Oranges for Miranda by Annette Bower - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Oranges for Miranda

by Annette Bower

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GENRE: Romance Contemporary Sweet

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BLURB:

Miranda Porter, a newly retired award-winning businesswoman, leaves home to transition into her new life stage. Always in control, this is her time to have fun without plans and responsibilities. Enter Renato Monteiro, a considerate tour guide with secrets. Miranda isn’t looking for long-term. She wants a purpose in her retirement. Could her purpose in retirement be finding love in this unlikely place? Could her aim be domesticity and caring for and be cared for by a newly found friend? Will a vacation romance end because of miles?

Renato Monteiro has decisions to make. Stay in his birth country where his female relatives want him to marry a woman young enough to give him children. Or does he return to his second home, where he has a purpose and has built a life without children? The day Miranda and he bumped heads changed his life and his pursuit. Now he must decide which is most important the family he was born into or the family he chooses.

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EXCERPT TWO:

A blue and white tiled stairway leading up to the second floor of a house caught Miranda’s eye. She positioned her phone and snapped photos as she thought about the amenities she would prefer in her perhaps forever home or home for a while.

Orange trees in yards were stunning. Back home in Regina, residents planted fast-growing poplar trees in front of a row of fir trees, which would be mature when the Poplars had reached their life span. Her mind leapt. Stacy and Nathan were her fir trees. Her parents started the business and expanded it for her, and she, in turn, developed it for her children. She shook her head, no more thoughts of her Canadian life to ruin this beautiful day with the azure blue sky, the white stucco buildings and the red tile roofs.

Miranda stepped onto the corner café’s patio and sat on the blue-tiled bench attached to the blue-tiled table. A young woman, dressed in black, appeared from a dark interior and gave her a menu with different flags denoting the various translations of the food items. She ordered black coffee and a glass of brandy as a treat she had read that many locals enjoyed during the day. While she waited, she searched in her guide book to discover the tiled pavement in the area was called calcada.

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GUEST POST:

Everyone loves a hero! Tell us all about this genuine character and the inspiration behind their development.

 

An English professor once explained how a character in a novel became his name, and since then, I research my hero’s and heroine’s names.

But before that, I start with images.

An image of Renato began with a man I saw on a bus while I vacationed in Waikiki. This large man was with an older man, and I think he was his father and a child, I believe was his son. Just watching this man’s loving interaction with both people in his life caught my attention. I pretended to snap photos of the cityscape, but it was really of him on the bus and after he disembarked. I felt an instant connection. He was the foundation for Renato, my hero in Oranges for Miranda. Then later, I discovered pillow covers where the design depicted the kindness of a father toward his daughters that I wanted Renato to show toward family and friends and, by extension, Miranda.

Renato means reborn. Tiago is his mother’s surname, meaning James, a man who is the first to step forward. Monteiro is his family name, meaning hunter. Research showed me that contemporary persons with a sir name of Monteiro were an actor, director, writer, sprint canoer, a Portuguese footballer, and a Portuguese table tennis player in the summer Olympics. Renato in Oranges for Miranda is a master of his trade.

In Oranges for Miranda, Renato is fifty-five and unmarried. As a young man, he moved to Canada and excelled at his trade to become a master tile setter and a respected community member.

A theme of Oranges for Miranda is “A man [person] travels the world over in search of what he [they] needs and returns home to find it.” George A. Moore.

But my hero Renato has his theme that suggests a love interest should observe how a man treats his mother and other women in his family for a good indication of how he will treat the person he loves.

Renato was born in Albufeira, Portugal. When Renato was still a child, his father died in a fishing accident. His mother did not recover and later moved away to start a new life. Renato moved into his grandmother’s house. He stayed with her until he emigrated to Canada. Ren saved up his vacation time and money returning to Albufeira, helping his grandmother as often as possible. He tried convincing her to move to Canada, but she had refused. At the beginning of the novel, he is back in Albufeira for his grandmother’s funeral and discovers he inherited her home. The aunts and cousins try to convince him to return to his roots and marry a younger woman who can provide him with children.

