Spotlight & Giveaway: The Lotus Flower Champion by Pintip Dunn & Love Dunn

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Pintip Dunn & Love Dunn to HJ!

Hi Pintip & Love Dunn and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Lotus Flower Champion!

 
Hi! We are so thrilled to be here!
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

An epic adventure featuring a biracial heroine with OCD, who is marooned with 10 strangers and her mother on a remote island, which looks like paradise but feels like hell, due to the machinations of an evil scientist.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

You never realize how valuable time is until you don’t have it. When I was eight years old, I used to lie on the hardwood floor and stare at the clock on top of our fireplace.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• This book is co-authored by Pintip and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Love.
• While drafting this book, Pintip and Love competed in writing sprints every day, in order to win cute rubber duckies — and to Pintip’s pride and dismay, Love won 99 percent of the time.
• This story was inspired by Malaysian Airlines flight 370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014. The Lotus Flower Champion is Pintip and Love’s answer to what happened to all those passengers.
• Pintip and Love would argue over how much romance there was in this story — Love wanted less, while Pintip wanted more!
• Lotus Flower features a heroine who has OCD, which mirrors Love’s own struggles with the mental health condition.

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Bodin is handsome and charming, but Alaia senses that he’s hiding something underneath his easy flirtation — and that something has to do with a grief and hurt as powerful as her own pain in anticipating the impending death of her terminally ill mother.

Alaia loves deeply and completely, and she’s not afraid to let anyone see her heart. Bodin is drawn to this fearless capacity, as he’s never experienced it in his own life.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe your main characters”love affair?

Allies to Enemies to Lovers
 

The First Kiss…

“He’s a friend,” I manage. “I care about him a lot.” I take a deep breath. It’s time to be brave now. As brave as I’ve ever been in my life. “But I don’t have any romantic interest in him. Not the way I have in somebody else.”

“Somebody else, huh?” Bodin says, his lips quirking. “That Preston, he’s a lucky guy.”

“He does have a certain charm,” I agree.

Bodin sits up and lifts his hands to the middle of my neck, right at the most sensitive spot. “I’m going to tickle you,” he warns, probably to give me time to stop him. But I’m in the right moment, the right frame of mind. His touch doesn’t inspire discomfort, anymore. In fact, I want him to touch me. I think it will feel… nice.

“Do your best,” I dare him.

He does, and I squirm. “I’m kidding!” I yelp. “Who likes charm, anyways? Not me. I like ‘em boring and rude.”

He tickles even harder, and I retaliate. When we’re both laughing and out of breath, we smile at each other, next to a roaring ocean, under a starlit sky. Our circumstances are less than ideal… but there are worse places to be.

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Bodin says, his expression sobering. “But there’s one thing I want to do before it all goes to hell.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“This.”

And then he carefully, deliberately, and gently fits his lips to mine.

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

Well… our hands-down favorite scene is not something we can share here, as it gives away the entire story! It is at the end of the book, and readers will know exactly what we’re talking about once we read it.

Instead, we’ll share a scene that is definitely one of our favs, which shows the interaction between Bodin and Alaia:

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I give him a shaky smile. “I, um, don’t like sleeping on the ground.” Understatement of the century. “But it should be okay, since I have the sleeping bag. That should protect me from all the, uh, sandiness. It’s almost like sleeping in a bed. Really.” The false reassurance is more for my benefit than his.

“But you did it before,” Bodin points out. “The first day we were here. We all woke up in the sand.”

Ah, that’s the crux of the problem. My OCD doesn’t respond to reason or logic. It’s a feeling, a compulsion, an urgent need inside me. It’s a black hole of emotion sucking me down its vortex, and I can’t control it until I claw and scratch my way out—

“If you’re that worried, you can always use my stomach as a pillow,” Bodin says.

The words are so outrageous that my swirling, repetitive, run-on thoughts screech to a halt.

“Wh—what?” I stutter.

