Spotlight & Giveaway: The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn by Valerie Bowman

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Valerie Bowman to HJ!

Hi Valerie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn!

 
Hi, Thanks so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn is a cozy, sexy, funny contemporary romance with all the fall vibes. It’s about an event planner from Manhattan who loses her job and her boyfriend only to end up back home at her family’s inn on Long Island, forced to share an apartment with the grumpy apple farmer who is the son of the orchard owners.
 

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

“…sometimes in life there comes a time when you have to redefine what success means to you.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

There’s a pug who insists upon wearing orange pajamas, a tackling goat, and lots and lots of mention of apple cider, donuts, and fall leaves. Fall is my absolute favorite, so it was a pure JOY to write this book.
 

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

Ellie and Aiden knew each other as kids. It turns out Aiden always had a crush on Ellie and she didn’t know it. But when she sees him for the first time (after years) at the beginning of the story, she does not quite remember him being so H-O-T.
 

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

There is a scene that’s getting a lot of attention from early reviewers. I call it the greenhouse scene. Let’s just say it’s pretty hot in the greenhouse. I *may* have blushed when writing it.

Readers should read this book….

because it’s fun, funny, cozy, and sexy. Readers keep telling me it’s like a Hallmark movie in a book and they grinned from ear-to-ear while reading it. I couldn’t ask for better reviews.

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

Soon, I’ll be working on edits to the second book in the series called Christmas at the Honeycrisp Orchard Inn. It’s the story of two characters you’ll meet in the first book, Maria, a PR genius, and Jesse, the cider brewer at the orchard/inn.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn by Valerie Bowman

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Excerpt from The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn:

I balance the suitcase on the stair behind me and wrestle with the
big metal key. Once I get a good grip on it, I fumble it around where
I think the lock should be. It’s too dark to see, so I use my fingers to
feel around until I figure it out. Only, I don’t figure it out, and I clatter
around for a length of time that is honestly embarrassing. I double
majored in marketing and business at Columbia, yet I somehow
can’t get an old-timey key in an old-timey lock. Wasn’t this the white
chocolate chips sprinkled on the top of my crappy day?

“All right! All right!” comes a deep male voice from inside the
apartment. “I’m coming.”

I have about two seconds to process this surprising turn of events
before the wooden door swings open to reveal a half-naked
man
standing there with a white towel slung low over his hips.
My jaw drops. Because this isn’t just any half-naked man. It’s a
super-hot half-naked man. A man who has the body of Adonis. A man with
chiseled abs and a six-pack that should seriously be illegal. Or come
with a warning, at least.

I slowly force myself to lift my gaze from
his body to his face. His dark, slightly curly hair has fallen over one
brown eye, and he is frowning at me.

“Ellie?” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Ellie? He knows me?

I gulp. I’ve met Adonis before? You’d think I’d remember. Do I
have dementia?

I study his face. In that moment, he swipes the wet hair to the side,
and oh damn. I know. I know exactly who he is. And I have met him
before. Only I haven’t seen him in a while, and he did not look anything
like this. I am certain of it. Certain.

Mr. Hotness standing in front of me is none other than Aiden
Parker. And oh holy Mary mother of God, has he changed.

Aiden Parker!” I yell his name as if a) he doesn’t already know it
himself, or b) he’s hard of hearing. Both are idiotic.

He shifts to his other bare foot, still holding open the door, still
clutching that towel at his hips. I keep my eyes trained on his face
because I swear I cannot look down at the line of hair on his flat lower
abdomen that disappears under the towel. I want to. But now that I
know who I’m staring at, it feels . . . wrong. I mean, Aiden and I used
to play hide-and-seek together. And now he’s . . . I press a hand to
my warm cheek.

I shake my head and clear my throat. “What are you doing here,
Aiden?”

There. That is a reasonable thing to ask, especially given that he’s
in the apartment where I’m about to post up for an indeterminate
period of time. “Don’t you have a house or something?”

