Ane Mulligan – Real Life Romance – Part 1 of 1

Shannon here: Ane Mulligan shares insight into her real life romance plus a chance to win a copy of debut novel, Chapel Springs Revival. Answer the question at the end of the post for a chance to win a copy. Deadline: Sept 20th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Ane:

I married a Brit, but don’t think Hugh Grant here. Hubs isn’t the romantic type. No, he’s the dry wit type, which actually suits me. However, there was one time when his wit nearly did me in. Can you say embarrassed? It happened like this:
We were in Hawaii, hosting a trip the top Honda Power Equipment dealers had won. The hotel was the Hawaiian Hilton on Waikiki. It was the final night, and Bobby Vinton had been the entertainment.
We were dressed to the nines. I wore an outfit that was an electric blue, one-piece spaghetti strapped top with harem pants and a short bolero. Hubs was in a gorgeous light blue sport coat and slacks.
During dinner and the entertainment, lightning hit one of the two towers of the Hilton. It was the tower that housed our room. The lightning took out everything electrical in the tower—including the elevators. Now, the hotel had put us in a penthouse suite … on the twentieth floor, I think it was.
We were offered the choice of climbing the stairs to our room or taking another room in the other tower for the night. No way was I going to climb 20 flights of stairs. We took the offered tooth brush and the other tower.
In the morning, we had nothing else to wear but last night’s clothes. As for my hair, well, we didn’t have a comb or brush. My hair is naturally curly, which means when I sleep, it goes every which way and does not behave without much ado. I had the proverbial bed-head. All I could hope for was a swift run to our own room in the other tower.
Thankfully, we got into the elevator without being seen. Until somebody pushed the button on the 8th floor and the elevator stopped to let them on. It was two little old ladies, who did a double take at the sight of me. They stood back in the corner of the elevator.
We were dead silent on the way to the bottom. Just as the door opened, Hubs reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He turned to me and said, “How much do I owe you?”
He’s lucky he’s still alive.
About Ane: While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, Ane has worn many different ones: hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that’s a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. Her lifetime experience provides a plethora of fodder for her Southern-fried fiction (try saying that three times fast). She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. President of the award-winning literary site, Novel Rocket, Ane resides in Suwanee, GA, with her artist husband, her chef son, and two dogs of Biblical proportion. You can find Ane on her Southern-fried Fiction website, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest.
About the book – Chapel Springs Revival: With a friend like Claire, you need a gurney, a mop, and a guardian angel.
Everybody in the small town of Chapel Springs, Georgia, knows best friends Claire and Patsy. It’s impossible not to, what with Claire’s zany antics and Patsy’s self-appointed mission to keep her friend out of trouble. And trouble abounds. Chapel Springs has grown dilapidated and the tourist trade has slackened. With their livelihoods threatened, they join forces to revitalize the town. No one could have guessed the real issue needing restoration is personal.
With their marriages in as much disarray as the town, Claire and Patsy embark on a mission of mishaps and miscommunication, determined to restore warmth to Chapel Springs —and their lives. That is if they can convince their husbands and the town council, led by two curmudgeons who would prefer to see Chapel Springs left in the fifties and closed to traffic.
Have you ever been to the ocean? If so, where?

Come back Sept 15th for Paula Mowery!