For
Sure & Certain
by Anya Monroe
Release
Date: 02/05/15
390
pages
Summary
from Goodreads:
***She knits, cans jam, and lives in the
city. He’s an Amish college student, breaking the rules. They're so right, it's
wrong.***
Marigold, a recent high school graduate with a shady past, is looking to redefine herself. She doesn’t know what she wants exactly, but college isn’t it.
When she meets Abel, an Amish guy on Rumspringa, his ‘running around’ time, she doesn’t plan on falling for someone wearing a straw hat and suspenders. But she can't help it, Abel is the breath of fresh air she's been waiting for.
Abel, who’s moved to the city for a summer program at Jamestown, never imagined Marigold would be drawn to the life he was trying so hard to avoid. His family expects him to take over the family farm; college parties and dorm life don’t quite fit in with their plans for him.
Opposites attract, but nothing is easy with love. When they trade places for the summer they learn a life together isn’t as for sure and certain as they thought.
Marigold, a recent high school graduate with a shady past, is looking to redefine herself. She doesn’t know what she wants exactly, but college isn’t it.
When she meets Abel, an Amish guy on Rumspringa, his ‘running around’ time, she doesn’t plan on falling for someone wearing a straw hat and suspenders. But she can't help it, Abel is the breath of fresh air she's been waiting for.
Abel, who’s moved to the city for a summer program at Jamestown, never imagined Marigold would be drawn to the life he was trying so hard to avoid. His family expects him to take over the family farm; college parties and dorm life don’t quite fit in with their plans for him.
Opposites attract, but nothing is easy with love. When they trade places for the summer they learn a life together isn’t as for sure and certain as they thought.
Excerpt
“You
came,” she said it like it was a relief, like she wondered if he’d really be
here. He was.
“You’re all set then?” he asked. She nodded
and slipped in beside him as the driver shut their door. The taxi delivered
them to the bus station, and they were quickly settled into their seats for the
ride to Lancaster.
“I
brought sustenance,” she said pulling out a paper sack from her purse. “My very
best peanut butter cookies and a thermos of coffee.”
“You’re
so prepared.”
“I
bake when I’m nervous,” she admitted biting her lip.
“Don’t
be nervous.”
“Did
you tell them I’m coming at least?”
“The
whole no phone thing kind of zeroed out that plan.”
“Right.”
Her face fell slightly.
“Don’t
worry. Seriously, girls always over think these things.”
“Do
you bring a lot of girls home?” she asked as the bus pulled out of the city and
onto the highway. They had a two-hour ride ahead of them and Abel wasn’t all
too keen on spending it rehashing past relationships.
“Bringing
girls home isn’t really an Amish thing, everything is discreet. I only courted
one girl, Esther.”
“And
when did you guys break up?” Marigold asked. Even though Abel was bright, he
hadn’t exactly thought through how all of this would sound.
“Two
weeks ago, on my way out of town,” he admitted sheepishly.
“No!”
She buried her hands in her face. “So I’m a rebound girl?”
“I
don’t know what that is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t good. And you, Marigold, you are good. You are only
good."
Interview
and Promo Post:
1) Tell us five things about yourself readers wouldn’t know!
1) In For Sure & Certain Marigold is an amazingly skilled
artisan. She can knit and sew and quilt, and basically school us all in that
arena. I’m pretty envious of her because I’m what you’d call a ghetto-crafter.
This means I don’t put up tape before I paint, I don’t measure before I cut,
and I guesstimate when it comes to how much Modge-Podge to use.
2) Speaking of Marigold’s talents, she’s a really great baker. I’m
pretty handy in the kitchen myself, however, one summer I got a little cocky.
My friend Heather and I were really into canning. We were putting up
prize-worthy pickles and applesauce and peaches and jam. Like, we picked our
own grapes and made jelly. I know.
Then we took it one step further. We decided we should go all in
with making our own condiments. Long story short, 72 hours and 30 pounds of
tomatoes later we had about ten ounces of really disgusting ketchup. The moral
here is, know your limits. And maybe if you make really good pickles, let that
be enough.
3) In For Sure & Certain Abel is from what is considered Amish
Country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I visited the area on a high school trip
and loved the rich culture. It began a long, unabashed obsession with Amish
fiction. I always said I’d write my own version of an Amish love story one day,
and now I did!
4) Marigold and Abel met the summer they graduated high school. My
husband and I met the summer I graduated, too. As much as people hate on
insta-love, I always shake my head at them because I experienced for sure & certain
love-at-first-sight myself. The night I met my future-husband I told my friend
Allie, “I’m going to marry that guy.” The next summer I did.
5) In For Sure & Certain, family plays a big role in how both
Marigold and Abel view themselves. They both begin the story with having rocky
relationships with their sisters, mostly because it’s crazy hard to figure out
who the heck you are!
My relationship with my sister, Alessandra Rose, plays an
important role in my life, too. In fact, we love one another so much we took it
to the proving grounds by getting matching tattoos that say, “I <3 MY
SISTER.”. I told you, I really love her. J
2)
Tell us about a day in your writing life (what your typical writing day
consists of when you are writing).
Writing is a balancing act! I have six kids and because of that I
can’t sit in my pajamas all day drinking tea, no matter how badly I want to.
I’ve found that routine is really important for me to stay productive. It’s not
glamorous. It’s a lot of me, with my laptop, getting words on a page. If I want
to mix it up and get cray-cray, I might spend a few hours walking on my
tread-desk while writing. Or if I want to get legit off the hook, I end up at
the neighborhood coffee shop where I drink London Fog’s and eat biscuits while
working on a manuscript.
I’m grateful for the fact I get to write full-time. Most days,
after I take kiddos to school, I get in about 5.5 solid hours of writing. This
is sacred time for me and very little can get in the way of it.
When I first began taking my writing seriously, there was an
adjustment. For a long time I had been a stay-at-home-mom and my world revolved
around play dates, because, Hello! Sanity! But now the kids are older and
things have shifted. Having a supportive partner has made this transition
possible because I’ve never felt the pressure of needing to pull a certain
income.
I also love football season because my house is all about the
Seahawks, and it’s not really my thing (I know, don’t hate me!). I can always sneak
out on Sundays without feeling guilty. On those days I hole up at Panera with
my IRL critique partners and talk shop in between writing sprints.
3) What was your inspiration
to become an author?
Life is really freaking hard. We all know that. And it’s hard in
all sorts of different ways for each of us. For me, the hard stuff started when
I was twenty-five. My husband and I decided to grow our family through adoption
and I went from being a mom of two toddlers to being a mom of five, overnight.
It was a steep learning curve, and not just figuring out how to
enroll my children in school and put restrictions on electronics and how to
meal plan for a little tribe. It was also hard because my entire universe kind
of exploded.
I was a mess. Maybe some of that had to do with the fact I had
another baby soon after, rounding out our family to the nice,
still-barely-fit-in-a mini-van, number eight.
But at some point I knew I couldn’t keep pinning my messiness on
circumstance. At some point I needed to figure out who I wanted to be, in the
midst of the mess. It took writing a lot of really weird stuff for me to begin
figuring that out. And honestly, I still am, but I began that slow process of
self-discovery with a keyboard and a full-heart and the desire to crawl out of
the place I was in. Some people use therapy, I used the gift of story.
Buy
Links:
About
the Author
Anya Monroe likes to write stories and paint words on her walls. She believes in love at first sight and fights for happily-ever-afters. As a wife and mom to six kids, she carves out time to write between carpool pick-ups and date nights because words are her heartbeat. She lives a ferry ride from Seattle and is a total Pacific Northwesterner who drinks chai lattes and wears Birkenstocks and has dreadlocks. She's a cliché, but doesn't mind it. Not even a little.
Anya Monroe likes to write stories and paint words on her walls. She believes in love at first sight and fights for happily-ever-afters. As a wife and mom to six kids, she carves out time to write between carpool pick-ups and date nights because words are her heartbeat. She lives a ferry ride from Seattle and is a total Pacific Northwesterner who drinks chai lattes and wears Birkenstocks and has dreadlocks. She's a cliché, but doesn't mind it. Not even a little.
She documents her lovely-messy life on IG @anyamonroe. Find her there!
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