Romance Addict Book Blog: GUEST POST - A World Away by Lila Lacroix

College sophomore Sophie Burnette has just been dumped by her boyfriend, is losing touch with her high school friends and is generally tired of her life in her small Midwestern city. When she sees an ad for doing a semester abroad, she jumps on the opportunity.

Philippe Vaillancourt is a graduate student with a turbulent past who can’t help but immediately fall for Sophie when she walks past him in the park one day.

Sophie’s heart, however, has already been captured by local photographer Jacques Lafleur who shows her a
Paris Sophie couldn’t have dreamed existed. But when circumstances throw Sophie and Philippe together, and she begins to realize she’s heading down a dark and dangerous path, will Philippe be able to bring her back, or is Sophie already in too deep?

Why is New Adult so Huge Right Now?

It seems like New Adult has only been a “thing” for a few months. And really, it has. The popularity of the genre has absolutely exploded, but it’s really quite a new genre.
But why did it suddenly explode in popularity? Why is it so hot right now? Quite frankly, it’s filling a hole that had never been filled before, but that had a whole range of hungry readers desperate for it.
If you browsed through the romance section of your local bookstore (or, as is more likely these days, Amazon.com), what did you find? You’d find either a bunch of historical romance stories that had nothing to do with what was going on today, or some contemporary romances featuring heroines in their late 20s to early 30s. They already had jobs. They were already settled into their lives. They’d had at least a few boyfriends before falling into the arms of Mr. Perfect.
But for the young woman coming out of high school, starting her college years, there was nothing. Sure, there’s Young Adult. But they’re generally tame. There might be some romance, but it’s not going to be explicitly described, not in the tantalizing way romance does it. And these are young women, now. They want to have the romance described to them. They want it to be explicit.
More than that, they want the heroines to feel like they do. They want the heroines to be flawed, the way they feel flawed. They want the drama, they want the intrigue, they want the emotion. If you’re past college age, think back to that time. Emotions ruled your life. You could be either on top of the world or down in the pits of hell, depending on the day. Every single thing that happened felt like the most important thing in the world, like it would absolutely change everything. The beginnings of adulthood was a time of extremes, extremes which New Adult has brought into book form.
For the young woman, New Adult gives her books that feel contemporary and real to her, compared to the traditional romance. But not all readers of New Adult are young anymore. From what I’ve gathered from my fans, many were readers of traditional romance but who are now voracious readers of New Adult. Why? From what I can tell, there are two reasons: for one, they like the broken characters. It’s definitely true that the characters in this genre are generally a lot more flawed than those in traditional romances, and that can lead to plot lines that are both compelling and emotion-ridden. Many of the older readers of New Adult also like to go back to that time in their life and remember the way they felt when they left home for the first time, had their hearts broken by a loved one and found the true love that would last for the rest of their lives. They like being reminded of the days when if your best friend said something mean you thought she was the biggest bitch on the planet and you’d never be friends again, until you made up that night over a glass of wine and you knew you’d take a bullet for her once more.
New Adult is a wonderful new genre that fills the hole between traditional romance and young adult. Personally, I love the genre. Still being in the age group myself, I love being able to write stories that I know my friends absolutely love, that we can all relate to, and that make us feel like adults without having to relate to heroines ten years our senior that we don’t understand.
If you haven’t done so yet, give New Adult a try. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy it.

Please enjoy this exclusive excerpt from Lila Lacroix’s latest New Adult novel, A World Away:

“Hello, Sophie. It is good to see you again,” Philippe greeted me, leaning in and kissing me softly on the cheek. My face instantly turned red, the same shade as my lips which his had just touched. Oh God, I’d only been with him for a few minutes and he’d already touched me! My hormones were driving me crazy. I had to get control of myself, or we wouldn’t even make it to the Metro before I’d dragged him into an empty room and ripped his clothes off. Just the thought of it sent pangs of pleasure radiating through my body from my sex. “Shall we go?” he offered, extending his arm, and I slipped my own through his.

