Book Launch – “First and Ten” by Margo Bond Collins and Erin Hayes

By J.J. DiBenedetto | September 7, 2018 | Comments 1 comment

First and Ten: A Contemporary Reverse Harem

A Team of Her Own Book 1: Preseason

by Erin Hayes and Margo Bond Collins

When Madison Harte inherits a football team with three hot players who all want her, there’s one problem: when it comes to America’s favorite sport, she’s clueless.

I have the worst luck. Failed tech startup? Check. Cheating ex-boyfriend? Check. No idea what to do next? Check.

Then my Uncle Dusty passes away and leaves a whole football team to me. Never mind that I’ve never even seen a game. Who has time for that, right?

But I can sell the team and turn my life around, so I fly from San Francisco to Birmingham, Alabama, where I find a whole new level of football obsession—and start to develop a fascination of my own. Mostly with the three players who are very, very interested in me.

I never expected to find a team of my own. Or that there would be so many obstacles in our way.

Luckily, Madison won’t have to choose just one man in this contemporary reverse harem where Friday Night Lights and Bridget Jones collide and where—hallelujah—it’s still raining men.

Excerpt:

I was strong and capable and would get through this just fine.

And if that had to be my mantra for the next few weeks while I worked out how to sell the team, so be it.

I can do this. I can make it work.

I ignored the voice in the back of my head that said, “And if you can’t, maybe you can just find someone else to help you out.”

As I approached the rental car desk, the man working greeted me with a deep, soft, Southern accent, his vowels elongated and the A’s and I’s almost reversed. He checked the length of time I had arranged to rent the car

“One of our long-term rentals,” he noted. “What are you in town for?”

“Business,” I replied. “For a long time—maybe longer than I have the car rented for.” However long it took me to get the team ready to sell.

He nodded. “If you need to extend the rental, you can do that online.”

“Thanks.”

“Roll Tide or War Eagle?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Did that have something to do with extending the rental, too? “Pardon me?”

He repeated himself, and I stared back at him blankly.

“Alabama or Auburn?” he clarified, which wasn’t clarifying anything.

“I don’t know what that means.”

He rattled a plastic cup full of burgundy and orange flags. “I’m asking which team you go for. For a flag. For your car.”

I had no idea what I would do with a flag for my car, or how I was supposed to answer. “I am so sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

He spoke very slowly, as if to someone who had a serious mental deficiency. “Your flag shows your support for the football team of your choice.”

Great. I was in one of the only states in the country where everyone had an opinion about football. Except maybe Texas. I had some vague idea that they might be as knowledgeable about football as people from Alabama. Then again, that might just have been because I knew Friday Night Lights was set there. Which I had never watched because it was about football.

It suddenly occurred to me that I did have a football team that I could go for. “I go for the Birmingham Yellowhammers,” I said brightly.

The rental agent shook his head sadly. But he reached under the counter and pulled out his small bucket of yellow flags. “Don’t get much call for these around here.”

“But this is Birmingham.”

“The Hammers suck.”

About the Authors

Erin Hayes

Sci-fi junkie, video game nerd, and wannabe manga artist Erin Hayes writes a lot of things. Sometimes she writes books.

She works as an advertising copywriter by day, and she’s an award-winning New York Times Bestselling Author by night. She has lived in New Zealand, Hawaii, Texas, Alabama, and now San Francisco with her husband, cat, and a growing collection of geek paraphernalia.

You can reach her at erinhayesbooks@gmail.com and she’ll be happy to chat. Especially if you want to debate Star Wars.