Guest Post & Giveaway: His Road Home by Anna Richland
His
Road Home
By:
Anna Richland
Releasing
October 13th,
2014
Carina
Press
Blurb
Special
Forces medic Rey Cruz needs to find a fiancée, fast, to avoid
insulting a matchmaking Afghan warlord. Finding a picture online of a
girl he barely knew back home, he fakes an engagement photo, thinking
no one else will see it. But when Rey is injured while rescuing a
local boy, the image no one was supposed to see goes viral.
Seattle
marine biologist Grace Kim is shocked to find out she's engaged. When
she's offered a plane ticket to visit her "fiancé," she
takes it, looking for the answer to one question: Why did he lie? A
traumatic brain injury means Rey can’t tell her, until they figure
out how to communicate. Touched by Rey's funny texts and
determination, Grace offers friendship—a big step for someone who
prefers whales to most company.
And
when Rey is finally sent home, Grace agrees to help him drive his
classic car cross-country over Thanksgiving—a once-in-a-lifetime
road trip that leads to what feels like real love. In front of his
friends and family, she plays the caring fiancée, but what place
will Grace have in Rey's new life once he's ready to be on his own
again?
Buy
Links
Guest Post
Romancing the Readers welcomes Anna Richland. Thanks for taking the time to do a guest post with us!
POST # 2: APHASIA, PHONE CALL AND
EXCERPT
The blurb mentions
that the hero Rey loses his ability to speak. What happens? And how do you work
with that in the story?
Rey has a traumatic brain injury resulting from an explosion
in Afghanistan, and in his case it caused expressive aphasia, which is similar
to what some stroke victims have. He can understand everything that he hears,
he can read, but he can’t make his speech actually come out fluidly. He has
difficulty shaping letters to write and sometimes what he does get out isn’t
what he meant. Speech therapy helps, and Rey improves over the course of the
story, but struggling to express himself is Rey’s new normal.
Here’s a passage where Rey calls Grace at the beginning of
the book:
Her
plane should have landed two hours ago. He could calculate time differences in
his head, nothing wrong with whatever lobe performed simple math, and there was
a number on a slip of paper by the room phone. She’d left it for his mother,
saying, “Mi telefono numero, er, numero
telefono,” as if she’d remembered that adjectives went after nouns in
Spanish. His mother had nodded, understanding even before Grace spoke because
she’d made a universal hand gesture of fingers connecting ears and chin.
Leaving her number had been a courtesy for the nice hometown lady, but his mother
would never call someone who didn’t speak Spanish.
He could call. Had Grace thought of
that? Maybe. He reviewed the situation. He could dial, no problem. But what to
say?
Nothing if he didn’t try.
“Hello.” Sounded fine in the empty room.
“Hello, Grace.” Even better. His tongue refused to push out the initial sound
of safe, or maybe it did push, but
surreptitiously, so he replaced safe trip
with good trip and green-lighted his
mission before he choked.
Punching the squares on the old beige
phone was like jumping out of a plane. Don’t think. Stand up, hook up, shuffle
to the door.
“Hello?” Her voice was a husky reminder
of a kiss that he wasn’t in danger of forgetting.
“Hello, Grace.” Target acquired.
“Rey?” She sounded surprised. “Is that
you?”
“Hello, Grace.” Don’t push repeat, darn it.
“I’ll take that as yes, it is you.” Her
voice sparkled and she sounded…flattered. Couldn’t be right.
“Trip?” Damn, he’d lost a word.
“It was fine. I was on time and had an
empty seat next to me out of Chicago.”
He’d finished his material.
She soldiered on. “It’s nine o’clock
here. It must be late there?”
“Twelve.” He reached for the word with
fewer syllables than midnight. “Wait. You.” Warning sirens claxoned that he was
in grave danger of sounding needy, like he was waiting for her to call, when he
meant he was waiting for the right time to call her.
Worrying about making a simple phone call is a huge change
for the Sergeant Cruz who was totally game-on in my debut novel First
to Burn. In that book, Rey always had a wisecrack and always had his
sights on a woman. Taking away his easy lines was the hardest thing I as a
writer could do to him when I made him the hero of his own story, but I knew
Rey was strong enough to overcome whatever obstacles I threw at him.
How do Rey and Grace
communicate?
Rey and Grace text each other throughout the story, since he
can type just fine. Their friendship builds with a lot of romantic undertones
as they start to have all the rituals that anyone in a long distance
relationship has. When they’re together, what they do say out loud flows
between them seamlessly. I think Grace is also an extraordinarily good listener,
which helps Rey. She doesn’t interrupt.
I’ll admit she’s a better person than I am, because I am a
notorious interrupter. I should take lessons from my characters!
I’d like to explain
one more thing before I leave a question for your readers. Instead of the usual
types of gift cards, with this blog tour I’m giving away a $50 donation to the
Fisher House Foundation in honor of a veteran of the winner’s choice. The
Fisher House Foundation is a charity that provides free lodging for families of
injured veterans in fully-equipped homes near military hospitals. I support
them with part of the proceeds of all my books, and characters in my debut First
to Burn and Rey’s mother in His Road Home stay in different
Fisher Houses. So please enter my contest - and when you’re reading His
Road Home, remember that Fisher House is a real charity, and really
amazing.
So here’s a quick question: Text, email or phone call? I
prefer to phone my mother but email my husband. Which do you prefer, and does
it matter who the other party is?
Author
Info
Anna
lives with her quietly funny Canadian husband and two less quiet
children in a century-old house in Seattle. Like the heroine of her
debut paranormal romantic suspense novel, First to Burn, Anna joined
the army to pay tuition, a decision that led to a career on four
continents.
She
donates a portion of her book proceeds to two charities: the Fisher
House Foundation, which provides free accommodations near military
hospitals for families of wounded soldiers in the US and Great
Britain, and Doctors Without Borders, which delivers emergency
medical care in more than sixty crisis zones world-wide.
To
sign up for Anna's newsletter and find out about her next release,
The Second Lie (The Immortal Vikings, Book Two), visit her website at
www.annarichland.com
Author
Links
Giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting me today Ann! So nice to escape the Seattle rain by thinking about books - I just returned from the Emerald City Writers' Conference over the weekend with tons of books from great authors and having a rainy day is the perfect excuse to start reading.
ReplyDeleteI love reading on rainy days!
DeleteThank you for hosting today!
ReplyDeleteThe story was short, yet so strong!
ReplyDelete