Please join me in welcoming Miranda!
‘Tis The Season for
Awkward Family Dinners
Thanks so much for having me on The Romance Dish!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Miranda Liasson, and
I write contemporary romance for Montlake and soon for Grand Central. My
stories are sexy, lighthearted, but also a little heart-achy, and heavy on the
belief that no matter what happens, family and good friends always have your
back.
That’s not to say that family can’t sometimes be a little…um,
difficult.
In my new release, CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU, there is no love
lost between the hero, who’s been gone for twelve years, and the heroine’s
father.
Separated by a tragedy in their teenage years, both my hero
and heroine have worked hard to escape the past and move on. It’s been more
difficult for my heroine, Arabella, who has remained in their small town and
become a successful psychologist. One day, she finds the past has returned full
force in the form of her darkly handsome, enigmatic first love, Roman Spikonos,
who is settling back into town to take over his grandfather’s orchards, right
next to her traditional Italian family’s garden center. The story is about
love, loss, friendship, family, and the journey of one woman to confront her
past in order to move onto her future.
At one point in the story, Roman suddenly finds himself
sitting among the heroine’s family at their typical Sunday dinner, and he
discovers life has truly moved on. Things are not the same, no matter how hard
he’s tried to mend fences.
Since it’s the season for potentially awkward family
dinners, I thought I’d tell you about a memorable one I experienced
personally...when I met my husband’s big Lebanese family for the first time.
I am from the opposite
of a big Lebanese family. I was the last child born to older parents and I
was definitely an oops! baby. I had a
very calm, bookish childhood, with reserved, quiet, loving family members.
So imagine my surprise on the snowy holiday evening when I
approached my husband’s family’s suburban neighborhood street, and could not
even find parking! Cars were lined up
bumper-to-bumper on both sides. Apparently every auntie and cousin in a ten-mile
radius had ventured out to meet me, the girlfriend.
I could hear the noise emanating from the house before I
even knocked. As I handed off my carrot cake, I was greeted by what seemed like
dozens of raucous, loud, laughing people. Saying that the family inside
reminded me of a scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an understatement.
As my boyfriend’s mother kindly sat me at the big dining
room table, I couldn’t help but notice there seemed to be six conversations
going on at one time. This was completely out of my realm of experience. Where
I came from, everyone around the table always took part in the same
conversation.
“Are you all right?” my boyfriend asked.
“Sure, of course,” I said. “It’s just a little…loud.” He
hadn’t noticed the decibel level being a little (or a lot) on the dialed-up
side.
Everyone began eating and passing platters of delicious
Lebanese food. Then suddenly it quieted down. The kibbeh nayeh was being served—a traditional uncooked meat dish. Everyone
was silently watching me, waiting to see if I would put some on my plate.
I gulped. Broke out in a cold sweat. Because I had taken Microbiology,
for gosh sakes! I knew what happened
to people who ate undercooked meat, much less the raw kind! Bad things! I loved
my boyfriend but was I really being asked to make this sacrifice?
So, you might be asking, did I do it? Yes, yes I did. Well,
I put a pile of it on my plate, which seemed to please the older relatives. But
I confess that later, when no one was looking, I gently tucked it under the
pita bread so I wouldn’t have to actually eat it.
The worst moment, however, was yet to come. My husband’s sixty-year-old cousin flat-out
asked me in front of the whole table, Are
you sleeping with him? Is he good in bed?
Oh, God. In my family, something like this would happen
absolutely never. I looked over at my
now-husband. I could still remember how he looked back at me. Smiling,
dark-eyed, black haired, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. And he winked.
Winked!
“I’m so good, there’s no time for sleep,” he said without
missing a heartbeat. The table roared. I
immediately began breathing again. I knew there was a reason I loved that man!
In time, that raucous family became my family too. They
welcomed me with open arms. They taught me what it was like to be part of a big
family with lots of cousins and aunts and siblings. Where the aunts and uncles
grill the young ones and make them accountable for their life decisions,
keeping them in line. And like Roman in my story, I learned that quirky family
members may abound but they’ve got hearts as big as the moon.
And the most important piece of wisdom I learned—if you want
to fit in with the family, you gotta try the food.
I’d love to give away one signed copy of CAN’T STOP LOVING
YOU to a U.S. commenter and one e-copy to a non-U.S. commenter.
For a chance to win, tell me, what’s the most unusual food
you’ve had to try around the holidays?
Be sure to include US or Non-US with your comment so we know which prize draw to put you into. Thanks!
When
it comes to her heart, Arabella D’Angelo has moved on—even though she still
lives in Mirror Lake, Connecticut, a little tourist town with a long memory for
mistakes. Ever the dutiful daughter of a cantankerous widower who holds
grudges, Bella has spent the past twelve years raising her younger brother and
making a name for herself as a successful psychologist. Now, when she isn’t
counseling a lonely-hearts club for senior women, she’s humoring her
matchmaking girlfriends. Bella resists the romancing of their blind dates, yet
her friends hope she’ll fall for a local and scrap plans for a fresh start in
Chicago.
