Spotlight & Giveaway: Charming and the Cherry Blossom by LJ Evans

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author LJ Evans to HJ!

Hi LJ Evans and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Charming and the Cherry Blossom!

 
Thank you for having me! It’s always a pleasure to share my stories with you at Harlequin Junkie.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

This book is a modern-day fairy tale. That’s the easiest, simplest way to describe it. It isn’t a retelling even though you’ll definitely get vibes from many of your favorite tales. It’s about a nature-loving, secret-keeping student who inherits an estate from a dad she never met and the protective hero who storms into her world determined to keep her safe. It’s also about finding the place you belong while not letting your past (or your family) define your future.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

There are soooo many lines in this book I love, but one of my favorites is:

“Our kiss felt inevitable. Like the sky meeting the horizon.”

Elle and Hudson have to really work for their first kiss. There are plenty of secret obstacles that prevent them from even touching each other, so this moment…it’s absolutely a perfect, fairytale-like kiss.

Another one of my favorite lines is this one:

“Being with Elle was like finding the end of a rainbow and realizing it was waiting for you all along.”

It basically sums up Elle. A rainbow of goodness just waiting for the right person to show up in her life and peel back all her hidden layers. She’s not passively waiting. On fact, she’s strong and brave and determined, but she definitely is a joyous catch worth finding.
 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

For the longest time this book was titled, “The Book I Shouldn’t Be Writing” because I was supposed to be working on the next Anchor Novel and instead got swept away by the idea of a girl twirling in a ballroom after listening to Taylor Swift’s, “The Last Great American Dynasty.” My book is nothing like that song, but the lyrics first triggered an image in my head of an Elle-Fanning-like girl (from when she was in We Bought a Zoo) spinning over a parquet floor in an empty ballroom.

Then, I started to wonder:
….what if the ballroom was in a mansion the girl inherited from a father she’d never known? (because I was thinking of the lady in Taylor’s song having inherited her mansion)
…what if that mansion was actually a secret castle on an island like Singer Castle in New York? (because I was researching wedding locations in New York)
…what if her love interest was a yoga instructor who could do all these cool things with his body? (because I was amazed by the folks at Cyber Yoga on Instagram)
…what if there was something “more” going on with this girl than just her love of nature? (because my hubby and I were binge-watching the old TV show “Medium”)
…what if it’s a fairy tale story that makes everyone smile so hard they can’t stop? (because we all needed smiles in the middle of the pandemic)

And that’s how this story happened. One big “what if” after another until it made me so stinking happy every time I worked on it that I had goofy grins on my face. I still do. Every time I work on it, or make a graphic for it, or read a piece of it, my heart is full. It makes me happier than I’ve been in a long, long time.

I hope everyone who reads it feels that same kind of joy!

Here are some more fun tidbits about the story:

• The castle in the book was inspired by Singer Castle in New York mixed with some of the Disney castles, and a dash of Neuschwanstein Castle.
• The hero of the book, Hudson, is Brazilian, and I’ve been experimenting with Brazilian treats ever since writing the story, like the brigadeiros (fudge balls) and pao de queijo (cheese bread).
• If you’re a Taylor Swift fan like me, you might feel happiness inside your chest when you listen to “Today Was a Fairy Tale.” If you do, then that feeling…it’s this book. That song, and every Taylor Swift song on the playlist, give me all the Elle and Hudson vibes. You can check out the songs here: https://spoti.fi/3uwHscW
• In the book, Elle has just returned from living in Peru for four years, and so she has a lot of Latin and Brazilian music on her playlist. One of my sensitivity readers, Cleida, helped me expand into this music genre, and I found some artists I love. Want to listen to some of the songs? You can check out Elle’s playlist here: https://spoti.fi/3yYGVEf

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Hudson is completely and absolutely enthralled with the joy radiating from Elle after he literally runs into her in a hallway. The cherry blossoms strung through her hair for luck and the breathless wonder she displays even after he breaks her phone entices him in a way no one has in a long time.

“There was an aura about her that spoke of earth and sky and seas. As if she had some unique knowledge of it.”