I’m still standing on the second step down, one hand balancing my
huge suitcase behind me, so I have to crane my neck to look up at
him. I try to make it sound casual, like we just ran into each other at
the grocery store instead of me desperately trying not to look at his
happy trail. Or think about it.

“Would you like to come in?” he asks, as if it’s totally normal to
invite someone in while wearing a towel.

But yes. Yes, I would like to come in. Because I have every intention
of staying here tonight, and possession is nine-tenths
of the law or something like that. And even if that’s not true, I will quote it as if
it’s true later, if I must.

I grunt and start to heft my big suitcase behind me, but Aiden
stops me by nudging my shoulder slightly and steps down. Still
clutching the edge of that towel that is going to haunt my dreams for
a hot minute with one hand, he grabs my heavy suitcase with his free
one and easily swings all of my stuff up onto the top landing. It’s over
in a matter of seconds, and I expel my breath in a heave as if I were
the one who just slung a hundred and fifty pounds of clothes up three
stairs in one fell swoop.

“Thank you,” I say as I step up into the apartment. First, damn.
He’s tall. Like, really tall. And second, double damn. His shoulders.
Watching them flex as he lifted that suitcase was . . . something.

Aiden closes the door behind me. “Just a sec,” he says. “Let me
throw on some clothes.”

Or not. You could stick with the towel. That would be fine. I wouldn’t mind.

I scratch the back of my head, as if I can scrape those types of
thoughts from my brain. What was happening? Why was Aiden
Parker in Mom and Dad’s attic apartment wearing a towel? And
when had he become so tall and so hot? And most importantly, with
all the inane things Mom mentions on the phone, why had she failed
to mention said hotness?

I mean, Aiden and I were kids together. Running around the property
and helping our parents with chores. Then we hit high school,
and it was like our relationship changed overnight. I was Miss
School Spirit, and Aiden was a grumpy loner type. I was busy with
schoolwork and extracurriculars, and Aiden was busy with . . . I don’t
know . . . wood shop and grumbling? He spent more time with his
dad learning about farming the apple trees and less time in the food
barn and the inn, and we just sort of . . . grew apart. The next thing
I knew, I was off to college, and I only saw him in passing here and
there over the years. But this is definitely the first time I’d seen him
in at least four years and for sure the first time I’d seen him wearing
nothing more than a towel.

I rack my brain, trying to remember everything, anything Mom
has said about Aiden in the past. He’d gone to college. That seemed
right. Where? I don’t know. Damn. Why didn’t I listen more? He’d
moved back to Harvest Hollow. Did Mom tell me he had a house?
I may have just made that up. But he couldn’t have been living
up here. Mom wouldn’t have offered me the apartment if it wasn’t
vacant.
Oh God. Does Mom have dementia? She’d sounded okay on the
phone earlier, but dementia is tricky. It comes and goes at first. What
if she’s been steadily going downhill for years, and my failure to listen
intently to her phone calls made me oblivious? I am a bad daughter.
We need to get her a good doctor. Immediately.

There’s a rustling in the bigger of the two bedrooms, which distracts
me from my medical intervention plans for my obviously ailing
mother. Aiden comes back out wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

Oh, great. So, still a clear view of his fully bare chest. Fantastic. He
is scrubbing a towel over his head to dry his hair, and I never knew
until this moment that I have a thing for men messily scrubbing their
wet hair with towels.

“Hey, there,” he says, grinning at me as if I’d just popped by to
borrow a cup of sugar. Out here, neighbors do stuff like that. I try to
imagine asking to borrow kitchen items from my neighbors in Brooklyn.
They’d probably call the cops on me.

“So, yeah. I do have a house,” Aiden continues, causing me to stop
thinking about borrowing kitchen items, “but there was a pipe burst
this week. The plumbers are going to give me an estimate as soon
as they finish a job at the Moose Lodge. My place is pretty much
flooded at the moment.”

“So, you’re staying here?” My voice goes up to a weird octave I
don’t recognize, and I point at the floor as if there is some question
about where “here” is. It is probably rude of me to blurt that out, but
I’m tired and want a bath and bed, in that order, and now, well, Aiden’s
standing here looking like an underwear model. It’s distracting.

