I am so excited that
WELCOME TO PLANET LARA by Eliza
Gordon is available now and that I get to share the news!
If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book, be sure to check out
all the details below.
This blitz also includes a giveaway for a signed finished copy of WELCOME
TO PLANET LARA and a couple eBooks courtesy of Eliza and
Rockstar Book Tours. So if
you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this
post.
About The Book:
Author: Eliza Gordon
Pub. Date: April 8, 2021
Publisher: SGA Books
Pages: 412
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N,
iBooks,
Kobo, TBD,
Bookshop.org
“There are … stipulations on your inheritance, Ms. Clarke.”
Lara J. Clarke is used to getting her own way. Motherless at ten and raised by her oft-absent eco-warrior/philanthropist grandfather, she lives the high life afforded by her seemingly bottomless trust fund.
That is, until Grandfather Archibald sheds his mortal coil in a very public manner, and Lara’s privileged life is set adrift, headed for a collision course with the gorgeous, private Thalia Island off the coast of British Columbia. According to the will, Lara will step into the role of Project Administrator, wherein she has one year to fulfill her late grandfather’s dream of a self-sustaining, eco-friendly, family-centered utopia.
The stakes are real: fail, and lose access to the family fortune—forever.
Convinced Thalia Island will be an extension of the heiress lifestyle she’s long led, Lara is surprised to find her new coworkers—and neighbors—aren’t as pliable as the underlings of her former life. Even with the hunky lead engineer Finan Rowleigh showing her the ropes, Lara quickly learns just how unprepared she is to trade her Louboutins for steel-toed Timberlands.
When a series of calamities reveals a sinister element undermining the
security of the island and her residents, Lara and Finan must reach beyond
their job descriptions to protect Archibald’s precious utopia from those who
would do her harm.
And while keeping her late grandfather’s flame alight, Lara finds her own flame burning hot for a charming, kind man who wants nothing from her but her heart.
Praise For WELCOME TO PLANET LARA:
Excerpt:
Chapter One
DEARLY BELOVED
I don’t know why they have pickles on this table. My mom hates pickles.
Hated. Past tense. I heard Rupert correct my grandfather when he
mentioned my mother the other day—they were talking in Grandfather’s huge
office lined with bookshelves and Louis XV Savonnerie carpets and giant
windows the housekeepers complain about cleaning when they don’t know
anyone’s listening, and Rupert referred to my mother in past tense. I wasn’t
supposed to hear their conversation—that’s why the outside door was closed.
When it’s closed, I’m not allowed in. But I’m very good at hearing things
I’m not supposed to hear because, like that kid in my class who always
smells like wet dog says, I’m so scrawny, he could stuff me into his rolling
backpack and throw me into the ocean and no one would ever miss me.
I’d like to think that someone would miss me. Only now that we’re speaking
of my mother in past tense, I guess that’s one less person who would wonder
if I’m floating out to sea, trapped in a rolling backpack covered in dog
hair. Also, I’d like to think my English teacher, Mrs. Buck, would be proud
of me for understanding the difference between present and past tense, even
if her nylons on her beefy thighs scrape together when she walks between our
desks and the sound makes me shiver.
Like I was saying, I’m scrawny, so two days ago, I snuck into my
grandfather’s office and tucked myself into the antique liquor cabinet—he
doesn’t drink so the cabinet is empty and the perfect place for me to hide
when I don’t want his bossy housekeeper to find me because her job is to
vacuum and change sheets and make Grandfather’s special food but now she
keeps trying to hug me and pet my hair and her boobs squish my face and I
can’t breathe, so she thinks I’m crying about my dead mom, my mom who’s only
alive in the past tense now, but I’m not crying about my dead mom. I haven’t
cried yet. I think that makes me the worst kid ever.
Yeah—I mean, yes, since Rupert won’t allow me to say yeah—so
I was in the cabinet and I heard Rupert say we needed to refer to my mother,
Cordelia Josephine Clarke, in the past tense. “It will be easier for Lara if
we don’t give her hope that her mother will be returning.” Rupert—I call him
Number Two, like that character in Austin Powers, a movie I wasn’t
supposed to watch but did anyway because one of the housekeepers invited me
to her daughter Madi’s ninth-birthday sleepover because she felt bad for me
that I never get to go to sleepovers. So I went, and Madi is basically my
best friend now, but the housekeeper and her husband drink a lot of wine
that comes in a box and they play their country music really loud. The
biggest difference from the Number Two in the movie and Rupert Bishop is
that Rupert doesn’t have an eye patch and he hardly ever laughs or
smiles and even if he does smile, he’s like a hundred feet tall so I
can’t even see up to his unsmiling face most of the time.
