I have been showcasing quite a few Swoon Reads authors since I started hosting for Xpresso Book Tours – this is wicked lovely as I first came to recognise Swoon Reads when a fellow book blogger first told me about her appreciation for reading their stories. She’s since left the book blogosphere and opted to return to University; however, it always struck me that at some point in my readerly life, I ought to start to pick up the stories being published by Swoon Reads. Hence why you’ve seen an influx of authors by this publisher arriving on Jorie Loves A Story via guest author features like today’s interview with Ms Vale!
There were a few quirkily clever things about this particular YA Contemporary Romance which intrigued my eye towards wanting to a) read it and b) feature the novelist: it was set in a small coastal towne in Maine (for a girl who likes New England, that was a bit of a no-brainer! Go Sox!), it has a pro-positive LGBTQ+ narrative and it is a Contemporary Rom. The latter being the icing on the cake for me as Contemporary Romances are hit/miss with me as you well know if you’ve been spending time digging round my archives and/or have been a long-time reader of my blog. I vacillate between reading mainstream & INSPY Contemporaries these days – however, I always manage to find quite a few Contemporaries in mainstream which make me ‘swoon’ after them; thus I am wicked happy to say I am *celebrating!* this lovely new YA Contemporary on its #PubDay!
In truth – the author mentioned she doesn’t consider this a YA Contemporary Rom inasmuch as a straight-up coming-of age Contemporary YA – I am thrilled either way, as finding strong stories which have convicting plots and a strong balance of contemporary life & issues is something to celebrate as much as finding a contemporary set story-line which seeks to represent a realistic impression of a girl coming-of age in our modern world.
Give a hearty welcome to debut novelist Lillie Vale & let’s tuck close to this convo where we explore not only the setting and the characters of “Small Town Hearts” but her writerly process to bring this story to life! If you’ve already earmarked this one to read OR were one of the lucky few who read it as an ARC – I’d love to hear your thoughts & comments in the threads below this interview!
Likewise, if this is your first visit to my blog – guest features & convos are best accompanied with your favourite cuppa & brew – where you can settle in, enjoy the feature and stay a spell visiting with me and my guest author. May this new release have a plotting which will tempt your readerly heart as much as it has mine.
Small Town Hearts Subtitle: Rule #1 Never Fall for a Summer Boy by Lillie Vale
Rule #1 – Never fall for a summer boy.
Fresh out of high school, Babe Vogel should be thrilled to have the whole summer at her fingertips. She loves living in her lighthouse home in the sleepy Maine beach town of Oar’s Rest and being a barista at the Busy Bean, but she’s totally freaking out about how her life will change when her two best friends go to college in the fall. And when a reckless kiss causes all three of them to break up, she may lose them a lot sooner. On top of that, her ex-girlfriend is back in town, bringing with her a slew of memories, both good and bad.
And then there’s Levi Keller, the cute artist who’s spending all his free time at the coffee shop where she works. Levi’s from out of town, and even though Babe knows better than to fall for a tourist who will leave when summer ends, she can’t stop herself from wanting to know him. Can Babe keep her distance, or will she break the one rule she’s always had – to never fall for a summer boy?
Published by: Swoon Reads (@SwoonReads)
a publishing subsidiary of Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan
Formats available: Hardback and Ebook
Converse on Twitter via: #YALit & #Contemporary with #Novel19s
as well as #SmallTownHearts + #LilliVale with #LGBT or #LGBTQ Contemporary
About Lillie Vale
Lillie Vale, upon discovering she could not be one of Santa’s elves or attend Hogwarts, decided to become a writer to create a little magic of her own. Enjoying the romantic and eerie in equal measure, she’s probably always writing a book where the main characters kiss or kill.
Born in Mumbai, she has lived in many U.S. states, and now resides in an Indiana college town where the corn whispers and no one has a clue that she is actually the long-lost caps lock queen. She can be reached on Twitter and Instagram (which are linked in this bio). Small Town Hearts is her debut novel.