“Yeah, Mom asked Lucy about it Saturday. I’ve been here since
then.”

Lucy is my mom, and now I’m even more worried about her dementia
because she clearly forgot she gave the key to Aiden last
weekend. And how the hell did Charlotte not see this coming from a
mile away? She should have known the second key was missing from
the front desk. There are two keys to every room. There always have
been.

“Don’t tell me,” Aiden says, biting his lip in a way that makes
me envious of a lip for the first time in my life. It’s a sort of half tug,
half nip with two of his perfectly white, straight teeth showing. “You
were planning to stay here too.”

“I was,” I say, which probably makes me Captain Obvious, since
I’m standing here with no shoes and a suitcase and the key still dangling
from my hand. I am also nodding way too hard. As if an excessive
amount of nodding will dispel the awkwardness. I feel it. I know
it. But I cannot stop.

“Did Miss Guin get you?” Aiden asks next, eyeing my legs, his
brow arched.

I glance down at my muddy jeans and have to stop myself from
audibly groaning.

“She did” is my next obvious statement, and I am not proud of it.

“She’s pretty stealthy,” Aiden says.

“The stealthiest. The stealthiest of goats,” I pronounce. Okay,
that was dumb. And there is more nodding. Though it seems more
polite than “Are you planning to leave soon, because I’m not really
looking for a roommate?” I mean, he can go to his parents’ house,
right? They have a big place at the far end of the property with lots
of bedrooms. I can’t stay downstairs. Mom turned my room into a
sewing room years ago. It’s full of yarn. Like, a hoarder amount of
yarn and sewing machines and crochet needles and probably some
quilting stuff and a not-uncreepy collection of dolls on one wall. I
think there may be some teddy bears too. The point is, I’m not staying
down there. Even if I managed to find a blow-up mattress, I can’t
sleep with dolls staring at me. Besides, this is my parents’ inn, and
this is my apartment to use whenever I come home, and just because
I never come home—sigh.

Okay, I can totally see why the Parkers
would have thought it was completely fine for Aiden to stay up here.
They couldn’t have known I would unceremoniously arrive after being
dumped and fired on a random Wednesday, when I haven’t been
here in years.

“How long will you be here?” Aiden asks next. The towel has
dropped to one bare shoulder, and he’s looking at me intently. This
time he’s clearly the one trying to sound casual, and his voice goes up
an octave. I can tell he’s hoping I’ll just say one night. It’s written all over
his face. His chiseled, handsome face. I have always been a sucker for
tall, dark, good-looking men. And he’s quintessential. Like, textbook.

But Aiden’s hotness is not going to help the who-gets-
this-apartment issue, so I purse my lips and answer his question. “I’m not
really sure. A couple of weeks, probably.” I kinda shrug and splay my
hands wide to soften the blow.

His eyes widen as if I’ve just told him I quit my job to become a
bounty hunter or something. “A couple of weeks?” The incredulity
in his voice slightly offends me. I know I haven’t been home in years,
but is it really that unbelievable that I’d show up out of the blue for
two whole weeks?

Okay, yes, it is. I’m the one-off here. Not Aiden.

“So, uh, is there anywhere else for you to stay?” Aiden asks.
He’s let go of his bottom lip, and now he’s kinda wincing. But it’s a
truly sympathetic wince, totally unlike Steve’s fake winces from this
morning. Aiden’s is more like a we-have-a-problem-and-I-know-it’s-probably-going-
to-end-with-my-eviction type of wince.

“Mom turned my old bedroom into a sewing room,” I announce
with an overly dramatic shrug as if that explains everything. I tap
my chin as if my next idea has just come to me. “What about your
parents’ house?” There. Happily tossing the ball back into his court.

“I can’t stay there.” He snort-laughs and pulls the towel around his
shoulders to tug on both ends. His chest flexes. And it is still bare. I
checked. No status update there.

“I tried staying with them once, the summer after my first year of
college. It’s pretty much an established fact that Dad and I will kill
each other after one night under the same roof.”

