Guest Book Review: Laura E James - Follow Me Follow You

Reviewed by Tanya Phillips 

You save me and I'll save you...

Victoria Noble has pulled the plug on romance. As director of the number one social networking site, EweSpeak, and single mother to four-year-old Seth, she wrestles with the work-life balance.

Enter Chris Frampton, Hollywood action hero and Victoria's first love. His return from LA has sparked a powder keg of media attention, and with secrets threatening to fuel the fire, he's desperate to escape.

But finding a way forward is never simple. Although his connection with Victoria is as strong as when he was nineteen, has he been adrift too long to know how to move on?

With the risk of them breaking, will either #follow their heart?

Amazon links: Kindle or Paperback

Author Spotlight: Laura E James

Today I'm bringing you a variation on my debut spotlight feature, an author spotlight on Laura E James whose second novel, her first in paperback format, Follow Me Follow You has just been published.

Laura lives in Dorset with her family. Laura was twice a runner-up in the Choc Lit Short Story competitions. Her story Bitter Sweet appears in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Anthology Truly, Madly, Deeply.  Truth or Dare?, Laura’s debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Joan Hessayon Award. Follow Me Follow You is Laura’s first Choc Lit novel published in paperback.

Twitter: @Laura_E_James

Thank you so much for inviting me today, Shaz. It’s exciting!

Can you tell us a little bit about your latest novel Follow Me, Follow You?
It’s a reunion story, set in and around the area I love ‒ Dorset ‒ specifically Chesil Beach, Portland and Weymouth. The theme is reconnection. The hero and heroine have lost their way and disconnected from life. Victoria Noble has retreated into her virtual world of EweSpeak, her social media business, and has a strained relationship with her young son. Chris Frampton, Victoria’s first love, is a Hollywood action hero coming to terms with a tragic loss. Both return to their childhood homes in Portland in the hope going back is the best way forward.

What inspired you to write about a busy single mum and the re-emergence of her first love?
I was intrigued by the concept of returning to a past relationship ‒ it’s not something I’ve experienced. I’ve been married for eighteen years, but I remember thinking in my youth, maybe naively, that when something was over, it was over. End of. The reasons the relationship failed remained. That posed the first question: Why would a person return to a relationship that left them heartbroken? Before I answered that, another question popped up: What effect would the breakdown of that intense love have on the emotional development of the parties involved?

Victoria Noble was suddenly on the scene ‒ a woman who’s given up on romance, thrown herself into work and withdrawn from relationships, including that of her young son.