I definitely love reading a wide variety of stories – however, at the heart of them – you might notice quite a heap involve plots centred round ‘coming-of age’ tales, wherein we get to take the journey with the character whose about to undertake a pivotal part of their journey towards maturity, adulthood & along the way finding the voice and wings needed in order to fly into their own tomorrow on their own terms. The kinds of stories you really can rally inside and gather behind because they have *something!* relatable inside them about the process of growing up and of finding out about who you are whilst your reading someone else’s tale.
These are the stories which help us re-examine our own lives and our own life’s choices – whilst giving us the benefit of reading a wide variety of lives & lifestyles. I love the coming-of age niche in literature because it strikes such a lovely balance between reading stories for younger readers & the stories we will be seeking out as adults. Sometimes even, you’ll find the coming-of age section is such a wholly full section to read you might not long for another type of story for quite a long while! I tend to read these in batches and groupings of interest – this particular title stood out to me as Rose is endeavouring to segue away from the path her family has chosen to live. Rose wants more for herself and she wants to seek an independence outside her family’s dynamic.
Before sharing this spotlighted post about Rose, I saw a YT video about the author behind “Educated” which was featured on #EllenTube. She also grew up in a family who was living outside the regular realms of society and she also, in turn decide to make what they felt was a radical choice to live outside that chosen lifestyle. What is interesting is how whether the story is told from a living perspective or from a fictional one – there is something to be said for the stories which champion the independence of the soul & the fortitude of strength it takes to carve out your own future when there is so much uncertainty about how to go about doing it.
I find these kinds of stories wicked inspiring – which is why I wanted to be a part of the blitz to celebrate & champion this story. I selected the extract from this story which I felt resonated with me the most about the kind of person Rose is and the woman she is daring herself to become. I’d love to hear from you about what you felt about this extract and if you’ve earmarked this story to read yourself. I am definitely going to be sourcing this through my local library this Spring & eventually I’ll be purchasing my own copy as I think it has a solid premise which needs to be read.
As a side note – this is the second story in recent memory I’ve focused on from Acorn Publishing – as previously I highlighted Fly Girl!
Rose is unsettled, curious, and bored. Life in a hippie commune is her parent’s dream come true, not hers. She doesn’t share their passion for living off the land, nor does she enjoy the isolation that is thrust upon her. When she convinces them to send her to public school in the nearby town, a new world opens up to her.
As she pursues her education, Rose chooses a different path, leaving her parents heartbroken at her insistence they are hiding something from her. She’s convinced her father isn’t the man her mother married.
Although she finds love far away from her roots and upbringing, her wounds only deepen as she keeps her family at arm’s length. What she loses during those years can only be retrieved with her understanding that “a Rose by any other name is still a Rose.”
Formats Available: Trade Paperback, Hardback and Ebook
Converse on Twitter via: #YALit OR #Contemporary #YoungAdult
About Alexa Kingaard
Alexa Kingaard was born in San Diego, CA and has lived most of her life in the area. She currently resides in Carlsbad and is the mother of an adult son and daughter who continue to be her biggest fans and cheerleaders. A realtor for fifteen years, she remains involved with her profession and praises her brokers and clients for giving her the nod to be creative.
She gives all the credit for completing her debut novel, KEEP FOREVER, to her inspiration and late ex-husband, Jeff, who battled the residual effects of the Vietnam War for decades after his return.
Her second novel, MY NAME IS ROSE, will be released through Acorn Publishing March 15, 2019.
I found out quite early-on in my childhood I was dyslexic – although, it wasn’t truly a surprise to me I had a learning difficulty because I already had experienced issues with speech & reading comprehension. I was the kind of kid who found ways to work round her learning issues and/or find ways to compensate for what I couldn’t sort out through traditional education. I will say, the hardest part about growing up dyslexic wasn’t the alternative ways I was learning it was having to deal with traditional education & the teachers who simply did not understand how each child learns ‘differently’ irregardless if they are dyslexic or not.
Very early-on I started to notice that despite the angst of some of my difficulties making going to school less than stellar (as I would have preferred to be a homeschool student if the chance to learn at home had been a ready option as it is today without the road blocks this option had in the 80s/90s) – being dyslexic was truly a gift in my life. It allowed me to see different perspectives on things and it also kept me humbled. I hadn’t foreseen I’d grow into being a writer – though in truth, there are moments in my childhood where I wasn’t even sure I’d be a reader who devours stories either! lol Sometimes we surprise ourselves, eh?
