Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: For You I'd Break by Hannah Jordan @GoddessFish

FOR YOU I'D BREAK

Hannah Jordan

GENRE: Contemporary Romance

BLURB:

When Rowan’s two-year marriage ends with a crash, she returns home to Peace Falls, VA, riding shotgun in her sister’s 1990 Cadillac hearse. Everything about her is damaged: her heart, her pride, her bank account, and her spine—thanks to a tourist, a Segway, and finding her husband getting busy with her boss. But Rowan is determined to reclaim her career and city life as soon as she recuperates and lands a new job.

Caleb “Cal” Cardoso didn’t notice wallflower Rowan in high school, but the former football star, and Peace Falls’s newest physical therapist, can’t take his eyes off the stunning redhead now. Too bad he’s sworn off relationships. After his last hookup purposely tanked his online reputation, Cal stands to lose his job if a single patient leaves his care. Which is why he can’t let Rowan switch to another practitioner, despite the friction between them, and why he definitely can’t act on his growing attraction.

Rowan agrees to remain Cal’s patient if he helps her younger brother train for football tryouts. Though Cal hasn’t touched a football since the accident that killed his best friend, he agrees, and as Cal helps heal Rowan’s body, she begins to heal his heart.

For You I’d Break is a small town romance with a hefty dash of spice, a HEA ending, and a cast of memorable characters, including a goth sculptor who secretly loves to decorate cakes, a fearsome-looking felon with a heart of gold, a hothead with a sweet side, a karma-devoted barista who collects damaged pets and first dates, and a lovable dog with more emotional sense than everyone put together.

Purchase FOR YOU I'D BREAK @ Amazon

Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

 

Excerpt:

Just then, the second door opened and out walked Caleb Cardoso in a pair of slate gray scrubs. Years of watching him swagger down school hallways and sprint across football fields did nothing to prepare me. He’d added more muscle to his lean frame, his broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. His dark, tousled hair looked styled to suggest he’d just climbed out of bed after an all-night sexfest. His jaw was sharper, his cheek bones more chiseled. When he looked at me with those rich chocolate eyes, all the air left my lungs.

“Mrs. Norris,” he said, glancing at the tablet in his hands.

The sound of my married name lifted the lust fog from my brain. “Please call me Rowan,” I said, relieved I’d finally managed to speak in his presence.

He studied my face, frowned, and looked back at his tablet. “Nice to meet you,” he said, studying my face again. “I’m Cal. Take a seat on the first table.”

Lauren would have politely told him that we were two years apart in school. Poppy would have flipped the embarrassment of being forgotten back onto Cal with a snide comment about his observation skills. Not that anyone ever forgot Poppy. I just turned my back to him and hoped he hadn’t seen my cheeks burn. People often didn’t remember me, but it still stung, especially when it was someone I’d spent so much time fantasizing about in my teens. As I crossed the room, I could feel him behind me, watching my every movement.

 

Interview with Hannah Jordan

Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?

Articles and books about craft often make me think differently about fiction. I’m not sure who said it, but some of the best advice I ever read was to build the story in such a way that the plot is both inevitable and surprising. The reader gets to the end of the book and thinks, “Well, of course!” despite the plot not being obvious or trite.

How do you select the names of your characters?

Names usually pop in my head once I get a feel for the character. All the women in the Stevens family are redheads named after red flowers or berries (Rose, Rowan, and Poppy). I named Rowan and Poppy’s brother Chris because he was supposed to be Chrysanthemum if he was a redheaded girl. He’s neither, but the name stuck.

As cliché as it sounds, I try to pick names for the male characters that sound sexy.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Not unless you’re my bestie.

What was your hardest scene to write?

The first sex scene. I’d written nothing like it before. Being an avid romance reader, I’d read plenty, but writing them is something else. I’m pretty sure I blushed the entire time. My first question to my mentor Jeannie Watt was, “Were the sex scenes ok?”