Then,
just before Bella’s thirtieth birthday, her first love, Roman Spikonos, returns
to Mirror Lake. When he moves next door to her family’s garden-center business
to run his grandparents’ orchard, it stirs up gossip—and a tempest of
passions—just in time for pumpkin harvest. As Roman and Bella once again get
caught up in a swirl of desire and heartache, not to mention her overprotective
father’s fury, Mirror Lake will soon find out whether the Italian hometown
beauty and her unforgettable Greek god can stand a second chance.
EXCERPT:
Just then, Bella saw a man walking toward her
from across the square. She looked the other way, pretending to be fascinated
by a couple of little kids kicking up leaves. Because she’d know that sweeping,
confident gait, that straight-as-a-cornstalk carriage, those big, strong
shoulders anywhere. And the way her limbs were going weak, the way her heart
had catapulted into her stomach like a basketball and her breaths were coming
raggedly, her body knew it, too. All that told her that the man striding
quickly toward her was no surfer guy. It was Roman.
She glanced up to find him standing there, wearing jeans and a black
sweater. Looking like sin, as usual.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, trying to sound disappointed, but she
couldn’t help smiling a little. “I’m expecting my big, burly, blond Swedish
date.” When she showed him the photo on her phone, his response was an emphatic
grunt.
He sat next to her on the bench, his leg grazing hers
unapologetically. He smelled like woodsy cologne and shaving cream, and it was
making her giddy. Like he’d just had a shower and was going out for the night.
Maybe he was. An image of him on a date with some gorgeous woman floated
through her mind. Him laughing and sipping wine with someone and caressing her
hand across the table.
She pushed back that image. It made her uncomfortable. Sad. It was
only a matter of time before he met someone. He was too good looking, too
funny, too chivalrous. Too everything.
His leg touched hers again, but he didn’t say anything, like excuse me or oops. It
seemed . . . intentional. Yet he sat there, focused on watching
the sun sink over those gorgeous trees, that New England autumn post-card
view . . .
She couldn’t take it anymore. She moved away into her own personal
space. “Oh, for the love of God, what are you doing here?”
He sat up a little straighter. Eyeballed her in a way that confused
her . . . he seemed hesitant, very unlike him, who usually said
what he meant and didn’t play games. Finally he spoke. “Your date’s not showing
tonight.”
“Oh.” Great. Apparently she was being stood up based on appearance
only, since Jess had told her she’d e-mailed her date a photo. That was confidence inspiring. And worse was that Roman knew she was being stood up. Not only knew but came bearing
the news. Wait a minute . . . She stopped in the middle of
gathering up her purse. “How do you know that?”
He leaned forward on the bench, resting his elbows on his legs,
tapping his fingers together. “Trust me, he’s not your type.”
“You interfered with my date? How could you? I thought we talked
about this.”
Roman sighed heavily. He turned toward her and spoke. “Your date’s
not showing because he doesn’t exist.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Or two. “Did you annihilate him?”
“No, I made him up. I gave Jess a stock photo to show you.”
“To play a joke on me?” Why would he do that? Her throat felt lumpy.
Through everything, she thought at least they were friends. “That is the
lowest—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Bella,” he said and shook her a
little. “Look at me.”
She did, through narrowed eyes. When she saw his face, all the fight
whooshed right out of her, like a balloon let loose before it’s tied. There was
something different about him tonight. A graveness. The way he looked at her
was just different, like he was not joking or being
sarcastic. In fact, he looked dead serious, those big brown eyes staring right
at her, those long, lovely lashes looking sinfully angelic on such a gorgeous
hunk of man.
“I did it because I want to be your date for
tonight.” She must have still looked confused, because he said, “I knew you’d
never agree to it the regular way.”
All Bella’s critical body parts were humming. She was filled with
elation, with hope. Maybe it was wine or desperation or
the upcoming birthday, she didn’t know. But she had the distinct
feeling she was about to do something reckless, and like it.
She must’ve looked dumbstruck because he repeated, “I want to
take you on a date.”
“Take me on a date?” she echoed. A bright bulb, she was
indeed.
“Yeah, you know”—he pointed back and forth between the two of
them—“go out together, you and me. Tonight.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. Our history, you know.”
Their history was a mess, and they both knew it.
“Right, right,” he said, pretending to contemplate that. “But
still.”
But still what? “Why me?” she asked. It came out sounding
very quiet and clogged, because she was having difficulty getting the words
out.
“I think you know why.” His eyes dropped to her lips. Her
stomach dropped to her feet. Oh God.
Date him? That would be foolish. Do him? Even worse. To her
horror she realized she wanted to. A lot.
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