In this twisted triangle, can a happily-ever-after be achieved? Or will someone’s heart break and the mother-daughter bond be severed forever?
Welcome to one of the February 2nd stops on the blog tour for So Hard to Do by Sally Basmajian with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.
About the Author
Here’s the Gist: An attractive widow’s libido is torpedoed when she and her annoyingly needy adult daughter fall for the same studly man, creating a comic triangle of mistaken identity and miscommunication.
How I Feel When Someone Finds My Heroine Annoying
Here’s the thing: I know my younger heroine is annoying. She’s brash and thoughtless, and she may just be on the autism spectrum.
Don’t hate her, please. She’s trying her best.
Imagine being back in grade school. You’re shunned by your peers. You spend recess alone in the corner of the yard. Nobody wants to partner with you on projects, and the academic experts predict you’ll never succeed.
They haven’t reckoned with your indominable mother, though, who sticks by your side, coaching you endlessly on math, morals and manners. Eventually you get through school and land a job. You become a brilliant businesswoman. Unfortunately, you’re still eccentric, and your inability to read social cues results in people not liking you. Mom moves out, and you’re on your own. Life couldn’t be lonelier.
“Yeah, I get it. Boohoo. Still, she’s so irritating,” a friend told me, after reading the first few chapters.
But think about it: how would you feel if you’d constantly been sequestered in “special” classrooms and told by all your peers you were weird?
“Give her a few more chapters,” I said. “She’s trying to change.”
And does she succeed? Let’s hope so, for the sake of our young heroine’s future happiness, and all in the name of romance. By the end of the book, perhaps readers will like her, or at the very least, cheer her on.
And really—is that so very hard to do?
About the Book
So Hard to Do
by Sally Basmajian
Published 18 January 2023
Creative James Media
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Page Count: 264
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
Suze Foster has always been devoted to her daughter. As a child, Jannie required extra support in school, but now-at age 29-she’s a rising executive. Suze, thrilled with Jannie’s success, is finally free to follow her own dreams.
Without Suze’s dedicated attention, though, Jannie flounders. In a careless moment, she floods her apartment. Enter our hero, Aram-her hot but significantly older neighbor. He saves the day, and for Jannie, it’s love at first sight.
Not so much for Aram, though, who falls head over heels for Suze when they accidentally meet. Unaware of Jannie’s feelings, Suze is equally smitten.
In this twisted triangle, can a happily-ever-after be achieved? Or will someone’s heart break and the mother-daughter bond be severed forever?
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Excerpt
He was the most good-looking man she’d ever seen. Luxuriant locks. She bet that’s how a Harlequin Romance would describe his hair. And under the full beard, maybe even a cleft chin. And most definitely, a sensuous lower lip. Ooh la la.
As she mused in an X-rated way about his mouth, Jannie remembered something from a book she’d read where the heroine had a habit of biting her lower lip. It drove men mad.
So she tried it. Nibble, nibble.
Aram just looked at her. His breathing didn’t accelerate. His chest didn’t heave.
She tried again. Nibble, nibble. The prolonged silence was beginning to be uncomfortable.
“Are you all right, Jannie?” Aram finally asked. He studied her.
Well, that hadn’t gone so well. But she’d never tried to flirt with an older man before. Maybe they needed something more obvious.
She attempted to look coyly up at Aram through her eyelashes. This wasn’t as easy as all those romance authors made it sound. She felt her forehead contract, her nose wrinkle and her upper lip pull away from her teeth in her effort to do the impossible.
“Jannie, are you having an allergic reaction? Shellfish, maybe? Isn’t that crab I smell coming from your condo? Do you carry an EpiPen?”
She stamped her foot in frustration. It was supposed to look fierce and cute, but she could tell from Aram’s face that he was way more startled than turned on.
About the Author
After leaving the corporate world, Sally Basmajian discovered the joy of writing. Her fiction and nonfiction stories have appeared in newspapers such as The Globe & Mail and in several anthologies. In 2022 she won prizes for memoir pieces (Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop, Gulf Coast Writers Association), and was thrilled to have a poem selected by the journal Antithesis. She expects to be busy in 2023, when her first two novels appear: in January, a light-hearted romance, So Hard to Do (published by Creative James Media) and in October, a much darker one, Fountain of Evil (Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC).
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads
Giveaway Alert!
Sally Basmajian will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway| Jan 30 | Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews | The Avid Reader |
| Jan 31 | Literary Gold | Long and Short Reviews |
| Feb 1 | All the Ups and Downs | – |
| Feb 2 | Westveil Publishing | D. S. Dehel |
| Feb 3 | Joanne Guidoccio | Beverley A Baird |
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Hello, and thank you for hosting me today! I hope you enjoy my thoughts about Jannie, my younger protagonist in So Hard to Do. Her mom (Suze) sometimes gets more sympathy from readers, but I think Jannie is just as deserving of affection–maybe even more so, given the challenges she faces. I hope you’ll grow to love her as much as I do. I’m sending a hearty thanks, also, to all the readers out there who love to immerse themselves in stories!
Thanks for hosting!
I am reading this book now and enjoying every page. It’s well written, and the characters are all intriguing.
Thanks, Kathy! I appreciate the “every page” well-written comment. And you know what? My greatest fear was that there might have been a typo or two, despite my editors’ most stringent scrutiny. So far, so good! Please keep reading.
You have a very entertaining and witty style that keeps me engaged and invested in the characters; even Jannie — maybe especially Jannie.
Yay! There’s one vote for Team Jannie! Thanks very much, Ruth. I have a soft spot for her, too. She does mean well!
Sounds like a very interesting read.
I sure hope it is! Please take a chance and read it. I value your opinion, Sherry!
I found it easy to care about Jannie and to hope that she could find happiness–and that she could grow to care about the happiness of others, hard as that might be for her to do. Her quest adds poignancy to the many laugh-out-loud comic episodes. Here’s hoping for a sequel!
You are a person after my own heart, Goldilocks! I love Jannie so much, in spite of all her quirks. She’s oblivious to the feelings of others quite often — but it isn’t that she’s trying to be mean; she’s just in her own world. Most of all, she’s on a quest to improve!
The book sounds very intriguing. Love the cover!
Piroska, I do hope you’ll read it. Thanks for your impression of the cover. The artist will be thrilled (and I am, too)!