Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
Welcome to a New Year of discovering stories with me on Jorie Loves A Story! The past few weeks, I admit, I’ve been struggling to get back into the rhythm of reading. After a hard-won Christmas and New Year’s this year as Mum worked over 130+ hours within a fortnight which re-arranged our holidays quite a heap and after a turbulent beginning to our New Year 2021 (ie. collectively, per current events) – I’ve been tucked offline, focusing on my health & wellness this January rather than soaking inside books which is how I thought I’d spend the first weeks of the New Year.
Happily I’m seeing improvement with my health (ie. #migrainefree), increased stamina through actively pursuing hiking in nature and redirecting myself to eat less but eat more purposefully by augmenting healthy protein shakes and a heap of greens into my regular diet. I’ve missed focusing on my health with a dedicated passion which is why Mum and I decided if we could make one change this New Year, it was going to be a decided co-effort to get back to basics and see true change in how we approached the year on a personal level.
Thus, whilst I work on getting my health squared away, I am also in the process of sorting out my shelves – wherein I’m getting some organisational totes to decrease what is visible on my shelves in order to read better this New Year, 2021 as well. The books left on the shelf will reflect my current reads and once those are consumed, the ones in the totes will be up on the shelf until I reach my goals of erasing my backlogue! This is in conjunction with developing a TBR dice game I’ll be revealling at the end of January – stay tuned for those details, especially if you find reading stories off your TBR is always a wrenching hard choice and you’d like to spice things up by removing making the ‘choices’ of what to read from your TBR List.
All the while, I have a keen eye on the horizon for new stories and authors who are itching a thirst of interest to be read. This particular Contemporary Romantic Comedy stood out to me and as lovely as it sounds, I have to await a format I can enjoy reading – as this is strictly a Digital First release at this junction of time. If it goes to print or audio, I hope to update you in future when I’ve had a chance to get a copy to read.
I am reading more Contemporary Romances but I am still a bit under-read in RomComs as they have the tendency of being a harder sell for me as a reader. The reason why this is one might suit me is the premise of it – especially for the series as a whole – the setting, the community concept and the promise of hope in finding relationships which are strongly built between the characters. Plus, who doesn’t like a romance spilt between city and country life? Wherein you have to truly choose the kind of life your heart beckons to be lived vs the life you expected to have? I love those kinds of romantic dramas and the fact this is spun with a comedic touch I felt sounded like a wicked brilliant read!
Be sure to read the extract and my thoughts about the story to see if this perhaps might wink an interest into your own readerly wanderings this year! Especially if you’re able to read ebooks – you won’t have to wait for future formats and can dive straight into it! Remember – brew your favourite cuppa and enjoy your stay!
Simpy You
Subtitle: A Heart Valley Romance | All you need is love... and a bit of luck
by Maggie Wild
Source: Chapter Sampler
She needs someone she can count on.
He’s gun-shy after being hurt.
Can a brush with fate in a rained-out English village turn into enduring love?Sarah Tildon thinks she’s found the perfect man. But after her overbearing future mother-in-law insists her quiet country wedding become a high-society shindig, she sets out on a two-week ride to rethink her plans. Stranded when her bicycle is stolen in a picturesque hamlet, she’s touched by the kindness of a handsome young farmer who comes to her rescue.
The big city failed Michael Marsden’s ample ambitions. After his fiancée cheats on him, he turns his back on the hustle and bustle and takes on a farm to prove he can lead a self-sufficient life. And taken by surprise when a charming outsider helps sing his hens into laying, he realizes his newfound Eden is missing its Eve.
Unexpectedly falling for the sweet homesteader, Sarah is torn between the security of a gilded cage and the precarious freedom of raising chickens. And when her fiancé arrives to bring her back to London, Michael fears she’ll leave him with yet another shattered heart.
Will this unlikely couple throw caution to the wind and embrace a destined second chance?
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B08NY3421P
Published by Steel Rose Press
on 12th January, 2021
Format: Chapter Sampler | Online
About the Hope Valley Romance series:
Simply You is the first book in the heartwarming Hope Valley Romance series. If you like fun heroines, pastoral backdrops, and endearing courtships, then you’ll adore Maggie Wild’s sweet tale.
Read Simply You to start fresh today!
The second novel is Back Home to You ← forthcoming 31 May, 2021!
Converse on Twitter via: #SimplyYou and/or #MaggieWild
as well as #HopeVallyRomance and #ContemporaryRomance
Enjoy reading an Extract from ‘Simply You”
Six eggs. Six measly eggs.
“Ladies,” Michael said to the cluster of chickens scratching around at his feet. “I could use some help, if you don’t mind. What will it take to get a few more eggs, eh?” By way of response, a fat black-and-white speckled hen clucked, fluffed her feathers, and pecked at the toe of Michael’s work boot. “Watch it, Beatrice,” he said, “or I’ll put you in the pot.”
The chicken looked at him, cocked her head, and pecked his boot again. Michael sighed as he gathered the basket of eggs to his chest and closed the door of the chicken coop behind him. His chickens knew he was a soft touch. Even if he hadn’t gone against the advice of everyone he knew and given his girls names, they’d never see the inside of a stew pot, and they knew it.