As I move into the next stage of my life as Prospective Adoptive Mum, one thing I am noticing is how sometimes foster youth do not always have an advocate for them in the schools. This is a topic which comes up quite frequently I’ve noticed and I oft wonder why their foster parents are not doing what my own parents did for me – which is simply to step up, rally behind the child and be their advocate and voice in the school district. It isn’t complicated but it does require taking the time to listen to the child, to understand their journey and to see ways you can seek out to help them move through a transition period of difficulty. This is something I am looking forward to doing for my children – as I would love to ‘pass forward’ the advocacy I received from my parents.
This is why “Meet Me In Outer Space” appealled to me as a reader and why I wanted to highlight the story and the author on my blog today – there are a lot of different learning & processing difficulties out there. However, what is most important to realise is that with a bit more patience and a lot of empathy, not only can we all respect each other equally for what we can all give to each other but we learn and grow through interacting with people who either see the world differently than we do or they interact with the world & with us in a different way than we do with them. Keeping an open mind and a willingness to engage with people who speak differently than you do is one way of moving forward in this world. To bridge those gaps and to reach out to others who have something to say which needs to be heard.
I personally love #ownvoices narratives but what I love more than this is the fact there are new stories highlighting learning difficulties with a unique voice of their own to remain true to the characters being brought to life inside them. That is the epitome of #WeNeedDiverseBooks which is a movement celebrating everyone’s voice, lifestyle and the unique differences we all need to have the confidence to embrace in ourselves.
Smart and unflinching, this #OwnVoices debut contemporary novel stars an ambitious college student who refuses to be defined by her central auditory processing disorder.
Edie Kits has a learning disability. Well, not a learning disability exactly, but a disability that impacts her learning. It isn’t visible, it isn’t obvious, and it isn’t something she likes to advertise.
And for three semesters of college, her hard work and perseverance have carried her through. Edie thinks she has her disability under control until she meets her match with a French 102 course and a professor unwilling to help her out.
Edie finds herself caught between getting the help she needs and convincing her professor that she isn’t looking for an easy out. Luckily for Edie, she has an amazing best friend, Serena, who is willing to stitch together a plan to ensure Edie’s success. And then there’s Hudson, the badly dressed but undoubtedly adorable TA in her French class who finds himself pulled into her orbit…
Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan’s young adult imprint Swoon Reads, Meet Me in Outer Space is a sweet, heartachingly real story of love and college life by debut author Melinda Grace.
Published by: Swoon Reads (@SwoonReads)
a publishing subsidiary of Feiwel & Friends, an imprint of Macmillan
Formats available: Hardback and Ebook
Converse on Twitter via: #YALit & #Contemporary
as well as #MeetMeInOuterSpace and #ownvoices
About Melinda Grace
Melinda Grace wrote her first piece of fiction in middle school, but didn’t write a complete story until an introduction to creative writing course at SUNY Oswego, where she earned a BA in human development. She went on to earn a MS E.D. in counseling and currently works as a school counselor. When she’s not guiding the youth of America, she’s planning her next vacation to Disney World, laminating anything she can get her hands on, and binge watching Netflix. MEET ME IN OUTER SPACE is her debut novel, publishing March 2019.
Acquired Book By: I started hosting with Prism Book Tours at the end of [2017], having noticed the badge on Tressa’s blog (Wishful Endings) whilst I was visiting as we would partake in the same blog tours and/or book blogosphere memes. I had to put the memes on hold for several months (until I started to resume them (with Top Ten Tuesday) in January 2018). When I enquried about hosting for Prism, I found I liked the niche of authors and stories they were featuring regularly. I am unsure how many books I’ll review for them as most are offered digitally rather than in print but this happily marks one of the blog tours where I could receive a print book for review purposes. Oft-times you’ll find Prism Book Tours alighting on my blog through the series of guest features and spotlights with notes I’ll be hosting on behalf of their authors.