“My abs. You can lay your head on them.” To demonstrate, Bodin stretches out his long frame directly onto the sand. No sleeping bag whatsoever. I don’t know how he can stand it.
He then lifts up his shirt and pats his stomach. Even in the moonlight, I can see the distinct lines of his six-pack.

“Um.” I try to string together a coherent thought. “No, thank you.”

“You’re right.” Bodin sits up, and his shirt slides back into place, thank goodness. Being this close to his bare skin is scrambling my brain. “I wouldn’t want to put my head on this slab of rock, either. It would be like trying to sleep on granite.”

He grins, and I can’t stop myself from mirroring his lips. That smile is infectious, even if I feel awkward standing here while he’s sitting.

Bodin furrows his brows, thinking hard. “I know. Maybe my chest can serve as your pillow.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, though, he’s shaking his head. “Nah, that would never work.
Have you seen the size of these pecs?” Cartoonishly, he makes his pecs bounce. “I would never subject you to such torture.”

I giggle. Bodin’s got a lean, ropy frame with plenty of muscle—but a body builder, he is not.

He shakes his head mournfully. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. Because I am a gentleman, and because it might be the only soft part of this well-honed body…” He pauses dramatically. “I will offer my butt as a pillow.”

I burst out laughing. If Bodin was trying to distract me from my emotions, mission accomplished. He pulled me out of myself and grounded me in the physical world. I carefully lay out my sleeping bag and sit down on it, making sure not a single piece of sand touches me.

“Gee, let me think.” I tilt my head, pretending to give his offer deep thought. “I’ll take my chances with my sleeping bag, thank you very much.”

“You wound me.” Bodin clutches at his heart. “What’s the problem? Is my butt not big enough? I demand a critique.”

This is the most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever had. “Your butt’s fine.”

He grins slyly. “Why, Alaia. Is this your way of telling me that you’ve been checking out my backside?”

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

A scene that would be absolutely crucial would be the first time that Alaia realizes that something is definitely not right about this island.

“Lola.” I approach the curled-up ball of human. “Are you okay?”

She gives no indication that she’s heard me.

Sometime during the night, she turned from loud and hysterical to silent and still. It worries me more than if she were still screaming. Usually when people go silent like that, it means that something truly awful has occurred inside them. Something broken and beyond repair.

“Lola,” I say, a little louder this time.

She lifts her head as the final drops of rain fall and the sun ascends the sky, casting an orange-and-pink glow. The wind dies down, and the sea, once troubled, goes calm.

“I’m so happy I could cry,” Lola says, wiping a tear from her cheek.

I blink. Here, I thought she was in a state beyond terror, and yet she seems relatively stable…

That’s when she chokes. Oh no. We’d passed around a portion of beef jerky, and then pieces of a couple granola bars last night. Is there still a piece in her mouth? Will one of us have to perform the Heimlich maneuver? Was she so desperate for food that she ate the ruby red fruit? Is she going into anaphylactic shock, like me?

But even as I’m leaping to my feet, about to yell for help, a single golden flower floats from her mouth and drifts lazily onto the bamboo slats.

Readers should read this book …

…because it is an epic adventure brimming with intriguing psychic abilities drawn from Thai folktales, swoony romance, and heartwarming family relationships.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

We are working on our next co-authored project together, which we hope we will be able to tell you about very soon!

Pintip’s next novel will be Seasick, a YA thriller that she co-authored with Kristin Cast. Seasick will be released in June 2024.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: (1) One hardcover of THE LOTUS FLOWER CHAMPION, U.S. only

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from The Lotus Flower Champion:

The penny arcs out, out, out . . . …and then vanishes into the inky black waves that crash and unfurl against the coarse strip of beach. The Gulf of Thailand might be bigger, more dramatic, than any wishing well. But it swallows my desperate hope just as thoroughly. Just as uselessly.

I march across the wet sand, in my white canvas sneakers, trying to convince myself not to count my steps. Taking my shoes off is out of the question. My bare feet haven’t touched any kind of ground in four years.

It’s okay. It will be okay. It has to be okay.