I nod. I mean, fair enough. I get it. Aiden doesn’t have to explain
to me how hard it is to go back home, let alone stay in the same living
space as your parents as an adult. I’m not sure if the Parkers own
any dolls, but I made sure I had internships in the city every summer
during college. I had to stay in a seventh-floor walk-up in Queens
with five other roommates once, but anything was better than the
dolls.
I hook my thumb over my shoulder to point back toward the door.
“I guess I can go ask Charlotte if there are any free rooms or—”

At this point, I’m fully being passive-aggressive.
If anyone should have to go ask Charlotte for a room, it’s Aiden. And he should know it.
And stop me from making such a selfless choice.

I’m waiting for him to interject when instead he says, “Look.
There are two rooms up here. No reason we can’t share the common
spaces.”

Share? I blink at him. Share? I’m an only child. We don’t share.
Well, not unless we are trying to squeeze into a Queens walk-up,
but that was a necessity. And I was nineteen. I’m twenty-nine
now. But where can I go if I don’t stay here?

“I’ve got my stuff in the bigger room, but I can move to the
smaller one,” Aiden adds, already turning toward the bedroom like
it’s settled.

He really thinks we can share. Like it’s no big deal to him.
I cock my head to the side and watch him leave like I’m a confused
puppy. I mean, obviously I’ve been sharing with Geoff the last
two years. We have separate drawers in the bathroom for our toothbrushes
and separate shelves for our other stuff, all pre-decided
before I hired the movers. But Geoff was my boyfriend. The only man
I’ve ever lived with. Staying here with Aiden feels strange. Intimate.

“Do you truly want to stay here with me?” I call after him because
I can’t think of a better way to say what I’m thinking.

He stops and turns on his heel. “Why not, Ellie Belly?”

The shock of the nickname takes me back. My mom gave it to
me so long ago that I don’t even remember when it started, and no
one calls me that. Not even Mom anymore. It’s from a hundred years
ago, and I never would have thought Aiden of all people would remember
it. Though he did used to call me that to tease me. It started
when we were out decorating the barn for the autumn season one
year, after he heard my mother calling me the cutesy nickname. He
found it hilarious. I tried in vain to come up with equally embarrassing
nicknames for him, but it was no contest. Despite the teasing, he
redeemed himself by volunteering to hang all the stuff that needed
to go up high so I wouldn’t have to climb up on the ladder, because
I don’t like heights.

We must have been about twelve and thirteen then. Aiden hung
the high decorations, and I placed the low ones. Teamwork, really.
Quite efficient. We’d done it that way ever since.

Well, until I left.

“You remember my nickname?” I ask, feeling the tiniest little bit
of wistfulness.

“Sure, I do.” His answering smile makes my belly swoop. “You
were cute back then. You had freckles.” Aiden pads back over to me
and leans down to study my face. “A few of them are still there, I
see.” He taps the end of my nose with a finger.

I swat his hand away, an almost-too-familiar reflex, and my belly
swoops again. This time it’s like a whole three-sixty.
“Can we stay on topic, please?” I say.
I swallow and shake my head to clear it. What had he been saying
before the subject of my freckles came up? Oh yeah. Aiden asked me
“why not?” about the roommates thing.
“I mean, it’s kind of tight quarters, isn’t it?”

I ask the sentence like a question, but there isn’t really a doubt. The entire apartment is
pretty small. There’s a little galley kitchen; a dining space with a table
and two chairs; a tiny living room with a tiny sofa and a tiny coffee
table; one hall bathroom with the claw-foot
tub, a sink, and a toilet;
and two bedrooms. It’s not big.
I’m quite aware of the fact that, as a New Yorker, it is pretty ridiculous
of me to question the tightness of any living quarters, but
out here in Harvest Hollow, square feet do not have the significance
they do in Brooklyn.

“It’s only temporary,” Aiden says, and shrugs, still obviously committed
to the it’s-no-big-deal energy. “Unless your boyfriend would
mind,” he adds in a sentence that comes from so far in left field my
head swivels.

“What?” The word comes out like a croak. Super attractive. But
Aiden knows I have a boyfriend?

“Your mom told me you have a boyfriend. You live with him,
right?”

“Right.” Oh God. The overly ambitious nodding has returned.

“Yep. That’s right.” I can’t tell him the truth and risk it getting back
to Mom before I’m ready. I need time to figure out how to frame
my story in the best possible light. Otherwise, she’ll worry about
me. Yep, it’s about the worry. Definitely not about the humiliation or
the fact that the entire tale will be spread through town in minutes
once Mom finds out. Lucy Lawson doesn’t have a subtle nor secretive
bone in her body.

“So, will your boyfriend have a problem with us rooming together
for a couple of weeks?” Aiden asks, his brows both lifted.

“No! I mean, no.” I say the second no much more casually, rolling
my wrist in the air as if my nonexistent boyfriend is super chill and
would never be the jealous type.

But two can play this game.
“What about your girlfriend?” I tuck a strand of hair behind my
ear casually, as if I’m not low-key
holding my breath waiting to hear
his answer.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” His grin is wide, and it occurs to me
that of course he doesn’t have a girlfriend, or he’d be at her house
while his pipe is burst. Either that, or she’d be here with him if they
lived together. Which would be a hundred times more awkward.

“Got it,” I stammer. Okay, not a particularly eloquent reply, but
it’s all I have at the moment. Because I am remembering him in the
towel, and it has rendered me speechless. Or at least speech poor.

“It’s really no big deal, Ellie. I’ll move my stuff. It’ll just take a sec.”
He turns and disappears into the bigger bedroom.
I briefly consider telling him not to bother switching rooms. It
seems petty. But the bigger bedroom is nicer. It has a cute little dormer
window and a corner desk, and the big oak tree out back provides
shade in the afternoon. Plus, it’s sweet of Aiden to offer me the
bigger room. He always was a nice kid, I think as I hear him thumping
around in the bedroom.

“Thank you.” I raise my voice, so he’ll hear me. “It’ll be nice to have
the desk to use while I plan the Autumn Harvest Festival.”

The thumping stops, and seconds later he appears in the doorway,
his suitcase half zipped and stuffed with clothes that are sticking out
haphazardly. I can’t help but think that Geoff would die before he
treated his clothing that way.

“What’s that?” Aiden’s frowning.

“That’s why I’m here,” I tell him. “Mom asked me to plan the inn
and orchard’s Autumn Harvest Festival to go along with the parade.
Didn’t your parents tell you about it?” I make my way over to the
fridge, open it, and look in, hoping for a bottled water. Mom and Dad
usually leave some up here. Yes. It’s there. Though I miss my tumbler
that’s trapped in Manhattan.

“Uh, yeah. I know about it,” Aiden says. “It was my idea.” His
voice is flat.

I grab the bottle of water and clutch it to my chest, then I spin on
my sock-covered feet to look at him. “Oh, I . . . You do know that
I’m an event planner, don’t you?” I give him the biggest smile I can
muster. “It’s kinda my thing.”

“Yeah, I know.” His voice hasn’t changed. “But I’m a one-third
owner of the orchard now. And unlike you, I never left. This place is
kinda my thing.”

Uh. Ouch.

Our conversation has taken an unexpected turn. Now I vaguely
remember Mom telling me that Aiden had bought into the ownership
of the orchard with his parents. But that comment about him
never leaving smarts more than I would’ve guessed it would. It wiggles
its way under my skin and lodges there like an apple seed in my
teeth.

“So, what?” I plunk my free hand on my hip. “I don’t have the
right to come help when I’m asked, because I moved to the city?”
I really want to hear his answer. He’s clearly got a problem with
me being gone.

His brow lowers, and he blows out a long breath. “Your parents
have missed you,” he tells me. “You couldn’t come home for Christmas?”

Okay, extra ouch. The guilt that’s been slowly rising through me
all day is now about to drown me. But I’m not going to admit to
Aiden that my jerk of an ex-boyfriend never wanted to come to my
parents’ house for Christmas. I’m not even ready to admit he’s my ex
yet. Still, I could’ve come home without Geoff. I know that. “I . . .”

