Bold Strokes Books author Jeannie Levig is here to discuss her latest release.

Thank you, TB, for hosting me again on I Heart Lesfic. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

Family Ties

This time of year, as we head into the holidays, the topic of family comes up for many of us. For some it brings smiles and memories of past holiday seasons and traditions or even the warm, tingly feelings that can bubble up from remembering a particular event, scene, or family member that touched us deeply and made a difference in our lives, regardless of the season. For others, tensions and long-held grievances can resurface for another go-around. For many of us in the LGBT community, we have two families—our family of birth and origin and our chosen family that we’ve created from our hearts and that we embrace in love at least as much, and sometimes more, than we do our birth families.

My new book, A Wish Upon A Star, a December release from Bold Strokes Books, is the story of the creation of one such family. It’s a contemporary romance in which Leslie Raymond returns to the childhood home she once shared with her parents in an attempt to heal the heartbreak of losing the family she’d created and thought no one could ever take from her. In her early fifties, she determines that family life isn’t for her, and vows never to get involved with a woman with a child again. Then she meets’ the little girl next door, seven-year-old Siena and her enticing mother, Erica.

Erica Cooper, the single mom of a child with autism, gave up on relationships when Siena’s father walked away from them both shortly after Siena’s diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. She’s content putting all of her emotional focus on the needs of her daughter and keeps her distance from any thoughts of romantic commitments.

But when the two of them meet, the draw to one another is strong and complicated more by Siena’s quick attachment to Leslie and the little dog Leslie picked up along the way as well as both women’s concern for Siena’s well-being. The friendship that evolves into love between the four of them is a force that can’t be denied. Can Leslie’s and Erica’s rational decisions to avoid such entanglements stand up to the power that the call to family holds?

For the call to family is a powerful one, whether it be to our birth families, even if they present challenges, or our chosen families that form sometimes without our realization until it’s done. I believe the people we end up in family with don’t end up in our lives by accident or at random. I think these people are in our lives in that capacity to tie us to them so we can work things out with them, even if they themselves are the things we need to work out.

So during this holiday season, whatever family you plan to be with, be with them in love and gratitude for their roles in your life. We can agree with them, or not. We can be close to them or as far away as we want. They can be part of our birth family or those with whom we choose to form family ties. But they are family.

A Wish upon a Star is now available everywhere

A WISH UPON A STAR

Romance

Leslie Raymond spent the past two years wishing her life had taken a different turn. It’s time for a fresh start, a move across the country, and a new set of rules to help heal her heart—no straight women, no women with kids, and no commitment. But when she meets her new neighbors, the beautiful Erica and her special needs daughter, Siena, she struggles against the pull she immediately experiences.

Erica Cooper has learned to rely only on herself. She knows most people don’t stick around when the going gets tough. And when caring for child with autism, the going can get tough fast. She is content with the quiet and emotionally safe life she’s constructed, but when they are befriended by their kind, playful, and—damn it—really hot new neighbor, the walls protecting her heart threaten to crumble.

So much for good intentions and firm resolutions–neither stand a chance when the stars align for love.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Jeannie Levig is an award-winning author of lesbian fiction and a proud and happy member of the Bold Strokes Books family. Her debut novel, Threads of the Heart, and her romantic intrigue, Into Thin Air, both won Goldie Awards from the Golden Crown Literary Society, and her contemporary romance, Embracing the Dawn, won a Rainbow Award and was a Goldie finalist.

Raised by an English teacher, Jeannie has always been surrounded by literature and novels and learned to love reading at an early age. She tried her hand at writing fiction for the first time under the loving encouragement of her eighth grade English teacher and graduated from college with a Bachelor’s degree in English. She is deeply committed to her spiritual path and community, her family and friends,  and to writing the best stories possible to share with her readers.

She loves writing, reading, movies and lives in Central California.

Visit Jeannie at her website, JeannieLevig.com, or send her an e-mail to Jeannie@JeannieLevig.com. She’d love to hear from you.

CONNECT WITH JEANNIE LEVIG

Facebook / Twitter / Website / Bold Strokes Books

Thanks for stopping by!