ALWAYS by Lauren Dane

Sometimes you have to go more than halfway to meet in the middle.

Caitlin Moore has every reason to celebrate. She’s through with law-school finals, and out for some post-semester fun when she runs smack dab into Eamon Blake, the Irishman with whom she had a summer fling years ago. Time hasn’t dimmed their lingering friendship—or their sexual chemistry.

Eamon isn’t looking for love when he bumps into Cat while he’s in Seattle on a job. Yet over the next year, he finds himself involved in a rekindled long-distance romance that moves from casual to a lot more.

That’s the rub. Cat is determined not to repeat her past mistakes with men and give up the dream job for which she’s worked so hard. Independence is something she’s spent years achieving. Eamon can start over so much easier than she can—why shouldn’t he make the sacrifice this time?

But Eamon doesn’t much relish leaving the life he’s been building in Los Angeles—and he really doesn’t like ultimatums. At an impasse, goodbye seems the only direction to go. Ending it is the right thing to do…or the biggest mistake they ever made.

Warning: Like-whoa sexy Irishmen speaking French in the ear of a very willing Seattleite. Sexin with all the big words.

This week, my contemporary romance, ALWAYS, released from Samhain Publishing. I’ve written elsewhere about how it’s a very simple story about two people who need to make hard choices to remain together. It’s simple because the problems are like many you and I face – how to balance your needs and wants with your partner’s.  So I won’t bore you all with that, LOL.

Every time I write a book, there’s usually a song, a voice, a something that is the thing I return to again and again to keep focus on the flavor of my characters and the story.

For me, and for Always, it was Ani DiFranco’s As Is. Especially these lines:

and I’ve got
no illusions about you
and guess what?
I never did
and when I said
when I said I’ll take it
I meant,
I meant as is

And really, what boils down to love, real, deep and lasting love is the choice people make to accept the other person with their flaws? The choice to be with another person and sometimes that means you make the sacrifices and sometimes it means your partner does. But fifty/fifty doesn’t mean half all day every day – sometimes it means for a few years one of you puts aside some goals to let the other person achieve theirs because it makes the most sense and they need you to make that choice. And it means that you want to be someone’s choice, not someone’s responsibility or burden.

There’s a place in Always, when Cat is trying to explain to Eamon that she wants him to choose to be with her, to be the one who makes the sacrifice right then because it not only made the most sense, but also because he wanted to make that choice for her, for them.

For me, that’s what love is. Loving someone is only part of it, love isn’t enough. Love comes with a whole other person who has wants and needs and opinions and you have to work your way through together, choosing each other time and again, even when it’s the most difficult thing you’ve ever done.

That’s that Always means to me. I hope you all enjoy it!

*****Leave a comment for the chance to win a download of ALWAYS! Two names will be chosen. Good Luck! 🙂