Hi everyone! Today I’m so excited to welcome author Amy True to the blog as we celebrate the release of her new adult romance, Meet Me In Ivy Falls, which is being published today! Amy has been kind enough to stop by Pop! Goes The Reader to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a signed copy of the U.S. paperback along with some swag in honour of her book’s release!
I adore a contemporary romance set in a cozy small town setting and the book’s description, along with the exclusive excerpt featured below, has me convinced I’ll need to make my own visit Ivy Falls very soon! If you’re as excited about this book as I am, don’t miss your chance to enter to win a signed edition from the author at the end of this post!
Title Meet Me In Ivy Falls
Author Amy True
Intended Target Audience Adult
Genre Contemporary Romance
Publication Date June 25th 2024 by CAEZIK Romance
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● Blackwell’s ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
In the gorgeous small-town of Ivy Falls, Torran is building her career in house restoration, trying desperately to save her town’s identity and charm. She has no time for love, but when her childhood sweetheart, Beck, returns unexpectedly and steals away her dream house at auction, sparks fly.
Beck’s plan is simple: return to Ivy Falls and put old memories to rest. He never expects to outbid Torran on a property that’s the last link to his past. Beck is sure he can easily fix the place and move on. But when a rookie mistake forces Torran to come to his rescue, Beck knows that without her help the house will stay a rundown mess just like him.
Swallowing nails feels like a better option than working with Beck, but with her business on shaky ground, and that undeniable zap of chemistry still burning between them, Torran reluctantly agrees. What starts as a partnership turns into something more, but when long-buried feelings and secrets resurface, Torran and Beck learn it’ll take more than a coat of paint to fix a past that changed both their lives forever.
About Amy True
After stints working in entertainment and advertising, Amy True turned to chasing her one dream: writing romance. She can often be found in her local writing spot, sipping her favorite iced tea (with a touch of lemonade) and putting together playlists for her next books. When she’s not daydreaming about her next cinnamon roll hero, she’s traveling with her family, reading good books, and plotting her next small-town romance. While she grew up only ten minutes from Disneyland, which inspired her love for storytelling, she now calls Arizona home.
Beck
The speedometer raced over thirty as I drove past the town’s carved wooden sign welcoming me to Ivy Falls: Home to 10,032 smiling faces and award-winning berry cobbler.
I expected memories, but nothing could have prepared me for the knot tightening in my gut as I sped through the center of town, past the park where I played Little League, and my old high school.
When my friend Diego reached out to tell me his company was auctioning off my childhood home on Huckleberry Lane, he’d told me that unless another interested party bought it, it’d probably get leveled to build condos. I’d brushed him off at first because I had zero interest in returning to the place that held so many memories for me. A day later, he sent me another text with the listing, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It seemed impossible that the once beautiful house was now in a state of rot. If my parents had still been alive, it would’ve pained them to see the place in such bad shape.
All week long I’d tried to forget about the text, the house, but it was like a fucking siren pulling me back for one last look. Forcing me to remember all the good times I’d had with my family before my life went dark in one blazing moment.
A line of stores including the Dairy Dip and Minnie’s Market slid past my window. I kept an eye out for one of my favorite spots. As I turned the corner, my stomach knotted tighter. The storefront for Robert’s Hobby Shop was empty. Just like everything else in my life, the space where my dad and I had spent hours mulling over which model car sets to buy was now pitch-black.
After a few more turns, I pulled into the driveway of 2227 Huckleberry Lane. Built in 1895, the once stunning two-story Colonial Revival home now had a gabled roof that sagged like a frail old man. Cream-colored paint flaked off the wide center pillars. Inky-black oil stains dotted the cracked concrete driveway. The lawn my dad had mowed with precision every weekend was now a rocky pile of dirt and weeds.
I didn’t blame my grandpa for selling it after my parents died, but it would’ve been nice if someone had cared for the house the way my mom and dad did when we lived here. Diego told me the house had had several owners over the last few years until a property management company bought it and began renting it out. When the company defaulted on their loan, the bank contacted him about selling it at the auction today.
Wet, sticky heat clung to my forehead and dripped down the back of my neck. I shrugged off my suit jacket and laid it across the back seat. Forcing my feet forward, I climbed the rotting wood stairs until I stopped on the wraparound porch. The old swing my parents loved hung on by a single rusty chain. I cupped my hands around my eyes and looked through the big bay window. Piles of empty beer cans and fast-food wrappers littered the living room floor. Like some avant-garde art show, swaths of colorful graffiti covered every inch of the walls.
The place was a mess. All the floors would have to be replaced, as well as the windows and front door. I could only imagine what kind of shape the rest of the house was in if the living room was that big of a disaster. Maybe someone should put a wrecking ball to it.
‘No,’ I said more to myself than the house. I’d been back in Tennessee two years and had managed to stay away from Ivy Falls. I couldn’t reopen that chapter of my life no matter how much it killed me that the home my parents had taken such loving care of now looked like the scene of a bad horror movie.
The porch groaned under my feet. Another warning sign to run and never look back.
I sped down the crumbling stairs and back to my car. Once I was behind the wheel, I floored it out of the driveway. My condo was only forty-five minutes away. Forty, if I pushed the speed limit. I pictured a cold beer defrosting in my hand as I reviewed the proposal for the new account my team was pitching in eight short weeks.
I did a quick U-turn and headed back through town. A flash of my little sister, Piper, running in the front yard filled my head. She’d loved that house. The way she could dance around the wide-open kitchen. Play her beloved piano in the front room with the natural light streaming in through the big bay window. She cried all the way to the state line when we left.
What if I bought it? Restored it and brought her home? It could be a reminder of how things could be good and simple again.
Thankfully, reality took hold of my muddied brain. I knew nothing about restoring a house, and with everything else I had going on in my life buying it would be a supremely bad idea.
I stopped at the next light and an old Ford truck with sky-blue paint rumbled up beside me. In the driver’s seat a woman belted out a Moon Taxi song at the top of her lungs. Her blonde ponytail swung behind her as she tapped the wheel in rhythm to the beat. The windows of my car vibrated as the music grew louder. Her sweet voice moved through my car like it’d found a way in through the air vents.
There was only one person who loved the soulful beats of the Nashville indie band as much as I did.
Torran.
It felt like a sign – if you believed in that shit.
Panic quickly filled my chest.
Should I ease down the window?
Call to her?
Give a casual wave hello?
Nope. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d already decided I was going back to Nashville, because there was nothing left for me in Ivy Falls.
The truck’s engine revved. When the light turned green, she sped through the intersection.
My foot stayed on the brake. There was too much pain here. Too much of my parents in every corner of this town. But I hadn’t seen Torran in a decade, and as much as I did not want to admit it, things hadn’t changed since we were kids. She was the sun and I was the Earth unable to resist her gravitational pull.
Amy has been kind enough to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a signed, finished copy of the U.S. paperback of Meet Me In Ivy Falls! This contest is open residents of the United States and will be open for entry for two weeks.