I received a complimentary copy of “Carrying the Greek Tycoon’s Baby” direct from the author Jennifer Faye in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I enjoy reading Romance selections by Ms Faye:
I honestly enjoy how Ms Faye sets up her characters to find each other – how they seemingly are not meant to be involved but then, there is a door which opens to allow it. She finds ways to let them present themselves in the muddling glow of their lives – here we have two persons who are dearly known in the public eye but their facing hurdles that no one would want for themselves. From the details of how the death of Noemi’s parents is affecting her centre of gravity to the fact Max isn’t ready to yield to his younger brother’s right to ascend ahead of him to the throne – these two are subjected to the harsher realities of their lives but without the blessing of being anonymous. Their world is painted in cameras and newsfeeds – where everything they do is photographed and archived. You have to wonder how anyone can survive that kind of finite attention after awhile and Faye does a good job of setting up how this hangs on the heart of her characters.
I felt the lead-up to the inevitable was done rather well – you have to get two people to find traction with each other and the best way to do that is to find a way to separate and isolate them from others. Faye took a stolen moment outside of the party to show us how desire and a curiosity about each other lead Max and Noemi to contemplate coupling even if neither of them went to the party to see out someone else. It was the foundation of the story but also a clever glimpse into who they were and how they strove to keep their own lives private from each other.
The kind of regret and remorse Faye knits into the heart of Noemi was touching – she hadn’t wanted to agree to the terms of her encounter with Max but they each went their own ways all the same. You immediately feel for her due to her personal losses within her own family but this was a complication of a different kind. Where you wanted to reach out to someone who needed to know something important but then, couldn’t sort out how to contact them due to mutually agreed upon anonymity. Talk about frustrating!
Max was dealt a hard hand in life to sort through – he had battled through a serious illness in his younger years and had survived but his survival was anchoured to a reality he wasn’t prepared to accept. One of the side effects of his illness was the prospect of not being able to enter fatherhood and this weighed on his mind more than most as due to his nature as a bloke groomed from childhood to succeed his own father in the responsibilities of their country, he news did not sit well with Max. Realising his limitations due to the rites of ascension, Max was what you would consider a floundering wanderer – a lost soul who couldn’t sort out his passions nor his life whilst he moved round the world seeking one thrill after another. He lacked vision and he hadn’t a whit of knowledge towards what interested him most but he was striving to change that – if only he could see how he could move forward without the kind of resentment which alights when your moving against what you feel is your own predestined future.
For Noemi, the hardest part of reading her story was realising she was shouldering everything alone. Even with Max, as he was one half the son of his parents and influenced by their counsel over the years – even he was not as sympathetic to Noemi as you would have preferred. Trust is a big hurdle they face in the story, as much as Noemi has trouble sorting things out whilst she has to work through a change in status which would affect her own future as much as Max. I am unsure why the details of her parents death was still withheld – as when she finally told Max about them, I thought for sure the revelation was going to come forward but it did not.
Both of these characters are reserved and private in their own ways – they like to hold important details close to their hearts and I suppose in that way, this is why we hadn’t known the fuller details of how her parents died. Their death did re-shape Noemi as much as the illness re-shaped Max – they were each altered through circumstances whether they realised it or not. What they had in common was their sincere attraction and respect for each other; at least when they were not testing each others will of tolerance. They had their issues to work out but for the most part they were simply two people who understand each other at first meeting. If only the rest of their days after that encounter could have gone a bit easier for them, I think they might have realised more truths about themselves a bit sooner!
This marks my fourth story by Harlequin Romance I’ve read by Ms Faye – the first two were part of a duology series where she re-spun classical fairy tales and inserted us into realistic Contemporary settings where the fairy tale aesthetic was uniquely used to tell a compelling romantic tale! I truly admired how she instinctively made each ‘origin story’ her own and kept enough of the ‘classic’ tale inclusive to where you could ‘see the past’ but felt comfortable embracing her ‘future’ of breathing in a new life to the older tales. The third story I read was actually a second in a series called the Cattaneos’ Christmas Miracles whilst this fourth one is happily launching a new series set around the Greek Islands!
