Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Oranges for Miranda by Annette Bower

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Oranges for Miranda by Annette Bower. This tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a great guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Oranges for Miranda

Author: Annette Bower

Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing

Publication Date: July 14th 2021

Genre: Sweet Contemporary Romance

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Miranda Porter, a newly retired award-winning businesswoman, leaves home to transition into her new life stage. Always in control, this is her time to have fun without plans and responsibilities. Enter Renato Monteiro, a considerate tour guide with secrets. Miranda isn’t looking for long-term. She wants a purpose in her retirement. Could her purpose in retirement be finding love in this unlikely place? Could her aim be domesticity and caring for and be cared for by a newly found friend? Will a vacation romance end because of miles?

Renato Monteiro has decisions to make. Stay in his birth country where his female relatives want him to marry a woman young enough to give him children. Or does he return to his second home, where he has a purpose and has built a life without children? The day Miranda and he bumped heads changed his life and his pursuit. Now he must decide which is most important the family he was born into or the family he chooses.

Goodreads * Amazon

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EXCERPT:

Tucking her oranges into the pocket of her billowy trousers, she toed off her shoes, removed her socks, and padded down the stairs and onto the beach. A rock, eroded and pocked from the wind and seas, was the perfect place to stop. With her toes in the sand and her eyes closed, the scent of salt and the sound of seabirds engulfed her. A wave lapped cold over her feet. Miranda lifted an orange to her cheek.

As a shadow blocked the warm sun, her body momentarily chilled. A deep voice whispered close to her ear, “Por favor, Senhora.”

Her eyes flew open, and she jumped away from the sound. Her shoes slipped from her hand, and she reached to catch them at the same time the man did. They bumped heads, but his hands were quicker and larger and rescued her shoes seconds before the ocean foam of a retreating wave could swallow them whole.

Miranda didn’t know whether to rub her head, reach for her shoes, apologize, or sink into the sand in mortification. “I’m sorry,” she stammered.

“I must apologize to you. My head is so much bigger and harder. Are you okay? You aren’t dizzy. Come, let’s sit over here on the rocks.” Long, thick fingers curled around her elbow as she allowed him to guide her.

When he let go of her arm, he swiped sand away from the surface of a rock and then motioned her to sit. Her orange. Miranda turned and saw her orange lying in the sand at the base of the rock she had been leaning against. She ran back and scooped it up before the next wave would have taken it out to sea. She tucked it in her pocket along with the other one.

Walking back, she surveyed the man who had scared her, bumped her head and then shepherded her to safety. Tall, with a large frame and short-cropped, thick hair graying at the temples. He wore a golf shirt, shorts, and sandals. He appeared to be a visitor, too. But why had he spoken to her at all?

“Miranda.” She stretched out her hand.

His hands were hard. “Renato.” The lines around his brown eyes were crinkled. “Renato Monteiro.”

“Was I in danger?”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Annette believes home is where her stories percolate. And her home is a condo where she watches the urban life below, airplanes arrive and depart at the international airport, and the seasons change on farmland near the horizon. Annette travels extensively but always returns home to Regina, Saskatchewan. Whether at home or away, and even though directions are always a challenge, she wanders the streets, parks, and lanes observing how people live, love, and care for one another. Your way of sitting, holding hands, the way you tilt your head, or a t-shirt you wear may end up in one of her stories.

On her first trip to Olhos de Água, a fishing village in Portugal, she stopped at a café where the proprietors were a mother and daughter. Annette sat at the outdoor blue and white tiled table and ordered an espresso and brandy. While the sun warmed her back, she opened her new notebook. The older woman walked by carrying a basket, tipped her head toward Annette’s blank page, and shrugged. When black-laced heeled shoes struck the tile, and the scent of just-picked clementine oranges interrupted Annette’s writing, the woman plunked three oranges at the edge of her page. Annette cherishes this gift from one woman to another. Recently, Annette travels with an accompanying Orange and shares pictures on Social media as her way of honoring those Portuguese women. A version of this event appears in her new novel, Oranges for Miranda.