Ugh. I have no comeback. And I get it. Family means a lot to Aiden.
He always planned to stay here and work with his parents. I just never
realized he thought worse of me for not making the same decision.

The agonized look on my face must be obvious, because Aiden’s
features soften. “Look, you can help with the festival, but I already
have plans.” He drags his suitcase across the living room toward the
smaller bedroom.

This time my brows shoot up. He has plans? After the day I’ve had,
the last thing I want to do is fight with another man about my event-planning
credentials. Though this one at least appears to have his
own ideas. He’s not trying to steal mine. An improvement from this
morning.

“Understood,” I say out loud to keep the peace for the moment.
But in my mind, I’m thinking something more like, “we’ll see.” Because
there’s no way Mr. Apple Farmer’s event ideas are going to be
better than mine. I’d already sketched out a half dozen great plans on
the train ride out here. Scarecrow-dressing
contest, anyone? With,
like, super-cute
clothes.

Aiden nods once as if he’s sure he’s won the argument. Poor man.
He has no idea that that was merely the first shot across the bow.
And I’ve got a nuclear submarine in my arsenal.

“Good, then. Goodnight.” He steps into the smaller bedroom and
closes the door behind him. “I’ll see you in the morning, and we can
get started” comes floating out to me.

“Goodnight,” I call after him, shaking my head. I tip my suitcase
and pull it toward the bigger bedroom. Thank God, this night is almost
over. It’s been a total cluster today.

The minute the bedroom door closes behind me, I expel my breath.
First, Aiden has already changed the sheets on the bed. (I worked in
hospitality for eighteen years. I know fresh sheets when I see them.)
That was nice of him. Second, I force myself to remember that there is
no need to argue about the Autumn Harvest Festival with him tonight.
Because I’m done being walked over by men. Mom asked me to
plan this event with Aiden’s mom’s blessing. And that’s what I’m going
to do. Aiden’s hotness and his status as my temporary roommate
have nothing to do with anything. I am a professional. A professional
who has just recently recommitted to the notion of never mixing business
with pleasure again. And while I look for a new job to get back
to the city as fast as humanly possible, I intend to plan the best little
event Harvest Hollow has ever seen.

Whether Mr. Apple Farmer likes it or not.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Ellie Lawson’s city life was treating her just fine until a sour turn of events knocks her out in one fell swoop. Dumped by her boyfriend and fired from her event planning job, she is left with no choice but to return to her parents’ idyllic inn, nestled within a picturesque Honeycrisp orchard on Long Island.

Anticipating a quiet hiatus in the attic apartment, she is instead met with Aiden, the stubborn, attractive son of the orchard owner who is currently occupying her planned refuge. Forced together by circumstance, they find themselves not only roommates but also coworkers, when they’re put in charge by their parents of the orchard’s vital Harvest Festival, a lifeline for both the struggling orchard and the inn. Amidst the enchanting disorder of small-town life, Ellie and Aiden grapple with their conflicting values, burgeoning feelings, and an electrifying tension.

As Ellie discovers the unexpected charm of the life she left behind and Aiden learns there’s much more to Ellie than he’d first assumed, one fact remains: the future of the orchard and the inn depends on their unlikely collaboration.

Embark on a captivating journey of rediscovery, love, and the irreplaceable magic of small-town life.
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Meet the Author:

Valerie Bowman’s debut novel was published in 2012. Since then, her books have received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. She’s been an RT Reviewers’ Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance and Best Historical Romance Love and Laughter. Two of her books have been nominated for the Kirkus Prize for fiction.

Valerie grew up in Illinois with six sisters (she’s number seven) and a huge supply of romance novels. After a cold and snowy stint earning a degree in English Language and Literature with a minor in history at Smith College, she moved to Florida the first chance she got. Valerie now lives in Jacksonville with her family including her mini-schnauzers, Huckleberry and Violet. When she’s not writing, she keeps busy reading, traveling, or vacillating between watching crazy reality TV and PBS.
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