Trouble was, this self-sufficient lifestyle relied on trading what he needed for what he produced, and six little eggs didn’t give him much to barter with. An image popped into his mind of Caroline’s face, that pitying look she’d give him when he failed at his dream of a simpler life. Perhaps he could hire her to give that same look to his chickens, guilt them into laying. But Caroline wouldn’t settle for being paid in eggs. Especially not now she was marrying an accountant. How would “Mr. Dotted I’s and Crossed T’s” classify eggs on his profit and loss spreadsheet?
Michael pushed the image of his smug ex-fiancée and her pompous husband-to-be from his mind. He’d been in a grumpy mood all week, ever since she’d called with the news of her impending nuptials. She was history and he didn’t need her—or anyone else—to live the life he’d always dreamed of. He transferred the six eggs to an egg box designed for a dozen. The six empty cardboard cups glared up at him like round laughing mouths. He sucked up his pride and pushed open the garden gate.
He cut down a narrow cobbled alley that led to the back of his sister Nicki’s B&B, and smelled sizzling bacon before his hand even touched the gate. He followed the scent through the neat back garden, his deprived senses picking up freshly baked muffins, toasted bread, and dark French-pressed coffee. His stomach growled, but he shook off the feeling and fixed a cheery grin on his face.
“Morning!” he said, as he pushed open the back door. The kitchen was a whirl of people, sounds, and smells, but as always, under Nicki’s management, it looked like a perfectly coordinated ballet. Jennie, the student Nicki had taken on for the busy summer months, was juggling pans of eggs made to order—fried, poached, scrambled, and hard-boiled. She looked up as Michael came in and grinned wickedly. “Hello, gorgeous.”
[ my initial thoughts after reading a chapter sampler online ]
The author held me at ‘Hallo’ so to speak by the kind of pub lunch Sarah was aching after whilst muddling her path through the rain with a wobbly bicycle! The mushroom soup with bread and a pint of Guiness would be a wicked good lunch any season of the year! Its been half an age since I’ve had a wicked good cuppa soup, too! They used to feature soups & stews more locally than they do now – which is quite odd yet it seems to inspire me to sort out how to make homemade versions as soon as I sort out some recipes which feel like the kind of recipes which would be enjoyable to make as much as to consume! If anyone has a sweet recipe for mushroom soup – kindly let me know in the threads below this post as I’d love to start with one of those if I could.
One of the reasons I love reading Romantic dramas and/or Women’s Fiction narratives is because you get to into the heart of what is affecting the lead character – in this case, Sarah might feel physically miserable right now on her bike but her heart and mind are trying to reconcile the unique differences between her and her beloved. In particular, how they each fancy different kinds of sport and holidays; wherein he’d rather stay within the creature comforts he’s been accustomed, she’d prefer to go off the road and seek out the adventure you can only gain from not sticking with well-known routes to anywhere. In essence, she’d have loved the road trips I took with Mum where we travelled the back-roads & highways – seeing different parts of the country and eating at places we never would have found otherwise.
I am unsure how well I would have taken the news of the hotel’s water issues as Sarah seemed to take them a bit more in stride than I think I’d allow myself the courtesy of having at such a time as she had herself! I mean – she biked such a long & hard distance – it felt as deflating as Wild had written the scene – to have all of this quashed at the last second and slipped out of your fingers at the same moment you needed to be tucked away from the world to settle your heart, mind and thoughts about everything inter-relating to your future and the man you’ve promised to marry! Oyy.
After I read this short sampler about how the novel opens – it settled into the extract I am sharing with you today – which is from Chapter Two! I was wholly enthused to continue reading the story after the sampler I had read and if you combine the first two chapters together I felt it was a very strong opener to the novel overall. I’d love to know what ‘comes next’ – after Sarah gets settled at the B&B and what ensues from there as I had a feeling she wasn’t as out of place as she felt she might be and sometimes, of course, life has a way of placing us where we need to be rather than where we feel we ought to be – thereby giving us a chance to live a life we never considered. I had a feeling this was the path for Sarah and I dearly want to take this journey with her until she chooses which way her heart desires to live the best life she can with the man whom understands her rather than just tolerates her for the better good.
Let me know your thoughts about this one and if you like finding stories like these which are life changing and thoughtfully inspiring to give us all something to chew on about the course our lives take and the choices we make therein.
This book blitz is courtesy of:
Most of the blitzes I host for this touring company have giveaways attached to them, which is why I route to the main page via Xpresso Tours as an easy reference for where you can find that information.
Find others hosting via @XpressoTours!
I enjoy being a hostess for:
NOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Simply You”, synopsis, author biography (of Maggie Wild), extract from “Simply You”, blitz tour banner and host badge were provided by Xpresso Book Tours and are being used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #Book Spotlight banner as well as the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2021.
I am socially bookish and tweet my readerly life
.@joriestory NEW #BookSpotlight + Extract
?A #ContemporaryRomance wherein a woman reconsiders her heart & what she wants out of life
?A delightfully cheeky extract leaves you itching for more of the storyFind out why I can't wait to read this:
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— Jorie, the Joyful Tweeter ?? (@joriestory) January 16, 2021
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