ABG Reads Book Tours: "Out of the Blue" by Lisa Maliga Excerpt/Promo

Tweet

Title: Out of The Blue
Author: Lisa Maliga
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Self Published










 Sylvia Gardner is a naïve cashier who lives with her mother in Richport, Illinois. Upset with being dumped by her first boyfriend; she later falls in love with an English actor after watching him on a TV show. For two years she researches Alexander Thorpe's life and career, saving her money to travel to his Cotswolds village, intent on meeting him. Staying in the village's only hotel, she gets room and board in exchange for working at the Windrush Arms Hotel. Complications ensue when the drunken hotelier, Harry Livingstone, takes a fancy to Sylvia. As in her fantasies, Sylvia and Alexander get together—but with unexpected results.

Follow the entire tour here.

From Chapter 2

Sylvia awoke at eleven o'clock the next morning, and heard children's voices. Not a heavenly choir, but shouts, shrieks and screams of laughter. She removed her coat, sweaty from her long, deathlike sleep, and slowly arose. Yawning, she went over to the window. Opening the curtains, the late morning light dispelled little gloom from the eastward facing room. She cranked open the window a few inches.

Across the road was a small stone schoolhouse with a low, mossy wall surrounding the playground. The swings were occupied and the slide was teeming with youngsters. She thought they were glad to be away from the confining schoolroom. Sylvia wasn't far enough from her own learning days to forget the sensation of those fifteen minutes away from the rows of desks and the stacks of textbooks. The kids across the road still had several years of classes before them. She was doubly glad she had graduated from high school and had quit college.

Sylvia went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub watching it gush out, unlike the moderate trickle back home. Returning to the room, she set her suitcase on the bed and flipped it open. She picked out a new outfit she had purchased from the County Seat store in the North Ridge Mall before she left Richport. The green corduroys and yellow wool sweater were the same colors as her old Girl Scout uniform.

Her reverie stopped when she pulled out the large manila envelope and carefully removed the sheaf of papers. Inside the envelope contained more than two years' worth of research -- articles, pictures and reviews of Alexander Thorpe's body of work. She turned to her favorite article -- the one that announced where he lived. "Windrush Days" it was called, and he was posed against the backdrop of a window, the wind ruffling his hair. The caption read: "Alexander Thorpe outside the local pub in Windrush-in-the-Combe." That pub was the Red Lion. She recognized the wooden bench next to the low-set window. The article had been published over a year ago. It was an American periodical, and whether any Alexander Thorpe fans would journey to the small village found on only a few highly detailed maps in older guidebooks was fairly unlikely. He wasn't a major sex symbol like Michael Caine, nor was he that well known amongst the general American movie going public. Alexander specialized in art films, and was more of a celebrity in his own country where he walked the boards and did television as well.

The full-page color photo from a 1978 issue of Esquire magazine had smudge marks in one corner from the countless times she had held it, gazing into his eyes. All the pictures of him were well worn as she'd spent many hours staring at them. She gave them a cursory glance that day for she knew that very soon she would see Alexander.

Giveaway: Two winners will win an ebook copy of Out Of The Blue, and the first place winner also has their choice of one of the following:

 Fiction: 

Hollywood Office Temp
I WANT YOU: Seduction Emails from a Narcissis
Love Me, Need Me: A Narcissist's Tale
North of Sunset
Notes from Nadir
Satan's Casting Call
South of Sunset
The Wilkes House Haunting

Nonfiction:

12 Easy Melt and Pour Soap Recipes
Monoi de Tahiti: Spa in a Bottle
Nuts About Shea Butter
Squirrels in the Hood

Author Bio:

Lisa Maliga has been writing ever since she learned how to put crayon to paper back in kindergarten. Since then, she has learned to type and uses a laptop, citing it as way more convenient.

A fan of taking digital photos, you will find some of them on her website and in her nonfiction books. The masthead is a shot of the Pacific Ocean taken at sundown. Variations of this photo are seen on the covers of North of Sunset and her short story collection, South of Sunset. As an avid squirrel-watcher, all photos in Squirrels in the Hood were taken by the author.

TWITTER
FACEBOOK
PINTEREST
YOUTUBE
NOTES BLOG

Buy Links:

Buy the Amazon Kindle version: Outof the Blue
Buy the Amazon UK Kindle version: Out of the Blue
Buy the Barnes & Noble Nook version: Outof the Blue
Buy the Barnes & Noble Nook UK version: Outof the Blue
Buy the Kobo version: Outof the Blue
Buy the Smashwords version: Out of the Blue

Blurb:
 Sylvia Gardner is a naïve cashier who lives with her mother in Richport, Illinois. Upset with being dumped by her first boyfriend; she later falls in love with an English actor after watching him on a TV show. For two years she researches Alexander Thorpe's life and career, saving her money to travel to his Cotswolds village, intent on meeting him. Staying in the village's only hotel, she gets room and board in exchange for working at the Windrush Arms Hotel. Complications ensue when the drunken hotelier, Harry Livingstone, takes a fancy to Sylvia. As in her fantasies, Sylvia and Alexander get together—but with unexpected results.