Who Says You Can't Go Home?

 

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

by Andria Henry

 

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

 

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BLURB:

 

When Toronto party girl Kylie is fired from her perfect job, she's forced to do the one thing she never wanted to do: go home. Returning to her sleepy hometown is her definition of failure. She drags herself back to the lakeside town of Camden with her tail between her legs, and she'll do whatever it takes to get back to the big city.

 

When Derek runs a routine traffic stop on a speeder, the one person he never expects to see in Camden again is Kylie. In fact, he barely recognizes her. She doesn't look like the quiet, sweet girl he had a crush on in high school.

 

Kylie's brother offers her a job back in the city if she can prove she’s changed her ways. She finds the perfect opportunity, but it means working with Derek to save the town’s waterfront. Can she look past their feud and get the job done?

 

Can she avoid falling in love with him and complicating her plans to return to the big city?

 

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EXCERPT

 

“Maybe she’s on the lam from a shady business deal gone bad.” Cate dunked her hands back into the soapy sink to grab another dish.

 

“Really.” Derek took a plate from the dish rack to dry. Maybe he shouldn’t have told his sister about running into Kylie.

 

“Or she had an affair with her boss and needs to hide to raise their love child in peace.”

 

“You watch too much TV.”

 

“Why else would she be in town when it’s not Christmas?”

 

“She’s probably just visiting her parents or something.” Derek put the plate away.

 

“Well did she say anything to you?”

 

“Mostly she apologized for speeding then yelled at me when I gave her the ticket.”

 

“She’s lucky you didn’t throw her in jail.” She flicked dish water at him.

 

“Speeding isn’t exactly an indictable offense.”

 

“I’ve seen you throw folks in the cell for less. Someone endangering the citizens of Camden by driving like that?” She side-eyed him. “Are you going soft?”

 

“What? No.” He took another plate to dry.

 

“Wait, are you still sweet on her? It’s been like ten years.”

 

“Did you just say, ‘sweet on’? Am I eighteen again? No. She seems to be even more of a snob now than she was back in school.”

 

She huffed and fished around in the soapy sink for the cutlery.

 

“Besides she’s so…different. I didn’t even recognize her at first.”

 

“But she looked good, right?” She grinned and bumped her hip against his.

 

“She looked, well, like too much.”

 

“Uh huh.”

A Word With the Author

1.Did you always want to be an author?

 

I always loved writing, in fact my parents kept a few of my earliest “publications”, books I made in Grade 2. I thought for a while that I would be a journalist, but when I got to high school, I had a definite affinity for math and science so I pursued that until becoming a high school teacher. A friend got me to join National Novel Writing Month and I’ve been working on various novels in the decade since. I only just had the “maybe I actually can be an author” realization in 2018. 

 

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

 

I was so lucky to find Champagne Book Group to publish my first book. As a small press, the team was available for questions and hand-holding throughout the process. It can be a bit overwhelming to put out a book for the first time. There is a lot that goes into it that I didn’t realize. They helped me polish the book and give it a great cover. My publisher acquired the book in November 2021, and I had a few months to do a pre-edit and get it up to their house standards. After a few rounds of edits, the book was done! Wow, that sounds like that part was easy. It wasn’t, haha. My editor noticed that the entire 4^th act of the book didn’t make sense for my characters and helped me find an ending that worked better for them. So there was some rewriting and then a whole lot of trimming and fixing. But I’m so happy with the result! 

 

By absolute magic, my book released on Canada’s Victoria Day weekend, which is the weekend of the book’s climax. I couldn’t have wished for better timing.

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

 

I love Emily Henry! Her writing is so fun and witty and swoony. I will absolutely admit to reading her books with post-its handy to study her craft. I would love to write like her someday. If you haven’t read her yet, I highly recommend.

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

 

The best part of being an author is when someone tells me that they read my book and it made them happy. This particular series is all about family, friends, humour, and happily ever afters. So hearing that it made someone happy and feel good is a huge win for me. Someone recently messaged me to say that they were in a reading slump, but they picked up my book and it was so much fun that it broke their slump. What higher praise is there than that?

 

The worst part of being an author is the unknown. Once a book is out in the world you have zero control over how it will be received. Will people love it? Will they hate it? Did I mess up in some horrible way? So I’m always learning and working to keep doing better. It’s the only way to combat those sinking feelings of potential failure.

5.What are you working on now?

 

Right now, I’m drafting Book 2 of the Camden Lake series and I’m so excited about it. I don’t mean to brag, BUT I think it’s even funnier and swoonier than Who Says You Can’t Go Home. But also, the female main character is based much more on myself this time, as she struggles with her ADHD, and so it feels like a personal mission of mine to give her the happiest of endings. And folks absolutely loved two of my side characters from Book 1 (Forrest and Edna, the adorable elderly couple that befriend Kylie) and so I’ve found away to have them hang around more for Book 2 and I’m so glad I did. They are some of my favourite characters. 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Andria Henry is the author of adult sweet romance and romantic comedy, as well as young adult and middle grade science fiction and fantasy. She firmly believes that coffee is a food group, the holiday season starts on November 1st, and that stories are our most important resource. She lives with her husband, kids, and furkids in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

https:/www.andriahenry.ca

https://twitter.com/andriaontherun

https://www.facebook.com/andriahenryauthor

https://www.pinterest.ca/andriaontherun/_saved/

https://www.instagram.com/andriaontherun/

https://www.goodreads.com/andriaontherun

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

 

Andria Henry will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway