Recently, I was able to correspond with fantastic author, Natasha Boyd. Her novel, Eversea, is currently available at retailers. Enjoy!
Natasha Boyd:
I have been overwhelmed and humbled by the early reader response to my book “Eversea” that released last week. What struck me most from people’s comments was that they really identified with the dichotomy between how the heroine sees herself and how others do. I have given this a lot of thought over the last few weeks. As women, we often look externally to validate ourselves, our personality, our looks, our self-worth. We have no idea if we are valuable, until someone shows us we are. We have no idea if we are truly beautiful to someone, until they tell us we are. We have no idea if we are good at something, until someone praises us. And the worst part? Even then, we often don’t believe it. Actually that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that we can hear one negative comment in an ocean of compliments, and guess which one we’ll use to form the foundation of how we see ourselves? Keri Ann Butler (the small-town heroine and narrator of “Eversea”) lost her parents at 15 and then her beloved ‘nana’ a few years later. Her older brother has been away at med school. Apart her awesome best friend, Jazz, Keri Ann has largely grown up without the input of whether she is talented, pretty or funny. In this way, she is almost a blank slate. She is grounded. This isn’t to say that parents are always at fault. Society and accepted modern memes for what count as positive attributes (that bombard us every day) are too. However, I do think girls, especially, need to be told early and often how to measure their worth, and how to be comfortable in their own skin. And I do think that starts at home.
A wonderful article by Dr. Kelly M. Flanagan entitled A Daddy’s Letter to his Little Girl (About Her Future Husband) really brought it home for me. It’s beautiful, and I hope we can all pass on those tips to our sons as well as our daughters. The letter also made me think of how the hero, Jack Eversea, sees Keri Ann. Jack Eversea is overwhelmingly drawn to the purity and unaffectedness of Keri Ann, and it throws the shallowness of his existence as a Hollywood superstar, something he is already struggling with, into stark relief. In the end they both grow. But Keri Ann truly finds her strength of character, and it is a joy to behold! I think (hope) that we all have a bit of Keri Ann Butler inside us!
Warmest regards,
Natasha Boyd
Please take a look at a synopsis of her novel: You can buy “Eversea” in paperback, on Kindle, Nook or Sony Kobo. Enjoy!
SYNOPSIS
– An orphaned small-town southern girl, burdened by responsibility and stuck in time.
– A Hollywood A-list mega-star, on the run from his latest scandal and with everything to lose
-A chance encounter that leads to an unlikely arrangement and epic love affair that will change them both forever.
When his co-star and real-life girlfriend is caught cheating on him with her married and much older director, A-list hottie, Jack Eversea, finds himself in sleepy Butler Cove, South Carolina. Jack hopes the sultry southern heat in this tiny coastal Lowcountry town will hide him not only from the tabloids and his cheating girlfriend, but his increasingly vapid life and the people who run it. He doesn’t count on meeting Keri Ann Butler.
Keri Ann has relied on herself so long, dealing with her family’s death and the responsibilities of keeping up her family’s historic mansion, that boys and certainly the meager offering of eligible boys in Butler Cove, have never figured into her equation. But fate has other plans. Suddenly face to face with the man who played the movie role of her favorite fictional character, Jack has Keri Ann yearning for everything she has previously avoided … and Jack must decide whether this funny, sassy girl is worth changing his life for, before his mistakes catch up to him. Eversea is a FINALIST in the Winter Rose Unpublished Contest for 2013