“They didn’t find a body, Rupert. They found the wrecked plane, but no
Cordelia. What if she made it? What if someone in that god-awful jungle has
her?”
Through the slats in the square cupboard door, I saw Number Two shake his
head and look down at his shiny brown loafers. One of these days, I’m going
to take a black marker and color the tops of his shoes so he can’t shine
them anymore. I’m also going to cut off those stupid tassels and use them as
fishing lures.
“Sir, this is the best course. Do not cancel the memorial. Plant the tree,
give Lara some closure. Let her move on. She’s only ten. Still young enough
to have a satisfactory life wherein her memories will fade, even in the face
of this tragedy. It’s not as though she’s spent a lot of time with her
mother anyway.”
My grandfather’s face hardened for a minute, that look he gives when he’s
about to blow his top, his chin jutting and eyes narrowed.
“Pardon me, sir. I overstepped.” Rupert folded his hands behind his back.
He’s not wrong, though. My mother hasn’t been around for a long time. She
works a lot, or so she says. When she’s home, it’s all fun, fun, fun, like
she’s trying to make up for the next time she leaves a note on my nightstand
covered with Xs and Os and smiley faces and promises of trips to zoos and
museums and amusement parks and my favorite ice cream shop when she gets
home.
Rupert told me once that my mother’s first love was her airplane. And even
though she named it Lara, after me, I have always known that Lara the plane
was more important to my mom than Lara the human kid.
My grandfather, unlike me, has cried a lot since the men in black suits
showed up a week ago and asked for a place to talk privately. Rupert’s
comment has made my grandfather cry again. Maybe I will forget coloring his
shoes and just drop them all—his entire collection of fancy, tasseled
loafers—into the pond in the back with the koi.
Cordelia was my grandfather’s only daughter. His only child, actually.
I am his only granddaughter.
Archibald Magnus Clarke the First, and only, was almost an old man when
Cordelia was born. Her mother left her behind, just like Cordelia left me
behind.
I haven’t cried yet. Maybe I will later.
But there are pickles on this big stupid table, and Cordelia hated pickles.
And everyone in the room—all these faces I’ve never seen before—are looking
at me like they’re expecting me to burst into tears at any moment.
Instead, I pick up the plate of pickles of all varieties and whistle once
with my fingers tucked into my lips like Madi taught me. Once I’m sure I’ve
got the room’s undivided attention, I launch the plate overhand,
anticipating the satisfaction that will come when the glass hits the de
Gournay papered wall and shatters into a thousand pieces and stinky pickle
juice seeps across the bamboo floor and into the fibers of the
eighteenth-century Persian rug we’re not supposed to wear our shoes on.
Except at the same moment, this tall, lanky kid steps into the plate’s
trajectory and the heavy crystal hits him instead with a dull crack!
Everyone in the spacious, light-filled room gasps. The kid, stunned, looks
in my direction, big brown eyes wide, not quite sure what just happened. And
then blood spills down the side of his head and he slumps to the floor into
the pile of pickles and juice, followed by grown-ups freaking out and the
big-boobed housekeeper barking orders at some other member of the house
staff to get the first-aid kit and then Rupert’s bony but well-manicured
hand is around my arm and he’s pulling me out of the solarium and forcing me
down onto the soft, carpeted steps in the main foyer.
“What on earth possessed you to do that, young lady?”
I look up at him and am surprised when tears sting my eyeballs. I didn’t
mean to hit that kid.
“My mother hates pickles. If any of you guys even knew her, you’d know she
hates pickles.”
Past tense, Lara. Your mother
hated pickles.
Rupert kneels, his joints cracking even though he’s not even that old.
A commotion behind us draws our attention. Two parents huddle around the
tall boy who is again on his feet. They pause just long enough for me to
look at the kid, a bloody cloth pressed against the left side of his head
and face.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
He nods once, and they leave.
Then I start crying, and I don’t stop for a year.
About Eliza Gordon:
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Eliza’s Newsletter| Tumblr | Pinterest | Goodreads
| Amazon |
BookBub
Giveaway Details: International
1 winner will receive a signed finished copy of WELCOME TO PLANET LARA,
International.
2 winners will receive an eBook of WELCOME TO PLANET LARA sent by BookFunnel, International.
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