Title: HELLO, MY LOVE
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Sojourner Books
Pages: 317
Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction
In this modern-day tale inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride
and Prejudice, bright, beautiful law student Elise Halverson looks forward
to a promising career. Falling in love is low in her priorities.
Well-known playboy Greg Thorpe is engaged to be
married when he meets Elise. He finds her so unlike the women he used to date
and he’s deeply intrigued. Distrusting the image she has of him, Elise avoids
him.
But Elise’s parents invite Greg to their frequent
dinner parties. There, Greg and Elise butt heads. She’s surprised to find that,
behind his rich playboy persona, he’s intelligent and engaging.
The night before his wedding, they give in to
their mutual attraction. Although Elise expects nothing more from that night,
Greg is in for trouble. His jilted fiancée strikes back, intent on revenge.
Two years later Greg and Elise get a second chance
but they find that the way to their happy-ever-after is not so easy.
At the core of this women’s fiction is a
literary and realistic romance spiced with a twist of mystery. Hello My Love
is Book 1 in the series Between Two Worlds, a family saga about three strong
women.
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“Going to your parents’ dinner tonight?” Elise could
not help smiling at the text message.
She texted back: “Yes. See you.”
Greg had been sending her text messages for some
time. Often, they were greetings, in the morning, at night, on school holidays;
or good luck wishes on exams, debates, and mock trials. Sometimes, he asked her
opinion or a question about a legal matter or some fact of interest to either
of them. She answered most of those messages although he told her she did not
need to, if they were the usual greetings.
Before they met, Elise had known Greg—from
numerous news reports—as the young, progressive owner of a growing
internet-based business, and one of the country’s twenty-five most eligible
bachelors. The consensus in the media, especially among women reporters: tall,
dark, and handsome. But Greg also had a reputation as a playboy, whose many
romances were fodder for gossip columns. While Elise hesitated judging looks
and personality, sight unseen, she was certain of one thing. She distrusted the
likes of men such as Greg.
But that was a year ago.
Since he began consulting with her father, Dr.
Halverson, an economics professor, Greg had been to many dinners at her
parents' home. There, Elise got to know him better.
Now, when curious acquaintances learned she knew
Greg, they invariably asked, and Elise hardly ever varied her answer: “Yes, to
news reports. Greg Thorpe is tall—taller than my father who’s more than six
feet. Dark—tanned from jogging, bushy hair the color of French Roast woven with
golden strands. And beautiful—clean-cut, cleft chin, smiling greyish blue eyes,
and, yeah, lean. But, I think, muscular. I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him
without his clothes on.”
It always amused her that her incantation never
failed to elicit sighs from young women.
Elise was about to slip her iPhone into her shirt
pocket when it rang. Greg—she expected that. He often answered her text
messages within minutes of her sending them, usually by texting. Once in a
while, he called instead.
“Hello, Elise. How’s the light of my life this
afternoon?” Greg said, in his teasing voice.
“Greg, hi. That’s quick. Aren’t you busy?”
“Not for you. And I’m glad you picked up. I was
afraid you’d turn off your phone again.”
“I can't turn it on in class, when I'm studying,
or when I’m at work, and that’s almost my whole day.”
“Are you staying over at your parents after
dinner?”
“I don’t plan such things. Depends. How late it is
when dinner ends, whether I have some easy way to get back to my apartment, how
guilty I feel about not having seen my parents for a while, etc., etc.”
“I see. It’s Friday so I thought you‘re staying
the night with them. Can I give you a ride home?”
Elise protested. “But I live across the bay.
That's sixty more miles of driving for you, both ways.”
“Less than an hour in my fast powerful car.”
She smiled. Only when she opened up to him a few
months after they first met did she realize that Greg had a wry, often
self-mocking, sense of humor.
She teased him back. “But don't you need your
beauty sleep? Aren't you getting married in two days? I’m surprised you’re even
coming to my parents’ dinner party. I always thought weddings were exhausting.
Don’t you need to rest up for yours?”
“Think of this as my last fling.”
“Isn't that when your buddies get you all soused
and cavorting with some pretty young things? You definitely need stamina for
that.”
He groaned. “I’m afraid you have this unflattering
image of me. But, believe it or not, that prospect doesn’t excite me. I feel
too old for all that.”
“Thirty-two’s not old. To me, old is decrepit.
You’re not quite there yet.”
“I'm glad you think so. Twenty-year olds think
thirty is old”
“I turned twenty-three a few weeks ago,” she said,
her smile replaced with pursed lips.
“That still makes you a young thing in my book.
What if I cavort with you?”
Elise scowled. She couldn’t think of a quick
retort, which she knew Greg had come to expect from her. It was not that what
he said irritated her. And she didn’t actually dislike it. But she felt a vague
sense of unease in her chest.
“I'm kidding. I know you're not the cavorting
type. But we’re buddies, right? Well, more like sparring partners, maybe. Don’t
buddies kid around?”
That’s it, Elise thought. I’m not the pretty,
young cavorting type. At least, I didn’t think he thought so. It didn’t annoy
her, but it did bother her in some way. She did not answer.
He added in a softer voice, “Am I wrong?”
She picked up an edge to his voice and she
hesitated through the ensuing silence; for her, an uneasy silence relieved only
by his audible breathing. He was going to wait until she said something.
“I guess we are…friends, or whatever you wanna
call it. That makes everything all right, then; kidding included. So, yes, you
can take me home tonight. What’s sixty miles between buddies? No guilt, on my
part, that you're going out of your way. I gotta run.” She hung up and did not
wait for his reply.
Evy Journey has
always been fascinated with words and seduced by beautiful prose. She loves
Jane Austen and invokes her spirit every time she spins tales of love, loss,
and finding one's way—stories she interweaves with mystery or intrigue and sets
in various locales. SPR (Self Publishing Review) awarded Evy the 2015
Independent Woman Author bronze for her writing.
She's lived and
traveled in many places, from Asia to Europe. Often she's ended up in Paris,
though—her favorite place in the world. She's an observer-wanderer. A flâneuse,
as the French would say.
The mind is
what fascinates her most. Armed with a Ph.D., she researched and spearheaded
the development of mental health programs. And wrote like an academic. Not a
good thing if you want to sound like a normal person. So, in 2012, she began to
write fiction (mostly happy fiction) as an antidote.
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