About the Book

Book: Finding Harmony

Authors: Alyssa Roat and Hope Bolinger

Genre: Sweet Contemporary Romance

Release date: July 5, 2022

Can two people-pleasing musicians win the grand prize, or will they be forced to give up music for good?

Newly hired worship leader Elijah Peterson can’t seem to catch a break with his church’s congregation. With conflicting demands from congregants, he struggles to find a way to make everyone happy, especially Don, a man who’s rumored to have driven out the last worship leader.

Music teacher Olivia “Liv” Wilson says yes to everything—piano lessons, church volunteering, extra shifts—all while struggling to help pay her dad’s medical bills. As jobs fall through, she’s hit with even worse news—with bills piling up, they could lose her childhood home.

When their meddling roommates force Elijah and Liv into a cooking class together, the two come up with a plan. They’ll enter an indie songwriting competition—with a cash prize that could be enough to save Liv’s house. And maybe if Elijah can win, his musical family and congregation will finally take him seriously.

But winning the competition might mean losing themselves in the process. Can they find a way to strike harmony between writing songs they love and songs the audience wants to hear?

Click here to get your copy!

About the Authors

Hope Bolinger and Alyssa Roat are the authors of nearly twenty books both independently and co-authored. They have worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as agents, editors, writers, journalists, and publicists. When not writing, Hope is a theater nerd who loves to hike, and Alyssa is a history nerd and game enthusiast. Both are proud cat moms. You can learn more about them on social media @hopekbolinger and @alyssawrote.

More from Alyssa

In college, Hope and I (Alyssa) didn’t know the word “no.” After all, our professors, advisors, and chapel speakers all told us, “Say yes to every opportunity. Volunteer for everything. If you don’t do it now, it will be too late. Your career will fail. You won’t please God. Etc. Etc.”

So we followed that advice, and we well-nigh burned ourselves out. Faced with a litany of health issues caused by overworking, we realized after college that maybe we had taken things too far. So we began to work on unlearning this mindset.

To this day, we have to call each other and ask, “Is it okay if I turn down this unpaid opportunity? If I don’t have time for this volunteer work? Will people be mad at me?”

We channeled a lot of this people-pleasing into Finding Harmony. As we recovered from overworking ourselves, our characters Elijah and Liv learned that they didn’t need to do everything. As we fell back in love with writing for the sake of the art, not for the A+, our characters discovered how to remain true to their music.

We hope you enjoy reading Finding Harmony as much as we enjoyed writing it—and we encourage you to follow God’s call on your life, regardless of expectations.

Author Interview:

Do you write full-time or part-time? How does that influence your writing?

I write part time. I have a 9-5 job working in marketing and consulting, and I also manage a speculative fiction publishing imprint in the evenings and on weekends. As you can imagine, add in releasing three books a year, and I’m a busy woman!

My co-author, Hope Bolinger, also works full-time, so we squeeze in writing sessions when we can. Usually, we divide up who is writing from the point of view of which character—for Finding Harmony, I wrote from Liv’s perspective, and Hope wrote from Elijah’s. We outlined the chapters together, and then wrote separately. When we’re writing, we usually shoot for a chapter a day.

What inspires your stories?

Our Roseville Romances series was inspired by a few things. First, as writers, we liked the idea of couples falling in love while collaborating on artistic projects—a book, a song, a play, a film.

But perhaps most importantly, as young twenty-somethings, we realized that there aren’t a whole lot of sweet Christian romance books written by people our age. We thought it would be fun to have romances full of the problems we and our friends know so well, like living with roommates, scrambling for jobs, struggling to pay rent, conflicts with parents, and trying to figure out God’s calling for your life, smashed together with the feel-good coziness of a Hallmark movie. Our characters are lovable messes—kind of like most of us, I’d imagine!

What are some new projects you’re working on?

Hope and I are wrapping up final proofreads on book three in the Roseville Romances, Curtain Call, a love story between a shy aspiring actress and a struggling director, and I have to say, I think it’s our best one yet. Soon, we’ll start on book four, Getting Reel, where our enemies-to-lovers main characters have to produce a short film together, if they can manage not to kill each other in the process.

Also keep an eye out for our YA titles, both co-authored and separately! The third in my YA fantasy trilogy is coming out next spring, and Hope has a variety of middle grade and young adult titles releasing.

How do you determine if it’s a stand-alone book or a series? 

We began this series with the intention to write one book for each of the four seasons. However, for other books, we never intended to write more than a standalone. For The Wraithwood Trilogy, I only intended to write one book for kids…but the plot and characters went crazy, and suddenly I had a YA trilogy on my hands. Something similar happened with our Dear series—we only intended to write one superhero romance, but the format turned out to be a hit, and we were asked to write more. It depends on how much of the story remains to be told, and how much publishers and readers clamor for a sequel!

If you didn’t write, what would you do?

Watch too much Netflix! Just kidding (kind of). I would probably direct my creative energies into music. I like to compose for various instruments. I would also do more crafting! Writing takes a lot of time and energy and doesn’t leave time for as many other hobbies as I would like, but it’s so worth it.

Thanks for connecting today.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to focus on seeing

“JESUS in the EVERYDAY?”

Would you like to be a part of a membership where everyday you are pointed back to God and seeing Him in your everyday life?

If that sounds like something you’re interested in, I invite you to come check it out!

Don’t forget to check out the other blog spots listed below for your convenience.

Blog Stops

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, July 20

Spoken from the Heart, July 21 (Author Interview)

The Sacred Line, July 21

Texas Book-aholic, July 22

Inklings and notions, July 23

For Him and My Family, July 24

For the Love of Literature, July 25 (Author Interview)

Mypreciousbitsandmusings, July 25

deb’s Book Review, July 26

Locks, Hooks and Books, July 27

Ashley’s Clean Book Reviews, July 28

Because I said so — and other adventures in Parenting, July 29

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, July 30

Splashes of Joy, July 31 (Author Interview)

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, August 1

Blogging With Carol, August 2

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Hope and Alyssa are giving away the grand prize package of a $25 Amazon gift card and Picture Imperfect and Finding Harmony, in preferred format (paperback U.S. only)!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.