These types of scenes have gotten easier to write, but I always overthink them a little. Were they too graphic? Not graphic enough? I’ve learned that people have very different opinions on spice levels. I just write what I’m comfortable writing (which apparently is a lot) and that is authentic to the characters.

Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

I’m aiming for a standalone series. I want readers to enjoy the later books, whether they’ve read the ones before. However, if read chronologically, the earlier stories enrich the later ones.

The first three books focus on three friends who survived a fatal car crash when they were eighteen, and how that event altered all of their lives. The later books will focus on characters the readers meet along the way. They are all connected to the first three characters, but were not in the crash.

What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?

I wanted to create a cast of memorable, realistic characters in a setting readers would want to return to again and again. With Rowan and Cal (and all my characters really), I wanted to show how love can help a person grow, but ultimately each individual must work on their own issues for the relationship to be successful. I think I achieved what I set out to do. The book was less comical than I originally thought it would be. There are still moments of humor, but I guess I couldn’t get away from the deeply emotional themes that characterize my literary fiction.

What inspired you to write For You I’d Break?

This book began as a dare, specifically a challenge to write a romance in one month. I confessed to a writer friend that I’d always wanted to write a romance novel, a very different genre from my usual work. She had a partial draft of a paranormal romance she wanted to finish, so we dragged our third friend along for the ride.

I expected to be very busy that month. I didn’t expect to love every minute of it. I fell in love with the characters, the story, and the thrill of writing something I couldn’t wait to read myself. In short, I was hooked.

And just to be clear, the book went through over a year of revisions and rewrites, but the first draft came together in one calendar month.

Can you tell us a little bit about the next books in the Peace Falls Series or what you have planned for the future?

I’m very excited about the rest of the series. The second book, For You I’d Mend, launched last week. It focuses on Rowan’s sister, Poppy, and Cal’s best friend, Theo. Poppy and Theo feature heavily in For You I’d Break as friends who are clearly attracted to each other. Poppy is my favorite character in the entire series, and I loved writing her story.

The third book, For You I’d Bloom, will come out in January. It’s my favorite book of the series because I fell a bit in love with the lead, Aiden. I’m currently working on edits of this book.

I know I’ll be staying in Peace Falls for at least three more books, but I’m still debating which story to write next.

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in For You I’d Break?

Rowan’s life is a hot mess. She found her husband cheating with her boss, ran out of the office, and got pinned to a tree by a Segway. The story begins with her moving back home to Peace Falls from DC with her confidence and a spine in shambles. She finds out she’ll be completing her physical therapy with her high school crush, which is both mortifying and intriguing. Despite all the bad in her life, she has a loving and supportive family. Her strengths shine through when she interacts with them. She’s incredibly kind and giving, which makes what happened with her husband all the more infuriating to the people who love her.

Caleb “Cal” Cardoso is handsome, smart, and kind, but a bit lacking in the insight department. The title is actually a reference to him, not her. He was severely injured in a car accident ten years ago that killed his friend. While he’s physically recovered, he focused on school and his career instead of dealing with his grief. He only has casual relationships with women because he hasn’t allowed himself to “break” the emotional walls he put around his heart to protect himself from his grief.

Besides the lead couple, the book contains a cast of quirky characters, including a goth sculptor who secretly loves to decorate cakes, a fearsome-looking felon with a heart of gold, a hothead with a sweet side, a karma-devoted barista who collects damaged pets and first dates, and a lovable dog with more emotional sense than everyone put together.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Peace Falls is loosely based on my hometown in Virginia. Every time I write feels like going home.

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Hannah Jordan grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia but wound up in South Jersey after falling in love with her complete opposite. She's got all the degrees of a "serious" fiction writer but only smiles when she's writing romance.

She lives with her husband and two daughters in a picturesque town outside of Philadelphia where she enjoys reading in all genres, especially the spicy ones, and confusing people with her half-Southern, half-Northern accent.

The first book in her Peace Falls Small Town Romance Series, For You I’d Break, launched July 17, 2024.

Connect with Hannah Jordan

Website ~ Facebook ~ Instagram

 

 

Giveaway:

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