The reason this particular story appealled to me is because I knew I was going to be reading a lot of heavier dramas in March and I wanted to switch things up a bit to lighten the load. Sometimes I prefer to read lighter romances within Harlequin imprints (ie. Love Inspired Suspense, Harlequin Heartwarming and their Romance line) as they are a cosy comfort when your consistently pick out Historical dramas and stories rooted out of the living legacies of person’s who once lived in the past. We all need a bit of ‘light’ in our readerly lives – where we can soak into a lovely romance as easily as we can turn on Hallmark Channel!
Meanwhile, I watched the first episode of Lindsay Lohan’s new series where she’s taking over a Greek island herself – launching her new endeavours as a boutique travel destination – whilst giving all of us a large dose of reality in the process. Concurrent to seeing that evolve a bit out of control due to her staff choices, I rather enjoyed an unexpected episode of Who Do You Think You Are? where I had the pleasure of tagging along with John Stamos to Greece! I learnt quite a bit about Greece and how sometimes you really do inherit when you aren’t expecting, too! Stamos learnt he had a house in Greece and a whole town full of his extended relatives! It was a soul lift of an episode and I loved seeing him travelling through Greece, where people knew him by sight and name and how he was discovering the roots of his family in a way he never felt possible.
Combine all of this with the fact I used to have a good friend who lived in Greece, the country has held a charm of interest in me for quite a number of years. Getting the chance to re-see the country and the setting through Ms Faye’s pen and eye for romance felt like a wicked good choice!
In this Greek Island Brides story, for jaded tycoon Xander Marinakos, renowned wedding destination Infinity Island is just another opportunity to expand his empire. Until he’s captivated by its beautiful owner, Lea Romes… When their one night together has unexpected consequences, Xander must negotiate the deal of a lifetime, and put his guarded heart on the table to convince independent Lea they can be a family…for infinity!
Greek Island Brides | Finding love that lasts to infinity!
All marriages that take place on renowned wedding destination Infinity Island are guaranteed to last forever!
And the picturesque Greek island is about to weave its magic for friends Lea, Popi and Stasia. They dream of finding their own happy-ever-afters… And they’re about to meet three billionaires who will sweep them off their feet—and down the aisle!
Follow Lea’s journey from surprise pregnancy to dream proposal in
Carrying the Greek Tycoon’s Baby
Carrying the Greek Tycoon’s Baby (book one) | Lea’s story
Claiming the Drakos Heir (book two) | Popi’s story → forthcoming June, 2019!
The rebel bachelor is back… To claim her baby!
In this Greek Island Brides story, pregnant surrogate Popi Costas is faced with raising her late sister’s child alone, until the baby’s wealthy uncle arrives to take charge! Apollo Drakos is distractingly handsome, but Popi won’t let that stop her from fighting to keep the baby. Yet as she gets to know the man behind the wild card reputation, Popi’s reconsidering welcoming Apollo into her new little family…
Wearing the Greek Millonaire’s Ring (book three) | Stasia’s story
→ forthcoming September, 2019
Converse via: #Contemporary #Romance & #Harlequin
About Jennifer Faye
Award-winning author, Jennifer Faye pens fun, heartwarming contemporary romances with rugged cowboys, sexy billionaires and enchanting royalty. Internationally published with books translated into nine languages. She is a two-time winner of the RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Award, the CataRomance Reviewers' Choice Award, named a TOP PICK author, and been nominated for numerous other awards.
After launching this lovely new feature of mine during [Autumn, 2018] it is a pleasure of joy to continue to bring #SaturdaysAreBookish as a compliment focus of my Twitter chat @SatBookChat. If you see the chat icon at the top of my blog (header bar) you can click over to visit with us. The complimentary showcases on my blog will reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of the chat are the stories I am reading which compliment the conversations.
#SaturdaysAreBookish throughout [2019] will be featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read across genre and point of interest. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – the stories I am reading might simply inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.
I am excited about where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction. Here’s a lovely New Year full of new authors and their stories to celebrate!
Acquired Book By: Last year, I had the chance to become introduced to the Seven Sisters book series by Lucinda Riley – the experience became one of my *favourite!* reading experiences for the year – happily I was invited to join the blog tour celebrating the fifth release this February, 2019 – for “The Moon Sister”. I was simply overjoyed and humbled I could continue to champion this author and her series which I have found emotionally convicting and soul lifting with a delightfully lush narrative which is wicked brilliant for its continuity.
