Landing Fletch Layton by Beth Henderson is a Stress Busting Book Festival pick #romanticcomedy #romcom #romance #giveaway
- N. N. Light
- May 5
- 7 min read
Title: LANDING FLETCH LAYTON
Author: Beth Henderson
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Book Blurb:
The text was a death threat. There was no doubt about it in Fletch Layton’s mind. Dominique, his slinky, bombshell girlfriend for the past two years had given him one week to decide whether he was marrying her or not. It was enough to make a man panic, and so, like the master procrastinator he was, Fletch decided to put off making any sort of leap. On one hand there was gorgeous but flinty eyed Dominique. On the other was freedom. His best friend, Brenda Burton, would help him muddle out a decision. But Bren had dreams of her own where Fletch was concerned, and she had a self-help book, Land Your Man. To save him from himself, Bren put her mind to LANDING FLETCH LAYTON herself.
Excerpt:
As ordered, Bren was ready to leave when Fletch reappeared a few hours later. “No more than thirty minutes,” she insisted. “That’s all I can spare.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her. “We’re discussing business, remember?” He stuck his head in her boss’s office. “I’m taking Bren to lunch, so she can fill me in on all the last-minute changes for the Vegas trip. I’ve got no idea when we’ll be back,” he said. “Any objection?”
Before there could be one, Fletch left the office, firmly pushing Bren ahead of him.
“It was your decision, so what are we having?” he asked. “French gourmet, surf and turf, Chinese, Italian?”
“I’m only taking half an hour,” Bren informed him, the tone of her voice indicating she would be inflexible over changes he might try to make on the time limit. She leaned on the elevator call button. “That means we walk across to the park and hit the vendor wagons.”
Fletch grimaced. “I don’t think I can handle another hot dog this soon.”
“I was thinking more of a hot pretzel.”
“That’s it?”
“And a large iced tea.”
“You’ll waste away to nothing,” Fletch said.
The elevator arrived and people returning from their own hastily gulped lunches spilled out. Bren squeezed between them and into the elevator before the doors snapped closed again. Fletch was a step behind her. When she hit the button for the first floor, he realized they had the lift all to themselves—yet he continued to stand close to her.
He was more aware of her than he’d ever been before.
Hmm…now this is interesting, he mused but made no effort to move away. The overhead lighting picked up the same coppery lights he’d noticed in her hair the day before.
“When did you start wearing your hair that way?” he asked.
Bren gave him a disgusted look. “Two years ago.”
“Oh. Did I tell you then that it looks nice?”
“No.”
“Well, it does,” Fletch said.
“Thank you,” Bren answered.
They fell silent. The elevator hummed, working its way down the high rise at an unhurried pace.
“That’s a nice perfume,” he commented after a while.
“I’m not wearing perfume. It’s soap.”
“Scented though.”
“Bailey and Salazar’s best,” she said.
The elevator dropped another floor.
“Lavender, huh?” Fletch said.
“Lilac. You never could tell one flower from another.”
“True,” he admitted.
The lift reached the ground floor. The doors opened smoothly to display a horde of anxious workers waiting to board. His hand placed intimately along Bren’s spine, Fletch pushed their way through. She moved away from his touch the moment there was enough space to do so.
“You sure all you want is a pretzel?” he demanded as they stepped out of the lobby into bright sunlight. “It’s hot as blazes out here.”
“Take your suit coat off,” she suggested, and strode across the street. “You’re a real wimp anymore.”
Fletch tugged at his tie, loosening the knot at his throat. “Am not,” he insisted, shedding adulthood as quickly as he did his jacket.
Bren turned to face him, skipping backward as she walked. “Are, too,” she said, grinning widely.
Fletch unbuttoned his vest. “Where’s the pretzel vendor?”
“Near the fountain.”
“There’s a fountain in this park? Can’t be. It’s only a city block wide,” he said, incredulity filling his voice.
“You big shot executives,” Bren moaned sadly, shaking her head. Her curls danced.
Fletch had a sudden urge to bury his fingers in her dark tresses and breathe deeply of her lilac-scented, soap-scrubbed skin. The impulse floored him, causing him to come to a complete standstill. What was the matter with him? This was Bren. His buddy.