Elle is drawn in by his swoony smile, the fiery coils of hair bouncing around his face, and the dark eclipse of his eyes. But even more, she’s drawn in by the simple fact that he isn’t running away from her like other people do. Instead, he actually asks to see her again.

“He was powerful and beautiful. The fluidity of his movements like water. Meaningful… important… necessary.”

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

Elle and Hudson’s cute meet made me grin for days because it’s so perfectly, perfect and full of smiling moments.

“You have…” He stuck out a hand and pulled several of the cherry blossoms from one of my ponytails. “Were you lying on the ground or something?”

There was no scorn in his voice. No judgment. Only a sparkle of something in his eye that might be considered interest.

I looked at the pink and white blooms covering his long fingers.

“It was for luck,” I said before I could stop myself.

The laugh that burst from him was joyful instead of mocking as he looked down at my broken phone and said, “I don’t think that worked out the way it was supposed to.”

My eyes met his again, and the scent of the cherry trees seemed heavier.

“Maybe it did,” I breathed out. Because I’d had this moment with him. Felt connected to someone instead of just the earth and the trees and the sky.

His smile wavered as the meaning of my words hit him.

He was the first one to break our stare, glancing both ways down the now empty hallway. “I have to go. My boss is going to kill me if I’m late again, but…” He pulled something from the stack of papers in his hand and gave it to me. “If you show up here with the cost of the repair, I’ll pay for it.”

I looked down at the flyer. It was for a free yoga session in the quad on Sunday. Attending it would mean skipping or postponing dinner with Albert and Drake. Attending it would mean surrounding myself with people in a way I rarely did these days.

He walked backward toward the door, and I realized I didn’t even know his name.

“You’re going to show, right?” he asked with a contagious smile.

“You’re going to crash into someone again,” I called out as he almost ran into a door that was opening, barely sidestepping it.

“Tell me you’re going to come,” he said, there was a lure to his voice, calling me.

“Maybe,” I said.

He shook his head as if he was sad, but his lips were turned up.

“Make it MY lucky day,” he said.

Squish, squish, squish went my heart. When was the last time anyone had thought it was lucky for me to show up? When was the last time someone wanted me to be with them?

“Geez, watch where you’re going!” A girl said as my phone destroyer/rescuer ran into her at the entrance. He put his hand to his heart, and looked from me to her and back to me again.

“Sorry, was getting the life knocked out of me.”

I shook my head, but my lips couldn’t stop their upward curl.

I think he knew the truth even though he left without waiting for me to give him an answer. I couldn’t imagine not finding my way to the quad come Sunday.

Readers should read this book….

Readers should read this book… if they want to feel the pure joy they felt the first time they ever experienced a happily ever after story! It’s like that. Pure joy!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

After this, I’m going back to the story I should have been working on when I wrote Charming and the Cherry Blossom. It’s the next book in the Anchor Novels. Jada and Dax’s heart-stealing, Romeo-and-Juliet-style, happily ever after is almost the complete opposite of Charming and the Cherry Blossom. It’s dark secrets and star-crossed lovers vs. the bubbling exuberance of Elle and Hudson’s story. It also doesn’t have a title or a Goodreads page yet, but it has HEAT… like flaming-off-the-pages kind of heat. Here’s a taste:

“It was ridiculous the amount of sexual tension that flew through me whenever I saw her. I enjoyed making love to women. Slow and sensual, fierce and strong, and rarely fast. I relished taking my time, turning minutes into hours, and prolonging the pleasure for both of us. Sex was a euphoric release to be controlled and savored. Except my body didn’t agree when it came to Jada Mori. Never had one woman consumed me and demanded a reaction from me the way she did. Never.”

And that’s just Dax’s first chapter! Ha.

The best way for folks want to keep tabs on this story as it gets closer is to sign up for my newsletter: http://bit.ly/LJEmoGive.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Four winners will get an eBook of Charming and the Cherry Blossom and book swag. Open to US and Int’l.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: So, I have a question for you, what’s your favorite fairy tale (book or movie)?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from Charming and the Cherry Blossom:

He groaned out my name, “Elle.”

