Hi lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Emily Mims and her new book, “Evergreen”! For other stops on her Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the
end of this post to enter to win a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift
Card! Also, come back daily to interact
with Emily and to increase your chances of winning!
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Evergreen
by Emily Mims
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GENRE: Contemporary Romance
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BLURB:
Thirty-year-old
musician Leilani Mahuiki is in Tennessee to find Joe Barstow, the birth father
whose bone marrow might save her daughter’s life. She finds Bradley, too, Joe’s
adopted son. Against all odds, she and Bradley make wonderful music together,
she on the ukulele, he on the banjo. And Bradley is everything else she’s ever
wanted in a man.
Bradley
wants her, too. But is that enough? He needs a family of his own. Having grown
up an outsider, he’s always dreamt of something simple and old-fashioned. No
entanglements. No complications. Just mom, dad, and the kids. Not something
Leilani can ever offer. She already has the very complications and
entanglements that he so desperately wants to avoid, and that are not going
away any time soon. And yet, as he and Leilani pull out all the stops to save her
daughter’s life, he knows Leilani is the only woman for him. The most beautiful
music in the world can sometimes happen when disharmony resolves—and a lonely
Tennessee winter can become a tropical paradise.
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EXCERPT ONE:
He
eased open the bedroom door and tiptoed down the hall to the landing, where he
could see down the stairs into the living room. What in the world? Leilani
carried a garbage sack across the room to her small dining room table. Bradley
watched as she eased open the sack and started slowly withdrawing colored cups
and spoons. It was the garbage from the club tonight, the cups and spoons
they’d all used to eat the pudding and drink the Bay Breeze. His eyes narrowed
as she zeroed in on the red and blue cups and the red spoon. He’d watched
enough crime scene television shows to know what she was doing. She wanted
somebody’s DNA sample. But whose? And why?
Only
one way he knew to find out.
Bradley
tiptoed down the stairs and stood with his arms folded as Leilani carefully put
the cups and spoon into a gallon-sized plastic sack and zipped it shut. Intent
on her task, she didn’t notice him until she’d loaded the rest of the garbage
back into the sack and turned around with the sack in her arms. She stared at
him in shock and the bag slipped out of her arms, spilling dirty cups and
spoons all over the floor. “Shit, Bradley, you startled me.” Her eyes widened
and she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Bradley
did not try to hide his suspicion. “Care to explain what the hell you’re
doing?”
She
shrugged, looking resigned. “I may as well, you’re all going to find out
anyway. Help me get this mess cleaned up first. I don’t want the sticky pudding
soaking into the carpet.”
“To
hell with the carpet,” Bradley said harshly. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“To
hell with your attitude. The mess first, then the explanation.” Leilani held
two dishtowels under the tap and threw one at him, hitting him in the middle of
his chest. “Help me clean up and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He
gave her a go-to-hell look but started picking up the dirty cups and spoons. He
sneaked a glance in her direction. Her face was expressionless, but her
trembling hands gave her away. She was in the grip of powerful emotion, so
powerful that she was hanging on by a thread. Whatever was going on was
important to her.
They
got the mess cleaned up. Leilani took the soiled dishtowel from him and
motioned to the sofa. “This may take a few minutes.”
Bradley
sat down across from her. “Okay, spill. Whose DNA are you after and why?”
“Joe’s.
I have reason to believe that Joe Barstow is my father.”
Bradley
felt a river of ice gush down his back. “What the hell do you mean, you think
Joe Barstow’s your father? You’re from Hawaii. Joe’s never been to Hawaii.”
“No,
but Debbie Pickens has been to Tennessee. Mom used to sing on the bluegrass
circuit.
She
was a damned fine dulcimer player.”
“Which
is why you know bluegrass music and play the dulcimer so well. She taught you.”
Leilani
smiled faintly. “We are the only two dulcimer players in Hawaii. Anyway, she
got pregnant with me somewhere in Tennessee at a bluegrass festival. I figured
out about when I was conceived and found an old festival flyer in her keepsake
box. She’d circled her picture and the picture of The Barstows on that flyer. I
don’t know, obviously, but I think she and Joe hooked up that weekend. Here,
let me show you.” She ran upstairs and came back a moment later with an old
flyer. “Take a look.”
Bradley
took the flyer from her with fingers that trembled, and stared down at the
circled pictures of a pretty young woman and The Barstows as they appeared
thirty-one years ago. A much younger Joe, the only original member of the band
still performing, smiled up at him out of the picture. “So based on just a date
and a flyer, you think Joe’s your father? What else do you have that makes you
think that?”
