Title: Babe in the Woods
Author: Jude Hopkins
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Book Blurb:
It’s September 1995, the first year of the rest of Hadley Todd's life. After living in Los Angeles, Hadley returns to her hometown in rural New York to write and be near her father. In addition to looking after him and teaching high school malcontents, Hadley hopes to channel her recent L.A. heartbreak into a play about the last moment of a woman’s innocence. But she seeks inspiration.
Enter Trey Harding, a young, handsome reporter who covers sports at the high school. Trey reminds Hadley of her L.A. ex and is the perfect spark to fire up her imagination. The fact that Trey is an aspiring rock star and she has L.A. record biz connections makes the alliance perfect. She dangles promises of music biz glory while watching his moves. But the surprising twist that transpires when the two of them go to Hollywood is not something Hadley prepared for.
Excerpt:
There was a knock on the door as Hadley sat down with a bowl of chocolate-chip ice cream. She glanced at the clock: 8 p.m. Sunday night. She’d shot the whole weekend, mostly grading papers and sleeping the day before.
“My God,” she said aloud, remembering Trey’s promise to make good on a date. How could he possibly show up after she’d been so deliberately elusive? She had forgotten the resiliency of some guys.
“Who is it?” she trilled, bouncing a mound of the frozen dessert on her tongue. She cleared her throat and repeated the question, all the while picking up the detritus from the weekend—the pizza box, the ice cream container, the National Enquirer.
“‘Tis I, Old Dog Trey,” he yelled through the door. “Ever faithful. We have a meeting, remember?”
She used her fingers to comb her hair and moaned when the mirror reflected a wan, puffy face staring back at her.
“I never confirmed any meeting,” she said through the door. She hurried to straighten the cushions on the couch. “I’ll take a rain check.” Her heart was doing double time.
“C’mon. Please open the door. It’s getting chilly out here” His voice was deeper than usual.
She brushed the lint off her sweatshirt and zipped up her jeans before opening the door.
Trey was twirling the end of a white stick in his mouth. With a loud slurping sound, he pulled from his mouth a bright red lollipop before sticking out his tongue, which now matched the color of his shirt.
“Fire your secretary,” he said, tapping his watch. He waited a few seconds. “May I come in?”
She let him in, the shame of her unkempt apartment equaled only by the shame of her own disheveled appearance.
He stood close to her. “I have to say, you are much more attractive without all that make-up.” He talked with the lollipop stuck in his cheek. “Definitely younger.”
It was an approach she remembered from her time with Derek. First you surprise them, then compliment them when they’re at their most vulnerable. She made a mental note.
He walked toward the nearest chair, sat down, but quickly jumped up again, fishing in his pockets. “Where are my manners? Here.” He extended a lollipop, grape flavor, her favorite.
“No thanks.” It wasn’t even on the level of the apple Neil had given her on the first day of school. Besides what was with men and their semiotics anyway? Perhaps it beat communicating with words. And how in the world would he have known grape was her favorite flavor? Was she that transparent? Was there a grape type as opposed to an orange or cherry type? The grape type would be moody and dark. The orange type would be young, perky, sassy. The cherry type? Passionate, desirable. Like him.
Lollipops aside, he was lusciousness itself, the blood-red shirt adding to his angel-faced carnality. His skin glowed, no doubt from a day spent in the autumn sun with a frisky faun, the name of which she itched to know. What lovely young sylvan thing had he taken to the woods?
She also thought it weird that she should care. But she did.
Then she remembered the scheme, her scheme, and stepped over to him, her thumbs in her belt loops. “This wasn’t planned. Neither my naturalness nor your coming over.”
“As I recall, we had a business date.”
“No, you had a date. It hadn’t been confirmed on my end.” It was easier to play hardball when she imagined herself to be plain and unequal to the challenge.
“As long as it’s still early, would you mind going out for some coffee with me?” He articulated the words with what Minnesota Fats, the great pool player, would call a lot of English on the shot. He strolled around the small apartment before gravitating over to her bookcase. He ran his fingers across the books’ spines, eventually plucking one out.
He opened the book and began reading, seemingly far more interested in its content than anything happening between them. Hadley was left standing by the door, wondering what to do next. How she hated vying for attention, especially with a dead author. She noticed his jeans, fashionably torn, exposing the golden hair covering his leg, right above the knee.
“I need to change.”
Trey kept reading. “Don’t put on any make-up. You’re fine the way you are.” He returned to the book.
How easily and freely he reacted to things and how different she was in that regard. Had she come down with a case of anomie from her last heartbreak, only to have it stay in her spleen like an incurable virus, ruining her humors? She would get at the source by writing her play. Play? Wasn’t she supposed to read this week at the writers’ group? Oh well, what was the good of a writers’ group, anyway?
But the play was her ticket back to the world. And the people in the writing group were, at least, nice. OK, OK, think—what was the premise of the play? When was her last moment of innocence, the last time she had laughed so spontaneously and the exact moment she had lost it?
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
What’s your favorite part about being a romance author?
Writing about (and sometimes reliving) the headiest time of a relationship, the initial attraction, the falling-in-love part.
Here’s my tip to add romance to your love life:
Be enchanting, but play hard to get.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $75 Amazon gift card
Open internationally.
Runs February 1 – 29, 2024
Drawing will be held on March 1, 2024.
Author Biography:
Jude Hopkins has published essays in The Los Angeles Times, Medium, Women Writers, Women’s Books and poetry in numerous journals and magazines. Her work can be found on her website https://www.judehopkinswriting.net/.
Social Media Links:
Twitter/X: @heyjudenotjudy
Website: https://www.judehopkinswriting.net/