Spotlight & Author Interview: The Shade Under the Mango Tree + Giveaway

Join Us for This Tour: August 2 to August 27
 
 
Book Title:  The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+, 396 pages
Genre: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction
Publisher:  Sojounrer Books
Release date:  November 2, 2020
Content Rating:  PG13 & M:There’s a suicide, reference to a past genocide, and reference to sex about to happen but no description of the sexual act.

Book Description:

Gold Medal, Contemporary Fiction,  2021 Global Book Awards (formerly New York City Book Awards)

Finalist, Multicultural Fiction,  2021 International Book Awards
After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference.Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. Though he has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it, they don’t stop him. His decision changes his life forever.Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes on a Peace Corps stint to a rural rice-growing village in Cambodia. There, she finds a world steeped in ancient culture and the lasting ravages of a deadly history. Will she leave this world unscathed?An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.
Buy the Book:
Amazon ~ B&N 
Kobo ~ Apple iBooks


 

Author Interview:

Tell us about your book. What is it about and what inspired you to write it?

The Shade Under the Mango Tree is an epistolary novel about a sheltered young woman hungry for adventure. Inspired by a young man who’s travelled the world, she goes to a rural village in Asia and steps into world steeped in an ancient culture and a deadly history. What she finds there defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?

As an epistolary novel, a good part of the story is told through a journal. I got inspired to write it when, one day, as I was rummaging through old pieces of paper in the garage. I came across a little notebook, about 2.5×4 inches. It’s filled with my thoughts, and lyrics, or poetry I collected when I was a teenager. So I thought, why not an epistolary novel?

Your book is set in (the San Francisco Bay Area and a rural village in Cambodia). Can you tell us why you chose these locations in particular?

Why the San Francisco Bay Area? Simple. I live here. I know it very well—both its geographic and demographic characteristics. Better yet, I have a good feel for the people who live here, and the main protagonists represent some of those people. The setting moves to Cambodia more than halfway into the story. Luna wanted to go to a place very different from where she grew up. And this country qualifies. A lot of Peace Corps volunteers are sent there. Maybe I also wanted readers to be aware of it. The Khmer Rouge genocide is mostly unknown—more so than the Holocaust.

In looking back over the books you have written, what elements of you can be found scattered throughout the characters of the heroines you create?

The female protagonist’s interiority. All my heroines have rich inner lives. They reflect on what happens to them and it helps them grow.

The overt passivity of thinking doesn’t appeal to many modern readers, however. We prefer action and excitement. But interiority is important to me, partly because of my training and the subsequent work I did.

I also live in a multicultural world, like the heroines in four of my books, including Luna in The Shade Under The Mango Tree.

Is there anything you would like people to take away from your book?

First, I hope readers get the message that to open up to cultures very different from their own expands and enriches their humanity. You also realize you’re not as different from each other as you might think. Two others are contained in the epigraphs I placed in the beginning of the book: Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other (Rainer Maria Rilke) and Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).

Lastly, I hope it comes across that writing can help heal you from painful experiences. That idea is what started this book, in the first place.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Travel, do art, ogle art in museums.


Meet the Author:
 
Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (Ph.D. University of Illinois) so she spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with the problems and
issues of contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces. Though she has traveled to many places, she has one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She visits and stays a few months.
Connect with the Author: websitefacebook ~ pinterest ~ twitter

Tour Schedule:

Aug 2 –
Viviana MacKade – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway

Aug 2 – Cover Lover Book Review – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 3 – Rockin’ Book Reviews – book review / guest post / giveaway
Aug 3 – Olio By Marilyn – book review / giveaway
Aug 3 – Working Mommy Journal – book review / giveaway
Aug 4 – @twilight_reader – book review
Aug 4 – Kam’s Place – book spotlight
Aug 5 – Talk of Tales – book review / giveaway
Aug 5 – A Mama’s Corner of the World – book review / giveaway
Aug 6 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 9 – Literary Flits – book spotlight
Aug 9 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 10 – Lamon Reviews – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 10 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 11 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 11 – Rajiv’s Reviews – book review / giveaway
Aug 12 – @booking.with.janelle – book review / author interview / giveaway
Aug 13 – Hall Ways Blog – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 16 – Sadie’s Spotlight – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 17 – Westveil Publishing – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 17 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review / giveaway
Aug 18 – Sefina Hawke’s Books – book review
Aug 19 – Reading is My Passion – book review
Aug 19 – Deborah-Zenha Adams – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 19 – I’m Into Books – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 23 – Read with Me – book review
Aug 23 – Books Lattes & Tiaras – book spotlight
Aug 24 – Splashes of Joy – book review / author interview / giveaway
Aug 25 –Falling Into A Good Book – book review / giveaway
Aug 26 – She Just Loves Books – book review / giveaway
Aug 27 – Books for Books – book review
Aug 27 – Adventurous Jessy – book review / giveaway


Enter the Giveaway:

THE SHADE UNDER THE MANGO TREE Book Tour Giveaway

5 Replies to “Spotlight & Author Interview: The Shade Under the Mango Tree + Giveaway”

  1. This looks interesting.
    Thank you for the author interview. I love getting to see behind the curtain, so to speak.

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