Spotlight & Giveaway: The Good Parts by Evann Normandin

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Evann Normandin to HJ!

Hi Evann and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Good Parts!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Good Parts is a dual-timeline, dual-POV speculative love story about a woman, Rose, who takes a pill to erase her memories to escape grief, and her husband, Landon, who follows her to her new life, determined to make her fall for him all over again.

It explores memory, love, and identity, and the people we become across a lifetime, spanning fourteen years of a relationship that asks us to consider what great love is when it isn’t a straight line.
 

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

“Anticipating their jump, he held out his hand. It was surprisingly smooth, comfortingly large, and Rose had a strange thought she would tell Landon, years later: that his smooth, large hand had been crafted for just this purpose, his fingers designed to fill the empty spaces between hers. It was a trite thought, but she felt it with such ferocity she could convince herself it hadn’t even been hers; that it had been placed there by a crafty God with a quiver full of arrows.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Ten years ago, my husband wrote me a letter that inspired The Good Parts. We met as eighteen-year-olds and parted ways after college graduation, tearfully acknowledging that the timing was wrong, we’d met too soon, we were headed in different directions—him, to China, me to Scotland. I tried my best to start over: I met new friends, started dating someone nothing like him, and became, in big and small ways, a new version of myself. His letter arrived two months after he’d first sent it, covered in countless stamps and looking like it’d been on the losing side of a wrestling match. His words changed the trajectory of our lives. He wondered how I felt about the idea of choosing each other now, rather than waiting for someone else who fit when the timing was right. He wanted the chance to love every version of me. It was the first time I realized that great love is never a straight line.  I always thought that letter would make a great start to a novel. At thirty-three I was a new mom, staring down this new version of myself, somewhat amazed at the many discrete versions of me I could now see from this new vantage point. On a bike ride I started thinking: What if I’d never gotten that letter? Who would I be today? Would I carry some of the past with me, or would it feel better to forget? They were big questions—questions that made sense to me to explore alongside concepts I’d grappled with in school: how memory defines and redefines us, the profound connection between destruction and creation, and
what the body remembers when the mind does not.  There are some parallels to my own love story in this book (only the good parts), which is part of why the writing process was so joyful. It was so fun to mine memories, rearrange and rewrite pieces of them, and give them to Rose and Landon.

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

Rose and Landon meet in college, and there’s an instant spark between them even as attraction and connection takes time to grow. Rose loves Landon’s optimism, his quirks, and even his propensity to put his foot in his mouth. Landon is attracted to Rose’s bravery, the way she hurls herself out there, and how she unapologetically reinvents herself.

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

There’s a chapter where Rose and Landon go back to Landon’s childhood home to celebrate Thanksgiving. Rose has a challenging home life and it’s a day of really powerful connection for her, where she sees what a full life with Landon would mean. By this point in the book I feel for and care about Rose so much, and the joy she feels to be surrounded by love made me weepy while writing. Here’s a little snippet:

“Day quickly bled to night, and the cavernous, cozy house filled with more cousins, aunts, and uncles than Rose could keep track of. Though she knew she was drinking at a steady clip, her wineglass was always somehow half full, her empty hand always seconds away from merging with Landon’s. Moments burrowed into her memory like photographs. Jess called her into her father’s study to flip through old photo albums of her and Landon as children, the resemblance between them more prominent when comparing tiny bodies to arms and limbs fully grown. Leaves unfurled on the dining room table and folding chairs were hauled from the basement, and Rose ate until her stomach hurt. She knew her face was flushed and was sure her hair was wild. The overworked oven and throng of family had raised the room’s temperature to the point of steaming the windows, and Rose could feel the makeup she’d hastily applied dripping down her chin. Landon didn’t seem to care. All morning he’d looked at her like she was some kind of saint, every vegetable she diced the most perfect cube he’d ever seen. Evening told a different story. In his warm, glassy eyes she was no saint, but with every sidelong touch he made his desire to worship her clear.”

Readers should read this book….

…if they like books with a hint of magical realism that tackle big feelings, big questions, and complex, messy characters.

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

I’m currently working on another love story with a hint of magical realism, published again by Grand Central Publishing!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 3 finished copies of THE GOOD PARTS by Evann Normandinn, US only

To enter Giveaway, please share this post on your Socials and Leave a comment below to this Q: If a pill existed to restart your life, would you take it?

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This information will be shared with the author, publisher, or publicist solely for prize fulfillment purposes.
✨ Giveaway closes 3 days from the date this post is published.  
 

Book Info:

She erased their past. He’s rewriting their future.

When Landon receives a letter from Rose—the woman he once planned forever with—he learns their love story is over. She’s undergone a radical memory-erasing treatment, leaving behind her grief, her past… and him. But Landon can’t bear to lose the love of his life. If she fell for him once, couldn’t she fall for him again?

Now living in Edinburgh, Rose’s world is a blank canvas, and she’s dating someone new. When Landon reenters her life as a stranger, they become fast friends, their lives entwining once more. But what Rose doesn’t know is that this new friend carries the weight of everything they once shared: their firsts, their marriage, and the heartbreak they barely survived. And when she starts exhibiting strange symptoms, it becomes clear their history isn’t gone—it’s just buried. And remembering could come at a devastating cost.

Told in alternating timelines—his from the present, hers from the past—The Good Parts is an achingly poignant story about the people we become across a lifetime, and the beauty of finding our way with what remains.
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Evann Normandin earned her BA in English and Theater from Middlebury College and her MSc in English, with a focus on traumatic memory, from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has been published in Broadway World, Rewire News, Slush Magazine, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. Evann lives outside Boston with her son and husband, who inspired the love story (but only the good parts). The Good Parts is her debut.
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