Bewitching Book Tours – Promo for Clear as Day by Babette James

Thanks so much for letting me visit here today and share a little about my debut novel, Clear As Day, a sweetly scorching contemporary romance about two friends with benefits facing the fears and uncertainties of their changing relationship.

Clear As Day began as a short story years back when I was in college, an exercise featuring the desert setting of Lake Mohave, a reservoir downstream from the Hoover Dam formed out of stretch of the Colorado River by the Davis Dam. I grew up in Southern California and I’ve always had a love of the deserts of the Southwest, particularly the areas of Lake Havasu and Lake Mohave, and even took a college class on desert biology. I loved the juxtaposition of the stark, hot landscape with the cool waters and wanted to play with that particular setting. I’m delighted with my cover and how it shares some of the area’s unique beauty.

But a story needs more than a setting, and my artist character Kay appeared in her lakeside campsite as the sole first person point of view, already independent, reserved, and commitment-shy. Then the man who would become easy-going, globetrotting photographer Nate showed up to disrupt her careful, comfortable rut in life. I never quite found a place for Clear As Day in its short story form, but never gave up on it, and two years ago took on the experiment of expanding the little original story first into a novella. I had fun with the story, adding in bits of my family’s trips to the river, other camping and fishing experiences, and my own enjoyment of watercolors, music, photography, and the desert.

The expansion was an interesting experience. Kay’s viewpoint changed from first person to third. The biggest change and challenge was adding in Nate’s viewpoint, and once I did that, the story just bloomed into the full novel length it is now. The simple friends-with-benefits relationship proved not so simple and from there exploded the beginnings of their conflict, love story, and their tight-knit group of friends. I had to explore the whys of all the characters and asking one question led to another and more.

I learned despite his happy-go-lucky ways and years of traveling, Nate longed for commitment and settling down. Coming from a close, loving family, Nate believes love is forever and Kay is his forever. I discovered that Kay hid the pain of her childhood and dysfunctional family from everyone and she believes love is only true in fairytales. Friendship is all she will allow. Kay and Nate painfully discovered, despite years of close friendship, just how much they didn’t know about each other and had assumed. Nate’s faced with just how hard loving can be and Kay finds denying love doesn’t keep it from happening to her.

Clear As Day was no longer a just scenic location and simple moment in time between two occasional lovers, but a full story world with a crowd of interesting secondary characters, and all the characters’ lives intersecting and affecting one another. Not only did I have to ask what has happened in just Kay’s and Nate’s backstories to bring them to the story’s point in time, I needed to explore their friends’ lives, and additionally, ask what happened next to all of them, after Kay and Nate reached their point of happily ever after. I found that the story of Kay and Nate and their friends had not ended, but had more still to tell. I’m currently hard at work on the sequel and other friends will be joining Kay and Nate in falling in love at the river.

I loved writing Clear As Day, it’s been a story of my heart in many ways, so seeing this story published is a dream come true. Receiving the 4 1/2 star scorcher review from Romantic Times and being able to hold my book in my hands have been truly thrilling moments. I hope you enjoy Nate and Kay’s journey to love as much as I have.

What do you enjoy most about reading romances?

Babette will be giving away set of Romance Trading Cards to one lucky person. Please fill out the form at the bottom of this post to be entered.