If I tell myself enough times, maybe I’ll actually believe it. Even though my long-time therapist has failed to convince me otherwise. Even if the hollow in my chest proves that there are some things that will never be okay, no matter how much effort we pour into “living for the moment” or “creating lasting memories.”

I leave the beach and trudge up the steps to our private villa, pausing to wash my feet in a basin of water. I laboriously dry every inch of my feet and then trade in my sneakers for a pair of satiny house slippers. When I walk inside, Mama’s sitting on the white-and-green striped couch.

“Ah, so Alaia lives!” she sings out. “I was beginning to think you were trying to steal my thunder, young lady. Not fair, when I had to suffer three rounds of chemo to get this close to dying.”

“That’s not funny, Mama.” And it’s not. But I’m just as guilty as Papa, just as guilty as the grief counselors, because I force my lips up anyway.

This is Mama’s last trip. Her final wish. A vacation with her family in Koh Samui, where she was born, the place of her birth, while she’s still healthy enough to enjoy it.

And damn it, she will enjoy it. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make Mama smile fifty times on this trip.

Her face catches the glow of the recessed lights. Her skin is still smooth, with only a few lines around her tapered eyes to reveal her age. With only a pallor to her light brown skin that betrays her illness. A Thai silk scarf is tied around her head. After her surgery, Papa bought a dozen scarves from her favorite silk house, each one brighter and more cheerful than the last.

It’s as though he can keep Mama alive by the brilliance of those colors alone.

Mama flicks the peacock-feather ends out of her face as I sit down on the other end of the couch. “Maybe I don’t want to be wise and appropriate all the time. Did you ever think of that?”

My heart twinges. Already, our family, neighbors, and friends talk about Mama in the hallowed tones of the dead. Celebrating every award she’s ever won, tallying the patients she’s saved. Putting her on a pedestal on which only the deceased can balance.

“I’m no saint,” Mama continues. “No matter how much it comforts A-ma to think of me that way.”

“Maybe you really are that good,” I venture. “Maybe you truly are that kind.”

Her face softens, and she presses her hand against mine. I don’t like touch, as a general rule — —it makes me feel like I have bugs crawling under my skin. But Mama’s touch is warm, comforting. Safe. Much like Mama herself. I don’t know what I’ll do when I no longer have access to it.

Blinking rapidly, I look away and scan the room. Whoever decorated this villa did not have an eye for symmetry. The painting of an ocean liner is askew, the potted plants are a few inches off-center, and white shells are scattered haphazardly on the glass coffee table. I am itching with all my might to fix the disorder.

Don’t, Alaia. If you fix one thing, it will tempt you to fix more. Do not squander this moment with Mama. You don’t know how many you have left.

Despite my pep talk, I reach out my hand automatically. I move one seashell, so that it’s perfectly aligned with another — —and I would’ve moved a second and a third and a fourth — —but Mama clears her throat.

Guiltily, I pull my hands away, my cheeks flushing hot at being caught. “I know. I know.”

Mama just looks at me, her eyes gentle with understanding.

Lining up the seashells will not make me safer. I know that. And yet, logic can’t stop the feeling that rises in me. It’s like the universe is out of balance, the seashells a cosmic event that distorts my reality, and nothing can be right until I return the chaos to order.

I grit my teeth. With incredible effort, I walk to the end table and pick up Mama’s medicine box. Shaking the assortment of orange, white, and light blue pills into my palm, I offer them to Mama.

It’s my job to prepare Mama’s medication. She used to do it for me when I was a little girl, giving me my pills every night, without fail. Now, it’s my turn to return the favor.

Just then, the door knob rattles, and Papa walks in with a guy who looks slightly older than my seventeen years.

Mama perks up, and I try to figure out what to do with my hands. The guy is cute, no doubt about it.

He’s incredibly tall, with black close-cropped hair and a muscular body. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones. A nose that flares slightly at the bottom, and golden brown eyes framed by thick lashes.

What strikes me most about him, however, is that he looks biracial, like me. Maybe he, too, has an Asian mom and a white dad, or vice versa.