Ahead of reading the fourth release “The Pearl Sister” last year, I decided to back-read the entire series – which is why I have felt so dearly connected to this series ever since and why I applaud the brilliant continuity running through the series.
I received a complimentary ARC copy of “The Moon Sister” direct from the publisher Atria Books in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
On how I felt after I read the fourth installment of the series:
CeCe had felt Star pulling away from her even before Star knew how to articulate the reasons why she was seeking a life outside of being with CeCe; this made her feel unwanted in such an extreme way, she felt the only way to rectify her emotions was to make a radical change. Boarding a flight for Thailand – the one place she considered her respite in the world before taking the last leg of her journey to Australia (as this is where her clues led her to travel) felt right somehow. What was interesting is that you oft felt CeCe held all the confidence in the world – she never came across as being especially vulnerable, she seemed quite the opposite: like a bear to take-on the world and be the protector of Star. In reality, both sisters were equally vulnerable and had yielded to life being lived side by side rather than separately; until now, of course, when they both felt it was time to simply sort out how to live independently.
One critical thing CeCe shared is how the opinions of others can destroy your well-being and break your spirit. The kind of criticism which doesn’t seek to aide you on your journey towards being a creative artist (as she leans towards industrial art and found art installations; whilst sorting out what kind of paintings she likes to create) but rather to dissuade you from the pursuit itself. No one should have to endure that kind of judgement and for whichever reason, I found CeCe didn’t confide in her Ma or in Star (although, perhaps she felt she wouldn’t have cared) – one thing which helped me the most in life is being able to turn to my parents. Sadly, I think the confidante in her life was Pa Salt and without him nearby, she felt like she’d lost her anchour; and rightly so!
I loved how she felt Buddhism was her most comfortable religion to feel attracted to practicing because of how she felt the inner peace of what it provides to us all. CeCe was quite the deep thinker and spiritualist without realising any of this about herself. She also held back her fears, the nightmares and the questions of sanity from her family; she had a lot moving through her mind, things which you would have thought she’d want to openly discuss if only to disallow them from festering further afield. Yet, CeCe was a very private individual such was a trend of her sisters – each of them thinking they could take-on whatever they needed to face alone.
Some of my favourite moments of watching one of the seasons of The Amazing Race (in the early days) was observing the larger than life Buddha statues found throughout the South Pacific and the Pacific Rim! I was in absolute awe – due to the high definition of the cameras being used, you didn’t need to hop a plane to see them either – they seemed like they had somehow come straight through your television to where you felt as if you were standing right ‘next to them’ yourself! I thought of this as I read about how CeCe felt calm near the Buddha she was mediating near as she went to her favourite spiritual spot for a bit of solitude and causal companionship with others doing the same. Causal here referring to the fact although they were in the same place at the same time everyone was internalising their own thoughts without saying a word aloud. This close proximity to others allowed CeCea respite from feeling she was entirely alone and cast out into the world without knowing how to land on solid ground again.
The beauty of CeCe’s story is how like Star, she started to reach outside her zone of comfort, trusting people, letting them into her internal world. She might not have felt she was a good judge of character due to the fall-out with her relationship with Ace (as throughout her trip in Australia the headlines and newsprint articles were growing worse!) but with Chrissie and others she was trusting, she was finding true friends. Each of them were helping her on her journey towards positive self-growth and a deepening awareness of her roots; where her origins were only the first part of her foundation as Pa Salt helped her find herself since she left her home country. By returning back to Australia she was finding the symmetry necessary to meet her future with a balanced sense of place and self – as so much is tied to how we self-identify ourselves. For CeCe, she didn’t have a positive impression about being dyslexic as it wasn’t something she could compensate for like I could, rather it was her lifetime ‘fly in the ointment’; she couldn’t shake it if she tried. She also didn’t see it as a gift but a slight curse because she only saw how it affected her from doing things others took for granted.
