Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host Mary Patterson Thornburg and her new book, “Luke Blackmon's Rose,” here on FAB!! 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 $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Mary and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
Luke Blackmon's Rose
by Mary Patterson Thornburg
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GENRE: Adult Romance (w/Science-Fantasy)
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BOOK BLURB:
To guard herself from the perils of her own sensuality, Rose married a man she didn’t love. Now, two years after his death, she’s not sure she can really love anyone. She’s not even sure she cares…
To achieve what he’d always known was his birthright, Luke had to struggle against tremendous odds. But when science discovered a way to access the past, a powerful bureaucracy found a way to use Luke. Now, torn from his own time, everything and everyone he knew, he can see no reason to go on living…
An instant of attraction, uninvited but inescapable, brings Luke and Rose together. Together, they discover the strength to love, the will to trust and hope. But will these things be enough to carry them over walls of suspicion, guilt, bigotry, and hate?
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EXCERPT ONE:
And then the air in the room changed. There was a tingling, a sort of buzzing not quite within the range of human hearing. She thought, briefly, of what she'd read somewhere about the feeling people get in a thunderstorm when they're about to be struck by lightning. She wasn't sure anyone felt it but herself. Mira, who'd gotten up to look in the refrigerator for something, was apparently undisturbed. But then she saw Kingsley's expression change as he glanced past her toward the living room portion of the greatroom, and she heard—or perhaps felt—soft footsteps behind her. She spun around.
Where the living room carpet ended, maybe three yards from where she sat, stood a very tall, very dark, broad-shouldered man. He was barefoot, dressed in black sweats. She saw him clearly for a fraction of a second before the lightning bolt she'd felt coming struck. In that fraction of a second, she realized why Mira had looked familiar to her. And realized, too, what had been going on with Kingsley since the turn their discussion had taken that evening—if not before. In that fraction of a second, she knew who she was looking at.
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GUEST POST:
My Favorite Scene in This Book…
From start to finish, I absolutely loved writing this book – loved it more, I think, than anything else I’ve ever written. So it’s hard to pick out just one scene that’s my favorite. But there are two, closely related to each other, that still amaze me. Let me tell you about one of them.
The scene takes place when the point-of-view character, a widowed college teacher in her early thirties, takes one of her students home after the last evening class of the semester. Kingsley is a non-traditional student a few years younger than Lyn (who will change her first name back to Rose a couple of chapters later). He’s grabbed a ride home because his car wouldn’t start, and he invites her up to his apartment for a drink and to meet his wife, Mira.
Lyn is reluctant to accept. Thinking about her own marriage, she suspects that Mira might be less than happy to have her husband bring home a young woman, unannounced, that he’s obviously talked about in glowing terms. In Kingsley’s class assignments, essays sometimes involving personal experiences, he’s often mentioned his wife, and Lyn has formed a mental picture. In her mind, she sees Mira as someone she wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of. But Kingsley insists, and Lyn decides it’s probably better to go along than to sit in front of the house with the engine running, arguing.
“Okay, you win,” she said, and turned off the engine. “I’d love a drink – just the one, of course. And I’d love to meet Mira.”
“It’s around here,” he said, and led her to the side entrance. When he’d unlocked and opened the door, he motioned for her to step around him.
“No, you go up ahead of me,” she said, loudly enough, she hoped, to warn Mira that another woman was about to invade her space. And this way he’d be in the line of fire.
“Honey?” he called. “I’ve brought my beautiful lady friend home with me. Don’t shoot!” Lyn laughed. Either everything was fine or she was as good as dead. The upstairs door came open and a tall, broad figure temporarily blocked out the light...
For some reason, Lyn had pictured Kingsley’s wife as a petite, size-two beauty, a shapely bundle of energy with a resting side-eye face, the kind of woman you knew, unless you were a fool, that you did not want to mess with. Instead, Mira Harris was at least six feet tall and, Lyn thought, would probably weigh in at close to two-hundred pounds if not a couple more. The extra weight appeared to be largely solid muscle, and clearly only a suicidal fool would fail to treat her with respect...
One reason I especially love this scene is that I – like Lyn – had expected Mira to be that size-two beauty, an extremely competent, on-her-toes woman who can be sweet as honey when she wants to be or poisonous as a viper when circumstances dictate. I had no idea, until that door opened, that she’d be the person she turned out to be. She sprang full-grown out of my imagination and surprised me completely.
The second reason I love the scene is that it changed another scene near the end of the book very much for the better. I’d already planned that second scene, a confrontation between Lyn (now known as Rose) and Kingsley’s wife. I hadn’t written it, so it was still hazy in my mind, but I knew it was going to happen, and I knew Mira was going to go into it with no holds barred, telling Rose some home truths she needed to hear.
However, there was a problem with that scene, even in its early and hazy state: I wanted Mira and Rose to be friends, and to stay friends afterward. But I knew that Mira (the possibly poisonous, fiercely cat-like woman I’d first pictured) was going to be sharp and on target, and I wasn’t sure I could reconcile them realistically after that.
But when Mira appeared at the top of the stairs in that earlier scene, my problem disappeared at the same moment. Her character changed – not much, but just enough – along with the change in her physical appearance. I liked the new Mira better. And I’m still wondering where she came from!
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AUTHOR BIO:
Mary Patterson Thornburg has lived in California, Washington State, Montana, Indiana, and again, finally, in Montana. She was educated at Holy Names College, Montana State University, and Ball State University, where she then taught for many years. She's been reading science fiction and fantasy since she was five, and when she began to write fiction it seemed only natural to write in those genres. Her literary heroes are Mary Shelley, who gave us all a metaphor for technology alienated from its creators, and Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler, inventors of worlds that shine their powerful searchlights on this one. She writes what some people call “science fantasy” (aka “fake science fiction) within as wide a range as possible, but almost always with a bit (or a lot) of romance.
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CONNECT WITH MARY:
Website:
https://www.marypattersonthornburg.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mary-Patterson-Thornburg-Author/751054628247208
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mary-patterson-thornburg/47/967/480
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13236.Mary_Patterson_Thornburg
Goodreads Book Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123277155-luke-blackmon-s-rose
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.ca/Luke-Blackmons-Rose-Love-Story-ebook/dp/B0BTK2X5NL
Amazon CA Paperback:
https://www.amazon.ca/Luke-Blackmons-Rose-Patterson-Thornburg/dp/B0BYR5GFMH
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Mary will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.**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 fabulous community outreach projects and 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.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great read.
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds intriguing. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for having me, Ally! And Rita Wray, and pippirose, thank you for being intrigued. :)
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt sounds really good.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry! Mary Patterson Thornburg
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great book.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Debbie P
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kim!!
ReplyDelete