All the
Way to Heaven
Becky Doughty
(The Fallout Series, #1)
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: November 2nd 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Becky Doughty
(The Fallout Series, #1)
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: November 2nd 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Anica Tomlin, business major, has
just learned that the man she’s been planning her future around, her Global
Finance professor, already has a beautiful wife and family. Ani cashes in her
graduation gift to herself a little early—a trip to Tuscany—but from the moment
she boards the wrong train in Pisa, her plans for solitude and self-indulgence
begin to unravel around her.
When a bicycle accident thrusts
Ani into the skilled hands of the dashing Dr. Cosimo Lazzaro, she reluctantly
accepts his invitation to recover in his family’s country villa, perched on a
hilltop surrounded by the Lazzaro olive groves. But it’s been a black year for
olive growers all over Italy, and generations of tradition are being put to the
test like never before.
Ani is swept up in the drama of
life in Tuscany, the convergence of old and new, and the passions that drive
people to pursue the desires of their hearts. Just as Ani begins to get her
feet under her again, an unexpected turn of events leaves her doubting the very
existence of happily-ever-after, unless she can learn to trust the desires of
her own heart.
Although All the Way to Heaven is
a stand-alone novel, it is the first book in The Fallout Series, a collection
of sweet contemporary romances that follow characters featured in the first
book.
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Seven AM in Lucca, and the quaint
medieval town was teeming with life, fueled by a
caffeine-and-Mediterranean-air-induced high. Bicycle bells jingle-jangled, and
boisterous greetings volleyed from one side of the narrow streets to the other.
School children laughed and called out to comrades as they scurried off to
class.
“Why is everyone so happy?” I pulled a lumpy pillow over my head, but I could find no entry back into the anesthetizing arms of sleep.
My first morning in this enchanted place, and I felt more like a forgotten princess in a tower than a girl on a much-anticipated trip to Italy.
I hadn’t expected to fall asleep right away, but after a hot shower and a bowl of the packaged soup my mom had slipped into my luggage before they drove me to the airport, fatigue settled its heavy cloak around my shoulders. Crawling between the crisp sheets that smelled of bleach and lavender, I was disquieted by the unfamiliar stillness of a town that collectively slept at night. My world was round-the-clock, where the freeway slowed, but never stopped, businesses stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and people lived in shifts, as though afraid the earth might cease turning on its axis the moment no one was looking. But sleep, I did, like a stone, in spite of the tears that made it impossible to breathe through my nose.
Morning, however, had arrived with a vengeance, the stillness before dawn exploding into a cacophony of sound as unfamiliar to me as last night’s stillness. Cobbled streets bordered by tall, ancient stone buildings made shouts and laughter echo and reverberate, each sound amplified. Everything felt so close, but no one here seemed to mind. Like an orchestra tuning its instruments before a performance, each noise outside the window was finding its perfect pitch in the symphony entitled, “A Day in the Life of Lucca.”
“Why is everyone so happy?” I pulled a lumpy pillow over my head, but I could find no entry back into the anesthetizing arms of sleep.
My first morning in this enchanted place, and I felt more like a forgotten princess in a tower than a girl on a much-anticipated trip to Italy.
I hadn’t expected to fall asleep right away, but after a hot shower and a bowl of the packaged soup my mom had slipped into my luggage before they drove me to the airport, fatigue settled its heavy cloak around my shoulders. Crawling between the crisp sheets that smelled of bleach and lavender, I was disquieted by the unfamiliar stillness of a town that collectively slept at night. My world was round-the-clock, where the freeway slowed, but never stopped, businesses stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and people lived in shifts, as though afraid the earth might cease turning on its axis the moment no one was looking. But sleep, I did, like a stone, in spite of the tears that made it impossible to breathe through my nose.
Morning, however, had arrived with a vengeance, the stillness before dawn exploding into a cacophony of sound as unfamiliar to me as last night’s stillness. Cobbled streets bordered by tall, ancient stone buildings made shouts and laughter echo and reverberate, each sound amplified. Everything felt so close, but no one here seemed to mind. Like an orchestra tuning its instruments before a performance, each noise outside the window was finding its perfect pitch in the symphony entitled, “A Day in the Life of Lucca.”
Becky Doughty is the author of
the best-selling Elderberry Croft series, The Gustafson Girls series, Waters
Fall, and more. She’s also the voice behind BraveHeart Audiobooks. She writes
Women’s Fiction with strong elements of romance, as well as Young Adult and New
Adult Fiction. Becky’s favorite people are edge-dwellers, those who live on that
fine line where hope and despair meet, where love is the only answer and grace
becomes truly amazing. Becky is married to her champion of more than 25 years.
They have three children, two of whom are grown and starting families of their
own, and they all live within a few miles of each other in Southern California.
They share their lives with too many animals, a large vegetable garden, and a
strange underground concrete room they’re certain was built for dark and
sinister purposes….
Q: Your new book, All
the Way to Heaven, takes place in Italy, and in particular, the city of
Lucca in the heart of Tuscany. What made you choose Lucca for your location?
