About the Book

Book: Picture Imperfect

Authors: Alyssa Roat and Hope Bolinger

Genre: Christian Sweet Contemporary Romance

Release Date: November 5, 2021

Can a struggling career woman and a procrastinating artist save a beloved nonprofit?

Aspiring novelist Caroline Penn expected a promotion, not a picture book assignment. But when her employer, the non-profit Helping Hope, runs into financial trouble, this book might be the solution. With the company struggling to stay afloat, she and the illustrator will need to collaborate on a strict deadline—no problem for a workaholic like Caroline, right?

Andy Jackson, a “starving” artist, pays the bills by taking on graphic design gigs, but his perfectionism gets in the way. If only he could focus on a project for once, perhaps he could achieve his dream to make art for children for a living.

When the two are thrust together to create a book, Caroline can’t seem to write for children, and Andy can’t meet a deadline to save his life. As time ticks down to release day, the two must face their pasts and insecurities. If they can avoid strangling one another for long enough, they may just bring to the table what the other is missing.

If not, the fate of their careers—and a beloved nonprofit—hangs in the balance.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Authors

Hope Bolinger is the managing and acquisitions editor at End Game Press and the author of 25+ books. When she isn’t accidentally writing a book in seven days, she likes to model, do theater, and hike around northeast Ohio. Find out more about her at Hopebolinger.com

Alyssa Roat is a multi-published author and has worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as an agent, editor, writer, and publicist. When not reading and writing, she likes to swordfight, rock climb, throw axes, and generally engage in tomfoolery with her silly cats. Her name is a pun, so you can find more about her at alyssawrote.com.

More from the Authors

Alyssa and I never thought we’d write a sweet romance book together. Sure, we’d done a superhero romance during the summer of 2018, but we didn’t think we had the prowess or mastery of description to make a jump into the genre.

Long story short, we were perfectionists. We wanted everything to be just right. We knew that our publisher was in need of filling a hole that some romance authors had left behind.

So we tried.

We really struggled with the first draft of Picture Imperfect. We felt shaky about it at first.

But then we learned along with our characters. That there is beauty in imperfection. That there is hope for all of us.

We decided to let go and embrace the book for what it was. Messy, but still beautiful in its own way.

Looking back, as the final book for the series releases this week, I am so happy that we jumped into the world of Picture Imperfect. We learned a great deal from these characters, and it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to the world of Roseville.

If you’re looking to see a story of redemption, hope, and embracing life’s hiccups, I hope you absolutely fall in love with Picture Imperfect.

It was funny because we both took on characters that we felt reflected our coauthor. When I (Hope) wrote Andy, I saw many aspect of Alyssa in him. And when she penned Caroline, we saw many glimpses of “Hope” as well.

There was something so beautiful and emphatic about jumping into the shoes of characters who felt different from us. We could understand other creative processes and embrace people for all their intricacies.

Thank you for joining us on this journey, and hope that you love Andy and Caroline as much as we did when we first wrote them.

Sincerely,

Hope and Alyssa <3

Author Interview

Can you share 5 random facts about you that we will not find in your bio?

Hope answering here. Here are some facts that you’re not going to find in my bio. 1) I have swam with sharks before, and no, it wasn’t in a cage. 2) I once sang with Michael W. Smith in a concert. It was super cool! 3) I am absolutely obsessed with dinosaur and have been since the age of four. 4) I occasionally do interactive theater gigs where I act in character for parties and festivals. I’ve been Belle, Wonder Woman, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Luna Lovegood thus far. 5) I am deathly afraid of heights.

What drew you to your chosen genre? 

For the two of us, we’d actually shied away from romance in our earlier writing days. Alyssa felt more drawn to fantasy. And Hope was more in the suspense space. But we’d experimented by writing a superhero romance together and discovered we enjoyed it. So we decided to give this genre a try.

What does your writing routine look like? 

It depends on which author you ask. Since I, Hope, am answering this question, I typically do writing sprints after I’ve created an outline for the book. What that basically means is I write that first draft as fast as possible. I have to do this out of necessity because I work a full-time job on top of writing. Sometimes you have five minutes, so you write as much as you can in those five minutes.

Are you a planner or a pantser?

Funnily, Hope is a planner and Alyssa is a pantser. So when we coauthor, we try to hybrid the two.

If you had to describe your main character(s) in just three words, what would they be?

Full-of-integrity, anxious, loveable