It thrilled me, the groan full of lust, and desire, and want.

I put both my hands on his cheeks, locking my gaze on his. The heat in the depths of his dark eyes matched my own.

“Please don’t stop,” I begged.

He closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face, and then he slammed his mouth into mine again. This kiss even fiercer than the last, an aching growl of desire that I returned with a power that surged from my depths. Hunger. Longing. Pushing at the solitude that had always been mine, replacing it, momentarily, with companionship.

Hudson moved us backward until we landed against a wall. His hand slid under my rainbow-colored sleep shirt, warm palm skating across my stomach before his fingers dug into my sides. The blaze in my veins leaped, threatening to consume me. His hips ground into mine, a beautiful movement, taking my breath away as I felt the hard shape of him in his workout gear against my thin bottoms. Core to core. Man to woman, in such a beautiful, ancient dance.

Our bodies were touching, moving, gliding together just like our mouths and tongues and hands. I gasped against him, trying to find air and only finding more of his lips and his tongue. When his mouth left mine this time, I still whimpered in displeasure, but it was quickly replaced with a pant of desire as his lips hit my jaw before trailing down my neck. He tugged gently at my ponytail, and my neck arched, granting him better access.

One of my legs curled around his hip of its own accord, trying to bring him even closer, seeking out the hard part of him grinding against me and flooding me with desire. A gaping hollow grew inside me that I’d never felt in my solitude before. A hollow demanding he fill it up. Fill me up.

And then, he was gently swinging my leg back to the ground and moving away, adding space and air and distance between us. His hands disappeared completely from my body, and his lips became his own again instead of the shared part of a whole we’d momentarily become.

His eyes were dark, and his body was pounding out the same ache I felt in me. He rubbed his eyes with his palms before opening them again.

“I’m sorry,” he grunted out.

There was true remorse in his voice, and it hurt because I didn’t want him to regret our kiss. It had been pure magic. Desire that had filled the moonlight.

“Why are you sorry?” I asked, surprised when my voice sounded breathless and deep. Husky. Not the me I knew. It caused his eyes to flare, traveling to my lips and farther down to parts of my body that were twisted and hard and yearning for him.

“I took it too far. A kiss, Elle. I’d just wanted a kiss.”

“That wasn’t a kiss?” I said, lips twitching. It had his lips quirking ever so slightly in return.

“That was almost a full-on make-out session.”

I laughed. “Maybe we should make it a full-on make-out session.”

He grew serious again, and instead of stepping closer, he stepped farther away. “No.”

“Why not?”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 

Book Info:

Today was a fairy tale…
I inherited a fortune from a dad I never knew,
And a thoroughly charming guy asked me out.

Unfortunately, my fairy tale could disappear in ninety days…
Because there’s an impossible task to complete,
And a greedy cousin plotting against me.

Plus, I’m not your typical fairy tale princess.
I have a secret that might send my charming running,
And threatens my future if the press finds out.

If today was a fairy tale…
Why does my happily ever after look so far out of reach?

From award-winning author, LJ Evans, comes a contemporary romance filled with all the magic, hope, and love of a fairy tale plus the slow-burn, old-soul vibe her fans adore. Inspired by Taylor Swift’s “Today Was a Fairytale,” this small-town romance is pure escapism.

A full-length, standalone adult romance.
Book Links:  Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Award winning author, LJ Evans, lives in the California Central Valley with her husband, child, and the terrors called cats. She’s been writing, almost as a compulsion, since she was a little girl and will often pull the car over to write when a song lyric strikes her. A former first-grade teacher, she now spends her free time reading and writing, as well as binge-watching original shows like The Crown, A Discovery of Witches, Veronica Mars, and Stranger Things.

If you ask her the one thing she won’t do, it’s pretty much anything that involves dirt—sports, gardening, or otherwise. But she loves to write about all of those things, and her first published heroine was pretty much involved with dirt on a daily basis, which is exactly why LJ loves fiction novels—the characters can be everything you’re not and still make their way into your heart.
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