Leilani
lifted her hands and pulled the hair up off her face, exposing the wide
forehead and sharp widow’s peak that so defined both Joe’s and his brother’s
faces. And the cheekbones and the blue eyes. Bradley’s breath caught in his
throat. How could he have missed it? How could any of them have missed it? No
wonder she’d looked so familiar the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
Underneath all the hair she wore down around her face, she looked like Joe.
Even more strikingly, she looked like Jake.
She
looked like her dead brother.
She
looked like her father.
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GUEST POST:
Five Reasons You Should Read ‘Evergreen’!
When offered a list of possible blog
topics, the challenge of explaining why a reader should read my book caught my
eye. “Piece of cake!” I thought.
“Of course a reader should read ‘Evergreen’. Why wouldn’t a reader want to read
‘Evergreen’? It’s a great book!”
And then I sat down to write the blog.
Maybe it wasn’t such a piece of cake to
write after all.
Of course, I knew the strengths of
‘Evergreen’. But articulating it for
someone else, someone who might not want the same things in a story that I
do? Not that easy. That being said, ‘Evergreen’ is an
entertaining read, a fun story that just about any romance reader will
enjoy. Here’s why.
Reason #1. Leilani
Mahuiki and Bradley Barstow are both likeable, engaging characters that my
readers will love.
I am not only a writer of romance. I read them, too. And it never ceases to amaze me when an
author makes a hero a complete SOB or a heroine a spoiled brat and expects me
to care about their happily ever after.
If I can’t see anything good about them, how can their love
interest? So when I create characters, I
make sure they are worth caring about.
Leilani and Bradley are both good, sweet, decent people that a reader
will root for.
Reason #2. The conflict
is unusual and compelling.
For a romance novel to work, the
conflict holding the hero and heroine apart must be authentic and not easy to
work through-otherwise, why keep reading?
Bradley and Leilani have a significant, difficult to overcome conflict
holding them apart. Bradley has been on
the outside looking in most of his life and desperately longs for a traditional
family-mom, dad, and the kids-where he will be loved and accepted. Leilani is the last woman who can give him
this.
Reason #3 The backdrop and setting are picturesque and
authentic.
A romance novel can be set almost
anywhere and still work. But I prefer to
tell my stories in a beautiful setting.
‘Evergreen’ is set in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Tennessee in
the world of bluegrass and mountain music.
Not only are the mountains and the people who inhabit them beautiful,
but the music played in the story is unique to the region. Similarly, the music Leilani brings to the
story is deeply rooted in the islands of Hawaii. As a musician as well as an author, I like to
think that I bring the emotional component of making music to my stories
through the music my characters make with one another.
Reason #4 The story line challenges the reader to think ‘outside
the box’.
As part of the conflict, I present an
alternate family situation that stirred up some concern among my editors when
the book was in production. Would the
readers accept Leilani’s unusual concept of a family, or should I soften the
situation, make it less challenging for the reader? Ultimately the decision was made to go with
the story as written and offer the readers another take on what it really means
to be part of a family.
Reason #5 ‘Evergreen’ is just plain fun!
A romance should be fun to read. It should be a
‘prop-your-feet-up-and-have-a-good-time kind of book. ‘Evergreen’ delivers! It’s a delightful escape into the world of
music and romance and the beauty of everlasting love.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Author
of thirty romance novels, Emily
Mims combined
her writing career with a career in public education until leaving the
classroom to write full time. The mother
of two sons and grandmother of six, she and her husband Charles live in central
Texas but frequently visit grandchildren in eastern Tennessee and Georgia. She plays the piano, organ, dulcimer, and
ukulele and belongs to two performing bands.
She says, “I love to write romances because I believe in them. Romance happened to me and it can happen to
any woman-if she’ll just let it.”
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CONNECT WITH
EMILY:
Website:
Facebook Fan Page:
Twitter:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon Kindle:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble:
Kobo:
Apple iBooks:
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Emily will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a
randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Congrats on the tour and thanks for the chance to win :)
ReplyDeleteGood morning Lisa! Thanks for stopping by and good luck in the giveaway :)
DeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure :)
DeleteEmily ~ It is great to have you here again! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteI have read a few of Emily's books. I really enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for having me today! Thank you Ally. And thank you, Misty. I hope you have as much fun reading 'Evergreen' as I did writing it.
ReplyDeleteBest, Emily
Great post & I love the cover - thanks for sharing! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat books are you looking forward to reading? Thanks for the giveaway. I hope that I win. Bernie W BWallace1980(At)hotmail(d0t)com
ReplyDelete