“Alaia. Sweetheart. I’d like you to meet Bodin,” Papa says. We’ve only been here a couple of days, and Papa’s cheeks already radiate sun-kissed. “He’s the boatswain on our yacht tour tomorrow, and he stopped by to introduce himself.”

“How lovely,” Mama says, eyes bright.

Bodin crosses the tile in a few long strides and bends his head over prayer-clasped hands in a wai, the Thai greeting of respect. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Pa Moh,” he says smoothly to Mama. “I will take good care of you and your family tomorrow.”

Pa Moh, Auntie doctor. Two honorifics in one phrase, befitting the respect the Thai people have for both elders and physicians.

This guy knows exactly what he’s doing.

I guess Mama falls for it because she pats his shoulder, each light tap broadcasting to me a message that’s as clear as the chlorinated pool water. See here? See how nice this boy is? How polite. How handsome.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she responds. “And since we’re leaving so early, I should turn in. Would you mind walking Bodin out, Alaia? I’d like Papa to help me up the stairs.”

My eyes widen. By her second statement, my heart’s pounding furiously against my chest. Seriously? She’s picking now to play matchmaker? This trip is about her, about us, spending meaningful time together. Not about me awkwardly flirting with a boy who will ultimately have no significance in my life.

But there’s only one response, and that’s the polite one. “I’d be happy to.”

Mama beams. “Wonderful. That way, you young people can get to know each other.”

I bend down to hug her good night. “Do not play the death card,” I mutter in her ear. “It’s painfully unattractive.”

“I’m not playing anything.” Her eyes flash. “It’s all true. I do want you settled. And I really am . . . …dying.”

Her voice cracks on the last word, along with my heart. Annoyance forgotten, I kneel in front of her, dropping my head on her lap. She threads her fingers through my hair like she wants to keep the strands forever.

“I love you, Mama,” I say, and she smiles.

Six, I think. I’ve made her smile six times this trip. I wish I could magic away her cancer this easily.

She and Papa leave, and I beckon Bodin toward the front door. We walk outside into the balmy night. The palm trees sway gently in the breeze, and a million stars stud the black blanket of sky, making the short lamps that light the way redundant. Thailand even smells different than America — —hot and sultry and somehow safe, even though I only visit A-ma and the rest of my extended family once a year.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” Bodin says, his voice low and scratchy, as we stop at the edge of the curving driveway. “I know how it feels to lose someone, too.”

Our gazes meet, and my chest gives a swift, hard bump — —the ache of one lonely person recognizing another.

“Who did you lose?” I ask, although it’s none of my business. But I can’t help it. The pain in his eyes wipes out every nicety Mama’s ever taught me.

His jaw tightens. “It was a long time ago.”

A minute passes, maybe two, as I try to figure out how to smooth over the awkward moment.

I’m just about to blurt out a goodbye and run back inside, when he looks up, his smile easy-going once more. The transition is so smooth, so seamless, that I have to blink.

“See those seven stars shining in the sky?” He points, neatly changing the subject. The warmth of his tone makes my stomach fall to the rocky beach. Because I’ve seen his real face now. Glimpsed his actual emotions. And so, I recognize the tone for what it is: the fake one he uses to win over tourists.

“You may know them as the constellation, the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters,” he continues. “But here in Thailand, we call those stars the mother hen and her six chicks.”

The light from the lamps flickers over his face, highlighting some of his features and shadowing others, as he starts to tell me the legend.

An elderly couple wanted to make merit by providing a meal for a monk. Their pet, a mother hen, was happy to give her life for the good duty of feeding the monk, but her six chicks cried and pleaded with her to stay with them. The next day, the hen was boiled… and out of love for their mother, the baby chicks jumped into the pot after her. Because of their deep, abiding love for one another, the mother hen and her chicks were reincarnated as stars in the sky.

It is a lovely story, a poignant one. I’m sure I’ll never look at this constellation the same way again. And he’s a wonderful storyteller, his voice weaving magic, encouraging me to succumb to the wonder of it all. That must be the one he uses when he gives tours.

