For You I'd Break by Hannah Jordan Virtual Book Tour

Guest Post

Did you have a minor character who insisted on playing a larger role in the story. If so, please tell us about it. And if not, please tell me how you get the characters in your head to behave.


I’m a writer who hears rather than sees the story, so the characters can get really loud in my head. For You I’d Break is the first book in a three-book series. While each book stands alone, the characters overlap, so when one of the supporting characters threatened to take over, I’d file away the information for their book.

It wasn’t always easy to keep the focus where it belonged. For You I’d Break is Rowan and Cal’s love story, but Rowan’s sister Poppy burst into the narrative in Chapter 1. I had to hold her back through the entire novel. Poppy is a hearse-driving sculptor who dresses in all black but secretly loves to decorate pretty cakes. (She’s also in love with Cal’s best friend Theo, who refuses to exit the friend zone). In short, she’s enticingly complex.

Rowan’s quiet, sensible life fell apart when she found her husband cheating with her boss and ran from the office into the path of a Segway. She’s completely broken, both physically and emotionally, which makes for a depressing story. Poppy’s loud personality adds an element of levity the book needed in the beginning, but she easily takes over every scene she’s in.

The entire time I wrote For You I’d Break, I was thinking ahead to the second book where readers would experience the contrast between Poppy’s over-the-top persona and her timid interior. One thing I’m most proud of is how the sister relationship between Poppy and Rowan develops both their characters. Even when Poppy takes center stage, Rowan’s reaction shows an awareness of the front her sister creates and cements Rowan as a loving, insightful person. Cal lacks this insight, both with himself and others, which ends up causing the most tension in their relationship. So, I suppose I used the moments when Poppy took over to show more about Rowan and further the story.

I admit, Poppy remains my favorite character in the entire series, and judging from reader feedback, that shines through. So answering your question, she didn’t quite behave, but that’s on brand for her.

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.

Amazon

Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

Excerpt

Being a wallflower makes you thirsty, so parched for attention your heart feels brittle. Then after years—or in my case a lifetime—someone finally sees you. The exquisite feeling seeps deep, the attention saturating your life. So, you jump, headfirst. The red flags go unnoticed. Declarations of love tossed as lightly as petals. Maybe you marry him, like I did. Maybe you bloom in domestic bliss with a house in the suburbs and two adorable kids. Maybe a dog. Bare minimum a pet turtle.

I wasn’t so lucky.

After two years of marriage, instead of house hunting in the outskirts of DC, I was riding shotgun in my sister’s 1990 Cadillac hearse, headed back to Peace Falls, VA, with everything I owned stuffed where a coffin ought to be.

I’d cried so much in the past three hours, I could barely make out the foothills rising in the distance. My throat was raw. Crumpled tissues littered the floorboard, and lint covered my leggings.

The tears surprised me. Apart from a couple of late-night phone calls to my mother after I left the hospital, I’d held it together pretty well. I was too busy tying up the loose ends of my life in DC to feel anything but stressed. The moment Poppy arrived to drive me home, the tears started and built with every box, bag, and lamp we slid into the hearse.

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.

Website: https://hannahjordanauthor.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hannahjordanbooks

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/hannahjordanbooks

Giveaway

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway