Heart-Shaped Stone by Arby Corry ♥ Fun Facts, Book Tour & GIVEAWAY ♥ (Romantic Suspense)

Caila, like most dreamers, just wants to be wanted. Unlike most dreamers, she's wanted by the CIA. When the last decade of thirty-two year old Caila Domenici’s life disappears, destroyed in a car accident, she is forced to begin again. Defying doctor’s orders to slow-go-it, she sets out to navigate the world on her own. It's not going well. Coddled from birth, everything from a bus schedule to how to boil water confounds her. Worse yet, she's about to accept her meddling mother's offer to pay for food and rent. With just a hunch her talents extend beyond that of daughter of privilege, Caila searches for her past. Before she can find it, it finds her. And the handsome azure-eyed stranger who’s saying he knows her is somehow part of it. Caila always believed there had to be more, but now, on the verge of discovering the truth, she must decide which is worse – never knowing who she really is, or knowing too much.

All I knew going in was that this was going to be a love story. I love a good love story, but love a complicated one all the more. I knew, too, that I’d be completely bored, and likely give up on this project and move to another, unless something compelled me to keep writing. Heart-Shaped Stone did just that. As silly as it sounds, the characters spoke to me. They told me where they were going, how they’d get there and what they’d do along the way. The more I delved in, the more fun it got to write and a story I wasn’t expecting unfolded right in front of me.

My main character, Caila, is quite complicated as well. She is just as flawed as she is beautiful. My number one rule for her was that she had to be real. No fluffy talk, no drippy love story and no giving up on her dreams! And even though she exists in a world that most cannot relate to I made sure women can relate to her on a personal level. Lending my very own footsteps to real life experiences and places I love only added dimension to a character I’d consider a friend.

I think readers will enjoy the many twists and turns, the complex relationship Caila has with her parents and an ending no one, not even myself, saw coming.

Reese was being too nice. Something was up - their deep conversation the night before, the bubble bath, the tea, turning down her bed and now breakfast? Caila wasn’t suspicious by nature, and in most cases trusted more than she should, but where Reese was concerned she dropped all pretenses and questioned his every move. He was much too calculating to not see opportunity in everything he did. Caila recognized that in him right away. Her mind was now churning with theories. Why, if he was up to something, would he be so blatant with this sudden kindness? Did he think she would not notice?

Then she imagined the most unexpected thing.

Maybe he wasn’t up to anything at all. Maybe this was another side to the man she detested right from the start. The invader, the man who came to make her life a living hell and push aside her father may not, after all, be the man she believed him to be. But even that theory was short lived. No, she thought, he has a motive.

Arby Corry has spent the last twenty-five years in the radio business. Performing every job from radio announcer, to program director, to commercial producer to copy writer, Arby gives voice to characters found just on the other end of the request line. Her debut novel, Heart-Shaped Stone, has received critical acclaim as well as delighting readers with its fresh approach. Arby believes in real characters, with real voices. And while a happy ending is always satisfying, she believes life has other plans. When not on the air or writing her follow-up to Heart-Shaped Stone, Arby enjoys spending time with her husband, children and the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest.