Hi everyone! Mia here. Thanks for having me as a guest today. My debut book, the novella Cowboy Valentine, is about a high school honor student and the wild, sexy summer she spends with her cowboy crush before leaving for college.

Even though she’s only 18, my heroine Cora Gomez is smart, determined, and mature. Raised by her grandmother in a small town in California’s rural Central Valley, Cora has worked hard to earn her full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League university on the East Coast.

However, just before she leaves, she gets tangled up (in the very best way) with Caleb MacKinnon, the handsome son of a local rancher. He’s gorgeous and everything she’s ever wanted, but she’s made a promise to herself…no long-distance relationships. Now’s not the time to be pining away for boys—especially cowboys.

Which got me thinking…are long-distance relationships really as bad as everyone says they are?

When I was 22, I left the United States to teach English in Japan. A couple of weeks before my flight, a longtime friend and I decided to start a romantic relationship. It was really awful timing. I left for a city 6,000 miles away, and we embarked on a foolhardy long-distance relationship.

This was before the time of reliable Internet, so we connected through long, handwritten letters and weekly pay phone calls. Neither of us had much money, so plane tickets were out of the question. When Christmas rolled around (just another work day in Japan), I received a small box in the mail. It was a string of twinkle lights and a letter from my boyfriend. I cried as I put up the lights. I missed him so much.

The following year, I found a job in the U.S. and moved back home. My boyfriend and I got married before the year was through. Now I have a box of love letters that I’ll cherish forever. My husband and I joke that not even the Pacific Ocean can keep us apart.

While writing Cowboy Valentine, I revisited all the doubts and fears I had at the start of that long-distance relationship. Long distance is definitely not for everyone. It shines a light on every potential crack and flaw in a relationship. Then, like a crucible, it puts a couple’s weaknesses to the test. You begin to worry that you only get along because you see each other so infrequently. You begin to wonder whether you’re holding each other back.

But when it work, it really works! That crucible is a wondrous place to learn about each other. And like Alan Jackson sings, “Love can walk through fire without blinking.”

To find out how Cora and Caleb survive their crucible, please check out Cowboy Valentine. It’s my first book, and I am thrilled to share it with you.

Thanks for reading!

Mia Hopkins writes lush romances starring fun, sexy characters who love to get down and dirty. She’s a sucker for working class heroes, brainy heroines and wisecracking best friends.

When she’s not lost in a story, Mia spends her time cooking, gardening, traveling, volunteering and looking for her keys. In a past life, she was a classroom teacher and still has a pretty good "teacher voice" and "teacher stare." She lives in the heart of Los Angeles with her roguish husband and two waggish dogs.

Connect with Mia via Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Google+

About the Book

Forget chocolate and flowers. This homegrown honey is all the sweetness he craves.

Small-town life is nothing but a waiting room for eighteen-year-old honor student Corazón Gomez. Work and school leave little time for love, but with a full-ride Ivy League scholarship and a one-way ticket out of the boondocks, who needs it?

The answer appears on Valentine’s Day when her old cowboy crush ambles into the ice cream parlor where she works, inviting her to go on a late-night ride in his truck. For the first time she wavers between staying on the straight and narrow, and going off-road with the handsome heartbreaker.

After four years working on ranches all over the country, Caleb MacKinnon is back on the family farm helping out his mom and brothers while his father fights cancer. The one bright spot: smart, funny, and wickedly sexy Cora.

From the start, they both know this blazing-hot love affair can’t last. But when autumn comes and Cora has to leave for the East Coast, Caleb must find a solution to keep himself—and his heart—from falling apart.

amazon

barnes and noble