During another trip, while searching for an address in Malaga, Spain, she asked a well-dressed man carrying a floral paper-wrapped bouquet if he spoke English? Would he direct her to the address? With impeccable English, he suggested she walk with him. They chatted, and she discovered he was a lawyer in his final days of retiring. Finally, she asked to whom he was giving the flowers. He lifted the cover to reveal a large crucifix. This detail has not appeared in a story yet.

In a coffee shop, looking south between glass tower office buildings, she could be anywhere in the world. However, she is home watching people on Eleventh Avenue run for buses, bring tea to a panhandler, and holding mittened hands while bending into the wind.

Annette uses experiences she gathered as a nurse, town administrator, elected official, traveller, and member of a large extended family to inform her stories because writing is her joy.

Annette Bower is a Soul Mate Publishing author of five contemporary romance novels. Her novel Fearless Destiny was first runner-up in the 2017 Sweet Contemporary RONE awards and winner of the Raven Award. Her novel Ponytails and Promises was a finalist in the 2020 RONE Awards and is the 2020 winner of the Raven Award.

Website * Amazon *

Facebook * Goodreads * Twitter

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GUEST POST:

Monastiraki Flea Market

When I began your question, “What is the most romantic place you have visited and why?” I wrote a whole draft about Greece and the reason it was romantic to me. Finally, it came down to one event. Cam, my husband, partner, and friend discovered a place I didn’t think we would find on our trip. But as with all trips we’ve been on, he takes a particular interest in what I would like. I hadn’t even mentioned to him that I would like to find this place. It was in Athens. The guidebook, of course, gave directions, but we were with a tour group, and you only get a specific amount of free time. We had walked up to the top of the acropolis and visited the ancient ruins of the Parthenon. We took photos when we were in awe of walking in the same place as the ancient Greeks. Then, we had a few minutes at the Monastiraki Flea Market. Visiting markets is one of my favourite activities to do besides seeing the tourist highlights.

The Poet Shoemaker

A few days later, Cam suggested we take the train back to Athens from our hotel in Nea Makri. We did. Even though the four cardinal directions of N, S, E, W are in my survival kit, I don’t understand their significance. Cam learned to trust that I would find my way back to the meeting place at the approximate time. When I returned, he told me about the Poet Shoemaker shop he had seen. Cam knew I would be interested. He led me back through the winding streets, and I had a pair of sandals made by the Poet Shoemaker.

Cam and I have shared many trips, and he cares when we are on a ship, train or bus that I am facing the same direction that we are travelling because I get motion sick. He gives me space to go off on my own and walk the streets and watch people. He makes sure that he, too, has his adventures so that we can share what we’ve experienced over dinner. I am the more social of us, so I will introduce him to people I’ve met. He meets people that bring a different perspective to our travels, usually political and social issues. In Greece, for instance, he discovered why many buildings are left partially completed because there is a tax benefit. When we were in Egypt, he helped me stage some photographs. The idea may have seemed silly to many, but he indulges my creativity.

When we are on a beach, he knows I can’t tolerate harsh sunlight. So he carries the umbrella and helps dig it into the sand.

When we were part of a Riverboat cruise up the Rhine, Main and Danube, he wasn’t feeling well at our last stop. He encouraged me to take the tour and see Budapest and then spend the free time walking on my own, even though when I came back I reported I couldn’t find my way off a bridge, so I followed a man I assumed was local. This man did lead me off the bridge. However, when he stopped to relieve himself at the nearest bush, I walked along the canal and found our ship before it was ready to leave port.

There are so very many instances where we’ve been that he has made the experience fun, safe, and romantic. It isn’t only the candlelight dinners or the moonlit walks on the beach that make the place romantic. It is the many small and silent ways Cam is saying, “I love you.”

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GIVEAWAY:

Annette Bower will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway