbial stunned mullet. 

Christ, how had he never noticed her rocking those curves? She wore a strapless number in deep red, like wine, pulled tight around her tiny waist with some kind of black ribbon corset at the back. He wanted to unlace it. Immediately. With his teeth. 

Then there were her legs, crossed to one side under a full skirt, pencil-thin lines running up the back of her stockings. Did they go all the way to the top? Finn’s eyes meandered over her hips to her bare shoulders, then tracked back down again. Black gloves to her elbows. High heels with red soles. So elegant and yet so strict. Like his favorite classic Hollywood starlet fantasies come to life in glorious Technicolor. 

The hero in the book, Finn, is an Aussie marketing manager who is more laid back in his approach to work. Even when stressed, he jokes around and annoys Eden who is trying to get her work done. Finn wears a classic light grey suit but he styles it in a casual way, removing his jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves to display muscular forearms that have Eden’s heart pounding. He might pretend not to care about clothes but he chooses a green business shirt that’s the same shade as his eyes, hoping to catch a certain woman’s attention. He’s also sporty and enjoys running by the beach, so there’s a scene where he ends up in a steamy scene with Eden while he’s still wearing his tight-fitting running clothes (which she enjoys!). 

Finn loves the way Eden dresses and describes her as “glamorous like a movie star” which helps readers understand his attraction to her early in the story, even while she’s being mean to him. It’s an opposites attract or rivals to lovers situation, and the clothing they wear, along with other cues in dialogue, help the reader to understand their growing relationship.

I hope readers enjoy this insight into a writer’s fashion choices when it comes to dressing characters. It’s almost like playing with dolls and make believe as a kid, but with much more editing! 

***

Dating Little Miss Perfect is a quirky take on You’ve Got Mail, featuring online dating, a rivals to lovers workplace romance, cupcakes, old movie references, a prickly scientist heroine and a laid back Aussie marketing manager (who may look like a Hemsworth). 

***

Dating Little Miss Perfect is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: