Undertaking Love by Megan Montgomery - Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Undertaking Love
by Megan Montgomery
Publication date: April 1st 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Bethany West upgraded her lucrative career as a sex worker for her dream job as a death worker when she partnered at Smythe & Co. Mortuary. She expected her eco-friendly innovations and death positive attitude to blow the roof off the Victorian-era relic. But that was seven months ago, and during that time, she’s only managed to piss off her embittered business partner, George Smythe, a man dead set on maintaining the status quo and driving Bethany out of his namesake business.
When the pair reluctantly travel together to a mortuary conference in New Orleans—and compete in dueling embalming demonstrations—George finally recognizes the value of Bethany’s business model for the first time. He’s also starting to recognize a growing attraction to his blonde bombshell business partner. Meanwhile, Bethany learns the truth behind George’s cold contempt, and it’s much worse than she thought, stemming not from a single incident, but from the constant on-call status, the compassion fatigue, and the overwhelming stress of the job.
Bethany has 4 days to crack open his tough outer shell to reveal the compassionate man she knows is inside, and she has a plan, but unless George learns to open his heart and lean on her, at the risk of succumbing to their cremation-level attraction in a dangerous way, he’ll jeopardize both the business and their hearts by refusing the true partnership they both need.
An Interview with Megan Montgomery
Welcome to JB’s Bookworms, please tell about your writing
career.
I never set out
to be a writer, though I’d dabbled with it from time to time in college. I
majored in history, so when I got the spark of an idea for a novel, of course
it was a historical fiction. I wrote a family saga set in mid-1700s Maryland
because I was so homesick for the Chesapeake Bay and the cliffs and rolling
hills of Southern Maryland. I queried it, got some good feedback, but
ultimately set it aside to write something contemporary.
I set my romcom
in the same part of Maryland, a real town called Solomons Island. It’s a tiny
place, full of maritime character, and it’s very rural—people still make their
livings on crab and oyster boats and farming—but only a little over an hour
away from Washington D.C., so it has some cosmopolitan influences from the
commuters. The US Navy Test Pilot Flight School is also located right across
the river from the town, so it’s a wellspring of military heroes and heroines,
since the job of fighter jets test pilot basically requires an inhuman blend of
neuro surgeon and elite athlete. I paired a flight instructor with a
fish-out-of-water antiques store owner and Well…That Was Awkward became
my indie debut novel.
It won the Best Indie Book Award, IndieReader Discovery Award, was a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree, and a finalist in the Page Turner Awards.
Where did you get the idea for Undertaking Love?
After Awkward, I
felt like I’d exhausted all my humor and I wanted to do something darker, and
more unique to me. (I always write books because they’re the ones I want to read.)
I’ve always had an interest in anything deathly or morbid, from the clinical to
the historical or romantic. I just had to find a way to combine romance with
death, and in what capacity.
I decided to
focus on a “ghoul gang” of three best friends who work in different deathcare
careers. In Morgue to Love, Dr. Soula Smythe is a forensic pathologist,
in The Bones of Love, which will be book 3, Dr. Decca Crowley is a
forensic anthropologist, and in Undertaking Love, Bethany West is the
mortician at the heart of the whole series.
When I leaked that I was writing a mortician romance, funeral directors friended me on Instagram and gave me their support in droves—anything I needed, research, fact-checking, etc., they were all in. I’m so thankful for their participation and this book is written and dedicated to the Last Responders, who too often go unnoticed but do the all-important work of caring for our dead and the families of the deceased.
How did you form your characters?
My characters
really do just pop into my head fully formed, then they get more nuanced and
more fleshed as I write my first draft. In revisions, I go back in and ensure
that there are no inconsistencies.
This book was
unique for me, in that I saw real life people playing the roles of Bethany and
George. I had a version of Bethany in my head, but it was a bit amorphous.
Then, early on the writing of Book 1, Morgue to Love, I came across Playboy
model, Gia Genevieve in an Instagram post (I think) and my entire vision for
her character, from her physical attributes to her personality and backstory,
gelled in my head. It never changed throughout both books, and into the third,
which I’m currently writing.
Similarly, I had
a very concrete vision for George. Then, while watching American Horror Story:
Hotel, it hit me. Wes Bentley’s character—the bedraggled, overworked,
slowly-going-crazy man in the suit IS George. He even looks half-Greek
to me. I re-watched the series for his facial expressions and mannerisms
whenever I wanted to brush up on George’s characterization.
George’s character arc changed a bit while I was writing. At first, I thought it would be a more traditional enemies-to-lovers, lighthearted romance. Then I read Caleb Wilde’s Confessions of a Funeral Director, which is one of the few books I recommend to everyone regardless of their interest in deathcare, because it’s such a profound and loving look at death, dying, and the very difficult lives of the last responders. I realized some deep, dark things I’d hinted at in George’s character, but in order for him to be real, I had to bring them to the forefront.
How did your characters meet?
Bethany’s been
entangled with George’s family for nearly a decade, since she’s besties with
his sister, Soula. She first met George when Soula invited her and her daughter
home for Thanksgiving dinner. She’s carried a small flame for him since that
moment, when George allowed four-year-Sofia to paint his nails and give him a
makeover.
When the book
starts, Bethany’s known and secretly pined for grumpy George for 8 or so years.
Sofia’s now 12 and a guitar prodigy, Bethany’s settling down in a new town, and
has used her fame and money as a model and smart investor to buy a 51% share of
Smythe Mortuary, George’s namesake business. He’s even more bitter because he
thinks his own dad threw him under the bus, and all he sees when he looks at
Bethany is a usurper into his life and career.
They don’t see eye-to-eye on anything in the business, from what embalming chemicals to stock to the changing laws surrounding innovative deathcare practices. But Bethany knows there’s a pain underlying his cold, domineering ways and she’s the one who can heal him.
Do they work well as a team?
George and Bethany work very well together as a team—as long as there are clients in front of them. Behind closed doors, Bethany tries everything she can do to push his buttons, and it takes every bit of George’s strength to resist from lashing out at her. But George grapples with his mental health and anxiety and until he learns how to deal with the constant drain on his psyche by his profession in a healthy way, he’ll never be able to see how much of a team they really are.
Is Undertaking Love a series or stand-alone novel?
It’s part of the Last Responders series, but it can be read as a standalone. Book 1, Morgue to Love, is the story of Soula, who has a one-night stand with a homicide detective, then immediately ghosts him, only to see him again the next day in the morgue. You see hints of George and Bethany in that book, but you certainly don’t have to start there.
In your summary you mentioned a conference. Why is the
conference important to your main characters?
Well, the
International Mortuary Conference was a way for me to write a character who is
an exceptional single mother without turning the whole book into a “single-mom”
romance because she has to be there checking on her daughter all the time.
(Bethany has great friends to help her out. She deserves a 4-day working
vacation to New Orleans).
The location
shift also brings a forced proximity narrative to the story, where George must
learn to lean on Bethany, if only to present a united business front.
Sometimes, it takes getting away from home and the daily grind to see things,
and people, with fresh eyes.
Being in New Orleans really brings out a new side to George, as well; one he’s hesitant to express, but slowly comes through, because Bethany coaxes out the best in him. I don’t want to spoil what it is, but it’s one of the sweeter moments in the book.
Will your characters connect with any friends or foes at the
conference?
At the conference, George and Bethany are pitted against each other in sort of dueling embalming demonstrations—each performing in the others’ area of expertise. It’s really nothing more than a fun way for the conference organizers to set up the demos, but there’s a new chemical company on the market that George doesn’t trust. You’ll have to read to see if he’s wrong.
What kind of people, characters, or monsters will attend.
Really, it’s just trade embalmers and funeral directors. Like a real-life corporate work conference, I tried to keep it as boring as possible, in part, so George and Bethany have to move into the city to find entertainment. There are a few named characters at the conference, a few outside (see: the fried chicken scene) but that’s where George realizes his social anxiety is worse than before, so Bethany takes care of him by keeping them occupied together, and away from the crowds, mostly. Thought I wish there were monsters.
Just for fun – Who are your three favorite fantasy
characters and what draws you to them?
I’m not sure if
it’s fantasy or just paranormal, but the series that got me to start writing is
The Graveyard Queen by Amanda Stevens. The protagonist is Amelia Grey, a
historic graveyard restorer who sees ghosts, and they frighten her so much, she
lives a shell of a life, stuck inside her own head and sanctuary of a house in
Charleston, South Carolina. It was the first time I’d read a compelling story
about such a quiet woman, and I identified strongly with that.
I’m more of a witch and vampire aficionado, and I always need a bit of historical realism to my supernatural, so I’m going to have to go with Lestat and Katrina Van Tassel, from Sleepy Hollow folklore—including the Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, by Alyssa Palombo.
Thank you for joining us today. Good luck with Undertaking
Love, and your future books to come.
Thank you!
Author Bio:
Megan Montgomery writes romance. Sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're morbid, but all her characters have cool jobs. She and her husband, Johnathon Olavarria co-host Forced Proximity podcast, a weekly romance book and movie club.
Her debut novel, Well . . . THAT Was Awkward was inspired by her homesickness for southern Maryland. She now lives halfway across the US on the prairie with her husband, son, and mom.
When she’s not writing, reading, lifting weights, or cooking dinners her son won’t eat, you’ll find her toiling in the garden or brewing potions from her medicinal herbs.
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