In Australia, she was finding her muse again – of what inspired her to create her art and how her art was an expression of herself in a way which left her raw and vulnerable. She created artwork which spoke to her on a soul level of heightened intuition – her art was not like other people’s and that’s the way it should be for each artist has a new vision of the world around them. She simply had forgotten to trust in the process of creating and to be comfortable as a an artist who didn’t use words to share a portion of herself but she used visual media.
The best message of CeCe’s story is that in order to live free you have to be honest about who you are – in every facet of your life because if you start to hide who you are from everyone, you can literally disappear from your own spirit too. CeCe was encouraged by Pa Salt to be who she was no matter who she realised she was at the core of her being but knowing she was accepted by her father and understanding who she was on those levels of awareness were two very different things. Her sexuality was part of her identity she never addressed, it wasn’t on her radar to even look at it from an angle of enlightenment because she had a lot of fears to overcome in general. She was a woman who was afraid to live by most counts but this journey she was taking towards her past was what truly gave her the inspiration to finally see herself and face herself for the first time in the mirror. The best takeaway for me was watching her blossom into being the artist Pa Salt knew she was destined to become; as he truly saw his daughters true essence and wanted them to see themselves the way in which he did all along.
Tiggy D’Aplièse spends her days experiencing the raw beauty of the Scottish Highlands doing a job she loves at a deer sanctuary. But when the sanctuary is forced to close, she is offered a job as a wildlife consultant on the vast and isolated estate of the elusive and troubled laird, Charlie Kinnaird. She has no idea that the move will not only irrevocably alter her future, but also bring her face-to-face with her past.
At the estate, she meets Chilly, an elderly Romani man who fled from Spain seventy years before. He tells her that not only does she possess a sixth sense passed down from her ancestors, but it was foretold long ago that he would be the one to send her back home…
In 1912, in the poor Romani community outside the city walls of Granada, Lucía Amaya-Albaycin is born. Destined to be the greatest flamenco dancer of her generation—and named La Candela, due to the inner flame that burns through her when she dances— Lucía is whisked away by her ambitious and talented guitarist father at the tender age of ten to dance in the flamenco bars of Barcelona. Her mother is devastated by the loss of her daughter and as civil war threatens in Spain, tragedy strikes the rest of her family. Now in Madrid, Lucía and her troupe of dancers are forced to flee for their lives, their journey taking them far across the water to South America and eventually, to North America and New York—Lucía’s long-held dream. But to pursue it, she must choose between her passion for her career and the man she adores.
THE MOON SISTER follows these two women bound across time and distance on their journey to discover their true futures—but at the risk of potentially losing the men they had hoped to build futures with.
I *love!* finding videos by authors who love to engage with readers about the inspiration behind their stories – this truly is a wonderful way to find yourself immersed even further into the settings as by catching small glimpses of the characters your reading about – you start to re-align what you’ve read with what they are seeing with their own eyes whilst feeling thankful the author took a very immersive path into the heart of this book series!
The Seven Sisters Series: of whom are Maia, Ally (Alcyone), Star (Asterope), CeCe (Celeano), Tiggy (Taygete), Electra and Merope – the series is based on the mythology of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades – interestingly enough, this is a constellation in close proximity to Orion*.
The Seven Sisters
The Storm Sister
The Shadow Sister
The Pearl Sister
The Moon Sister
The Seven Sisters : Maia’s Story (Book One) | (see also Review)
The Storm Sister : Ally’s Story (Book Two) | (see also Review)
The Shadow Sister : Star’s Story (Book Three) | (see also Review)
The Pearl Sister : CeCe’s Story (Book Four) | (see also Review)
The Moon Sister : Tiggy’s Story (Book Five)
Available Formats: Hardcover, Audiobook, Paperback and Ebook
Converse via: #SevenSistersSeries
#whoispasalt ← I advise not visiting the second tag on Twitter as it tends to reveal a few things ahead of reading the stories themselves.
About Lucinda Riley
Lucinda Riley is the #1 internationally bestselling author of sixteen novels, including Hothouse Flower and The Seven Sisters. Her books have sold more than ten million copies in over 30 languages. Lucinda divides her time between West Cork, Ireland, and Norfolk, England with her husband and four children.
Small Town Hearts
My Name is Rose
Meet Me In Outer Space
Carrying the Greek Tycoon's Baby
The Moon Sister