A: Several years ago, I visited Italy with a friend, and
we opted to “take the road less traveled.” By that, I mean we were on a
slightly restrictive budget. So we spent most of our time in youth hostels,
guest houses, and bed and breakfasts rather than hotels and resorts. And we
looked for cities that were highly rated by tourists, but that weren’t
necessarily highly populated by them. Lucca was our first stop on our trip, and
I fell in love with the city. There is a sense of being “out of time and place”
in Lucca. The core of the city is completely encircled by a Renaissance period wall
wide enough to race cars on—and at one time, people did! Nowadays, it’s
carefully preserved, and limited to only pedestrians and cyclists. It’s essentially
one huge park that hugs the heart of Lucca, as though protecting it from the
ravages of the real world. A daily promenade on the wall is essential to
experience life in Lucca. In fact, in Italy, there is a custom, passeggiata,
a term which means “evening stroll,” and it’s a national tradition for people
to take a walk after work hours and before dinner. If you live in Lucca, the
wall is the place to experience passeggiata
at its finest. What better place to fall in love?
Q: You reference opera quite a bit in All the Way to Heaven. Are you an opera buff?
A: I’m pretty much a fake fan. I love listening to the arias
(that would be like saying I’m a Van Halen fan but I only listen to their
ballads) really, really loudly when I clean house. It kinda drowns out my bad
attitude—I hate, loathe, despise, etc., cleaning—and turns my chores into
something dramatic and otherworldly. But I do think the stories told in operas
are some of the wildest and craziest ever, and originally, I intended to write
a whole series of modern retellings of various operas. Unfortunately, my fake
fandom started showing while doing my research, and I realized I didn’t know
enough about opera to base a whole series on it. So I kept the opera elements
in All the Way to Heaven because
they worked, but moved toward other themes in the rest of the series. Music,
however, remains a key player in all three (maybe four) books!
Q: Are there cliffhangers in The Fallout Series?
A: In every book there are some loose threads that will lead
into the next book, but no real cliffhangers. I’m not a huge fan of
cliffhangers, mainly because I’m the kind of reader who needs closure. I love books that leave a few loose ends to tie into
the next book(s) in the series, but I need to be able to close the book and
spend some time looking back on the story and reveling in what I’ve just read,
rather than feeling like I need to charge ahead into the next one. For
instance, I loved The Hunger Games
books. Even though there were many threads left loose, and even some
cliffhanger elements, the premise of each individual book was brought to
resolution. As much as I enjoyed Kiera Cass’ The Selection series (don’t get me wrong – I gave it 5 stars!), it
actually became frustrating to me as I closed the cover on each book and still
had no closure on some of the relationship issues. I kept thinking to myself,
“So choose already, and let’s get on to saving the kingdom!”
Q: Speaking of other authors, do you have a favorite author
or authors?
A: I’m an avid reader, and I don’t have any major genre
preferences or hang-ups, so I tend to have a flavor-of-the-month thing when it
comes to authors. Right now, I can’t get enough of Amy Harmon. Her novels have
a depth to them that many NA/contemporary romances don’t. She writes about
ordinary people with extraordinary circumstances or gifts or curses in a way
that’s believable and culturally timely, and her ability to thread spiritual
elements through her stories is so refreshing. I have yet to read one of hers where
I don’t turn the last page with bittersweet relish. John Green always wins with
me, Rachel Marks, Jessica Parks, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do
with the TV show “Shadowhunters” based on Cassandra Clare’s The Immortal Instruments… It would seem
my flavor of the month is YA/NA at the moment. I’ve also been a fan of Diana
Gabaldon for most of my adult life, some Stephen King I love (and some I hate),
and many, many others.
Q: I notice you call The
Fallout Series “Sweet New Adult Fiction.” Can you tell us a little more
about that?
A: Nothing like saving the tough stuff ‘til last. Okay. I
have this unquenchable belief that “coming of age” is not synonymous with “testing
all boundaries.” I love, love, love
the New Adult category, but I think it’s kind of gotten a bad rap since its
debut on the market. I’ve asked many NA authors what they consider is criteria
for NA, and the answer across the board is character age. That transitional
period between living at home and living independently. So they’re typically
set on college campuses or at new jobs, or around new experiences (such as
traveling alone, like Ani in All the Way
to Heaven). So often, the expectation is that the characters in these
novels will indulge in extreme sexual exploration (the covers alone do much to
propel this conception), among other
things, but many of these books are about so much more than that. And in
fact, many of these books include very little of it, dealing more with how
their characters handle new seasons in their lives, and sometimes get bypassed
because they’re lumped in with what is often considered “erotica.” Rumor has it
there’s a growing demand for “sweet” fiction about this particular transitional
period – by “sweet” I mean relatively mild in regards to violence, language,
and sex, even if the storyline deals with some of these very real issues--and I
want to be a part of that new subcategory of New Adult fiction.
Q: One last question. Is this why you’re publishing through
Clean Teen Publishing?
A: In a roundabout way, I suppose it is. I submitted to
Clean Teen Publishing NOT because my books are clean, but because Clean Teen is
known for the content analyses they do on all their books. They do not believe
in censorship, but in full disclosure. Movies and television are rated for
content, so why not book ratings?
Q: Thank you for being here today, Becky.
A: Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to
share a little about me and my books with you, and I hope you’ll find something
in my stories that resonates with you! I’d be happy to answer any other
questions you might have!
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