Thursday, January 30, 2014

Virtual Book Tour & Giveaway for Melting the Ice Queen's Heart by Amy Rutan



Join author Amy Ruttan on her Virtual Book Tour for Melting the Ice Queen’s Heart, presented by Tasty Book Tours, from January 20 – February 7, 2014.  Please leave a comment or question for Amy to let her know you stopped by.  You can enter her tour wide giveaway by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can also follow the rest of her tour here.  

Setting:  It was all about the setting
by Amy Ruttan

The idea for Melting the Ice Queen’s Heart stemmed from when my editor at the time asked me to write a story set in a big city for my second book. They knew I could do rural with my debut book Safe in His Hands (Sept 2013), so they wanted to see if I was up to the challenge for my second book.

I said sure and then panicked. ACK! Other than Toronto what big metropolitan city had a I been to and recently.

I was only 13 when I went to Montreal and Quebec City and I couldn’t really remember them.

I wanted to set it in a really big American city and what better place than San Francisco.

I’d been there in 2008 and I love San Francisco.

It was a city that was on my maternal grandmother’s bucket list. She had a painting of the Golden Gate Bridge in her dining room. I’d stare at it for hours. My grandmother never made it there though. She died of cancer when I was 14.

I saw it for her with my cousin.

We hiked around that city. I had scads of photos and so the setting was easy for me and the characters I knew right from the get go. They were quite vocal.

Everything fell into place from there, but the spark to set off the story idea really stemmed from my first editor Suzanne who told me they wanted a story set in a city.

I always laugh at that picture floating around on the web about a writer’s brain being like a computer with 2,000 tabs. Yep, that sums it up in a nutshell.

So, what kind of settings do you like a romance?

Melting the Ice Queen’s Heart
By Amy Ruttan

Publisher:  Harlequin Medical Romance
Release Date: February 1, 2014
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 170 Pages
ISBN:  978-1-460326-30-5
ASIN:  B00EFPVCGM


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About the book: 

It started with a kiss…

Having left his humanitarian posting in Africa to raise his two orphaned nieces in San Francisco, Dr. Gavin Brice has enough on his plate without an inconvenient attraction to his new boss! The frosty Dr. Virginia Potter clearly disapproves of his maverick ways - but with one amazing kiss, the ice begins to thaw….

Buy Links:   Amazon    B&N    Harlequin


Author Info
Born and raised on the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario, Amy fled the big city to settle down with the country boy of her dreams. When she's not furiously typing away at her computer, she's a mom to three wonderful children.

Life got in the way, and after the birth of her second child, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming a romance author.

You can find out more about Amy at her website.

Author Links


A sweet, contemporary romance, Melting the Ice Queen’s Heart by Amy Ruttan is the story of two career dedicated doctors, the two orphan girls who bring them together, and the struggling San Francisco hospital that almost tears them apart.  Well developed characters, lively dialogue, and just the right amount of romance kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. 

Working for Border Free Physicians gave surgeon Dr. Gavin Brice an opportunity to travel the world and give medical care to the poor and needy.  When his sister’s unexpected death leaves his two nieces in his care, Gavin moves to San Francisco to provide them the stability and family they need.  He never planned on having to work in a large city emergency room or on falling in love with the “Ice Queen”, the hospital’s Chief of Surgery and his new boss.

Dedicated to her career and determined to keep the “endangered” trauma center in her hospital afloat, Dr. Virginia Potter spends most of her days taking care of problems.  While she became a doctor to help people who needed medical care, she spends most of her life doing paperwork and trying to keep the hospital’s board of directors from cutting off her funding.  Dealing with the hospital’s quintessential bad boy, and emergency room maverick, was never a part of her five year plan.  Neither was falling for him or his two precocious nieces. 

Ms. Ruttan does a really good job developing both Gavin and Virginia’s characters throughout the book.  At first Gavin kind of acts like a horse’s butt; he’s unorthodox, doesn’t follow procedure and has little or no patience with the rest of the emergency room staff.  Virginia comes across as cold and aloof (hence the “ice queen” nickname) and only seems to be concerned about following hospital procedure.  Running into each other outside of work gives them the opportunity to get to know each other and fall in love.

The secondary characters are also well written and I especially enjoyed Gavin’s two nieces, Lily and Rose.  Ms. Ruttan does a wonderful job writing them into the story and they really contribute a lot to the story.  I also enjoyed Janice, Virginia’s assistant and Rosalie, the girl’s nanny while Gavin works.  The rest of the medical staff, and even some of the members of the board of directors, are also good additions for the book. 

Will Gavin be happy staying in San Francisco and becoming the family man he never thought he would be?  Will Virginia learn to let others in and take a chance on love and a readymade family?  You’ll have to read Melting the Ice Queen’s Heart; I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of Ms. Ruttan’s work.

My Rating:  4.5 out of 5 Stars
FTC Disclosure:  I received a complimentary copy of this book as a part of a book tour in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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