Book Tour: Follow Me, Follow You.
Author: Laura E. James
PB: Choc Lit Paperback and Digital
Release Date: 7th September 2014
Blurb:
You save
me and I'll save you...
Victoria
Noble has pulled the plug on romance. As director of the number one social
networking site, EweSpeak, and single mother to four-year-old Seth, she
wrestles with the work-life balance.
Enter
Chris Frampton, Hollywood action hero and Victoria's first love. His return
from LA has sparked a powder keg of media attention, and with secrets
threatening to fuel the fire, he's desperate to escape.
But
finding a way forward is never simple. Although his connection with Victoria is
as strong as when he was nineteen, has he been adrift too long to know how to
move on?
With the
risk of them breaking, will either #follow their heart?
Excerpt:
Victoria was
attempting to create the impression she was engrossed in her work. From the
moment Dan collected Seth, she’d buried her head in buff-coloured files,
raising it once to study her monitor. At that moment, she realised Juliette was
watching her.
‘I’m
all right, Joo, honestly.’ That was a lie. She was preoccupied with thoughts of
Chris Frampton returning home, considering ways to stop EweSpeak’s Board of
Directors from travelling a destructive path, and despairing over her
non-existent relationship with her son. She grimaced. ‘Apart from the blinding
headache.’
She
thrust herself away from the desk and rubbed the back of her neck. Her life was
too cluttered for her to make informed decisions, and too many demands were
being made of her, emotionally and physically. Something had to give. ‘I could
do without this stupid business with the board.’
‘Do
you think they’ll go ahead?’
Victoria
huffed. ‘Of course they will. They’re motivated by money. They’ll do whatever
it takes to keep their bank accounts full and their fat backsides comfortable.’
‘But
they have a duty of loyalty, and their report states the move will secure the
future of EweSpeak—’
‘It
only secures their position, Juliette. Let’s face facts. We made bad choices,
electing certain members to the board. We were blinded by their past successes.
They’re cut-throat businessmen with reputations to uphold.’ Victoria swung her
chair round and gaped at her sister. ‘I’ll bet a year’s salary there’ll be
redundancies.’
‘But
if charging clients to join will increase profits—’
Victoria
cut her off again. ‘Did you miss the bit where they proposed paying celebrities
for exclusive bleats? It’s ridiculous. It won’t work. People will opt out. Our
followers enjoy the personal contact, the chance to hold a discussion with
like-minded souls, maybe even exchange a bleat with their idol. If it’s
sensationalism they want, they’ll buy a glossy magazine, or worse, they’ll
flock to our competitors. They won’t subscribe to our network.’ She shook her
head. ‘It has disaster written all over it.’
‘I
don’t see it. The board’s acting in the company’s best interest. We have to
make money. And it’s not just their pockets they’re lining, is it?’ Juliette
waved a hand in the direction of the window. ‘I don’t hear you complaining
about the flashy, two-seater sports car you’ve parked in our private garage.’
Victoria
reached for the remote on her desk, and switched on the TV. ‘I need a break.’
She stood, gave her arms a stretch, and walked across to the sofa, collapsing
into it, irascible and frustrated. Surely Juliette wasn’t voting with the
board? Victoria cast her eyes to the large screen, scoured through the
programme guide, and settled on a news channel.
It
was a mistake.
Wherever
her eyes fell – the TV, online, mobile applications – Chris’s then
thirty-five-year-old haunted face appeared, vacant, pale and broken. There was
no escape from the dated footage of him being jostled out of the way of
bloodthirsty, aggressive photographers or being hustled into his ranch house by
burly security men. Victoria had seen the images thirty, maybe forty times in
the last couple of years. Every piece of technology in her office was
broadcasting his grief all over again, and each time his name was typed,
bleated, or beamed across the Internet, and for every second his tormented
features were on public display, Victoria was on trial. Her technology, the
company, the brand she had developed and grown was helping prolong his terror.
To see this beautiful man reduced to a floorshow for the cheap seats made her
sick to the stomach.
She
jumped at a touch to her arm.
‘Are
you okay?’ Juliette took the remote from Victoria, switched off the TV, and sat
down. ‘I’m sorry I called him your obsession. This must be hard for you.’
Victoria
shrugged. Although she understood Juliette’s concern, she didn’t appreciate
intrusion, and sharing, as her sister called it, was not Victoria’s way.
There’d been far too much of that already. A small shudder ran through her.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said, hoping a few words, regardless of content, would
appease Juliette.
Author
Bio:
Laura is married
and has two children. She lives in Dorset, but spent her formative years in
Watford, a brief train ride away from the bright lights of London. Here she
indulged her love of live music, and, following a spectacular Stevie Nicks gig,
decided to take up singing, a passion that scored her second place in a
national competition.
Laura is a
graduate of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme, a member
of her local writing group, Off The Cuff, and an editor of the popular
Romaniacs blog.
Laura was
runner-up twice in the Choc Lit Short Story competitions. Her story Bitter
Sweet appears in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Anthology. Truth
or Dare?, Laura’s debut novel, was shortlisted for the Festival of Romantic
Fiction Best Romantic eBook 2013 and the 2014 Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Award.
Follow me, follow you is Laura’s first Choc Lit novel published in
paperback.
Book Trailer
The
Giveaway on this tour will be a paperback copy of the book.
Thank you for being part of the tour. x
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for featuring Follow Me, Follow You today :-)
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