Lips Like Strawberries Book Blog Tour
Congratulations, you made it! First off, I’d like to thank you for coming to my blog. Welcome. If you’re here today, then you’re probably here for the launch of the Lips Like Strawberries book blog tour, starting with me, the author of the new rom-com/chick-lit/women’s fiction novel Michael Stephenson. For you today, I am giving you a peek at the cover of the book and a quick Q&A… with myself. Trust me, I’m not going crazy after the pandemic. I just thought I’d answer a few questions that some fans might have about the book before reading it. Also, check out the tour dates for the rest of the tour this week as well. As a little correction, July 29th will not feature my book on the actual Chicklit Central website, but on all other social media concerning it. Hope you do join me on this tour. And of course, go get a copy of Lips Like Strawberries over on Amazon right now. It is currently in Kindle format only, but will be coming out in hard copy later this year, so stay tuned right here on my blog or follow me on my other social media for updates on that!
What is Lips Like Strawberries about?
That seems like such a simple question, and yet can be so complex to answer. On the surface, it’s a simple book about a girl trying to get over her anxiety, reclaim her life, re-enter the modern dating scene and find love. Ara is a newly-30 agoraphobe who hasn’t left her house since 2020 (it’s 2023 in the book). She has a best friend she loves, and who always comes over to keep her company. Outside of him, she has little to no connection with the outside world and is suffering through loneliness. But she does have one saving grace: She has a quirky, insane, totally unrealistic “ability” of sorts. Ara can experience the world through someone else’s senses for 12 hours, so long as she touches that person. We’re talking sight, sound, taste, et cetera. She’s been bobbing through life for the last three years using her ability to make faux connections to what’s going on beyond her window, until finally she is hit with one experience through someone else’s senses that she can’t ignore. And that sets her off on this funny journey that will hopefully get her back to normal and help her find love in the process.
That’s the surface meaning. A deeper dive into the book for me starts to unravel one of the few themes in the book. This story is very much about connection, not only between people, but also with ourselves, our innermost feelings, and our own unique physiology. It plays off the old notion that love is more than just how you think about someone or the sweet words you share with them, but that it is a chemical reaction in our bodies. It essentially asks us the question: What is it that draws us to someone and creates a bond with an otherwise complete stranger?
What inspired you to write this book?
Well, as funny as it may seem, the pandemic inspired me to write it. No, not the 2020 pandemic, the 1918 one. Okay, so I’m going to try to sound as respectful to what’s happened in the last year and a half as I can here. I know that the pandemic was extremely hard for a great many people throughout the world, so I wanted to write something that would be uplifting to all of us, be relatable both to the pandemic and to the chaos that is the modern dating scene, and give us all a few good laughs along the way. Well, as it turned out, I realized back in May of 2020 that I had already half-wrote a story that would fit that perfectly. It was entitled the same name—Lips Like Strawberries—but was a period piece, in which a young couple first separated by World War I, then by the pandemic of 1918 had to re-find each other. Total honesty here, I think that version was far more romantic, just because we have flashbacks of the couple before the war and they knew each other and how they felt about each other then. It also had a more heartbreaking feel to it as well, but it had the same mysterious powers at its center as Ara has in this one. So, I took the bare bones of that, changed the races, gave it a modern-day twist, and added in more humor. Adding more humor was a conscious effort because I really believe that in this day, especially with cancel culture, the pandemic and political unrest, we all need things we can come together and laugh about. Humor that can help to unite us.
Hm? Interesting that this was actually based off of a different pandemic. That sounds like it could be a pretty good read all its own. You mentioned changing the races. Why?
First off, thanks me. I always appreciate the self-appreciating compliments. Yes, I did change the races between the two books. The original Lips Like Strawberries featured a black couple, where this version features a white one. This was a conscious decision to flip the races after some of the events of last year. Although I do try to keep it as lighthearted as possible throughout the read, I didn’t want to ignore some of the heavier issues that we as both a nation (the US) and the world dealt with in 2020, and still must confront on a daily basis. And for me, the best way to do that in this book, at least, was to switch the races of the main characters. If I reveal more it might be considered a spoiler, so I will leave it there. As for the other version of the book, I’m toying with the idea of releasing that one as well with the name Lips Like Blueberries a few years down the line. It’s funny because I had already been working on that version for over a decade when the pandemic hit and decided to switch gears and re-configure it into Lips Like Strawberries. So, hope is not dead for that one yet.
Who do you think this book is for? Who’s your target audience?
I think this book is for just about anyone, really. For starters, let me put this out there, it doesn’t have a whole lot of cursing throughout its text. I don’t really curse in my actual life, but I have been known to include cursing in many of my works. Here, however, I wanted to limit the amount of bad words so that even readers who prefer not to read that type of vocabulary could enjoy the read. And while I would say that it leans toward a younger crowd, I believe there’s a high amount of relatability for everyone, including an older reader set, as well as people who are married or not. Again, it’s really about connection between all people, and allowing us to realize that even though what we all went through was collectively bad, it is okay for us all to start having hope in a newer, brighter future again. In other words, I’d say anyone over fifteen could enjoy it. If it were a movie, it would definitely be PG-13.
With the pandemic still going, why did you feel now was the best time to release Lips Like Strawberries?
Good question. For starters, I really didn’t know how long the pandemic might last. The previous one did go on for about two and a half years, but with our current technologies, we got predictions ranging from anywhere between it ending in summer 2021 to 2022. So, me being an optimist, I went with the earliest date. But also, even though we are still in the pandemic, I wanted for people to be allowed to have hope for the future. That’s one of the reasons why I set the book in 2023. Because even though we are currently having variants rise up and we may have to take a step back, it’s still okay for people to look forward to a time when we’ll be able to think of this pandemic as just another event that couldn’t deter us from living out our dreams, finding love and happiness, and becoming our best selves.
Great interview. And where can people find your novel Lips Like Strawberries?
Currently, it is exclusively on Amazon as an Amazon Kindle digital ebook download. I hope to have the physical hard copies out by Christmas of this year, 2021. Look to Amazon for that as well. You can click on Lips Like Strawberries here and follow the link straight to the page. And check out the rest of the tour dates below. It was great talking with you, me, and remember to check out some of my other works as well.
#LipsLikeStrawberries