“Which way?” he asked, looking around. Anything so that she wouldn’t spot the hint of man-woman awareness in his eyes.
“Follow me,” Bren instructed.
He was more than willing to do so. It let him examine the feminine sway of her walk, the one he’d only noticed the day before.
Today she was wearing a cream-colored linen pantsuit. The jacket was long, but still shorter than her shirttail had been on Sunday. It wasn’t as flirty in action.
“There it is,” Bren announced, pointing to a cart with a brightly colored canvas awning.
It was parked in the shade near a fountain.
Fletch had to admit the setting looked cool and inviting.
But then, so did Bren when she smiled at him.
Get a grip on yourself, Layton, Fletch ordered silently. This was Bren, his childhood friend. She was not the woman of his dreams: Dominique was that. Or should be. At any rate, his new awareness of Bren was disturbing.
It was probably just the heat that was making him crazy. He’d been out in the sun when the first symptoms of this disease had struck, and here he was standing in the middle of a sun-drenched park being boiled alive again. It had to be humidity or sunstroke.
An elderly man was seated close by the vendor wagon, a Reds baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. When he saw Bren and Fletch, he pushed himself slowly to his feet. Fletch could hear the plastic webbing of the man’s lawn chair creak with the movement.
“Hi, Henry,” Bren greeted. “I’ll have a pretzel with—”
Fletch cut her off. “With mustard. Just a squiggle of it,” he told the vendor before turning to face her. “See, I remember.”
Bren wasn’t impressed with this dazzling display. “Oh, Henry knows how I like it,” she assured Fletch breezily before turning back to the elderly man. “With an iced tea today, Henry. Three sugars. What’ll you have, Fletch?”
My head examined, he thought. “Another of the same,” he said. “And if I need my stomach pumped later today, Bren, just make sure you tell the hospital staff that this was your idea.”
“Oh, you’ll survive,” she said as she thanked Henry for her strange meal and moved off to a park bench while Fletch paid for everything.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
What’s your favorite way to combat stress?
Well, first would be to remove myself from the situation. Second would be to lose myself in a book or movie or television show with heavy doses of comedy in it. If they gave grades out in marathoning, I’d have straight As.
However, I once had a job where when I was in the office my stomach ached. When the one-hour lunch time came around I got in my car and drove into the countryside for 30 minutes then turned around and went back to the office. Within half an hour my stomach got restless again. The next week I resigned and found that even without a new job to go to, my body was much happier, particularly my stomach. Definitely dodged the ulcer ball on that one. So another way to avoid stress is to recognize that you don’t have to put up with it. Find a new solution to the problem and don’t be afraid to act on it.
Why is your featured book a stress busting read?
LANDING FLETCH LAYTON is actually an updated version of one of my Silhouette romantic comedies from the late 1990s. Back then it was called A WEEK ‘TIL THE WEDDING. It’s full of situations where snickers and smiles are the result as Fletch finds he didn’t realize he’d been overlooking something he should have recognized when he and Bren were kids – that she’s always been more to him than his best friend. He’s always been in love with her, just blind to the fact that he was. Bren, on the other hand, has always known no other man could measure up to Fletch where she’s concerned, despite how often she gets mad or frustrated with him.
There’s really nothing like losing yourself in a romantic comedy that goes heavy on the comedy (which this does) to make you forget whatever is stressing you out. Even if just while you’re reading.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs May 1 – 31, 2025
Drawing will be held on June 1, 2025.
Author Biography:
Beth Henderson celebrates 35 years as a published author this year. It was a long time coming as she spent over a decade writing and rewriting the same three stories, sometimes from scratch, but usually based on encouraging comments and suggestions that editors made along with requests to see a rewrite. When the first book finally was offered a contract, the others found homes with publishers quickly. Within 2 ½ years she had nine books in print (and they really were “in print” because there was no such thing as eBooks back then. She’s gone under several different names on book covers and taken on various genres since then. Later this year her 40th book will be released. Definitely something she never dreamed would happen during the rejection years.
Social Media Links:
http://bit.ly/2GvFyog for Beth Henderson on Facebook
X/Twitter: @Beth__Henderson