“That’s super tragic and super touching, all at the same time,” I say.

“As folktales often are,” he agrees, an indentation appearing on his cheeks. Of course he would have a dimple.

For a moment, I yearn for a different life. One where my mother isn’t dying. One where I’m free to have a meaningless holiday fling. One where I was actually confident enough to pursue it. But there’s no point in wishing for the impossible.

He returns his attention to the sky. “Tomorrow we’ll see the wildest things,” he muses. “Homes nestled high on the rocky islands. The people who live there have to bring even their drinking water over by boat. Other islands are a little bigger, with a restaurant, maybe a few stores. Still others are so remote that they have yet to be discovered.”

“Then, how do we know they’re there?” I ask.

“Rumors. Speculation.” He slides a glance at me. “Do you believe in legends, Alaia?”

“I don’t know.” I’ve never really thought about it. “But the best lies have an element of truth. These stories are so old, they’re probably based on something. Right?”

He nods, as though pleased by my answer. “Thailand runs through your blood. A country of folktales and legends, of myths and superstition. Some people dismiss the old beliefs as simply that: old. But not me. Not you. We know better.”

I shiver. My logical side blames the sudden gust of wind, but my deeper gut acknowledges the true source: the piercing timbre of his voice, the raw candor in his eyes. An old soul, this one. I’m not used to guys my age being this deep, but I kinda like it.

A screech pulls me from my thoughts, followed by a cacophony of barks, chirps, and clicks.
“What is that?”

He flinches. “That’s the sound of two chingchok lizards fighting on the wall.”

“So?” I ask, not understanding the reluctance in his tone. “Why does it make you look like you want to hide behind the palm tree?”

He shakes his head, as though he doesn’t want to answer, but the noise crescendos. The lizards must be nearing the climax of their duel.

“The fighting is an omen of evil,” he says haltingly. “It foretells that your family will suffer illness, maybe even death, in the near future.”

I shrug, with a nonchalance I don’t feel. Have never felt. “Mama has cancer. It’s terminal. I don’t need a pair of chingchoks to tell me that she’s going to die.”

“No, not just Pah Moh.” He chews on his lip, as though debating whether to continue. “You shouldn’t take this to heart. Ultimately, it’s just a couple of reptiles in their natural habitat. But the omen… well, it’s meant to apply to your entire family.”

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

It looks like paradise… only it’s not.

This was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Thailand. One last wish for my dying mama. Instead, we’re stranded on a lush, stunning island with ten strangers — held captive as Thai mythology unfolds around us…and within us.

Now we’re being tested. We’re expected to face our greatest fears — and possible deaths — in hopes of awakening some kind of dormant gift… or curse. One by one, we’re transforming, echoing the strange and sometimes wonderful abilities found in Thai folktales.

But my mama only has days to live, my papa is missing, and I’m forced to trust a group of strangers… including our evasive, dark-eyed tour guide, who resembles a minor god. Toss me in the ocean and feed me to the naga now.

Only I’m no hero. My days are managed by numbers and the compulsions that used to keep me safe.

I have to prove how far I can go. To survive. To protect my family.

And to find a way off this perilous island where everything is a lie… including reality.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Goodreads |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Pintip:

A first-generation Thai American, Pintip Dunn grew up in a tiny town in Kansas. She went on to graduate from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B., and to receive her J.D. at Yale Law School.

Pintip is a two-time RITA® award winner and a New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction. Her books have been translated into four languages, and they have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year.

She’s obsessed with penguins, and her childhood dream was to marry someone whose last name is “Gwynn” — so that her name could be “Pin Gwynn.” Alas, she got stuck with Dunn instead, but her husband and three children are worth the sacrifice.

Love:

Love Dunn is a high school junior. She has a deep passion for storytelling and has written fourteen manuscripts to date. Her other interests include dance, volleyball, piano, violin, and public speaking. Her favorite activity, however, is cuddling her dog, Strawberry. She frequently engages in writing sprints with her mom — and easily beats Pintip’s word count every time.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | | Instagram |