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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Evergreen by Emily Mims - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


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.

9 comments:

  1. Congrats on the tour and thanks for the chance to win :)

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    1. Good morning Lisa! Thanks for stopping by and good luck in the giveaway :)

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  2. Emily ~ It is great to have you here again! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)

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  3. I have read a few of Emily's books. I really enjoy them.

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  4. Thank 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.
    Best, Emily

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  5. Great post & I love the cover - thanks for sharing! :)

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  6. What books are you looking forward to reading? Thanks for the giveaway. I hope that I win. Bernie W BWallace1980(At)hotmail(d0t)com

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