Renato, Ren to his friends and younger cousins, is unsure what he should do, stay, or return to his new life. Can he leave a home he loved empty?

Ren loved his mother and understood that she had to leave. However, he was thankful that his grandmother accepted the responsibility of raising him. Ren respects his aunts’ concern for him and wanting to see him have a woman in his life who will love him, and that is why his decision is hard.

Because Ren experienced and understood the strong women in his family, he can accept Miranda for who she is.  But where is his home? Who would he honor? His family or his new life?

I hope your readers also fall in love with Renato and his journey toward love.  Thank you, Ally, for hosting on your Fabulous and Brunette blog and thank you to your readers and followers.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Annette believes home is where her stories percolate. And her home is a condo where she watches the urban life below, airplanes arrive and depart at the international airport, and the seasons change on farmland near the horizon. Annette travels extensively but always returns home to Regina, Saskatchewan. Whether at home or away, and even though directions are always a challenge, she wanders the streets, parks, and lanes observing how people live, love, and care for one another. Your way of sitting, holding hands, the way you tilt your head, or a t-shirt you wear may end up in one of her stories.

On her first trip to Olhos de Água, a fishing village in Portugal, she stopped at a café where the proprietors were a mother and daughter. Annette sat at the outdoor blue and white tiled table and ordered an espresso and brandy. While the sun warmed her back, she opened her new notebook. The older woman walked by carrying a basket, tipped her head toward Annette’s blank page, and shrugged. When black-laced heeled shoes struck the tile, and the scent of just-picked clementine oranges interrupted Annette’s writing, the woman plunked three oranges at the edge of her page. Annette cherishes this gift from one woman to another. Recently, Annette travels with an accompanying Orange and shares pictures on Social media as her way of honoring those Portugues women. A version of this event appears in her new novel, Oranges for Miranda.

During another trip, while searching for an address in Malaga, Spain, she asked a well-dressed man carrying a floral paper-wrapped bouquet if he spoke English? Would he direct her to the address? With impeccable English, he suggested she walk with him. They chatted, and she discovered he was a lawyer in his final days of retiring. Finally, she asked to whom he was giving the flowers. He lifted the cover to reveal a large crucifix. This detail has not appeared in a story yet.

In a coffee shop, looking south between glass tower office buildings, she could be anywhere in the world. However, she is home watching people on Eleventh Avenue run for buses, bring tea to a panhandler, and holding mittened hands while bending into the wind.

Annette uses experiences she gathered as a nurse, town administrator, elected official, traveller, and member of a large extended family to inform her stories because writing is her joy.

Annette Bower is a Soul Mate Publishing author of five contemporary romance novels. Her novel Fearless Destiny was first runner-up in the 2017 Sweet Contemporary RONE awards and winner of the Raven Award. Her novel Ponytails and Promises was a finalist in the 2020 RONE Awards and is the 2020 winner of the Raven Award.

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CONNECT WITH ANNETTE:

Webpage:

https://annettebower.com

(Also sign up for her monthly newsletter)

Blog:

http://www.annettebower.com/blog

Email:

annettebower.author@gmail.com

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AnnetteBowerauthor

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BowerAnnette

BookBub Author Page:

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/annette-bower

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5771807.Annette_Bower

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58556528-oranges-for-miranda

Amazon Author Page:

http://amzn.to/2aVx6xL

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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

http://amzn.to/3y9bBS8

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Oranges-Miranda-Annette-Bower-ebook/dp/B095Z4DF2F

Amazon UK Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oranges-Miranda-Annette-Bower-ebook/dp/B095Z4DF2F

Amazon AU Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Oranges-Miranda-Annette-Bower-ebook/dp/B095Z4DF2F

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Annette will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is 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.