Author Guest Post with Evy Journey [Book Tour]

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference. She travels to a foreign place where she gets more than she bargained for.

Welcome to one of the August 17th stops on the blog tour for The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey with iRead Book Tours. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts & interviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

The Exciting, Frustrating, and Laborious Adventure of Gestating a Novel

Gestate—a word uncommonly used, except, perhaps, in relation to pregnant women. In fact, the word is both apt and handy to describe a critical stage in the creative process among writers, thinkers, and artists. It’s more specific, more elegant and has a sexier ring to it than “develop.” Novels, like babies, require that long period of forming and growing.

The romance in art for many artists (including writers) resides not so much in the finished work but in its making. Doing art is a leap of faith. Its result is often not defined in the beginning. Instead, it evolves through a process, an exciting adventure that can also be scary, frustrating, painful and laborious.

Writing a novel does not have to be an art, of course. For many, maybe for most who rely on it to make a living, it’s a craft with a prescribed format and unwritten rules that depend on genre. It can have a  preferred lingo—the type of language readers expect from a specific genre and which publishing editors look for. Mostly, for good reason: increased readership and, consequently, sales.

Craft or art, producing a novel needs gestation. Not only for the big overarching plot, but also for the scenes that give life to the characters and the plot.

Some writers have an organized system for gestating. They may even use software .

While I have some general outline of a story in my head, I don’t quite know what will come out until I start writing particular scenes. For me, the evolution of a story is a wonderful adventure.

My knowledge of my characters grows as I write about them. Sometimes they surprise me with attributes I had not initially endowed them with, but which emerge in a scene I put them in. You could say they teach me and our friendship deepens with every scenario I write. For me, this process of unmasking characters and getting to their core is one of the exciting, gratifying experiences when gestating a novel.

About the Book

The Shade Under the Mango Tree
by Evy Journey

Published 2 November 2020
Sojourner Books

Genre: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction
Page Count: 396
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Gold Medal, Contemporary Fiction,  2021 Global Book Awards (formerly New York City Book Awards)
Finalist, Multicultural Fiction,  2021 International Book Awards

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference.

Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. Though he has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it, they don’t stop him. His decision changes his life forever.

Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes on a Peace Corps stint to a rural rice-growing village in Cambodia. There, she finds a world steeped in ancient culture and the lasting ravages of a deadly history. Will she leave this world unscathed?

An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.

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About the Author

Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (Ph.D. University of Illinois) so she spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with the problems and issues of contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces. Though she has traveled to many places, she has one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She visits and stays a few months.

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Giveaway Alert!

Enter to win a signed copy of Evy Journey’s THE SHADE UNDER THE MANGO TREE, plus $25 Amazon Gift Card (3 winners) (USA only) (ends Sep 3)

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