YvonneToday it is my pleasure to have been offered the opportunity by Aria Fiction, to share in the Blog Tour for this new contemporary romance, and as the author was born not a million miles away from my own neck of the woods, of course I jumped at the chance.
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Packed full of French flavour and idyllic settings this is a romantic, heart-warming and unputdownable new novel about life and love, perfect for anyone who loves Milly Johnson, Lucy Diamond and Debbie Johnson.
Suddenly unemployed and single, Anna escapes to her parents’ beautiful house in France for a much needed recharge – and to work out what she wants to do next with her life now her carefully mapped out plan has gone out the window.
Anna gives herself 6 months to recuperate, all the while helping renovate her parents’ adjoining gites into picturesque B&Bs.
But working alongside the ruggedly handsome Sam on the renovation project, she didn’t expect for life to take an unexpected, if not unwelcome, twist…
Clicking on the book’s title will link you directly with it’s Goodreads listing.
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LUCY COLEMAN (AKA LINN B. HALTON)
Bristol born, Lucy currently lives in Coed Duon, in Wales, with her lovely husband and Bengal cat, Ziggy, although they are both self-confessed ‘seriel movers’, with Lucy, in her other guise as Linn B. Halton, also being known for her series of ‘Home By Design’ articles, wearing her former interior designer hat!
Writing as Linn B. Halton, her novels have been short-listed in the UK’s Festival of Romance and the eFestival of Words Book Awards.
Linn also won the 2013 UK Festival of Romance: Innovation in Romantic Fiction award.
So why the change of name?
Literally a couple of days before Christmas 2016 I submitted to three agents and by early March 2017 I had signed with the awesome Sara Keane, from the Keane Kataria Literary Agency. It wasn’t long before I was signing my first, four-book deal with Aria Fiction. As I’m still writing for Harper Impulse as Linn B. Halton, my books for Aria Fiction will go out under my new pen name of Lucy Coleman. Having Sara in my corner, helping me to work on my finished manuscripts to make them the best they can be and introducing my work to Aria Fiction, has sharpened my focus. I’m no longer thinking one book at a time, but forward planning. As each day passes I’m feeling more and more like a Lucy,
Lucy Coleman is the Nom de Plume of author Linn B. Halton. Keep up to date with all the latest news at Linn’s website
Follow Lucy on Twitter
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Aria Fiction and Lucy Coleman, have selected this short short introductory excerpt, which also happens to be the opening lines from the book, for me to share with you as my contribution to this lovely Blog Tour…
“THE L WORD”
Two weeks today will be the first anniversary of our first real date. Being wined and dined in a chic little French restaurant was a gigantic step forward; it signalled the beginning of a new era in my relationship with Karl. Even though at least half of the meal was spent talking about work, his intentions were clear – we were no longer simply colleagues and romance was in the air.
Since then, Karl must have told me that he loves me more than a thousand times. You might think I’m exaggerating, but I can assure you that’s not the case. He usually manages to slip it into the conversation at least three times a day.
The first time he said the L word to me, it slid off his tongue so easily I could almost have missed it. It wasn’t a staring into each other’s eyes moment of discovery, just a casual ‘love you, babe’.
As the months rolled by, I pushed aside my growing fear that it was only a word to him. Because it means so much more to me, I freeze whenever he tacks it onto a sentence. And, yes, I’m very aware that my air of disapproval does make me sound ungrateful and undeserving. But it’s all about self-preservation, you see. I’ll never utter that word again until I’m one hundred per cent certain that the man I’m saying it to believes I’m their soul mate too – the perfect fit.
The last time I uttered the L word, was six years ago. It was to a guy I’d known since childhood and the man I genuinely believed I would marry when the time was right. He was handsome in a rugged way, fired up with ambition and exciting to be around. Sadly, everyone we knew thought we were the perfect couple too, except the guy in question, as it turned out.
Will arrived in my life when I was a very precocious pre-teen and counting down the days to attaining that revered status. I had this fervent belief that overnight my whole life would change. And it did when Will and his family moved into the house next door. It seemed living proof of that fact because in a ridiculously short space of time he became everything to me. The first glance that passed between us was magical and the best birthday present I could ever have been given.