There were layers of fabric separating us, but I still felt a small spark as I slipped my arm through Philippe’s and he led me down the hallway and outside.

Rather than waiting at the main entrance, Philippe led me through some underground shopping mall of some kind where there was another entrance, with an absolutely tiny line. Rather than waiting an hour to get into the museum we were through security in five minutes, and we had our tickets in ten. That was the advantage of local knowledge, I supposed.

“Where did you want to start?” Philippe asked, motioning to the various entrances. This museum was so big that there were three completely different entrances, taking one to various parts of the museum.

“The Greek statues,” I replied without hesitation. They were my favorite part of the museum by far. Philippe struck a pose.

“There you go. Human perfection,” he grinned as he flexed his muscles under his jacket.

“No, no, it’s all wrong,” I teased. “You’re still wearing clothes!”

“Well, I can correct that pretty easily,” Philippe teased, his voice getting even lower, and I bit my lower lip as I smiled. I was actually flirting!

“If you try it here we’ll get arrested, we need to find somewhere more private for that!”

I tugged at Phillipe’s arms until, laughing, he finally dropped back into a normal pose. Then, I dragged him towards the entrance.

“I love the Greek section, classical Greek statues are my favorite pieces of art,” I told him.

“A woman nearly after my own heart,” Philippe replied. “My personal favorite part of this museum is the collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts. In another life, perhaps I would have become an archaeologist. Unfortunately, my love of keeping people alive was greater than my love for rediscovering the already dead.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What is it that you study?”

“Medicine. I’m studying to become a doctor, or more specifically, a neurologist. The way the human brain functions absolutely fascinates me and has since I was a child.”

I knew Philippe was a graduate student, but I had no idea that he was studying to become a doctor.

“That’s incredible!” I replied. “I don’t know about France, but in America you have to be ridiculously intelligent to be able to get into a medical program.”

Philippe laughed.

“Unfortunately the way you phrased that makes it impossible for me to be modest, since if I told you any old idiot can get into medical school in France I’d be lying. But, I worked really hard as well, and it’s not like I’m Einstein or anything. What about you? What is it that you’re studying here in France?”

“Marketing.” I used to be so proud of telling people that I was a business student, but somehow next to this promising young doctor it seemed stupid.

“You and my sister would get along then, she also studied marketing at university.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, you’re a lot like her in many ways. You remind me a lot of Stephanie.”

Just then, we arrived at the entrance to the classical Greek statues. The classical era was hands-down my favorite of all of the Greek time periods when it came to art. In the classical era, the Greeks moved towards a much more lifelike form, displaying the complete perfection of the human body through their art. Many of the statues were of mythological figures, mainly the gods we have all heard of such as Athena, but it also marked the start of when they began to sculpt real people. The technical skill involved in the sculptures was absolutely amazing. It took my breath away every time I looked at them, and I knew that in many cases the statues would have been painted back in ancient Greece, and decorated with jewelry to make them look even more lifelike than they already were.

We stood in front of the giant statue of Athena that marked the entrance to this section. Philippe and I stared at it, both of us lost in thought as we appreciated the beauty and history that this statue invoked. Finally, Philippe broke the silence.

“With this statue of this size, can you imagine the absolute power that it must have had over people who came up to it back then, all adorned in jewelry, painted to be so lifelike with her shield held in front of her? It must have been so awe-inspiring.”

I gazed up at Philippe. He hadn’t been lying about knowing about art, since I’d just had the same thought. As he moved through the museum exhibits, we shared our passion.

You can read the rest of A World Away on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Apple.

Lila Lacroix is a young writer who loves to write steamy new adult romance novels. As an English major also who waits tables to minimize the damage to her finances by student loans, Lila loves to relax by dreaming up love stories by young people learning to find themselves.

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Lila Lacroix is part of Insatiable Reads Book Tours, where the hottest authors in romance debut their sizzling new reads!