After She Fell
Amber Laura
Publication date: July 30th 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

She’s tried for years to convince herself that she isn’t in love with him. If it hasn’t worked, at least she’s managed to convince him of it, anyway.

A tragic love affair from her past had shattered Christina’s illusions of romance—it’d shattered her entire world, left her utterly broken and blamed. She’s fallen once before. She isn’t about to make the same mistake twice!

Jason Gordman is off-limits. Charming, playful, confident—he’s everything dangerous to her defenses. Worse yet, he’s the boss’s son. Hiding behind antagonism and indifference, Christina manages to keep him at a careful distance. That is, until one fateful night when she finds herself snowbound with him in a blizzard and she slips, allows herself one, forbidden kiss…

Struggling to reconcile her feelings, Christina is entirely unprepared for where that one stolen moment will lead her.

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GUEST POST (BY THE AUTHOR)

I don’t write perfect characters. As a romance author (and reader), I tend to get a little frustrated with the expectation that these are the only types of characters that deserve love. Certainly, it’s common in this genre­­: the heroine who doesn’t need to be forgiven for anything; the hero who never has to pick themselves up, brush themselves off, apologize; the archetype who never makes a wrong move.

Ugh. Boring. Unbelievable.

In all three of the novels I’ve written, I’ve striven to create protagonists that have the dimensional, elemental human quality of being both blessed and cursed. I like them to make mistakes because mistakes are relatable, they’re real. I want readers to truly engage and react––to become so emotionally invested that they’re laughing or crying or hurting right alongside the characters on the page.

This deliberation was never stronger, or more challenging, than with the heroine of my latest novel, After She Fell (published July 30^th, 2019). Without giving away spoilers­­—read the book!— the main character, Christina, harbors a very secret and destructive heartbreak owing to a previous romantic relationship. The fallout from this event was broader, the consequences more far-reaching, than a simple breakup might imply. Unable to talk about it, to face what happened, she pushes the hurt deep down inside herself. To compound matters, she’s not without fault from what transpired and that causes her to wrap those wounds around her like a shield, to hide behind them in an effort to guard herself, to keep herself safe from ever getting hurt again.

As such, Christina doesn’t always say the right thing, the nice thing. She hides her vulnerabilities behind antagonism and indifference. She’s not always easy to love…or even like. But then again, who is always easy to like and love? Who can always perfectly compartmentalize their health and well-being? Who doesn’t sometimes lash out at the wrong person? Christina is hurting. Her emotional scars are blistered and ugly and unresolved. Because of that, she can’t always reconcile the differences of her past from her present.

And that’s an important point of distinction. Because that’s often true to real life.

Take me and my friend, for example. A few weeks ago, sitting outside on a gorgeous summer evening, we somehow got to talking about our own past relationships, and in particular, those wounds that remain in the aftermath of a tough breakup––the pain of what you’d hoped for, what actually happened, what you lost, and what you gained. These wounds, while invisible, are incredibly powerful. Worse yet, they have a way of inserting themselves into situations where they don’t belong; have you ever been talking to someone and they make what should be a totally innocuous statement and — snap! — just like that, you find yourself mentally tunneling back in time to that prior relationship, to the last time something of that nature was said, and the meaning becomes twisted, distorted, dissonant?

Certainly, it’s happened to me.

It’s like the brain splits in two: one part realizes it’s overreacting, that this person is not the same person as from the past, that it doesn’t mean the same thing…and still, the other half is hurting, confused, angry even. While some of these wounds never completely leave us (admittedly a bummer, but then again, our life experiences shape and change us as we go), usually with a little time and mending they do fade––frequently to a place of being all but forgotten. The brain stops shifting back in time and even if an old memory does rear, it’s easy/ier to discern and discard.

Here’s my somewhat rambling point: we have all been wounded and we’ve all carried (or are still carrying) those hurts around inside us. We all sometimes say things we regret, do things we regret. If we’re paying attention, we learn and grow. If we’re lucky, we are offered forgiveness and love. Humility balanced by grace.

My characters aren’t perfect. Christina is flawed. She’s a bit broken. But she still deserves love. In all its myriad forms. This story isn’t just about her falling in love with the hero and being loved in return. It’s about her falling in love with herself, it’s about her letting go of the past, moving forward, moving on. It’s about tumbling, fumbling but also rising and healing. And being brave enough to try again. Scars and all.

Author Bio:

Amber Laura’s biography, also known as “Five Fun Facts about the Author”:

1. As a writer, Amber Laura does her best daydreaming as a window-gazing passenger on long car rides.
2. If there’s creamer, she’s drinking coffee. When she edits, there’s always creamer.
3. A blogger, she also writes web fiction—(free stories updated chapter-by-chapter, week-by-week). Check it out at www.litliber.com.
4. Psst! Her debut novel, Topaz and Lace, a contemporary romance set in a fictitious Texas town, got its start on that same blog.
5. While she may physically reside in the beautiful country of Northern Minnesota, in her imagination, Amber Laura lives all over the world. She considers it one of the best perks to being a writer: easy, cheap travel. That and the oddball characters she meets along the way….

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