As classmates, we were best friends throughout those traumatic school years when your hormones are changing you in ways you don’t always understand. With it comes a rollercoaster of incredible highs and devastating lows. Dictated by important events in your life like whose party you are invited to and which group you hang around in, you need one true friend. Will was mine and I was his – life couldn’t get any better. But it did … until the day he broke my heart……
‘I write heart-warming stories about life, love and relationships. Above all it’s about the feelgood factor, as isn’t everyone simply chasing the dream of a happy life with the one they love? And dreams do, often, come true but in real life it’s seldom a case of everything instantly falling into place. So I write about the journey …
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Thank you so much for being on the tour – hope you have a great Wednesday!
Hi Lucy,
A very busy Wednesday. Work in the charity retail sector is never predictable. It has been a toy and DVD day for donations, so hoping for a change tomorrow!
I always enjoy taking part in Blog Tours, especially when I am also drawn to the book in question. Although I have very eclectic reading habits, I am not generally a huge fan of contemporary romance. However ‘The French Adventure’ certainly has a most intriguing story line, with the fact that it is set in such a beautiful country only adding to the flavour.
I don’t know f you have any influence over the cover art at all, but it is particularly eye catching and bright. Most importantly for me, it also has a tangible tie in with the story itself.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and the door here at Fiction Books is always open, should you ever wish to submit a guest post 🙂
Really not my cup of tea, but it sounds interesting. In fact, it sounds like it might be much deeper than a typical light-hearted romance. I bet it’s no coincidence that this discourse on the L-word was assigned to Valentine’s day. 😉 It’s a holiday I’ve never been particularly fond of and as for that word, I have mixed emotions about it’s use (or overuse) in conversation.
Ugh… I know I typed “its” as a possessive… so I’m blaming autocorrect! 😀
You have no idea how often I notice a mistake as soon as I hit the ‘send’ button, only to realise that not every blog I visit has an edit button for commenters.
It is just fortunate that WordPress has that function enabled on Fiction Books, so that I can at least go back in and edit out the mistakes in my replies and comments here 🙂
Hi Kelly,
I completely agree with you about the ‘L’ and ‘V’ words. Totally overused, with no real thought behind their true meaning. Valentine’s is not a day we ever recognise, in fact we have never bothered sending each other Birthday, Christmas or Anniversay cards or gifts either, although of course we do celebrate the occasions, but usually on our own as a couple and in a very small way.
Actually, there were several extracts I could have chosen for my space on the Blog Tour and I only picked the L word because they featured the opening lines from the book, which I felt were most relevant. Nothing more intriguing or interesting than that, I’m afraid 🙂
Like yourself, I am not a huge fan of contemporary romance or romcoms, but this particular story line does seem to have some substance about it and the fact that it is set in such a beautiful country, only adds to the interest for me.
I have another Blog Tour stop tomorrow and I think that one might be more up your reading street!
Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
I really like the sound of this one. I don’t read heaps of romantic fiction but occasionally I fancy something light, usually set in France so this ticks a number of boxes for me. I shall keep an eye out for it.
We don’t do Valentine’s cards either, or Valentine’s Day to be honest. I tend to think it nicer to appreciate your partner all year round, not just one day of the year.
I know that you have been enjoying quite an eclectic run of books, all with France and the French as their central theme, so I wondered if this one might appeal to you.
It’s a shame that Lucy doesn’t reveal the exact French location in the premise, but so long as there is some good descriptive narrative about the location and the local people, I shall be happy.
The prices of everything are only vastly inflated at those ‘special’ times of the year anyway, so as you so rightly say, it is much better to appreciate one another all year long and buy those little treats for one another when they won’t be expected and at a normal price!
Thanks for stopping by, it is great to chat with you 🙂
“Being wined and dined in a chic little French restaurant ” sounds like my idea of a fun time. Enjoy your tour posts this week! This book looks good. It is funny about the L word, how many times we say it to our significant other, almost routinely. Hundreds of thousands of times during a long marriage I’d think.
Hi Naida
We both enjoy just about any style of cuisine, although good French food is always usually ‘par excellence’. When we lived in our last house, we had a lovely little French restaurant not too far away, where the front of house was managed by the French wife and the cooking overseen by her Irish husband. We drove back over that way not too long ago, only to find that the restaurant is now a private house – how times change!
I know that the L word can be said a little too routinely at times, possibly without too much thought at that exact moment. However I think that this person is giving both herself and Karl an unecessarily hard time, by saying that she will only use the L word when she is guaranteed that it is the ‘real thing’ and they are going to be together forever. Feelings and circumstances change over time and although you may mean the L word completely when you say it, I don’t believe that anyone can promise 100% that it will stay the same forever. She says that it is self preservation, but she could wind up never really knowing true love if she keeps giving every opportunity the cold shoulder.